Biden Wants To Give Power Over Defense Contracts To Climate Activist ‘Cabal’ Bent On Curtailing Economic Growth

/in , , , , , , , , , , , /by

The Biden administration is pushing to give veto power over major Pentagon contracts to a group of climate activist groups that advocate for establishing “guardrails” on economic growth, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation.

The administration proposed a rule in November that requires major contractors for the Department of Defense (DOD), NASA and Government Services Agency (GSA) to submit climate-related goals to a consortium of activist organizations, called the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), for validation. If the SBTi rejects the contractor’s plan to reduce emissions, the company would no longer be eligible to compete.

However, the groups behind the SBTi are part of the Global Commons Alliance, a climate activist network that seeks to limit economic development and set up international watchdogs to monitor climate pledges of governments and private companies, according to a DCNF review of the network’s activities. The Alliance’s components advocate for limits on consumption, redistribution of resources between rich and poor people and a more ambitious set of goals to mitigate perceived changes to the climate.

Additionally, scientists involved in the Alliance have argued for the need to limit Earth’s population to preserve the climate.

The Biden administration is “placing our defense needs in the hands of these people whose interests may not be in defense,” Dan Kish, a senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research, told the DCNF.

“These seem to be offshoots of the interests of the World Economic Forum — people who consider themselves smarter and better and wealthier and more powerful than the rest of the subjects of the world, and seek to impose their will,” he added.

‘Playing God’: The Coalition Of Climate Orgs Behind The SBTi

In 2015, sustainability professionals from the World Resources Institute (WRI), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) and UN Global Compact came together after the Paris Climate Accords to find ways for corporations to set benchmarks and devise plans to meet the goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, according to Technology Review. The SBTi emerged from the coalition, and is working on developing guidance for so-called science-based emissions reduction goals for various industries.

The groups behind the SBTi also created the Science Based Targets Network, or SBTN, to “[build] on the momentum of the [SBTi],” according to the group’s website, which lists the SBTi’s constitutive organizations as “among our core founding partners.” The SBTN helps companies and cities create and monitor targets, which it calls Science Based Targets for Nature, in a bid to preserve nature “in line with scientifically defined limits and on a socially equitable basis,” according to the group’s website.

However, the SBTN relies on research from the Earth Commission, an organization seeking to establish “guardrails” on human activity to protect the climate; both organizations operate under the umbrella of the Global Commons Alliance.

“The goal is to translate the scientific guardrails defined by the Earth Commission, into tangible science-based targets for nature, specifically tailored to cities and companies by the Science Based Targets Network,” the Earth Commission’s website reads.

In a February 2023 journal article, scientists from the Earth Commission stressed the importance of reducing “indirect drivers” of climate change, such as human population size and growth.

“Many of the factors causing global biodiversity decline are associated with economic growth and speculation,” the researchers wrote in the journal article. Achieving “justice” and a “nature-positive” society requires “reducing over-accumulation of capital” and associated excess production and consumption among wealthy countries.

Additionally, a November 2022 paper sponsored by the Earth Commission, which called for a “radical redistribution” of resources, found that if everyone on the planet had minimum access to life necessities, the planet’s climate disaster triggers would be violated by up to 26%. “Having ‘too little’ therefore results from others having ‘too much,’” the authors conclude.

In practical terms, states can even-out resources between rich and poor countries through “taxation, internalizing costs, overseas aid, universal basic incomes, voluntary limits on consumption, and education,” according to the scientists.

In May, the SBTN introduced new environmental targets, broadening their scope to include not only reducing greenhouse gas emissions but updating so-called “planetary boundaries” meant to restrain the scope of human economic activity to protect human, animal and plant habitats.

Myron Ebell, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment, explained the concept of planetary boundaries to the DCNF: “We have far exceeded the ‘carrying capacity’ of the Earth.”

“So first, let’s figure out exactly what it is (for example, no more than one billion people), which can then be the basis for imposing ‘science-based’ policies to make people less numerous and a lot poorer.” Such policies would send the earth “back to the Stone Age,” he said.

“These people are basically playing God,” said Kish.

The Earth Commission and the SBTN overlap in terms of shared resources, founding partners and aims under the umbrella of the Global Commons Alliance, while the groups that founded both the SBTi and the SBTN are partners of the Alliance, their websites show. While the Biden administration’s rule only mentions the SBTi, experts suggest it opens channels for the other groups to influence how the Pentagon and other U.S. agencies decide which companies should receive government contracts.

“SBTN is a separate but related organization [to SBTi] focusing on SBTs beyond climate,” SBTN spokesperson Arabella Stickels told the DCNF.

“We shouldn’t be delegating the authority for what’s important for our national defense and our national defense contractors to some third party groups,” Kish told the DCNF.

‘Less Bang For Our Buck’

Under the Biden administration’s proposed rule, the SBTi will effectively have veto power over key Pentagon contracts.

According to the proposal, any company holding $50 million or more in contracts with the DOD, NASA or GSA must report all second and third-order greenhouse gas emissions generated by its operations. Two years after the rule goes into effect, they’ll also be required to submit a “science-based target” to the SBTi for validation.

If they fail their inspection, the SBTi will return the target and offer the company a second chance to submit a more appropriate emissions reduction target.

In practical terms, that means groups involved in the SBTi are “establishing not only industrial policy, but military policy,” Kish told the DCNF. “And that means that we’ll get less bang for our buck.”

The SBTi “appears to be a cabal and is certainly a racket,” Ebell said.

The DOD awarded roughly $383 billion in contract spending in 2021, according to analysis firm Deltek; however, the Pentagon’s largest defense contractors aren’t featured in the SBTi dashboard yet, meaning they haven’t yet committed to the initiative.

The Pentagon did not say whether or how the department would work with the SBTN, though it maintains that combating climate change is a top priority.

“All requirements are pre-decisional as the rule proposal is pending,” Kelly Flynn, a DOD spokesperson, told the DCNF. “We have nothing further to provide at this time beyond what is stated in the proposed rule.”

Empowering the SBTi to make decisions regarding key Pentagon contracts could undermine Congress’ authority to allocate funds for national defense, according to Kish.

“Congress is one that appropriates and allocates the money for the defense of the nation, which is one of our premier reasons for being in the social contract that we have under the Constitution,” said Kish. Yet, the Biden administration is seeking “to offshore this to some people who have some grand ideas who are then going to impose their will on our defense contractors,” Kish said.

The White House did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

AUTHOR

MICAELA BURROW

Investigative reporter and Pentagon correspondent.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Complete Collapse’: Here’s How ESG Destroyed One Nation’s Economy

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

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

10 Woke Offenders: These Companies Push Radical Left Agenda, Fire Conservative Staff

/in , , , , , , , /by

A new database can help conservative consumers identify which companies actively work to promote leftist ideology and, in some cases, fire conservatives.

The 1792 Exchange, a nonprofit focused on the dangers of “woke capitalism” that urges companies to be neutral on ideological issues, last month released a database of over 1,000 companies.

The database assesses the risk that “a company will cancel a contract or client, or boycott, divest, or deny services based on views or beliefs,” the 1792 Exchange says.

At a time when the culture wars increasingly are being fought, not just in Washington and state capitols but in boardrooms across the country, it’s a welcome development to have a resource to help determine whether your dollars are supporting companies that are neutral or companies that are working against you and your beliefs.

Scanning the entries for companies, I was surprised at just how politically involved so many well-known corporations have become.

Sure, I expected tech companies such as Meta (parent company of Facebook and Instagram) and Alphabet (parent company of Google) to be liberal. And I knew that, as delicious as its ice cream might be, Ben & Jerry’s still hadn’t strayed from its leftist roots.

But I was surprised to see other companies, such as Kohl’s, Ford, Kroger, and Allstate, get slapped with the 1792 Exchange’s “high risk” label. From toy manufacturers to airlines, from drug stores to supermarkets, plenty of companies are busily fighting for leftist causes.

Here’s just a few examples of companies deemed “high risk” by 1792 Exchange:

  1. Alaska Airlines. The airline fired two employees after they spoke out against the company’s support for the Equality Act—a bill that likely would require girls sports teams to let biological males play. Alaska Airlines also had “created a new aircraft livery following the death of George Floyd to promote Black Lives Matter” and “issued pro-Black Lives Matter pins and T-shirts for employees.”
  1. Allstate. The insurance company “suspended PAC donations to members of Congress who objected to the election certification, streamlined funds to Planned Parenthood, and created ads promoting LGBTQ values.” Back in 2005—apparently, Allstate was ahead of the times on wokeness—the company fired an employee after he wrote an article “at home on his own time explaining his religious views against homosexuality and his beliefs that the movement was dangerous.”
  1. Comcast. Not only will this company’s internet service throw you into despair (or is that just my experience?) but it also promotes leftism. Comcast is “an advocate for the Equality Act and has issued statements opposing the Georgia election security bill,” the 1792 Exchange says. The company also “donated $100 million to various groups affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement” and “announced that it would fund employees’ travel to get an abortion.”
  1. CVS. The drugstore chain famed for its mile-long receipts is apparently woke on everything except wasting paper. It “advocates for the Equality Act and transgender participation in girls’ sports” and “the company signed an open letter opposing a Florida bill that would prevent teaching gender identity and sexual orientation in schools to kids in K-3rd grade.” CVS gives employees abortion travel “benefits” and “fired a Catholic nurse practitioner after she refused to prescribe or administer abortifacients, citing her religious beliefs.” In a somewhat surprising twist, though, CVS does say it protects employees’ differing viewpoints.
  1. Ford. The American car manufacturer may boast of building trucks “Ford tough,” but it seems to have little spine when it comes to leftist pressure. The company has backed the Equality Act and spoken out against election integrity bills. The company also “fired a Christian employee in 2015 for remarks he made against Ford’s advocacy for LGBTQ rights, which he alleged was religious discrimination.” One bright spot from the company is that leaders refused to stop making police cars, despite some pressure, in 2020.
  1. Kohl’s. The department store chain has gone full woke internally, having its “recruiters attend an ‘Unconscious Bias, Influencing, Diversity Sourcing, and Diversity 101 training’” and in 2020, making “all employees … attend ‘unconscious bias’ training.” Just in case you want to wear your wokeness on your sleeve, Kohl’s sold a “‘racial equity’ line of clothing, with logos similar to those commonly used by Black Lives Matter.”
  1. Kroger. If you thought your views on gay marriage would be irrelevant in a supermarket, think again: The grocery store chain “fired two Christian employees who requested not to wear the gay pride logo on their work aprons.” Kroger also “enables community donations to Planned Parenthood” and will pay travel costs for employees to get an abortion.
  1. Marriott. The hotel chain has embraced more leftist causes than a college student in Berkeley. It has supported the Equality Act, spoken out against religious freedom legislation in Arizona and Georgia, and opposed Florida’s bill banning teaching sexual orientation and gender identity to kids in kindergarten through third grade. But apparently China, not known for its wokeness, is A-OK: Marriott “fired a social media manager for using the company’s Twitter to like a tweet thanking Marriott for recognizing Tibet and Taiwan as separate entities from China.”
  1. Mattel. The toy company behind Barbies, Hot Wheels, Fisher-Price, and American Girl has decided children’s toys should come with a dollop of wokeness. Mattel has the dubious distinction of making the first gender-neutral doll, back in 2019. Last year, the company made a “trans-Barbie” in honor of notable actor and transgender activist Laverne Cox. Nor is Mattel content to just push propaganda in toys: The company “advocates for the Equality Act and transgender participation in youth sports.”
  1. Pfizer. The pharmaceutical giant doesn’t hold back from getting involved in issues unrelated to health. Pfizer “has signed open letters supporting the Equality Act and transgenders in youth sports” and “opposed the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, which prohibits teaching gender identity and sexual orientation in schools to kids in K-3rd grade.” It also matches employees’ donations to Planned Parenthood.

Alaska Airlines, Allstate, Comcast, CVS, Kohl’s, Kroger, Marriott, Mattel, and Pfizer didn’t respond to emails from The Daily Signal asking them to confirm or deny the statements about them in the 1792 Exchange’s report. The Daily Signal could not reach Ford for comment.

“The Corporate Bias Ratings contains vital information for shareholders, nonprofits, and small businesses about companies that may cancel them for their views,” says Eric Korsvall, chief operating officer of The Heritage Foundation, in an emailed statement. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

“Conservatives cannot afford to ignore these important ratings,” Korsvall adds.

I agree with my colleague. Whether it’s emailing a company to let them know that you’re disappointed in their political decisions, or boycotting them outright, conservatives need to make clear there are consequences for mixing leftist political activism with business decisions.

You might also consider whether it’s time to boost some businesses that share your values. New Founding’s Align specifically “showcases businesses that support our shared way of life and vision for America,” urging conservatives: “Don’t buy from people who hate you. Don’t let your money stab you in the back.”

There also are businesses such as Goya Foods, whose CEO Robert Unanue praised President Donald Trump (and didn’t back down when threatened with boycotts), and Seven Weeks Coffee, which donates part of its proceeds to pregnancy resource centers.

Someday we might get back to an America where politics stays in Washington and state capitols, and doesn’t infiltrate businesses. But sadly, that’s not today’s America—and if conservatives are serious about winning, they need to reflect on where they put their money.

AUTHOR

Katrina Trinko

Katrina Trinko is editor-in-chief of The Daily Signal. Twitter: . Send an email to Katrina.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Pride Is 1st of 7 Deadly Sins. Arrogance in Pushing Sexual Politics Abroad Could Be 8th

ORWELLIAN: Associated Press Forbids Even Discussing Transgenderism as an Ideology

5 Things I Saw at DC Library’s Children’s Pride Parade

Antifa Urged to Battle California Parents Over Elementary School’s LGBTQ+ ‘Pride Day’

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

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

Romanians Are Flooding The Border At Record Numbers And Committing Fraud Across The U.S.

/in , , , , , , /by

  • Romanian migrants who are in the country illegally, some of whom are known to have crossed the southern border, are committing crimes in several areas of the country, according to law enforcement alerts obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
  • A surge of Romanian illegal migrants has been recorded at both the southern and northern borders of the U.S., many of whom were apprehended and found to have criminal histories, Border Patrol officials told the DCNF.
  • “They all claim asylum/credible fear, just like everyone else. Hoping that we’ll process them and release them to the NGOs,” one Border Patrol official told the DCNF.

Romanian migrants in the country illegally, some of whom are known to have crossed the southern border, are suspected of crimes across the country, according to internal law enforcement alerts obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The law enforcement alerts, which span from Florida to Pennsylvania and New York, warn of Romanians who have committed financial crimes and are known to be in the country illegally, and have deportation orders. Border Patrol recorded 5,895 encounters of Romanian migrants in fiscal year 2022 at the southern border, up from 4,029 in fiscal year 2021 and 266 in fiscal year 2020, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data.

When they have to report to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Romanian migrants often give addresses of hotels or other temporary housing that make it impossible to track them, one agency official told the DCNF.

“Romanians are involved in a lot of fraud. To avoid detection, they tend to give temporary addresses and/or just quit reporting,” the ICE official, who is based on the west coast, said.

A local sheriff’s office in Florida sent out an alert in February seeking information on two suspects who crossed the southern border illegally from Romania, one of whom “completed a sleight of hand” by only paying for $3,600 of the $9,600 for the purchase of eight gold coins.

The two were later seen at another coin vendor in Florida.

“Subject crossed illegally through the southwest border and was subsequently apprehended by Border Patrol,” a note on the alert for the two suspects, who were both identified as Romanian, read.

In April, Florida law enforcement stopped a vehicle with two Romanian nationals they discovered were in the U.S. illegally who possessed “fraudulent passports, fraudulent credit cards, $4,000 in U.S. currency, covert cameras concealed to hide (for possible ATM PIN harvesting), (3) skimming devices, a thumb drive, and an ATM pin pad cling device,” an official alert stated.

A device seized from the vehicle possessed bank information of “thousands of victims.”

“Customs and Border Patrol placed an immigration detainer on the subjects and an FCIC/NCIC check confirmed that one of them has an active INTERPOL warrant out of Sweden for theft,” the alert states.

One senior Border Patrol official working along the southern border said many of them have criminal histories that mainly include theft, larceny, fraud, domestic violence and driving under the influence when they’re apprehended.

“They all have criminal records when they show up. Rarely single adults. They usually show up in family units, and it’s a pain in the ass too get approval for family separation, so that we can house, prosecute the offender,” the senior Border Patrol official told the DCNF.

“They all claim asylum/credible fear, just like everyone else. Hoping that we’ll process them and release them to the NGOs,” the official said.

A Border Patrol agent also working along the northern border, which has also experienced an uptick in Romanians illegally crossing, told the DCNF that many of them have “INTERPOL [International Criminal Police Organization] hits,” adding that those subjects are “removed.”

“Last one we caught had an asylum court date, but missed it because he decided to go back to Romania,” the agent said.

An international alert in February notified law enforcement of three Romanians with “open cases with ICE for deportation.” The three individuals were part of an operation to install “skimming devices” in Pennsylvania Walmart self-checkouts.

Yonkers Police arrested the group in New York, which also had “pawn records” showing they sold “numerous pieces of jewelry, to include a Rolex watch and gold coins,” the alert stated.

AUTHOR

JENNIE TAER

Investigative reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: Border Agents Arrest Illegal Migrants With Drugs, Thousands In Cash At Northern Border

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

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Under Investigation for Partisan Behavior, DOJ Commits More Partisan Behavior

/in , , , , , , , , , /by

House Republicans have threatened to initiate contempt proceedings against FBI Director Christopher Wray over his defiance of a House Oversight Committee subpoena, which demands an unclassified document it suspects will expose Joe Biden’s complicity in his family influence-peddling scheme. Wray reportedly agreed to turn over the document on Friday. At the same time that it has seemingly stonewalled Congress to protect Democrats, the Department of Justice (DOJ) — of which the FBI is a part — is unashamedly pursuing other legal battles that are widely perceived as partisan.

In a May 3 subpoena, the House Oversight Committee directed Wray to turn over all FD-1023 forms containing the word “Biden” produced during June 2020 by Tuesday, May 30. An FD-1023 form is a standard form for internal FBI communications. The highly specific request was based on “whistleblower disclosures” alerting them to the existence of “an unclassified FD-1023 form that describes an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions,” wrote House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in an accompanying letter. “It has been alleged that the document includes a precise description of how the alleged criminal scheme was employed as well as its purpose.”

However, the FBI refused to comply with the subpoena or even acknowledge the existence of the document. “They are not above the law,” said House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who called Wray and told him to send the document on Tuesday, the deadline. “We have jurisdiction over the FBI, which they seem to act like we do not.”

In a Tuesday press release, Chairman Comer announced, “Today, the FBI informed the Committee that it will not provide the unclassified documents subpoenaed by the Committee. The FBI’s decision to stiff-arm Congress and hide this information from the American people is obstructionist and unacceptable.” He stated his intention of “taking steps to hold the FBI Director in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a lawful subpoena.”

After talking to Wray, Comer issued another press release on Wednesday, “Today, FBI Director Wray confirmed the existence of the FD-1023 form alleging then-Vice President Biden engaged in a criminal bribery scheme with a foreign national. However, Director Wray did not commit to producing the documents subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee.” Wray “offered to allow us to see the documents in person at FBI headquarters,” but Comer made “clear that anything short of producing these documents … is not in compliance with the subpoena” and would result in contempt proceedings.

In response to mounting pressure and possible contempt charges, Wray agreed to turn over the document on Friday.

Wray’s pretense for withholding the document was that it might reveal a confidential human source. But Grassley responded, “The FBI has apparently leaked classified information to the news media in recent weeks, jeopardizing its own human sources,” yet refuses “to provide a specific unclassified record” to Congress.

Wray’s action (or inaction) constitutes “defiance of a legitimate congressional subpoena,” Grassley warned. Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy agreed, writing that Wray is “about to be held in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena that he has no lawful basis to defy.” He explained that “the executive branch can legitimately defy congressional subpoenas” in circumstances where the legislature attempts “to usurp or undermine the constitutional authority of the president,” but that those circumstances are irrelevant to the FBI, which Congress created.

The only plausible reason for Wray’s stonewalling tactics is to shield President Biden by withholding information that is at best embarrassing and at worst criminal. The House Oversight Committee is conducting a widespread investigation into the Biden family, which has begun to unearth what appears to be a sordid web of foreign influence-peddling. From a partial review of bank records, the committee has already tracked over $10 million in foreign cash — from places like China, Ukraine, and Romania — through 21 shell corporations to at least nine members of the Biden family — for no discernable reason other than Biden’s influential position as vice president under Barack Obama.

Oddly enough, the DOJ’s protection of the Biden family seems to do less with his position as president and more with his affiliation as a Democrat. Earlier this month, news broke that a former federal prosecutor had reported bribery allegations to the DOJ as early as October 2018 — while Biden held no governmental office, and while Trump was in the White House — but was ignored.

Meanwhile, political figures who are not Democrats can expect the DOJ to target them and their family members just as zealously as they shield the Bidens. On Wednesday, May 31 — the same day Wray told Comer he would not deliver the subpoenaed document — the DOJ announced it had filed a civil action against 13 coal companies owned or operated by Jim Justice III, son of West Virginia Governor Jim Justice, Jr. (R), to collect $7.6 million in penalties. The press release alleged the companies had committed 130 violations of federal law over a five-year period (2018-2022) and had received “over 50 cessation orders.”

The timing of this announcement raised suspicions. A poll conducted last week of the West Virginia Senate race showed Governor Justice leading incumbent Senator Joe Manchin (D) by 22 points. It’s too much to ask anyone to believe that, after 50 cessation orders over five years, the DOJ just happened to file suit a week after a poll showed Justice III’s father with a massive lead over an incumbent Democratic senator. “Utterly brazen,” responded Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas). “When I said the Biden DOJ is the most political & partisan DOJ in history, I wasn’t kidding…” It’s also noteworthy that the alleged violations began in 2018, the year after Governor Justice switched to the Republican party.

The DOJ’s political interference was also on display in its refusal to prosecute Rachael Rollins. As U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Rollins leaked “non-public, sensitive” information acquired in her official capacity in an attempt to help Boston City Councilman Ricardo Arroyo in the Democratic primary for Suffolk district attorney against Kevin Hayden, then the interim D.A., according to a 161-page report published in May by the DOJ’s internal watchdog agency, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). Rollins, who resigned in May, then “falsely testified under oath” by denying she had leaked non-public information. Although the OIG recommended prosecution, the DOJ declined to prosecute Rollins.

It’s not that the DOJ is too busy to investigate alleged wrongdoing by those on the political Left. No, they’re working hard not to investigate. An IRS whistleblower who participated in the DOJ’s investigation into Hunter Biden, the president’s son — which has dragged on since at least 2018 without charges — said last week, “There were multiple steps that were slow-walked — were just completely not done — at the direction of the Department of Justice.” He added that the “deviations from the normal process” were “way outside the norm.” Instead of correcting the discrepancies or speeding up the investigation, the DOJ (not knowing the whistleblower’s identity) got the IRS to remove the entire team from the investigation.

To the uninitiated, the notion that America’s premier federal law enforcement agency has hopelessly prostituted the integrity of its mission for the short-term benefit of left-wing politicians sounds far-fetched, even conspiratorial. But when one monitors their actual behavior, evidence of politicization soon becomes overwhelming. The question, “is the DOJ politically biased?” becomes such a foregone conclusion that it seems to belong in a TV advertisement, right after the question, “Can Geico really save you 15% or more on car insurance?”

Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said last week, “I think the DOJ and FBI have lost their way. I think that they’ve been weaponized against Americans who think like me and you, and I think they’ve become very partisan.” He said he would replace Wray on Day One and “[clear] out people who are not doing the job.” He isn’t the only one who thinks that should be done.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED VIDEO: Obama’s Russia Collusion

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

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.

Plans to Slaughter 200,000 Farting Cows to Save Planet from ‘Global Warming’ Inbox

/in , , , , , , , , /by

It starts with cows..

Who’s next?

if this kind of inhumanity and carnage is heralded as some kind of ‘benefit to planet’, their is a madness afoot. The ruling class has lost its collective mind and they mean to take us down.

Ireland Looking To Kill 200,000 Cows To Fight Climate Change; Are US Herds Next?

In the latest effort to reduce emissions from agriculture, Ireland said it may kill 200,000 cows. Meanwhile, climate activists have American farms and ranches in the crosshairs.

By: Kevin Killough, Cowboy State Daily, June 02, 2023:

Climate activists are coming for livestock producers and farmers.

European governments have been targeting the agriculture industry for several years. The Telegraph reports that Ireland’s government may need to reduce that country’s cattle herds by 200,000 cows over the next three years to meet climate targets.

In an effort to reduce nitrogen pollution, Reuters reported the European Union last month approved a $1.6 billion Dutch plan to buy out livestock farmers.

Front And Center

Now the Biden administration is targeting American agriculture.

Special President Envoy For Climate John Kerry recently warned at a climate summit for the U.S. Department of Agriculture that the human race’s need to produce food to survive creates 33% of the world’s total greenhouse gasses.

“We can’t get to net-zero. We don’t get this job done unless agriculture is front and center as part of the solution,” Kerry said.

Microsoft Billionaire Bill Gates also is obsessing about cattle emissions, providing financial support to companies that are developing seaweed supplements and gas masks for cows.

It’s ‘Groupthink’

Katy Atkinson, an agricultural advocate who raises cattle in Albany County, told Cowboy State Daily that this conversation on emissions from the industry isn’t considering the beneficial impacts of cattle to the environment and the climate.

“Groupthink happens a lot around the climate change conversation. We get tunnel visioned on one piece of it without considering the full ramifications of what’s going to happen if we remove cattle from the land,” Atkinson said.

She said cattle contribute to drought resistance, soil health and wildfire reduction. Just before cattle were introduced to North America and the industry began raising them, Atkinson said there were thousands of buffalo roaming the plains.

Cows and buffalo are both ruminants, which is a type of animal that brings back food from its stomach and chews it again. These animals’ digestive systems produce methane emissions. Today’s cattle population is similar in numbers to that of the buffalo herds.

“So, the methane emissions from ruminant animals aren’t anything new,” Atkinson said.

Trapping Carbon

Cattle also benefit plant life, Atkinson said.

“You need ruminant animals to forage grasses, because they’re the only things that can,” she explained.

Pigs, for example, are monogastric and can’t break down high fiber content in grasses. Cow’s digestive system can break the grasses down, and then they fertilize the ground.

So, through proper cattle grazing management, Atkinson said the cattle she’s raising are helping plants to grow.

In the atmosphere, the methane they burp out — most of it is released through the mouth of the animal — breaks down in 10 to 15 years into carbon dioxide and water. The plants that cattle help to grow use that carbon dioxide. The carbon then gets put back into the soil through the grasses’ roots.

“So the cattle are essential in helping to keep that carbon trapped in the ground,” Atkinson said.

Atkinson said cattle have other benefits to the climate that are being ignored in the focus on just their emissions. Whenever soil cracks or fissures, it releases carbon into the air.

The animals walking upon the soil compacts it and helps keep the carbon trapped in the soil.

She said one study done by the University of Florida found that between 10% and 30% of the world’s carbon storage is found under the feet of U.S. cattle.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED TWEET:

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

Lab-grown ‘meat’ worse for environment than retail beef: Study

/in , , , , , , , /by

The lab-grown meat industry is propped up more by hopeful modelling than favourable data.

The high-tech utopia we keep hearing about will have to wait, if a recent pre-print study on laboratory-cultured meat products is to be believed.

According to researchers at the University of California, Davis, and the University of California, Holtville, “sustainable” meat alternatives have a carbon footprint that is likely “orders of magnitude” higher than retail beef based on current and near-term production methods.

Cultured meat production may be pumping out between four and 25 times more carbon dioxide per kilogram than regular beef, according to the new research, which assessed energy use and greenhouse gas emissions through all stages of production.

If the study passes peer review, its conclusion would be damning: lab-grown meat, long touted as a clean, green alternative to the traditional butcher process, could be harming the planet more than the industry it’s trying to displace.

Truly, who could have guessed that growing meat in giant steel bioreactors using highly-processed pharmaceutical products would be worse for the environment than a herd of cows chewing grass?

The researchers did not rule out the possibility that technological advances that enable a move from using pharmaceutical-grade ingredients to their food-grade equivalents could eventually tip the scales in favour of artificially grown meat.

“It’s possible we could reduce its environmental impact in the future, but it will require significant technical advancement to simultaneously increase the performance and decrease the cost of the cell culture media,” according to UCD food scientist Edward Spang.

However, the team’s findings suggest that in its current state, the lab-grown meat sector is propped up more by hopeful modelling (read: wishful thinking) than favourable present-day data.

Derrick Risner is another of the UCD food scientists who worked on the study. He wrote that their findings were important “given that investment dollars have specifically been allocated to this sector with the thesis that this product will be more environmentally friendly than beef,” adding, “my concern would just be scaling this up too quickly and doing something harmful for the environment”.

According to Science Alert, which reported on the pre-print study:

While cultured meat uses less land than herds of cattle or flocks of sheep, not to mention less water and antibiotics, environmental costs of the highly specific nutrients required to grow the product rapidly add up.

These include running laboratories to extract growth factors from animal serums, as well as growing crops for sugars and vitamins.

Then there’s the energy required to purify all of these broth ingredients to a high standard before they can be fed to the growing meat lumps. This energy-intensive, extreme level of purification is needed to prevent introducing microbes to the culture.

In their research, the California-based team also reviewed the most climate-friendly beef production systems already in operation today. They found that these outperformed even the best synthetic meat processes available.

The California researchers are not the first to have reached the conclusion that real beef is better for the planet than artificial alternatives.

A 2019 University of Oxford study published in the journal Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems likewise found that the energy used to make cultivated meat could release more greenhouse gases than traditional farming.

Modelling traditional versus lab-grown meat options 1,000 years into the future, the team in Oxford concluded that synthetic meat would only be “climactically superior” depending on “the availability of decarbonized energy generation and the specific production systems that are realized”.

Reporting on the 2019 research, Vox summarised: “Yes, cows produce a lot of methane, and methane is very bad for global warming. Yet it only lasts in the atmosphere for a dozen years. Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, lasts more than a century. And you know what releases a lot of CO2? Labs — including those that make cultured meat.”

So while start-ups in Silicon Valley continue to pour millions of investment capital into poor substitutes with a bigger carbon footprint than Betsy, do your part for the environment and order your favourite fillet next time you dine out.

AUTHOR

Kurt Mahlburg

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… More by Kurt Mahlburg

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

J6 Patriot John Strand’s Story of Persecution and Prosecution for Doing Nothing Wrong

/in , , , , , , , , , /by

“They destroyed my life for a lie—now they’re threatening me with 24 years potential prison over January 6. But it’s not just me on trial, not just me they want to crush—it’s all of us.” — John Strand, Artist • Activist • American. 

If you have not heard the story of John Strand then please visit his website to understand why he is being targeted. Watch what really happened on January 6th, 2021 at the Capitol.

What happened to him can happen to all of us. #We’reNext!

Here is John Strand’s compelling story:

Read John’s statement on his website:

On September 27th, 2022, a Washington, D.C. jury declared me guilty of all five J6 charges brought against me by the federal government.

I will appeal every charge.

I am completely innocent of these charges, both as a legal matter and as a moral matter before God.

I know this with absolutely certainty, because the law requires mens rea[sic] to convict a person of these charges; I alone know my true intent and my state of mind during the events of January 6th, and they were never inappropriate or criminal. As I testified at my trial, my sole purpose for being in D.C. that week and in the vicinity of the Capitol that day was to protect and support my employer in fulfilling her prearranged and permitted speaking obligations.

I did not condone or encourage any of the violent or criminal activities at the time, and now that I have learned much more specifically of the trauma and damages inflicted on brave officers and other innocent persons, I am even more deeply grieved and angered by the terrible actions of some that caused so much pain and destruction for so many. This unlawful and inexcusable behavior greatly undermined the noble pursuit of upholding the rule of law, which was the primary purpose of many prior protests in 2020 leading up to January 6, and of the protest scheduled on that day as well.

I am grateful to the judge presiding over my case for handling the courtroom in a fair and reasonable manner, and for kindly permitting me to remain on pre-trial release conditions pending my sentencing.

It is with immense gratitude that I acknowledge the Herculean efforts of Mr. Stephen Brennwald and my entire legal defense team, as well as the fervent prayers and support of my family and many American citizens across the nation. I humbly request your continued prayers as I follow God’s calling in my life to stand for truth and pursue justice, both on my own behalf and for every American.

To God be the glory.

🇺🇸 #WeAreJ6

THE TRUTH IS ON TRIAL

John writes,

Corruption and selective prosecution are the hallmarks of a totalitarian regime; they excuse their behavior by classifying it as “lawful”…but they arbitrarily determine when, where, and who to apply only those laws that advance their agenda, and they maliciously change and control both definitions and access to information. Thanks to Tucker Carlson, we can see they knowingly lied, and actively hid exculpatory evidence–an explicit and outrageous violation of the law.

In reality, this is a complete subversion of the rule of law, violating the sacred Constitutional principle of Equal Protection. They operate using lies and confusion to keep the public compliant—and to crush any dissent.

RULE OF LAW IS ON TRIAL

J6 is just the most recent political opportunity instigated and weaponized to target anyone departing from the regime’s approved narrative and their ruthless agenda, and to further terrorize and demoralize the public into instinctive self-censorship—intimidating them from even the thought of exercising independence and free speech.

FREE SPEECH IS ON TRIAL

Sadly, it has largely succeeded—most Americans, even those generally committed to classical values and Constitutional integrity, have wilted into silence and apathetic disassociation, abandoning the hundreds of innocent citizens caught in the tyrannical machinery.  Most defendants have succumbed to the intense pressures of a completely biased and weaponized DOJ, accepting abhorrent plea deals under threat of certain conviction by an utterly dishonest and politicized kangaroo court circus.

IT MUST STOP.

Which means, it must BE stopped, by a choice—an intentional decision to disrupt the endless momentum of the runaway totalitarian bureaucratic state.

Amen. May God protect John and the many others who have been falsely imprisoned for simply attending a mostly peaceful rally in Washington, D.C. on January 6th, 2021.

The only violence done on J6 was done by the Capitol police and others who killed Ashly Babbit. This violence continues and is aimed at “we the people” by our own government.

Who will speak for we the people?

The only way to free John and the other J6 political prisoners is to elect a patriot to become president.

©2023. John Strand. All rights reserved.

VIDEO CLIPS: President Donald J. Trump’s Townhall with Sean Hannity

/in , , , , , , , , /by

The following are video clips from the Townhall hosted by Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

WATCH:

‘SO BAD, SO EVIL!’ Trump Says Biden Family ‘Being Protected’ by ‘Corrupt’ DOJ

Trump: Putin believed me 10% and that is all he needed

Trump on why he name-calls: I have to fight back

Trump touts success of his energy policies: ‘We have liquid gold’

Trump: The Biden family is being protected

©2023. Fox News. All rights reserved.

RELATED VIDEO: DeS COMEDY JAM: Ron Wishes Joe A Speedy Recovery —But Can’t Resist a Little Joke

South Dakota Farmers Face Land Theft By Climate Hoaxers

/in , , , , , , , , , , /by

Appalling and terrifying. When John Kerry said US farm confiscations were not off the table, he meant it.

Read through this thread.

South Dakota Farmers Face Carbon-capture Land Theft

By: Rebecca Terrell June 1, 2023

Farmers in South Dakota are facing egregious intimidation tactics by a private company that wants to use eminent domain to confiscate valuable farmland for carbon-capture pipelines.

Summit Carbon Solutions requested a restraining order against Brown County farmer Jerad Bossly.

The company claims he threatened the lives of its representatives who showed up unannounced to survey his property, a farm that has been in his family for four generations.

He told The New American that when they arrived, he was about 12 miles away, working in a field. His wife was home, recovering from gallbladder surgery, and was taking a shower when the Summit surveyors knocked at her door. They entered the house, but finding no one there, they proceeded to an outbuilding where one of them walked in. In the tweet below you can see footage from one of Bossly’s security cameras, which captured all of this movement.

Next, the Summit staff walked out onto the Bossly’s property and started setting up a tripod. By that time, Mrs. Bossly, with Jerad on the phone, confronted them and asked them to leave. Jerad said that the sheriff should be present if the company wanted access to his land. So the surveyors left.

His wife called Jerad back later that day to say a detective had just left the farm. Summit had reported Bossly for threatening to kill the surveyors. They also charged him with contempt of court for interfering with their survey activities.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: DAVID BLACKMON: Is Texas Turning Its Back On Renewable Energy?

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

U.S. Birth Rate Falling Below Biden’s Migrant Invasion Numbers

/in , , , , , , , , , /by

This is the definition of replacement.

US birthrate is still flat compared to pre-pandemic levels: CDC

The total number of births in the United States remained flat in 2022 compared to pre-pandemic levels, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC reported 3,661,220 provisional births in the United States in 2022, which is about 3,000 fewer births than in 2021 in what the CDC calls a “nonsignificant decline. The total number of births in 2022 also remained below pre-pandemic levels after the birthrate slightly rebounded in 2021 following the initial year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The number of births in dropped in 2020 from pre-pandemic levels in 2019, when the CDC recorded more than 3.7 million births. In 2020, that number dropped to 3,613,647 births before rebounding slightly in 2021 to 3,664,292 births, according to CDC data.

The CDC noted that the number of births from 2014 to 2020 was declining an average of 2 percent each year, which included a drop of 4 percent from 2019 to 2020. From 2020 to 2021, the birth rate rose about 1 percent, the CDC added.

While the total number of births in the U.S. remained flat from 2021 to 2022, birth rates among teenagers and young women hit a record low in 2022. The birth rate among 15- to 19-year-olds decreased by 3 percent to about 13.5 births per 1,000 women.

Read more.

US birth rates remain stubbornly low

The Associated Press leads off this report with the rather milquetoast observation that birth rates in the United States last year “didn’t return to pre-pandemic levels.” That’s true, but it obviously doesn’t tell the entire story. The birth rate in the United States had been steadily declining with only a few exceptions for well over a decade. A very slight increase was recorded in 2021, but it was largely attributed to couples who had decided to postpone pregnancies during the early, uncertain days of the pandemic in 2020 when a significant drop was registered. Over this same decade, there was also a very measurable shift in the demographics of age in terms of who is having children. And all of this could have serious, long-term consequences for the country.

U.S. births were flat last year, as the nation saw fewer babies born than it did before the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.

Births to moms 35 and older continued to rise, with the highest rates in that age group since the 1960s. But those gains were offset by record-low birth rates to moms in their teens and early 20s, the CDC found. Its report is based on a review of more than 99% of birth certificates issued last year.

A little under 3.7 million babies were born in the U.S. last year, about 3,000 fewer than the year before.

Simply looking at the raw number of successful births doesn’t tell the whole story. The reality is that the average number of births per woman in any society that’s required to maintain a stable population over the long run (known as the replacement rate) is roughly 2.1 births per woman. We have now dropped below 1.7. That’s not quite as bad as what we’re seeing in Japan, which is in the middle of an actual population crisis, but that’s the direction we appear to be heading in.

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLES:

Biden Cuts Off Health Care to Poor Women in Tennessee Because It Protects Babies From Abortions

Illegal Migrant Encounters at Southern Border Hit 1,000,000 Mark for FY 2023, Outpacing Prior Year

Record 2.4 million Migrants Illegally Crossed Border in FY2022, Almost 4 Million total Under Biden

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

U.S. Surgeon General: Social media presents ‘profound risk of harm’ for kids

/in , , , , , , , , /by

Surgeon General Issues New Advisory About Effects Social Media Use Has on Youth Mental Health

Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy Urges Action to Ensure Social Media Environments are Healthy and Safe, as Previously-Advised National Youth Mental Health Crisis Continues

Today, United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released a new Surgeon General’s Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health – PDF. While social media may offer some benefits, there are ample indicators that social media can also pose a risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents. Social media use by young people is nearly universal, with up to 95% of young people ages 13-17 reporting using a social media platform and more than a third saying they use social media “almost constantly.”

With adolescence and childhood representing a critical stage in brain development that can make young people more vulnerable to harms from social media, the Surgeon General is issuing a call for urgent action by policymakers, technology companies, researchers, families, and young people alike to gain a better understanding of the full impact of social media use, maximize the benefits and minimize the harms of social media platforms, and create safer, healthier online environments to protect children. The Surgeon General’s Advisory is a part of the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) ongoing efforts to support President Joe Biden’s whole-of-government strategy to transform mental health care for all Americans.

“The most common question parents ask me is, ‘is social media safe for my kids’. The answer is that we don’t have enough evidence to say it’s safe, and in fact, there is growing evidence that social media use is associated with harm to young people’s mental health,” said U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy. “Children are exposed to harmful content on social media, ranging from violent and sexual content, to bullying and harassment. And for too many children, social media use is compromising their sleep and valuable in-person time with family and friends. We are in the middle of a national youth mental health crisis, and I am concerned that social media is an important driver of that crisis – one that we must urgently address.”

Usage of social media can become harmful depending on the amount of time children spend on the platforms, the type of content they consume or are otherwise exposed to, and the degree to which it disrupts activities that are essential for health like sleep and physical activity. Importantly, different children are affected by social media in different ways, including based on cultural, historical, and socio-economic factors. Among the benefits, adolescents report that social media helps them feel more accepted (58%), like they have people who can support them through tough times (67%), like they have a place to show their creative side (71%), and more connected to what’s going on in their friends’ lives (80%).

However, social media use can be excessive and problematic for some children. Recent research shows that adolescents who spend more than three hours per day on social media face double the risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes, such as symptoms of depression and anxiety; yet one 2021 survey of teenagers found that, on average, they spend 3.5 hours a day on social media. Social media may also perpetuate body dissatisfaction, disordered eating behaviors, social comparison, and low self-esteem, especially among adolescent girls. One-third or more of girls aged 11-15 say they feel “addicted” to certain social media platforms and over half of teenagers report that it would be hard to give up social media. When asked about the impact of social media on their body image, 46% of adolescents aged 13-17 said social media makes them feel worse, 40% said it makes them feel neither better nor worse, and only 14% said it makes them feel better. Additionally, 64% of adolescents are “often” or “sometimes” exposed to hate-based content through social media. Studies have also shown a relationship between social media use and poor sleep quality, reduced sleep duration, sleep difficulties, and depression among youth.

While more research is needed to determine the full impact social media use has on nearly every teenager across the country, children and adolescents don’t have the luxury of waiting years until we know the full extent of social media’s effects. The Surgeon General’s Advisory offers recommendations stakeholders can take to help ensure children and their families have the information and tools necessary to make social media safer for children:

  • Policymakers can take steps to strengthen safety standards and limit access in ways that make social media safer for children of all ages, better protect children’s privacy, support digital and media literacy, and fund additional research.
  • Technology companies can better and more transparently assess the impact of their products on children, share data with independent researchers to increase our collective understanding of the impacts, make design and development decisions that prioritize safety and health – including protecting children’s privacy and better adhering to age minimums – and improve systems to provide effective and timely responses to complaints.
  • Parents and caregivers can make plans in their households such as establishing tech-free zones that better foster in-person relationships, teach kids about responsible online behavior and model that behavior, and report problematic content and activity.
  • Children and adolescents can adopt healthy practices like limiting time on platforms, blocking unwanted content, being careful about sharing personal information, and reaching out if they or a friend need help or see harassment or abuse on the platforms.
  • Researchers can further prioritize social media and youth mental health research that can support the establishment of standards and evaluation of best practices to support children’s health.

In concert with the Surgeon General’s Advisory, leaders at six of the nation’s medical organizations have expressed their concern on social media’s effects on youth mental health:

“Social media can be a powerful tool for connection, but it can also lead to increased feelings of depression and anxiety – particularly among adolescents. Family physicians are often the first stop for parents and families concerned about the physical and emotional health of young people in their lives, and we confront the mental health crisis among youth every day. The American Academy of Family Physicians commends the Surgeon General for identifying this risk for America’s youth and joins our colleagues across the health care community in equipping young people and their families with the resources necessary to live healthy, balanced lives.” – Tochi Iroku-Malize, M.D., MPH, MBA, FAAFP, President, American Academy of Family Physicians

“Today’s children and teens do not know a world without digital technology, but the digital world wasn’t built with children’s healthy mental development in mind. We need an approach to help children both on and offline that meets each child where they are while also working to make the digital spaces they inhabit safer and healthier. The Surgeon General’s Advisory calls for just that approach. The American Academy of Pediatrics looks forward to working with the Surgeon General and other federal leaders on Youth Mental Health and Social Media on this important work.” – Sandy Chung, M.D., FAAP, President, American Academy of Pediatrics

“With near universal social media use by America’s young people, these apps and sites introduce profound risk and mental health harms in ways we are only now beginning to fully understand. As physicians, we see firsthand the impact of social media, particularly during adolescence – a critical period of brain development. As we grapple with the growing, but still insufficient, research and evidence in this area, we applaud the Surgeon General for issuing this important Advisory to highlight this issue and enumerate concrete steps stakeholders can take to address concerns and protect the mental health and wellbeing of children and adolescents. We continue to believe in the positive benefits of social media, but we also urge safeguards and additional study of the positive and negative biological, psychological, and social effects of social media.”— Jack Resneck Jr., M.D., President, American Medical Association

“The first principle of health care is to do no harm – that’s the same standard we need to start holding social media platforms to. As the Surgeon General has pointed out throughout his tenure, we all have a role to play in addressing the youth mental health crisis that we now face as a nation. We have the responsibility to ensure social media keeps young people safe. And as this Surgeon General’s Advisory makes clear, we as physicians and healers have a responsibility to be part of the effort to do so.” – Saul Levin, M.D., M.P.A., CEO and Medical Director, American Psychiatric Association

“The American Psychological Association applauds the Surgeon General’s Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health, affirming the use of psychological science to reach clear-eyed recommendations that will help keep our youth safe online. Psychological research shows that young people mature at different rates, with some more vulnerable than others to the content and features on many social media platforms. We support the advisory’s recommendations and pledge to work with the Surgeon General’s Office to help build the healthy digital environment that our kids need and deserve.” – Arthur Evans, Jr., Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice President, American Psychological Association.

“Social media use by young people is pervasive. It can help them, and all of us, live more connected lives – if, and only if, the appropriate oversight, regulation and guardrails are applied. Now is the moment for policymakers, companies and experts to come together and ensure social media is set up safety-first, to help young users grow and thrive. The Surgeon General’s Advisory about the effects of social media on youth mental health issued today lays out a roadmap for us to do so, and it’s critical that we undertake this collective effort with care and urgency to help today’s youth.” – Susan L. Polan, Ph.D., Associate Executive Director, Public Affairs and Advocacy, American Public Health Association

The National Parent Teacher Association shared the following:

“Every parent’s top priority for their child is for them to be happy, healthy and safe. We have heard from families who say they need and want information about using social media and devices. This Advisory from the Surgeon General confirms that family engagement on this topic is vital and continues to be one of the core solutions to keeping children safe online and supporting their mental health and well-being.” – Anna King, President of the National Parent Teacher Association.

In December 2021, Dr. Murthy issued a Surgeon General’s Advisory on Protecting Youth Mental Health – PDF calling attention to our national crisis of youth mental health and well-being. Earlier this month, he released a Surgeon General’s Advisory on Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation – PDF, where he outlined the profound health consequences of social disconnection and laid out six pillars to increase connection across the country, one of which being the need to reform our digital environments. The new Surgeon General’s Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health – PDF is a continuation of his work to enhance the mental health and well-being of young people across the country.

The full Surgeon General’s Advisory can be read here – PDF.

For more information about the Office of the Surgeon General, visit www.surgeongeneral.gov/priorities.

In a CNN Health column titled Social media presents ‘profound risk of harm’ for kids, surgeon general says, calling attention to lack of research Meg Tirrell reported,

There’s not enough evidence to determine whether social media is safe enough for children and adolescents when it comes to their mental health, according to a new advisory from the US surgeon general.

Tuesday’s advisory notes that although there are some benefits, social media use presents “a profound risk of harm” for kids. It calls for increased research into social media’s impact on youth mental health, as well as action from policymakers and technology companies.

The 25-page advisory comes as a growing number of states are aiming to tighten regulations on social media platforms, including efforts in Montana to ban TikTok.

Surgeon general advisories are designed to call attention to urgent public health issues and provide recommendations for how they should be addressed, the new report notes. Previous advisories have focused on youth mental health more broadly, health misinformation and use of the opioid overdose antidote naloxone.

“We’re in the middle of a youth mental health crisis, and I’m concerned that social media is contributing to the harm that kids are experiencing,” Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy told CNN.

“For too long, we have placed the entire burden of managing social media on the shoulders of parents and kids, despite the fact that these platforms are designed by some of the most talented engineers and designers in the world to maximize the amount of time that our kids spend on them,” he said. “So that is not a fair fight. It’s time for us to have the backs of parents and kids.”

The advisory includes a review of the available evidence on the effects of social media on youth mental health, noting that social media use among kids is “nearly universal”: Up to 95% of kids ages 13 to 17 report using social media, with more than a third saying they use it “almost constantly.” And although 13 is commonly the minimum age to use social media sites in the US (an age Murthy has previously said is too young, the advisory notes that nearly 40% of kids ages 8 to 12 use the platforms, as well.

“We must acknowledge the growing body of research about potential harms, increase our collective understanding of the risks associated with social media use, and urgently take action to create safe and healthy digital environments,” the advisory says.

©2023. CNN Health. All rights reserved.

A Sister of Perpetual Indulgence

/in , , , , , , , , , /by

Anthony Esolen: Jeannine Gramick, a nun, indulges men who dress up as Catholic nuns. Does she also condone their grooming, enticing, and seducing?

Ever quick to embarrass faithful Catholics who do the hard and thankless work of attempting to reintroduce sanity to a society gone mad with sexual sin, and rendered lonely and embittered amidst the madness, Sister Jeannine Gramick – co-founder of the heretical New Ways Ministry, probably the most notorious pro-LGBT+ group that claims to be Catholic – has written a letter to the management of the Los Angeles Dodgers, praising them for honoring the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at the club’s forthcoming “Pride Night.”

The Sisters will be honored, says Sister Gramick, for their “financial assistance to those in need.”  The Sisters are gay men got up in sexually fetishistic garb, mocking the dress of Catholic women religious. But, says Sister, even though their “choice of clothing” may be “offensive to some,” though not offensive to her, that offensiveness, which Sister does not take seriously, must not be allowed to “trump the works of mercy.”

I’ll wager that many a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan provided monetary assistance to the poor, so long as they were white.  No doubt the Roman legions took care of the widows and orphans of their fellow legionnaires.  King Leopold of Belgium had a heart for the Congolese, and they paid for his care in blood.  Crocodiles were said to shed tears before they devoured their prey, and doctors who shoulder people out of this world with an easy needle full of poison claim to have soft hearts too. And I can well imagine their shedding a public tear while they pack their bags and leave the grieving family with the task, sometimes not entirely unpleasant, of settling the details of the funeral and the disposal of the beloved remains.

If you say that the comparisons are unfair, I ask, “Why are there Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at all?”  They have defined themselves by the evil they do, though they do not see it as such, or they do see it, but they choose it anyway.  Why should there have been a Ku Klux Klan, if not for terrorizing blacks (and later on, because it is hard to keep the acid of evil contained, Catholics and others)?  Why should there be assisters of suicide in the first place?

If you say that the Sisters are harmless, I wonder what world you are living in, or, supposing that you are in possession of ordinary faculties of observation and judgment, how you can live in this one with such ease.  Your soft head does not so much astonish me as your hard heart.

In the world I live in, in the nation we share, many millions of children grow up without a married mother and father.

In the world I live in, children and young people have been visited with a plague of sexual confusion which, as to its scope and the madness and the destructiveness of its character, is unprecedented in human history.

In the world I live in, unless they possess a heroic commitment to virtue, most young people will bring to their marriages, if they marry at all, a sorry series of sexual train wrecks, betrayals, and acts of animal indulgence, not boding well for their married future.

In the world I live in, the innocence of children is attacked on all sides, even in places where they should be held safest, such as schools, libraries, and parks.

The Klan gave all they had to prolonging, propagating, and making more profound the evil of racism.  The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, though they do not, in themselves, possess the sheer numbers that the Klan once boasted, do the like.  They exist to prolong, propagate, and make more profound the evils of the Lonely Revolution.

It is easy to oppose racism here and now, when everyone understands and takes for granted that segregation was evil and stupid.  What’s hard was to be someone like the novelist and reformer George Washington Cable, who wrote against the habits and feelings of many of his own people in the postbellum South, for the sake of justice and for their own moral and social welfare.

It was easy to oppose sexual vice at the Harvard of the Puritans.  What’s hard is to do so at Harvard now, when you know that if you do, you are likely to make your name odious to your fellow students, your professors, and prospective employers.

We may therefore turn Sister Gramick’s words back at her.  Why does she have no mercy for the children – in this case, mainly the boys, to whom she seems never to give a second thought – who must be spectators of the fetish?  Why does she have no mercy for the many and various victims of a world gone mad with sexual selfishness?

Even if she does not take seriously the many warnings against sexual sin that Scripture sounds, from Genesis through the prophets, from the Gospels to the letters of Paul to Revelation, why is she numb to the vast social and personal harm that it has caused?  Why should little children be burdened with broken families, parades of sex interests in and out of their homes, and the lewd and the vile and the chaotic everywhere in public?

And what about the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence?  Where is their mercy?  Where is their simple human decency?  Someone who actually thinks about other people and their welfare would never do what they do, or appear as they appear, in front of children and young people – and that is quite aside from the thoughtless coarsening of public morals.

But the answer to my question is in plain sight.  They want people to see them, especially children and young people.  Grooming, enticing, seducing; the message is clear.  “Look at us!  Aren’t we great?  Come join us someday, and have a lot of fun!”

I daresay that Sister Gramick knows very well that that is the message.  She does not care.  If that message gets to a young person and lures him into that life, she will be ready to cheer.  Easiest thing in the world.

You may also enjoy:

Fr. Gerald E. Murray’s Pope Francis Must Stop the Madness

Brad Miner’s Homosexuality in Scripture

AUTHOR

Anthony Esolen

Anthony Esolen is a lecturer, translator, and writer. Among his books are Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture, and Nostalgia: Going Home in a Homeless World, and most recently The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord. He is a professor and writer in residence at Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts, in Warner, New Hampshire. Be sure to visit his new website, Word and Song.

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2023 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

SSPX Priest Found Guilty On All Charges In Abusing 27 Children

/in , , , , , , , , /by

Jury returns verdict in ‘horror’ trial of Fr. Pierre de Maillard. 

VENDÉE, France (ChurchMilitant.com) – A priest of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) has been found guilty on all charges involving sex abuse of more than two dozen children.

The jury returned its verdict Friday evening against Fr. Pierre de Maillard, charged with four counts of rape and 33 sexual assaults against 27 children over the course of 25 years. The crimes took place in his SSPX assignments in the Vendée and elsewhere.

The court agreed with public prosecutor, Emmanuelle Lepissier, in adopting most of her recommendations: Maillard will receive the maximum possible sentence: 20 years behind bars, two-thirds of that time without the possibility of parole.

This will be followed by a 10-year probation period that will require that Maillard receive treatment. Failure to follow the rules of probation could result in another five years in prison.

Lionel Béthune de Moro, who represented the victims, lauded the “exemplary and long-awaited punishment in view of the extraordinary nature of the multiple criminal acts brought before the Assize Court against a defendant who himself claims to be a paedophile.”

Maillard is banned from ever returning to the Vendée or neighboring Charente-Maritime, or being around children. He is also required to register as a sex offender.

This marks the end of a two-week trial beginning May 22 in the Court of Assizes in La Roche-Sur-Yon, in the Vendée region in western France.

Some likened the trial to a “horror film,” as victim testimony behind closed doors revealed Maillard’s penchant for making his victims watch pornography (his favorite site was 666porn) and using oils and music to massage his victims before assaulting them, among other details.

At least two victims collapsed during trial. According to Ouest-France, “On Tuesday May 30, a complainant testifying at the trial of Abbé de Maillard collapsed in the middle of the hearing. … The victim, still a minor, reportedly couldn’t stand the priest’s denials.”

Maillard in fact changed his testimony, denying ever having committed any abuse, while at other times admitting to the sexual assaults but denying the rapes.

The priestly ministry “confers more duties than rights,” said victims’ attorney Lionel Béthune de Moro. “The accused may have helped the victims at one point in their lives, but today he claims to be a pedophile. It’s chilling.”

Alluding to the silence of those in the know regarding Maillard’s abuse, de Moro added, “As soon as you become aware of sexual violence, whether you’re a parent or a parishioner, you have to report it to the law.”

According to Ouest-France, another trial may await the 56-year-old priest: “[T]hree complaints have been lodged in recent weeks. This could lead to a new judicial investigation and, ultimately, a second trial.”

SSPX Kept Predator in Ministry

As Church Militant reported, the French district superior had been made aware of abuse allegations years before but never reported Maillard to police.

During the second week of trial, a victim confronted de Jorna: “I reported the events to you back in 2017. Why did nothing happen? I don’t understand.”

De Jorna dismissed the question: “All you had to do was file a complaint.”

“I have a real feeling of bitterness,” said the same victim.  “We’re not talking about one blunder but three” — referring to other allegations reported to the SSPX and not taken seriously.

“They knew and hid it,” said other victims of Maillard. “They told the victims to keep quiet because it would discredit the Society. But for them, it’s the Society that will save the Church, and it’s the Church that will save the world. Many continue to remain silent because of this.”

At trial it was also revealed that in 2013, over “minor” incidents with children, the SSPX placed a ban on Maillard from being around children, which included 10 years from working in a school or children’s camps or hearing children’s confessions, and a five-year ban on catechizing children.

The Society, however, never followed through on the ban, which led to Maillard having access to children and abusing again.

The SSPX has a track record of failing to follow through on its bans of predator priests, leading to further victimization of children.

Maillard was arrested in October 2020, two days after Church Militant reported that the accused pedophile was living at the SSPX retreat house (the “Golden Prison”) in Montgardin, France, where he had been sent to do “prayer and penance.” An initial investigation turned up 19 victims, but further questioning revealed 27.

The guilty verdict follows two months after another SSPX priest, Fr. Matthew Stafki, pled guilty to molesting his 9-year-old niece over the course of three years in Minnesota. Stafki is facing up to 25 years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for June 23.

Church Militant emailed SSPX leadership asking for comment on Maillard’s verdict but received no immediate response.

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

Biden, Schumer, McConnel and McCarthy’s ‘Fiscal Irresponsibility Act’ of 2023

/in , , , , , , /by

Ordinary Americans work hard, pay their taxes and pay off their debts. It’s the smart, wise and common sense thing to do. We all go into debt for various reasons, e.g. pay for our education, buy a home, or a car. But we the people know that going into debt requires self-control and planning how to get out of debt.

Successful individuals, companies and organizations stay out of debt. With one exception—governments.

Whenever or wherever you find any government activity deeply in debt you know that it is run by those elected officials who don’t care about using our tax dollars wisely and staying out of debt.

Debt

In 2012 Reuters reported on 10 States With Enormous Debt Problems. Reuters reported,

America’s 50 state governments owe $4.19 trillion, including outstanding bonds, unfunded pension commitments and budget gaps, according to a new report.

At $617.6 billion, California had by far the biggest total debt, more than twice the total of No. 2, New York, with $300.1 billion owed, according to State Budget Solutions, a research and non-partisan advocacy group.

Texas, with $287 billion owed, New Jersey, with $282.4 billion, and Illinois, with $271.1 billion, ranked next among states with the biggest total debt, according to State Budget Solutions. Vermont had the smallest debt load at $5.85 billion.

The annual study said state governments had benefited in the last year from smaller budget gaps and reductions in loans taken from the federal government during the worst of the Great Recession to pay unemployment claims.

Those trends helped reduce total debt, which includes medical insurance due retired government workers, from last year’s $4.24 trillion of total debts owed by the 50 states, according to State Budget Solutions.

“Our states are in trouble and no amount of budget gimmicks, political posturing or hiding bills will fix the massive debt that they face,” said Bob Williams, president of State Budget Solutions. “Drastic reforms, innovations and political courage are needed to put our states back on the road to fiscal survival.”

Today, we additionally have our national government addicted to spending our hard earned tax dollars irresponsibly.

On June 3, 2023  on LewRockwell.com President Ronald Reagan’s OMB Director  wrote,

If there was ever any doubt, now we know: Speaker Kevin McCarthy has straw for brains and a Twizzlers stick for a backbone. He was within perhaps a few days of breaking the iron grip of America’s fiscal doomsday machine, yet inexplicably he turned tail and threw in the towel for a mess of fiscal pottage.

We are referring, of course, to the impending moment when the US Treasury would have been forced to forgo scheduled vendor or beneficiary distributions in order to preserve incoming cash for interest payments and other priorities. That act of spending deferrals and prioritization would have obliterated the debt “default” canard once and for all, paving the way for a nascent fiscal opposition to regain control of the nation’s wretched public finances.

And there should be no doubt that we were damn close to that crystalizing moment. After all, Grandma Yellen herself forewarned just last week on Meet The Press that absent a debt ceiling increase, the Treasury Department would have to prioritize payments and leave some bills unpaid:

“And my assumption is that if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, there will be hard choices to make about what bills go unpaid,” Yellen said on NBC’s “Meet the Press…….“We have to pay interest and principle on outstanding debt. We also have obligations to seniors who count on Social Security, our military that expects pay, contractors who’ve provided services to the federal government, and some bills have to go unpaid….”

And, of course, that prioritization and deferral could have been easily done. Federal receipts are now running about $450 billion per month, meaning that after paying $61 billion of interest, $128 billion for Social Security, $26 billion for Veterans and $47 billion for military pay and O&M there would still be $188 billion left to cover at least 50% of everything else.

Read more.

Fiscal irresponsibility is not by accident. Today big government is the opiate of the people’s elected officials from the school house to the White House.

The Bottom Line

By passing Schumer, McConnel and McCarthy’s ‘Fiscal Irresponsibility Act’ of 2023 and Biden signing it into law according to here’s his fiscal projections for the United States government, near and long term, by category:

Current 10-Year CBO Baseline for FY 2024-2033:

  • Revenues: $60 trillion;
  • Spending: $80 trillion;
  • New Debt: $20 trillion;
  • Mandatory Spending & Net Interest: $59 trillion;
  • Discretionary Spending for Defense & Veterans: $12 trillion;
  • Total Spending Exempted From Cuts in McCarthy Deal: $71 trillion;
  • % of Baseline Spending Exempted From Cuts: 89%

OMB Record of National Defense Outlays, FY 2017 to FY 2023 and McCarthy Deal Amount for FY 2024:

  • FY 2017: $599 billion;
  • FY 2018: $631 billion;
  • FY 2019: $686 billion;
  • FY 2020: $725 billion;
  • FY 2021: $754 billion;
  • FY 2022: $766 billion;
  • FY 2023: $815 billion;
  • FY 2024P: $909 billion.

10-Year Baseline Spending That The McCarthy Deal Leaves Unscathed:

  • Social Security: $18.8 trillion;
  • Medicare: $14.8 trillion;
  • Medicaid, Obamacare and Child Health: $8.0 trillion;
  • Veterans Disability and Comp: $3.0 trillion;
  • Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Credit: $0.9 trillion;
  • Aid to Aged, Blind and Disabled: $0.7 trillion;
  • Military retirement: $0.9 trillion;
  • Total Mandatories Unscathed: $47.1 trillion;
  • % of CBO Mandatories Baseline: 98%;

Non-defense Discretionary Outlays:

  • FY 2017: $610 billion;
  • FY 2018: $639 billion;
  • FY 2019: $661 billion;
  • FY 2020 $914 billion;
  • FY 2021 $895 billion;
  • FY 2022: $912 billion;
  • FY 2023: $936 billion;
  • 6-Year Increase: +53%

Numbers don’t lie. But politicians who are addicted to bigger and bigger government do.

concludes his column thusly, “[T]he ‘compromise deal’ is a hideous joke, and Kevin McCarthy truly does have sawdust for brains and a Twizzlers stick for a backbone. There is no other way to interpret the facts. In fact, just five months into his Speakership, McCarthy has already earned his place on the Wall of Shame right along side of Speaker John Boehner and Speaker Paul Ryan.”

Add to this list of those who have sawdust for brains and a Twizzler stick for a backbone Senators Chuck Schumer, Senator Mitch McConnell and Joseph Robinett Biden, Jr.

Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz in and email wrote,

On Wednesday night, the House of Representatives took one of the most consequential votes of the 118th Congress, passing the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 and raising the national debt ceiling. Nothing about this piece of legislation is fiscally responsible. In reality, the Biden-McCarthy debt limit deal is a major win for the Democrat party, as it papers over America’s problems with unknowable sums of debt and gaslights reckless inflation-inducing spending. Americans are already suffering through Bidenflation, and this bill guarantees that it’s only going to get worse.

Last year, the American people gave Republicans the majority in the U.S House of Representatives because they wanted us to rein in the Democrat party’s out-of-control spending for woke and weaponized agencies. Yet Speaker McCarthy and President Biden chose to go behind the backs of hard-working Americans and negotiate a deal that cements the historically high COVID-era spending levels as the baseline for future spending. This bad deal adds $4 trillion to the debt in less than two years, funds 87,000 new IRS agents, and ensures Democrats don’t have to deal with the political fallout of raising the debt ceiling prior to the 2024 election. I can’t imagine a better deal for Democrats and a worse deal for our nation.

Even the purported policy “wins” are largely cosmetic budget gimmicks or waivable at Biden’s whims. It is disgraceful we have Establishment Republicans celebrating “work requirements” being traded for reforms that make the SNAP program more costly for taxpayers and more accessible to the homeless.

Only four Republicans remain in Congress who have never voted to raise the debt limit, and I’m proud to be among them. One of the principal mandates members of Congress have with their voters is to fight inflation. I refuse to be complicit in this bipartisan bankruptcy, and I will remain steadfast in my fight to put America First.

We agree with Bob Williams, president of State Budget Solutions, that “Drastic reforms, innovations and political courage are needed to put our states [and federal government] back on the road to fiscal survival.”

We need more politicians who put America and Americans first by stopping any effort to raise the debt limit. Cut spending, don’t increase the debt needs to be the rallying cry of every American.

Time to “Make America Fiscally Sound Again!”

Time to drain the swamp of these spineless spendthrift wonders.

©2023. Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

The Source Of The Marxist Takeover Of American Institutions Is So Obvious It Hurts

/in , , , , , , , , /by

It is impossible to deny how far left all of America’s institutions have shifted in the past few years. Corporate board rooms, the media, sports teams and even the military all chant the same dogma and insist that you comply.

How did that happen? As Ernest Hemingway wrote on how one goes bankrupt, “gradually, then suddenly.” Indeed, our leading institutions face a moral bankruptcy unprecedented in American history.

This could not have happened without the left’s successful “long march through the institutions.” This term, made famous by radical academics in the 1960s, refers to the strategy used by “New Left” students of that era. They aimed to achieve long-term social and and political change by infiltrating and subverting key institutions, particularly the elite universities they often attended.

These radicals were the progenitors of the critical theories that plague our offices and our children’s schools today. They knew these ideas could never be sold democratically to the American public, so they instead sought to disrupt disciplines — sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and cultural studies — that were more amenable to their critical perspectives. 

Through their research, teaching, and activism, they eventually came to dominate entire departments or even university leadership. This power was then used to launder their ideology to a new generation of students who would unquestioningly carry it with them into the “real world.”

A new Harvard survey on faculty political leanings reveals that the left’s long march was more successful than they likely ever dreamed. A whopping 75% of Harvard faculty identifies as “liberal” or “very liberal,” while only 2.5% identifies as conservative. A minuscule 0.4 percent identifies as “very conservative.”

As law professor Jonathon Turley points out, these figures massively overrepresent liberals compared to society overall. Roughly equal portions of Americans identify as conservative or moderate, while only 26% identify as liberal. More Harvard faculty identify as “very liberal” (32%) than Americans overall identify as “liberal.”

The figure is representative across large swathes of American academia. In 1969, one in four college professors was at least moderately conservative. Now, liberals outweigh conservatives on campus by roughly 12 to one.

Yet Harvard’s stark disparity stands out more than the rest because it is the best that American education has to offer — or at least it used to be.

Nevertheless, its name is still intrinsically associated with excellence and prestige that few other universities are accorded. If you are a Harvard graduate, you are likely to impact the highest levels of American power in whichever field you choose to pursue.

That is precisely the point. By capturing the Harvard banner, radical activists then got to decide what constituted excellence and prestige. Their radical ideologies gained the legitimacy associated with the Harvard name and serve as an example for lesser universities to follow. Molded by these new definitions, Harvard graduates carry them out to the world where they shape the halls of power in business, government, and media.

Harvard boasts the most alumni who later became CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. With 41 alumni CEOs, Harvard dwarfs the nearest runner up, the University of Pennsylvania, by almost double.

Harvard also has the largest number of Nobel Prize winners at 161. It boasts the largest number of Supreme Court justices in history, with four Harvard graduates currently on the bench.

Harvard also has the largest number of U.S. military Medal of Honor recipients (18) for any non-military school. This included 8 generals throughout history.

Given this legacy, Harvard will continue to recruit America’s brightest and most ambitious young minds. Many of them are likely pre-existing liberals, but many of them will not be. Blinded by the allure of the Harvard name, they will make themselves vulnerable to the ubiquitous leftism of their professors.

Even those who see what’s happening will likely go along to get along. If they do not bend the knee, all their hard work will be for naught, and their aspirations will crumble beneath them.

Conservatives must accept that the purpose of academia — to foster intellectual curiosity and challenge rigid ways of thinking — no longer exists as we all once imagined. The long march, which occurred gradually over decades, hit suddenly in the Trump era. There is no sign the radicals will allow dissent within Harvard or any other university any time soon.

AUTHOR

GAGE KLIPPER

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Here’s The New Left-Wing Theory Parents Are Fighting In Schools

Harvard University Is Hosting A Race-Based Music Program, Civil Rights Complaint Alleges

‘Inquisitions And Purges’: Star Harvard Professors Form Group To Counter Attacks On Academic Freedom

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