Interestingly, within 72 hours of these hearings new material has emerged which offer a very high resolution lens with which to view the testimony given below.
A highly-anticipated internal FBI document – obtained by DailyMail.com – includes bombshell claims that Joe Biden and his son Hunter forced a Ukrainian oil executive to pay them $10 million in exchange for the then-Vice President’s influence in getting a senior prosecutor fired.
According to the conversation between a confidential source and Burisma CFO Vadim Pojarski in 2015, Hunter Biden was hired onto the company’s board to ‘protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.’
Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky told the source: ‘It costs 5 (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another Biden.’
‘For the better part of a year, I’ve been pushing the Justice Department and FBI to provide details on its handling of very significant allegations from a trusted FBI informant implicating then-Vice President Biden in a criminal bribery scheme,’ Grassley said in a statement.
‘While the FBI sought to obfuscate and redact, the American people can now read this document for themselves, without the filter of politicians or bureaucrats, thanks to brave and heroic whistleblowers.’
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Vlad Tepes Bloghttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngVlad Tepes Blog2023-07-23 07:47:312023-07-23 08:02:48VIDEO: Full Hearings on Biden Family Tax Evasion
Republican New York Rep. Elise Stefanik alleged during a Thursday hearing that the censorship of Hunter Biden’s “hellhole and cesspool” laptop swung the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
Following a meeting with the FBI in which agents acknowledged the laptop’s authenticity, Twitter prohibited its users from sharing an October 2020 New York Post story about the laptop in both tweets and direct messages. Bureau officials learned in 2019 over the course of their Hunter Biden tax probe that the laptop was authentic, Internal Revenue Service whistleblower Gary Shapley testified to the House Ways and Means Committee.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and a GOP witness argue wider dissemination of the Hunter Biden laptop story would have flipped the 2020 election, citing a poll saying “61% of Democrats” would have changed their vote. pic.twitter.com/RSPZ9A1SDs
“Hunter Biden’s laptop from hell, it has everything. It’s a hellhole and cesspool of corruption and criminal conduct. It has hard drugs, prostitution, pornography, money laundering. It has Biden family shell companies, Communist Chinese corruption, foreign government deals for tens of millions of dollars in exchange for access to the Biden family,” Stefanik said.
“This was illegal government censorship to protect and prop up Joe Biden on the eve of the 2020 election. And according to polling of people who were made aware of the Hunter Biden laptop story, 53% would have changed their vote, including 61% of Democrats,” she continued.
Stefanik apparently referenced a survey from TIPP Insights conducted from Dec. 7-9, 2022. The poll of 1351 people found that 501, or 37%, were “closely following” the laptop story. Of that 37%, 53% described themselves as “very” or “somewhat” likely to have changed their vote in the 2020 election if they had known. That number includes 62% of Democrats and 52% of Republicans. Overall, under 20% of people out of the initial 1351 said that knowledge of the laptop may have changed their vote.
Other conservative media outlets, including the Daily Caller News Foundation, reported on the laptop ahead of the election. White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany repeatedly referenced the story in briefings. McEnany’s Twitter account was also suspended.
A black teenager says the side effects of the abortion drug mifepristone left her permanently “sick, sore, lame and disabled” and — since abortion staffers did not realize her child survived — caused her baby to be born with lifelong, “profound birth defects.” The case shakes the foundations of the abortion debate in America, as the number of abortions using mifepristone skyrocket, and abortion advocates partner with Democratic governors to mail abortion drugs to pro-life states nationwide.
A 16-year-old black girl (whose name we’re withholding) experienced two abortions at the Choices Women’s Medical Center in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens (formerly the Flushing Women’s Center) within less than a year, according to a host of medical and legal documents obtained by The Washington Stand. The first time she became pregnant was at the age of 15, two years younger than the state’s age of consent, from her 20-year-old boyfriend and underwent a dismemberment abortion (dilation and evacuation) at 19 weeks on December 5, 2017. There is no paperwork to indicate the facility contacted authorities over the age difference.
By September 2018, the teenager was pregnant again from the same man. “He is 21 y/o,” the abortion facility noted in internal paperwork obtained by The Washington Stand, “and she was not pressured or forced to have sex.” The paperwork notes that the teen told abortion staffers “her parents were disappointed when they found out she was pregnant and did not approve of her relationship.” The paperwork also noted the vulnerable minor “smokes marijuana.”
The teen underwent a chemical abortion at eight weeks, receiving mifepristone from abortionist Angele Meikle and taking the abortion pill “under direct supervision” of Choices staffers in October 2018. The teenager swore in court documents that she “was also given drugs to take at home to complete” the two-drug chemical abortion, which combined mifepristone and misoprostol. “I took the drugs that staff at Choice Women’s Medical Center, Inc. gave me to take home according to the instructions that they gave me,“ she swore. She returned for a follow-up visit in November 2018, where she says abortion staffers falsely told her she tested positive for HIV/AIDS, but took no blood test to assure she had aborted her child.
Three months later — on February 2, 2019 — she realized her child had survived the abortion pill. In April 2019, she gave birth to a baby with “profound birth defects,” according to legal documents suing the facility and several abortionists. The child, referred to only as “P.V.” was born with hydrocephalus (colloquially called “water on the brain”), as well as “severe brain injuries, arthrogryposis-like disorder, congenital deformities of upper and lower extremities, and other serious injuries and conditions.“ The injuries caused the mother “to incur extraordinary medical and hospital expenses.”
“Had I known of the risk that the termination of my pregnancy may not be successful and the risk that my baby P.V. could be born alive with severe birth defects after I took the chemical abortion drugs the defendants gave me, I would not have undergone the chemical medical abortion,” the teen swore in a court document reviewed by TWS.
Taking the abortion drug mifepristone left the single, teenage mother “sick, sore, lame and disabled,” and after taking the drug, the teen “sustained severe and grievous injuries to head, body and limbs … some of which will be permanent in nature,” according to her legal brief.
An OB/GYN in Connecticut who reviewed her full medical record attested in the case that Choices personnel “deviated from good and accepted medical practices in failing … to ensure the [abortion] was complete.” The abortion facility “fail[ed] to adequately and fully inform” the teen and her family about “the risks, benefits, hazards and alternatives of the … drugs” they “administered, [and] is the proximate cause of the injuries” she suffered, as well.
“The revictimization of this poor 16-year-old by the abortion industry is the norm, not the exception,” Rev. Jim Harden, CEO of CompassCare, a New York-based coalition of pregnancy resource centers, told The Washington Stand. Abortionists regularly fail to report suspected sexual abuse, often telling the potential victim they do not want to know the details, which would make them mandatory reporters. “The medical community is the knot at the end of the rope for sexually abused girls,” Harden told TWS. “Not only does the abortion industry harm women and destroy the child, it protects the abuser while the industry itself is sheltered by pro-abortion political extremists like New York Governor Kathy Hochul.”
Hochul, a Democrat, announced in April that New York will begin stockpiling abortion drugs and signed a bill granting the abortion industry immunity for mailing mifepristone to pro-life states that make the drug illegal. Abortionists affiliated with the group AidAccess have already mailed 3,500 abortion pills to pro-life states in the last month and plan to take part in 42,000 chemical abortions in life-respecting states in the next year.
Abortion drugs already account for at least 52% of all abortions, although the two-drug abortion cocktail produces four times the level of harmful side effects for women than surgical abortions. Between 2000 and 2021, the FDA documented 4,207 adverse events from mifepristone use — including 26 deaths, 1,045 hospitalizations, 603 events requiring a blood transfusion, and 413 infections. That likely understates the figures, because in 2016, the Obama-Biden administration required only deaths caused by chemical abortion to be reported to the FDA’s Adverse Events Reporting System (FAERS).
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the abortion industry and its political allies have turned to mifepristone. Several national pharmacy chains have agreed to sell the abortion drug to female customers. And a coalition of congressional Democrats, led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), wrote a letter to Walmart, Kroger, Costco, Safeway and Health Mart on June 14 calling their refusal to sell abortion pills “unacceptable.”
“Abortion industry abuse is exacerbated by chemical abortion, which in states like New York, can be easily accessed by sex traffickers and rapists to cover up their crimes,” Harden told TWS. “The unethical deregulation of chemical abortion by the Biden administration’s FDA and blue states — like the one New York Governor Hochul recently implemented, shielding abortion quacks from liability — heinously upend the role of government to protect all people equally, especially vulnerable women and children.”
Instead of shielding abortionists from legal consequences, governors should conduct a full-scale audit of abortion facilities to determine whether they are facilitating statutory rape or human trafficking, and whether they are injuring the mothers who come to them for aid, says Harden.
“The audit needs to include 1) how many under-aged abortions were perpetrated in their states, 2) the age of the man who impregnated the girl, 3) how many of those were rape victims, 4) how many gave consent to abortion, 5) how many were underdiagnosed, misdiagnosed, and coerced, 6) how many were transported across U.S. border or state lines in order to cover up a sex crime in violation of the Mann Act, 7) how many chemical abortions were completed in emergency rooms,” Harden concluded.
The teenage mother’s abortion malpractice lawsuit remains active in New York courts as of this writing.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2023-07-22 15:44:312023-07-22 15:47:43Abortion Drug Left 16-Year-Old Black Girl ‘Sick, Sore, Lame and Disabled’: Lawsuit
For all the talk that America “is stronger when it’s inclusive,” the real-world consequences of Joe Biden’s transgender military policy have been deeply and painfully felt. In a force already ravaged by wokeness, overextension, and cratering recruitment, men and women on the ground are also being asked to do the impossible: function with deeply dysfunctional members — which, as one Coast Guard Chief explains, has never endangered America more.
Like most people in uniform, Rocky Rogers, a 25-year veteran of the Coast Guard, watched President Biden sign the executive order that lets trans-identifying troops back into the military and wondered how it would affect him. He didn’t have to wait long to find out. In a sobering interview with Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, he set the record straight on just how disruptive and perilous it was.
As a direct supervisor to one of nine trans-identifying Coast Guardsmen in the military from 2018-2020, Rogers had a front-row seat to the decision that’s created a huge mess for unit commanders and, more broadly, national security.
“Before that member reported to my unit, my workspace,” Chief Rogers explained, “the command briefed me what was going on and just said to look out for this person.” Almost immediately, things started to unravel. “[The problems started with] an unimaginable amount of medical appointments to where this member was rarely at work for a personal choice procedure to be done. Because of these choices, my workforce was significantly hindered in what we could respond to,” he said. It was especially frustrating, Rogers pointed out, because he was “billeted six personnel, but we only had five that were able to work any given time of the day. So that was a huge, huge impact.”
From there, it just got worse. The coast guardsman started “asking for extended lunches or for nourishment, which is always acceptable, but [on top of that, this person wanted] another hour and a half for personal medical care. And I asked the member to get the command approval, because if you give it to one, you have to give it to all. And if we were to give everyone a two-hour lunch, nothing would be completed during the normal workday. So [we’re talking about] a lot of challenges.”
But, of course, when Rogers tried to get help from his own chain of command, he got nowhere. These special accommodations were made because this individual was transitioning to another body.
Chief Rogers expected — wrongly, it turned out — that his supervisors would have his back. “During my briefing with the command before this member even reported [to me], the command asked me if I ever needed any guidance [or] any support to let them know.” When that time came, “I can count three times I reached out to the command and medical administrators directly asking for advice for … challenges with, again, an unimaginable amount of medical appointments and so forth.” In emails back, he was told, “‘Chief, figure it out. Handle it appropriately.’ And that was a sign to me that no one in a leadership role wanted their hands to be tied.”
Eventually, Rogers said, this all led to a great deal of friction with his team. “There was a lot of frustration. There was just a lot of animosity, if you will, because they knew [that] this person could not be depended on to help out with our day-to-day tasks. So it wore the morale in our workspace down very quickly.”
If a single trans-identifying guardsman is this detrimental to a unit, Perkins wondered aloud, “What if you had two individuals like that in your group?”
Rogers did the math. “I’d have 65% of a crew to do 100% of the work — [that’s] what it would come down to.”
“That seems like that has an impact on military readiness,” Perkins replied.
“Absolutely, 100%,” Rogers agrees.
His story comes days after an 18-year-old military recruit broke her silence about what it was like showering with biological men as a result of Biden’s controversial policy, putting her in an “extremely uncomfortable position.” Senator Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) relayed her testimony in an Armed Services Committee hearing last week without revealing the woman’s name because she’s so worried about retaliation.
She was in basic training, “where she was sleeping in open bays and showering with biological males who had not had gender reassignment surgery but were documented as females because they had begun the drug therapy process,” Rounds explained. “She could have basically resigned or stepped away. She could have started over again.” But, at the end of the day, he argued, “I think this is one of the reasons why we’re not meeting our recruitment goals now,” he said. It’s Biden’s “woke agenda that we now see coming down by executive order.”
Yet the Pentagon and entire Biden team continues to argue that introducing mentally unstable people to the American military “is in our national interest.” Rounds and others, who’ve heard nightmarish complications, could not disagree more. “Most of the focus [under the Biden administration] is on the transgender individuals, not on the individuals who are working with them.”
And that may be one reason recruitment is collapsing. “As of July 12 of this year — so six days ago,” Rogers said, “just the enlisted ranks alone, the Coast Guard is down 3,559 members. That’s just recruiting. That’s not counting the shortages within the ranks that are already there.”
It’s the fruit, Lt. General (Ret.) Jerry Boykin insisted, of the Left’s years-long march through our armed forces. “I mean, give me any logical reason that you would see the kinds of things that we’re seeing in our military today. If you really want to understand [what Barack Obama meant] when he said, ‘I’m going to fundamentally change this country.’ … And if you want to do that, you start with the military. Now we’re seeing the results of that effort.”
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2023-07-22 15:15:092023-07-25 06:57:09Coast Guard Chief Who Supervised Trans Recruit: It ‘100%’ Hurts Readiness
Long time Geller Report readers know full well the sexualization and promotion of perverse sexual practices to children in our public schools is nothing new. It all began with Obama. Everything terrible thing the government is doing to the American people (and the world) was put in place during the Obama years.
ALERT: Obama, a left-wing extremist who is one of the most corrupt presidents in American history, supports pornography for children. https://t.co/G4IFTCX60e
— 𝕊𝕔𝕒𝕣𝕪 𝔼𝕝𝕖𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝔻𝕖𝕟𝕚𝕖𝕣 🇺🇸 (@nomandatesco) July 18, 2023
When they accuse us of “banning books” they’re referring to graphic books containing pornographic content offered to kids in schools across the country.
For some reason, they never show examples from the books 🤔
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2023-07-22 06:54:372023-07-22 11:56:25Obama Comes Out, Pushing Gay Porn in School Libraries
Whistleblower testimony strongly suggests interference in the Hunter Biden tax case was meant to defuse any inquiry into Joe Biden.
Two veteran IRS agents with impeccable records have now testified under oath that federal officials not only slow-walked the Hunter Biden probe but nixed efforts to investigate Joe’s role in the family business. And though legacy media are conveniently apathetic about the developments, they seem somewhat newsworthy to me.
On Wednesday, we learned the identity of “Whistleblower X.” Joseph Ziegler, a self-proclaimed Democrat who worked at the agency since 2010, told the House Oversight Committee that he handled 95 percent of the evidence in the Hunter tax investigation. Ziegler testified that throughout the five-year investigation, he was “handcuffed,” “hamstrung,” “marginalized,” and ultimately stopped from moving forward in the manner he would for any other scofflaw.
Ziegler wrote a 99-page memo laying out the case for felony charges, wholly consistent with the IRS guidelines governing charging in tax evasion cases. He maintains that every investigator and prosecutor on the case agreed felonies were in order — all of which should be easy enough to find out.
Sure, it’s fun to talk about salacious parts of the Hunter case, but the far bigger concern should be finding out why companies operating in authoritarian nations sent Biden $17 million. It would be a fair question even if there had been no criminal investigation.
Now, I’m not saying the feds were covering up proof of Joe Biden’s illegality — though circumstantial evidence and common sense say the family business couldn’t function without his participation. I’m saying it’s increasingly clear the Justice Department didn’t want to find out if there was any evidence. No one wanted a replay of the Hillary-illegal server scandal. And that’s how Hunter got his sweet deal.
“Any time we potentially wanted to go down the road of asking questions related to the president, it was, ‘That’s gonna take too much approvals. We can’t ask those questions,’” Ziegler told CBS News. “And I mean, it created an environment that was very hard to deal with.”
Gary Shapley, the second whistleblower, also testified that every time prosecutors wanted to talk to Joe’s grown grandchildren or others who were receiving payments from foreign companies connected to the “big guy,” investigators shut them down. Shapley told the committee that every step of the way “decisions were made that benefited the subject of this investigation.” That included the Justice Department stretching out the investigation to allow the statute of limitations to expire.
Shapley says a U.S. attorney for D.C. appointed by Joe Biden was the one who had the final call on whether felony charges were brought against Hunter. U.S. Attorney David Weiss, he testified under oath, told a room filled with five other senior FBI and IRS agents that he was “not the deciding person on whether charges are filed.” Maybe Congress should get everyone else under oath and find out?
Not that any of this mattered to committee Democrats, who rarely even attempted to debunk the testimony. Most of them merely prattled on about the evils of Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani, which is usually enough to placate their constituents. A few Democrats ludicrously argued that the president’s son, a man who allegedly tried to write off sex club memberships, prostitutes, and fancy hotel rooms for drug dealers, was the victim of zealous over-prosecution.
Though occasionally they inadvertently made important points.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2023-07-22 06:39:572023-07-24 06:49:39It Was Joe Biden, Not Hunter, The Feds Were Protecting
President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden “both” told the CEO of Burisma to retain the president’s son at the Ukrainian energy company, an FBI confidential source said in a report alleging a pay-to-play scheme by the Biden family.
Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley released the FD-1023 document the House Oversight has been citing on Thursday as evidence pointing to Joe Biden being involved in a bribery scheme with Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky. House Oversight members previously viewed the document in a SCIF, but Grassley publicly released it Thursday.
A confidential human source (CHS) alleged that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden told Zlochevsky to retain the president’s on at Burisma, despite CHS’ advice, the document says.
The form reads, “CHS inquired whether Hunter Biden or Joe Biden told Zlochevsky he should retain Hunter Biden; Zlochevsky replied, ‘They both did.’ CHS reiterated CHS’s opinion that Zlochevsky was making a mistake and he should fire Hunter Biden and deal with Shokin’s investigation directly so that the matter will remain an issue in Ukraine, and not turn into some international matter. Zlochevsky responded something to the effect of, ‘Don’t worry, this thing will go away anyway.’”
The allegation made by the confidential human source runs counter to the president’s claim that he has never spoken about his son’s business dealings.
Biden dismissed the further allegations in the FD-1023 form that both he and Hunter Biden took $5 million from Zlochevsky. Biden called the allegations “malarkey.”
The CHS also alleged that Vadim Pojarskii, a conduit for Zlochevsky, said that Hunter Biden was specifically hired to be on the board of Burisma “to protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”
The CHS reported the allegations in June of 2020, and was first introduced to Burisma associates in 2015 or 2016, the form reads. The CHS met with Zlochesvky to discuss Burisma purchasing a U.S.-based oil and gas business.
One of the Beer Institute’s Code Compliance Review Board members (CCRB) said Bud Light violated code after the beer industry ad panel issued a ruling Tuesday over the brand’s ad campaign with a transgender influencer.
The majority of CCRB decided Bud Light did not violate the Beer Institute’s marketing code prohibiting marketing to minors. However, Paul Summers said Bud Light did violate the code in his dissenting opinion. Summers is a former state court appeals judge and Tennessee attorney general. He is also the only member of the CCRB who is a lawyer. This is the first time CCRB has issued dissent.
Bud Light has faced heavy criticism and lost its spot as America’s top-selling beer in early June after transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney showed off a personalized beer can featuring the influencer’s face. Bud Light’s sponsorship of Mulvaney violated the beer industry’s code prohibiting the marketing of alcohol to underage individuals, according to Summers’ dissent.
“Dylan Mulvaney has a persona wherein the actor looks and acts like a little girl. Mulvaney appeals to little children and often behaves like one,” Summers’ dissent and the CCRB’s decision reads.
Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who is the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, praised Summers’ opinion in a statement to the Daily Caller.
“This is the first time a review board member — and notably, the board’s only lawyer — has concluded that a brewer violated industry code prohibiting the marketing of alcoholic beverages to underage individuals. I applaud Judge Summers for having the courage to state what is self-evident: Mulvaney’s persona ‘looks and acts like a little girl’ and ‘appeals to little children and often behaves like one.’ It is clear Mulvaney was chosen because he produces content for a younger audience, and therefore, his selection would violate the industry’s self-regulatory code. Judge Summers also rightly noted that Anheuser-Busch failed to provide the ‘reasonable documentation’ I requested about the brewer’s decision to choose Mulvaney, effectively withholding from the board and Congress crucial information about the company’s actions,” Cruz said.
Cruz published a 13-page memo in June with various examples of how Anheuser-Busch’s sponsorship of Mulvaney was allegedly meant to appeal to minors. Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth, who serves as chairman of the Beer Institute, has continuously refused to comply with congressional requests for documents, according to Cruz’s memo.
READ THE REVIEW HERE:
(DAILY CALLER OBTAINED) — … by Henry Rodgers
“While I am disappointed but unsurprised with the ruling from the other two panelists on the board, I will continue efforts to shine a spotlight on how Anheuser-Busch chose a spokesperson meant to appeal to children. If marketing tobacco to minors is effectively illegal, perhaps Congress needs to take action to do the same with alcohol in light of Anheuser-Busch’s actions,” he added.
Bud Light also released a can featuring a rainbow design and the words “celebrate everyone’s identity,” with different pronouns printed on the bottle.
The Beer Institute’s Code Compliance Review Board was published on its website Tuesday afternoon.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2023-07-21 12:22:362023-07-21 12:26:42Former State Judge And AG Splits From Industry-Sponsored Panelist, Rules Bud Light Violated Code By Marketing To Minors
Before the hearing [before the House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government] on censorship started, the Democrats in the House tried to censor Kennedy. Over one hundred Congressional Democrats signed a letter to House Speaker Dennis McCarthy calling on him to pull Kennedy from the hearing RFK Jr has ‘no business’ testifying in Congress on government censorship, Democrats say | Fox News.
[ … ]
As the hearing opened, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida 25th CD) moved to adjourn the committee into Executive Session – and out of public view…
These hearings are taking place in the aftermath of the landmark July 4 ruling by District Court Judge Terry Doughty in the case Missouri v. Biden, who issued a Preliminary Injunction requiring the federal government to stop trying to pressure, induce, or collude in social media companies’ censorship of constitutionally protected speech.
This Injunction is based on a mountain of evidence that a veritable army of federal agents colluded with social media companies to censor information, viewpoints, and speakers the government didn’t want people to hear.
The Court found that “the ‘misinformation’ to be suppressed was whatever the government deemed misinformation.”
Missouri v. Biden is a landmark case — the first judicial condemnation of the federal government’s massive censorship-by-proxy campaign. It is a tremendous victory for free speech. As an appellate court has issued a stay of the injunction at the Biden administration’s request; the matter is likely destined for the Supreme Court.
I and the nonprofit I founded, Children’s Health Defense (CHD), played a major role in this case. The suit was founded on a legal theory first developed in a case CHD brought against Meta/Facebook, currently pending in the Ninth Circuit. I am co-counsel in this case. We are arguing that because of the pressure on Meta from government agencies, Meta’s censorship is state action and therefore unconstitutional. We have placed the Missouri. v. Biden discovery, fact-findings, and order before the Ninth Circuit and are hopeful it will take a stand for the First Amendment.
I and CHD are also bringing a class action suit in the Western Louisiana District Court against various government agencies on behalf of social media users, on the grounds that the First Amendment protects not only speakers, but viewers and listeners, who have a right to receive information in an uncensored public square.
Finally, we are also bringing an antitrust suit against The Washington Post and other media who were part of the Orwellian “Trusted News Initiative” (TNI). The TNI is a news censorship cartel whose members include the BBC, The Washington Post, Associated Press, Reuters, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft.
Whenever non-mainstream online news publishers report facts or viewpoints deemed by the TNI to be “misinformation,” TNI members censor, shadow-ban, or deplatform those publishers.
This so-called “misinformation” has frequently included wholly legitimate, accurate reporting, for example that COVID might have originated in a virology lab in Wuhan, or that the COVID vaccines did not prevent infection or transmission.
When companies like Facebook, Google, or The Washington Post collude with the government to censor online news, they violate the First Amendment; when they collude with each other, they violate the Sherman Act.
In 1973, the Supreme Court’s Norwood v. Harrison clearly established that indirect or outsourced censorship is unconstitutional. The Court said, “[i]t is also axiomatic that a state may not induce, encourage, or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally forbidden to accomplish.”
I have personal experience of how the Biden administration colluded with private and publicly funded organizations to restrict speech on all the largest social media platforms.
On January 23, 2021, three days after Joe Biden was sworn in as President, Clarke Humphrey (Digital Director for the White House Covid Response Team) sent an email to Twitter flagging one of my tweets and instructing Twitter to “move on the process of having it removed ASAP.”
Three weeks later, Instagram shut down my account, which had almost 600,000 followers. The company gave no explanation.
In July 2021, the White House alleged in a press briefing that 65% of online “misinformation” was being created by 12 people, including me. It got that information from a dark-money organization called the Center for Combating Digital Hate (CCHD). The White House called on internet companies to “redesign recommendation algorithms” to “address misinformation.”
The White House backed this call with a threat. On July 20, 2021, it explicitly threatened to amend or repeal the liability protections of § 230 of the Communications Decency Act if social-media companies did not increase censorship of disfavored speakers and viewpoints.
The coercion worked. Shortly thereafter, under threat of retaliation, Facebook removed dozens of pages, groups, and accounts linked to these 12 people, wiping all of them, including me, off the platform. They did so even though they knew very well that the CCHD report was baseless, as proven by emails unearthed by journalist Paul Thacker.
Facebook even posted a statement on its own platform stating that the CCHD report offered a “faulty narrative” and has “no justification” for its claim.
As it turned out, many of the “false” claims that Facebook removed turned out to be true. A July 7 Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Censorship Proved to be Deadly,” details the many truths that were suppressed as misinformation. The subhead was: “Government and social-media companies colluded to stifle dissenters who turned out to be right.”
The article confirmed that the government and social media companies worked together to suppress empirical, scientifically-based criticism of the COVID lockdowns (such as the Great Barrington Declaration) — lockdowns that resulted in trillions of dollars of needless losses, grievous medical and educational harms, but very little evidence of saving lives. They also suppressed questions on the safety of the COVID vaccines, along with research findings about alternative treatments such as Ivermectin.
The op-ed further points out that excess non-COVID deaths soared among healthy people in 2021 and 2022 — another fact that most Americans are unaware of, precisely because it, too, was censored. The reasons for this excess death are still unknown — and unless we have free and open public discussion in this country, never will be known.
Missouri v. Biden and the Twitter Files detail government agencies’ direct requests to remove people and opinions from social media. More insidiously, media companies also try to preempt these demands by conforming to the ideological preferences of politicians. All that is necessary is for officials to signal what information is good or bad, and the censorship industrial complex does the rest.
The censorship I experienced was not limited to Facebook and Instagram. In September 2021, my YouTube channel was summarily removed without warning. YouTube also removed a political speech I gave in New Hampshire in March of this year. Then YouTube took down the livestream of my Presidential candidacy announcement speech on May 19. The speech did not mention vaccines. YouTube cut it short right near the beginning when I was talking about Paul Revere. They did not specify which policy the Paul Revere story violated.
On June 16, YouTube also took down an interview I conducted with Jordan Peterson. The topic, ironically enough, was “Rekindling the Spirit of the Classic Democrat.” While I made no claims about vaccine safety, the topic of vaccines came up in an historical context, as I described how it became a forbidden topic. YouTube removed the whole video.
Apparently, certain words are unmentionable.
There are actions that Congress can take to address the rampant growth of censorship online. First, amend Section 230 to prohibit platforms from censoring political candidates and from discriminating on the basis of political opinion on issues of public concern.
Second, enact federal common carrier legislation banning political opinion discrimination by the big tech platforms, similar to what applied to the old phone networks. (They couldn’t cut service on the basis of political opinion!)
Third, amend RICO and the Lanham Act for the Digital Age to cover platforms that deceive their users and damage third parties such as CHD.
The President can also take immediate action, by revoking Executive Order 13747, (Obama’s GHSA) and dismantling White House and inter-agency censorship. It should also issue a new Executive Order adopting Judge Doughty’s injunctive terms against the government interfering with social media platforms as free speech forums.
Ultimately, the Constitution is a legal document. Endless justifications may be concocted to nullify it, bypass it, or ignore it. That document only has power to the extent that we believe in it, to the extent that we invest it with political energy, hold its ideals sacred, and apply it with courage. By “we,” I mean the American people, of course, and also the members of the executive branch, the courts, and Congress, including this very Committee.
The time to stop censorship and reclaim our Constitution is now.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2023-07-21 07:04:412023-07-24 07:28:31The DNC Leadership Tried to Censor Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. — They Failed: Watch
“It’s the economy, stupid!” — James Carville, 1992 to Clinton campaign staffers.
“You can’t tax business. Business doesn’t pay taxes. It collects taxes.” — Ronald Reagan
“Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade…” — Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Many pundits are focused on issues like the border crisis, the war in Ukraine, the corruption of the Biden family, particularly Hunter Biden, climate change, Iran, and much more.
But what is really important to we the people?
We believe that the defining issue of every presidential campaign is the state of the U.S. economy. Men are inextricably connected to their wallets and women to their purses. The people know when things are getting more expensive.
The question is what’s in your wallets and purses today?
Here is a short one minute video from eleven years ago featuring Sean Snaith.
“It’s the economy stupid” was a phrase coined by James Carville in 1992, when he was advising Bill Clinton in his successful run for the White House.
In 1992, the US was experiencing an economic recession and the incumbent president, George HW Bush, was perceived as out of touch with the needs of ordinary Americans.
Carville told campaign staffers to hammer on the importance of the economy at every chance they got – he even went so far as to hang a sign in campaign headquarters reading, in part, “the economy, stupid.”
The phrase became a mantra for the Clinton campaign.
Since then, it’s turned into a catchphrase which pops up whenever analysts are discussing an upcoming election.
This has not changed. Everything any administration does policy wise impacts the U.S. economy. Every administration’s policies on taxes, spending, government regulation, government mandates, domestic and foreign policy impacts every American citizen’s pocketbook.
This does not change.
THE PROBLEM
The problem is that since Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was inaugurated prices have gone up 16.6%!
But why?
It’s the policies stupid!
If you believe that fossil fuels are evil and are destroying the planet then you enact government policies that eliminate the use of all fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas.
This policy immediately leads to an increase in the cost to farm, process, ship, store, and distribute food.
This same policy makes the manufacturing of automobiles, trucks, boats and airplanes more expensive.
These policies make it more expensive to build and repair homes, the staple of every economy.
Then the manufacturers, builders, farmers and distributors must pass on these increased costs directly to their consumers, i.e. we the people.
It’s simple mathematics.
When something, or some service, costs more to provide, make or sell then, to stay solvent, businesses must charge more for their products or services.
However, here’s another thing that government policy makers tend to do when their policies increase costs, they either subsidize some companies or increase welfare payments for those that the government, due to its own policies put out of work in the first place, e.g. Covid shutdowns.
Destroy the farming, manufacturing, services and housing industries and you destroy America.
This leads to increased costs for those who work and pay taxes.
Then you have the Federal Reserve raise interest rates in order to allow the government to borrow more and more money as the same government continues to go deeper in debt and the government passes on the cost of its growing interest payments, estimated to be $5 billion a day, on to future generations.
Add to this the rising costs of education at every level and you have the perfect storm.
Add to this the costs of waging a war.
Add to this the cost of an ever growing government.
Add to this the cost of crime, looting, and the destruction of property both businesses and personal properties.
Add to this the freebees given to those who do not work, aren’t citizens or nation states getting taxpayer dollars.
When you add this all up you find your nation $31 billion in debt.
The problem is felt by everyone, perhaps except those in government controlling the purse strings. It seems that government employees, especially union members, from the school house to the White House have a way of enriching themselves at the expense of the rest of us.
When it comes to the economy we the people are always the victims and the government is always the cause.
THE SOLUTION
The solution is simple.
Take away the powers of big government and return the power, and the money, to we the people.
As with every presidential election it is key to know who is focused on the economy and revitalizing it while at the same time reducing the power of the central government.
A real people’s candidate does not support more government, rather he or she cuts the size and scope of government, at every level.
It’s not only good policy it’s good politics.
That candidate is, by definition, the best and only solution.
As Harry S. Truman said, “It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose your own.”
Rush Limbaugh said, “No nation has ever taxed itself into prosperity.”
Choose your candidates with these guidelines in mind and you and your family will prosper or you will lose your job, pension and livelihood.
The Biden team has spent an awful lot of time talking about Senator Tommy Tuberville — but barely any time talking to him. That changed briefly Tuesday when Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin decided to carve out a few short minutes to address what Democrats would have you believe is the single greatest threat to military readiness: a few months’ delay in flag officer promotions.
Their brief conversation was hardly indicative of the hair-on-fire crisis the White House keeps insisting it is. Based on Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s comments Tuesday, you’d think the Alabama coach was a bigger threat to America than communist China. “I wanted to start today, once again, by calling out an unprecedented harm that Senator Tuberville’s actions have to our military readiness and military families — to every branch of our Armed Forces, disrespecting those who serve and the families who serve with them.”
Her Pentagon counterpart, John Kirby, took it a step further, blaming the Republican for everything from the DOD’s recruitment woes to a loss in military talent. At one point, he even accused Tuberville of “abusing” military families (as if somehow underwriting the slaughter of their unborn offspring isn’t).
Asked how his conversation went with Austin, the coach admitted they hadn’t made much progress. “No, not yet,” he told reporters. “None. … Just cordial [conversations]. Everybody gives their position and then, ‘Well, let’s talk again.’”
That talk may be unnecessary, depending on the progress Republicans make with the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in the Senate. Thanks to the House’s conservatives, the latest version of the military spending bill includes language that would roll back the Pentagon’s illegal taxpayer-funded abortion policy — the very lawlessness fueling Tuberville’s stand.
The sooner the better, Tuberville told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Tuesday’s “Washington Watch.” “We’re looking forward to getting some closure to this. It’s been a pretty good fight for about six months now, but they’re really ramping up the pressure. I’ve got the IRS after me. I’ve got national TV going to Alabama interviewing people. You know, it’s just one thing after another. … They’re turning up the heat, but they don’t know what heat’s all about.” As for the battle heating up in the Senate, the coach said, “The Democrat socialist party is throwing a hissy fit. … Let them. I’m looking forward to the fight.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) inched closer to a compromise Wednesday, announcing that he wouldn’t stand in the way of a vote on the military’s policy. “The bottom line is that if he wants to have an affirmative vote, we would not object to it,” the New York Democrat said during a press conference. “Tuberville said he wanted a vote, we’ll see what happens.”
The offer seemed to surprise Tuberville, who was informed and replied, “Oh, really? Well, I’ll have to talk to him. … I’ve never talked to him in two and a half years.”
Meanwhile, Schumer ramped up the hyperbole, insisting that Republicans should do a better job keeping their senators in line. “They are risking our security, and it’s up to them to fix it.”
Give me a break, Tuberville told Perkins. “If I thought I was holding up readiness and national security [in] this country, I wouldn’t be doing this. But that’s not happening. What’s causing our readiness [problems] is the woke policies that this administration is pushing. It’s awful. … And I don’t think they really understand what they’re doing to — not just the military — but all of our other institutions. But it is a total mess right now.”
As Republicans have argued since the beginning, the military has never provided abortion on demand at taxpayers’ expense — not under conservative administrations and not under liberal ones. “You can’t change the rules in the middle of the game,” the coach insisted. “And that’s exactly what they’re doing. They could care less about the Constitution. They have stomped all over our Constitution in the last two and a half years, and the American people should be outraged.”
At the end of the day, the coaching legend explained to Perkins, “The only way I’m going to move these holds is if they move that policy back, and then we bring a vote to the floor. And it’s pretty simple and we get back to business.” In the meantime, he warned, “… I’m standing up for the unborn, and I’m standing up for the taxpayers of this country. That’s what I’m here for.”
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2023-07-20 10:06:182023-07-20 10:08:30‘The Democrat Socialist Party Is Throwing a Hissy Fit and I’m Looking Forward to the Fight’
If this runaway rogue government continues its take down of the country, civil war is inevitable. Trump represents the people. An indictment against Trump is an indictment against every freedom loving American.
The weaponization of federal law enforcement, if it continues, is going to delegitimize the 2024 election before a single ballot is cast.
The news that President Joe Biden’s Justice Department might soon indict and arrest former President Donald Trump over the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol should terrify all Americans, regardless of their political beliefs.
Put bluntly, if Biden’s DOJ arrests Trump, the president’s main political rival heading into the 2024 election, it will trigger a political and electoral crisis unlike any America has ever faced. It’s not too much to say that such a move would not only imperil the upcoming presidential election but the republic itself. Jailing political rivals is what happens in tinpot dictatorships like Nicaragua, where President Daniel Ortega’s political rivals often find themselves arrested and imprisoned on charges of treason.
Now it appears it could happen here. On Tuesday, Trump said he had received a letter informing him he is a target of the federal criminal investigation of Jan. 6 being led by Special Counsel Jack Smith. In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump explained he was given the letter on Sunday and that Smith gave him just four days to report to the grand jury, “which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment,” Trump wrote.
This is the second target letter Trump has received from Smith. The first one came in June, in connection with the unprecedented FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home last year over classified documents. Days later, Trump was charged with dozens of criminal counts relating to seven different federal laws governing the handling of classified material. (Recall that classified documents, some of them top secret and dating back at least six years, were also found in President Joe Biden’s garage and at his “think tank” in Washington, D.C., last November through January. Rest assured Biden will never be indicted over it.)
Trump and others have rightly denounced this as the weaponization of federal law enforcement and the criminalization of political differences. It’s also just a naked attempt to rig the 2024 election in Biden’s favor. As Tucker Carlson has said, “They’re trying to take Trump out before you can vote for him, and that should upset you more than anything that’s happened in American politics in your lifetime.”
That’s not an overstatement. If this scheme works, if Biden’s DOJ succeeds in taking Trump out ahead of 2024 on bogus charges related to Jan. 6, it’s hard to see how we can ever have a normal election again in this country, how the outcome of any future election will be seen as legitimate.
Forget about the stalwart Trump voters who claim 2020 was stolen. If Biden’s DOJ throws Trump in prison, Ortega-style, for a crime the U.S. Senate already acquitted him of, there’ll be a whole new constituency of voters who will claim, rightly, that 2024 has been preemptively stolen.
Indeed, Biden’s Justice Department under Attorney General Merrick Garland might be badly overplaying its hand here, unintentionally swelling the ranks of Americans who might not love Trump but absolutely loathe the way federal law enforcement has been deployed against him and his supporters from the moment he won office in 2016.
Between the Russia-collusion hoax, two bogus impeachments, and a litany of outrageous indictments, Trump’s enemies in Washington are earning him sympathy from ordinary American people, who can recognize injustice and abuse of power when they see it.
They can also recognize what by now is obvious. There are two standards of justice in America: one for establishment insiders like Biden and his corrupt family, and one for outsider politicians like Trump that dissent from the permanent regime in Washington and try to disrupt it.
Spencer Brown: Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday morning that he expects another “arrest and indictment” to come his way as a result of a January 6 grand jury investigation being conducted in Washington, D.C. after he was notified on Sunday evening that he was a “target” of the probe (Townhall).
Just the News: Special counsel Jack Smith is overseeing investigations into Trump’s handling of classified materials as well as the former president’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election results (Just the News).
Benny Johnson: Rep. James Comer reacts to the news that the DOJ is going to arrest and indict Donald Trump again: “They can’t beat him so they’re going to have to disqualify him from the ballot” (Twitter).
Philip Melanchthon Wegmann: Trump expects “arrest and indictment” in connection to January 6th investigation (Twitter).
“It’s absolute bullshit,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said about the news. “That’s the only way the Democrats have to beat President Trump”:
GOP House Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) reacted to the news by calling the potential indictment “unprecedented” and a “corrupt witch hunt.”
“Joe Biden’s Department of Justice continues to target his leading political opponents for the White House,” she said:
“If President Trump is going to be indicted for his speeches before January 6th, then when is Senator @BernieSanders going to be indicted for his speeches that led to the attempted murder of Steve Scalise and other Republicans?” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) questioned on Twitter:
Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) also sounded off, saying, “Jack Smith, Biden’s attack dog is at it again. What part of these tweets are confusing? Never in American history have we seen the Weaponization of the fed like this to interfere in an election.”
“President Trump will be the nominee,” he added:
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) slammed the DOJ in his reaction to the news.
“President Trump just increased his lead in the polls. So what does the Biden Administration do next?” he asked. “Weaponize government to go after President Biden’s number one opponent. This is not equal justice. It’s wrong, and the American public is tired of it”:
“STAND WITH TRUMP!! STAND WITH TRUMP!!” Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) posted on Twitter. “Democrats KNOW they can’t beat Trump in 2024, so they’ve weaponized the FBI YET AGAIN to try to take him down. These people will deeply regret this when Trump is BACK in the White House!!”:
Smith’s probe into January 6 focuses on Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Smith already criminally charged Trump with crimes related to allegedly classified documents.
The indictment fueled 2024 fundraising efforts. Trump’s campaign leads all 2024 presidential contenders with $22.52 million cash on hand thus far in the election cycle, according to the Federal Election Commission.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2023-07-20 09:36:482023-07-21 12:36:55Trump to Be Indicted Yet AGAIN as Part of January 6 Hoax
The Dossier has acquired a new Department of Defense (DOD) memo that goes into great detail on the topic of “care of service members who identify as transgender.”
The Dossier is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
The document, which is not classified but has long remained unavailable to Americans, is being published here for the first time for public consumption.
The 34 page memo details the enormous perks granted to service members who identify as transgender.
At the beginning of his tenure, President Biden ended President Trump’s ban on people who identify as transgender serving in the military. Since then, the Biden Administration has granted more and more benefits to this cohort, leading to dudes like this being celebrated by the Defense Department.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2023-07-20 09:23:302023-07-22 06:57:29Confidential Biden DOD memo reveals ‘transgender’ service members can skip deployments and receive indefinite physical fitness/standards waivers
IRS whistleblower Mr. Ziegler just confirmed that between 2014 to 2019—in just five years—the Biden family received approximately $17 million from Romania, China, & other foreign countries. What were the Bidens’ selling? Nothing but influence and access to the Biden network.
🚨 IRS whistleblower Mr. Ziegler just confirmed that between 2014 to 2019—in just five years—the Biden family received approximately $17 million from Romania, China, & other foreign countries.
BREAKING: MTG asks IRS Whistleblower Joseph Ziegler about bank records identifying that Hunter Biden paid prostitutes and had suspicious activity reports flagged for potential Human Trafficking pic.twitter.com/itR603KmRx
Joseph Ziegler #IRSwhistleblower: Money IRS found that was paid to Hunter Biden and associates from 2014-2019: From Romania $3.1 million CEFC subsidiary: $3m Hudson West III [CEFC]: $3.7m ⁰Burisma $6.5m Total foreign income streams: $17m
Brave Whistleblower Gary Shapley says Biden’s DOJ allowed the President's political appointees to weigh in on whether to charge the President's son.
“After U.S. Attorney for D.C. Matthew Graves, appointed by President Biden, refused to bring charges, I watched Mr. Weiss tell a… pic.twitter.com/KdAt5sVcVO
NEW: IRS whistleblower Shapley testifying Biden-appointed DC US Attorney Matthew Graves made final decision not to investigate Hunter Biden for felonies, not Del. US Attorney Weiss. Graves is a Dem whose liberal activist wife Fatima Gross has visited the Biden WH almost 30 times
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2023-07-20 09:00:352023-07-20 09:28:24IRS Whistleblower Mr. Ziegler Confirms Biden Family Received $17 Million from Romania, China, Burisma, et. al. in Just 5 Years
At one time, America was among the best educated nations in the world. James Madison of Virginia, a key architect of the Constitution, said, “A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.”
But a recent Gallup Poll earlier this month has found that American faith in college today has dropped significantly.
In an article entitled, “Confidence in US higher education has drastically declined,” Campusreform.org reports: “A July 11 Gallup poll reveals that opinions about United States higher education has seen a sharp decline since 2015, with only 36% of polled Americans saying that they have confidence in the country’s colleges and universities. This figure is down from 48% in 2018 and 57% in 2015.” That’s a 21-percentage-point drop in just eight years.
Why is confidence in college plummeting today? Democrats, according to the survey, blame the costs of the schools. Republicans blame the politics. Both seem valid concerns.
Why is confidence in American colleges in free fall? I think it is because virtually all of the colleges and universities have gone “woke,” like so many aspects of our culture.
Many times crazy ideas are hatched in the university faculty lounges that may sound great in theory, but are awful in practice.
Socialism is a great case in point. Can anyone name a square inch on the entire planet where socialism has benefited the people? The ruling elites love it because they benefit from it. Just ask the Castro brothers. American universities today are hotbeds of Marxism and socialism.
About half a century ago, William F. Buckley, Jr. once observed, “I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.”
How far Harvard has fallen from its original Christian purposes. The official motto of Harvard for a couple of centuries was “Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae.” In Latin, that meant “Truth for Christ and the Church.”
The library built in 1914 still has that Latin motto chiseled in stone. But sometime in the early 20th century, they cut off Veritas from its Christian moorings. So now the motto is only “Veritas.” To paraphrase Francis Schaeffer, noted Christian social critic, one could say that Harvard now has truth firmly planted, with both feet in mid-air.
There is a plaque in stone at the entrance of Harvard which declares, “After God had carried us safe to New England, and we had built our houses, provided necessities for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God’s worship, and settled the civil government: one of the next things we longed for, and looked after was to advance learning, and perpetuate it to posterity: dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust.”
The last time I was there, in order to film a portion of our Providence Forum “Foundation of American Liberty” series, I saw that they had planted a tree in front of that stone plaque, so you had to move the branches to even see the sign.
But Harvard has long abandoned the faith that gave it birth. So have so many other universities in our time.
Much of the college campus wokeness is encapsulated in the 3-letter phrase, DEI— standing for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion.
Recently, the New York Postnoted that New York’s university system will require heavy doses of DEI, and social justice in order for students to be able graduate. Good-bye, founding fathers. Hello Marxism. Good-bye, free enterprise. Hello, socialism.
Former college professor Jordan Peterson of Canada left his professorial position ultimately because of political correctness and DEI. He says that they have that acrostic in the wrong order. It should be DIE, because it is killing our universities.
Recently Florida Governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis declared that “DEI-infused” curriculum has no place in the Sunshine State’s public schools: “Florida is getting out of that game…If you want to do things like gender ideology, go to Berkeley — go to some of these other places.”
DeSantis also spoke before a Republican group in North Carolina, where he again railed against woke ideology in the schools: “We’re also the first state in the United States to eliminate DEI from our public university system. They say it is Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, but in reality it’s ideology. It’s an agenda that they are trying to impose, not just on the students, but on faculty and staff.”
He went on to say, “Indeed, DEI, the way it’s practiced, better stands for Discrimination, Exclusion, and Indoctrination, and that has no place in our public institutions.”
Until the universities get back to classical education and jettison the cultural Marxism, we will likely see the confidence in college education and its usefulness for helping build a positive future sink even further.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jerry Newcombe, D. Min.http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJerry Newcombe, D. Min.2023-07-20 08:26:592023-07-20 08:28:00Confidence in American Colleges In Free Fall
