White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said President Joe Biden’s recent remark regarding the “prospect of Armageddon” over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats reflects “the very high stakes that are in play right now.”
ABC “This Week” host Martha Raddatz asked Kirby about Biden’s comment last week that there’s a potential nuclear Armageddon.
Kirby responded, “The president was reflecting the very high stakes that are in play right now.”
He continued: “When you have modern nuclear power and the leader of that modern nuclear power willing to use irresponsible rhetoric the way that Mr. Putin has several times in just the last week or two, as well as the high tension in Ukraine over just the course of the last few days … so the president, I think, was accurately reflecting the fact that the stakes are very high right now.”
Kirby then clarified that Biden’s comments were “not based on new or fresh intelligence or new indications that Mr. Putin has made a decision to use nuclear weapons and, quite frankly, we don’t have any indication that he has made that kind of decision.”
But he added, “Nor have we seen anything that would give us pause to reconsider our own strategic nuclear posture in our efforts to defend our own national security interests and those of our allies and partners.”
Kirby said the president has also said, “neither we nor our allies are going to be intimidated by this.”
At a Democratic fundraiser in New York City last Thursday, Biden said Putin was “not joking when he talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons.”
“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” he added, according to The Associated Press, which noted that the president’s remarks were the starkest warnings yet by the U.S. government about the nuclear stakes.
Biden also suggested the threat from Putin is real “because his military is — you might say — significantly underperforming.”
Last month, Putin said, “I want to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction … and when the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, to protect Russia and our people, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal. It’s not a bluff,” as quoted by the AP.
As the Russian invasion entered its seventh month in October, Ukraine sought an accelerated membership in NATO after Putin announced the annexation of four Ukrainian provinces: the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Putin claimed that residents in the annexed Ukrainian regions voted in a referendum to join his nation. Ukrainian officials called the voting coerced by Russian soldiers.
“The Kremlin’s sham referenda are a futile effort to mask what amounts to a further attempt at a land grab in Ukraine,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement at the time. “To be clear: the results were orchestrated in Moscow and do not reflect the will of the people of Ukraine.”
The U.S. has sent more than $9.8 billion in civilian and military assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began in February. Late last month, Biden signed a bill that includes an additional $12.3 billion for Ukraine’s war effort against Russia. Apart from Ukraine aid and funding for government agencies, the bill authorizes Biden to direct the drawdown of up to $3.7 billion for the transfer of excess weapons to Ukraine from U.S. stocks.
Larry Summers — who served as treasury secretary under former President Bill Clinton and was the director of the National Economic Council under former President Barack Obama — admitted during a Friday interview on Wall Street Week that cancelling the Keystone Pipeline was a “mistake” and that slowing oil permits and “being hostile as a country” toward natural gas were errors as well.
What are the details?
During the interview, Summers was asked about the OPEC+ move to slash oil production by 2 million barrels a day in order to control prices — a move that was a blow to President Joe Biden, who made a trip to Saudi Arabia over the summer to implore oil kingpins there to increase production in order to lower gas prices.
Specifically, Summers was asked if the oil production downturn will have “larger macroeconomic effects” and possibly speed us into a global recession.
“There’s nothing good in this,” Summers replied.
Later he added that “we made a mistake by canceling the Keystone pipeline. We made a mistake by slowing down all kinds of permitting activity. We made a mistake by being hostile as a country to natural gas.”
He also said that “we made a mistake in the Congress a few weeks ago when we didn’t pass” the program from Democrat U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia to expand permitting.
“We crucially need regulatory relief, or we’re not gonna get renewables online fast, and we’re not going to get the transmission lines that are necessary for renewables to become a large part of our energy fast,” Summers added. “So, the real lesson [of] this is we need a different kind of energy strategy than the one that we’ve had. We need a strategy that is balanced rather than an unbalanced strategy of total hostility to fossil fuels, or God knows the kind of total strategy of favoring fossil fuels that we had … even egregious favoritism toward Saudi Arabia that we saw during the Trump administration. We need to find a balance. And I think we’re making our way in that direction.”
Pascal Le Segretain / Staff, Bob Levey / Contributor | Getty Images
We used to understand that not everything is for everybody. We no longer do. We live in the era of unisex bathrooms. In the name of “inclusion,” we killed the Boy Scouts to make room for girls. We expanded marriage. We bought the lie that everything is for everybody. We embraced the myth that we can have it all. No, we can’t. Our collective pursuit of everything undergirds America’s decline.
Pat Riley, the NBA legend, calls it the “disease of more.” A team wins a championship, and every member of the organization wants more for themselves. The quest for more eventually changes the character of the pursuer. He or she loses life balance and compromises core values in the hunt for more.
In my opinion, the “disease of more” explains Tom Brady’s rumored divorce. You can’t have it all.
It’s a lesson that the NFL will soon learn. The National Football League, America’s favorite form of entertainment, wants to have it all. Under the weak leadership of commissioner Roger Goodell, the NFL has spent the last 15 years pursuing corporate media-defined inclusion.
A sport intended to groom young boys and men to compete in a meritocracy has bowed to the feminist worldview of diversity, inclusion, and equity. The NFL strives to be everything for everybody. The push for inclusion has caused the league to prioritize safety.
Safety is a woman’s priority. Men seek thrills and danger. Men aren’t sadistic. We’re made different by design. Our love of danger leads to progress and advancement. Men called “roughnecks” built skyscrapers in the 1920s. Forty percent of them fell to their deaths or disablement. Women never would have done it.
The NFL’s preference to maximize safety and limit danger poses the greatest threat to America’s most popular sport. It’s a far more damaging initiative than the league’s promotion of Black Lives Matter and anti-American sentiment.
People watch football because we’re entertained by seeing men flirt with danger in pursuit of a goal.
Football is far less entertaining than it was 20 years ago, before an onslaught of rules changes softened the game and demonized hard hits. Yesterday’s Atlanta-Tampa Bay game was ruined when referee Jerome Boger flagged a Falcons defensive lineman for a routine sack of Tom Brady. The roughing-the-passer penalty cost Atlanta any chance of a comeback.
On Miami’s first offensive play against the New York Jets, officials monitoring the game removed quarterback Teddy Bridgewater because he allegedly briefly staggered when getting to his feet after a routine hit. Bridgewater was not allowed to return to the game. Facing Miami’s third-string quarterback, the Jets won in a romp.
The Brady and Bridgewater plays are a direct result of the Tua Tagovailoa controversy two weeks ago. Tagovailoa, who is fragile, suffered brief paralysis after a routine hit. Without a shred of evidence, broadcasters and social media influencers connected Tagovailoa’s brief paralysis to a hit he suffered four days earlier.
Broadcasters demonized the Dolphins organization and the team’s head coach for allowing Tua to play. The NFLPA demanded an investigation and then worked with the NFL to enact immediate new rules related to concussion protocols. Those new rules are why Bridgewater disappeared yesterday after one play.
We all want football to be safe. When it’s not safe, we want to blame somebody.
The game isn’t meant to be safe. It’s meant to be dangerous and entertaining. People are going to get hurt. It’s inevitable. It’s no different from boxing or mixed martial arts. It’s no different from working on a skyscraper in the 1920s.
The NFL won’t make this argument because the league wants to be all things to all people. It wants to avoid upsetting women and men who have been feminized to the point that they might as well be women.
The NFL fears moms. Women who won’t let their sons play football because the sport is too dangerous. They’re the same women who won’t let their kids go to school without wearing a mask. They’re women who want to remove all the risks from life. Women and beta males desire for all of us to sit in our homes playing video games, communicating over social media, watching 50-year-old Queen Latifah beat up men in “The Equalizer” TV series, and waiting for our next booster shot. They want us all to transition into women. Their plan is working.
I’ve watched football for 50 years. I turned off my television when I saw Tua’s momentarily disfigured fingers locked in the air. I briefly lost my appetite for football. That has never happened before. It speaks to the impact of football concussion propaganda. I’ll watch someone get knocked out in the ring or octagon and jump for joy.
But we have been programmed to see violence in football as savage and gruesome. Fifteen years ago, Chris Berman and Tom Jackson could react to NFL big hits the way Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier still do at UFC events. We’re all still allowed to enjoy seeing fighters get put in the concussion protocol. It’s socially unacceptable to enjoy it on the football field. We pretend that the grossly exaggerated CTE pandemic only affects football players. We’ve been feminized. We’ve been programmed to prioritize our emotions and feelings over logic and fact.
We no longer know when, how, and where we should feed and support man’s innate desire to take risks. We’ve been convinced swiping left and right on Tinder is a better venue for risk-taking than a football field. More kids will be permanently and severely damaged in a hospital operating room undergoing gender-affirming surgery than playing football.
You get my point? The very people trying to make the world safer are actually making it more dangerous.
Football isn’t for women. Trying to make the game more palatable to women is a mistake. It’s why Arizona quarterback Kyler Murray showed up to work on Sunday wearing a lime green Hillary Clinton pantsuit. Among other things, feminized football turns men into runway models.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
A sex-ed curriculum developed by an offshoot of Planned Parenthood to teach children about abortion and radical gender ideology is being imposed on school districts across red-state Idaho. The curriculum, called “Reducing the Risk,” is a project of the nonprofit Education, Training and Research (ETR) developed in partnership with Planned Parenthood and already deployed across 16 states, including Idaho.
Students under the “queer-centered” curriculum, which is behind a paywall, are presented with a new definition of abstinence, which has been amended from its real meaning — refraining entirely from sex — to “choosing not to do any sexual activity that carries a risk for pregnancy or STD/HIV,” according to the conservative Idaho Freedom Foundation. The curriculum then offers explicit material about “porn literacy,” condoms, anal and vaginal sex with contraception, transgender ideology, and even guidance on abortion, the state think tank reported.
Anna Miller, the education policy director for the Idaho Freedom Foundation, blew the whistle on the curriculum in a video published on Twitter in September. The video features an apparent clip from the ETR package, which shows animated students watching porn.
Idaho’s government offers “porn literacy” to students, planned parenthood curriculum and advocates for abortion.
The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, a state agency, is facilitating the program in the state’s schools with federal grant money, bypassing the state education department.
This is How The Federal Government is Corrupting our Schools on the State Level — Injecting Leftism, Sexualized Curriculum, and Abortion into Rural America. @scottyenor @CenterForAWL pic.twitter.com/uAkKjttCia
While the curriculum is designed for high school students, the state reported to the federal Department of Health and Human Services that kids as young as 12 are being presented with the material.
All seven of Idaho’s health districts have either recommended or implemented the controversial curriculum in local schools, according to the Idaho Freedom Foundation. Districts have also begun to promote links to additional resources including Power to Decide, where kids can find where to get an abortion. Other resources include links to where students learn to hide their browsing history from parents and explore polyamory.
In a September statement responding to outrage over porn literacy being taught in Idaho schools, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare described the Planned Parenthood-sponsored curriculum as compliant with the “National Health Education Standards” from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the department’s website on teen pregnancy does not link to standards from the CDC. Instead, it links to the “National Sexuality Education Standards,” which were created by a series of radical left-wing interest groups including the Human Rights Campaign and Planned Parenthood, which has become the nation’s second-largest provider of transgender hormones. In other words, Planned Parenthood’s trans-focused sex ed materials are encouraging kids to become its lifelong mutilation customers. The standards dictate that students should understand and “describe” the “role of hormone blockers on young people who identify as transgender” by the end of fifth grade.
In a bizarre student workbook for the “Reducing the Risk” curriculum on the Planned Parenthood website, students are trained to call clinics to inquire about sterilization, shop for condoms, and answer questions about different hypothetical situations. One situation describes a scene where “a lot of kids are getting high, and some couples are leaving — maybe to have sex.” Another worksheet guides students to document how to get to a so-called “family planning clinic,” such as abortion giant Planned Parenthood, by bus or train.
The trans-centered curriculum in Idaho is being implemented without notifying parents, many of whom are being left in the dark by administrators claiming to teach “abstinence education.”
Children have become a prime target for left-wing ideologues promoting radical transgender ideology. Health care networks have taken notice, capitalizing on gender-confused kids who then become life-long patients when they start to pursue irreversible gender-bending treatments.
According to a report from Grand View Research, a California-based business consulting firm, transgender surgeries will become a $5 billion industry over the next 10 years. In September, Vanderbilt University earned national attention for openly placing dollar signs on children as a “big money maker.”
Vanderbilt was apparently concerned that not all of its staff would be on board. Dr. Ellen Clayton warned that "conscientious objections" are "problematic." Anyone who decides not to be involved in transition surgeries due to "religious beliefs" will face "consequences" pic.twitter.com/CgNicrG4Mg
Boston Children’s Hospital has also promoted “gender-affirming” hysterectomies and sterilizations for minors, who are almost always introduced to transgender ideology either on social media or in the classroom.
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.
DACA recipients and their supporters rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court on June 18, 2020, in Washington, D.C. On Thursday morning, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, denied the Trump administration’s attempt to end DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images
A federal appeals court has ruled that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides deportation protection and specific benefits to immigrants who entered the country illegally as children, is unlawful. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled Wednesday to uphold a lower court decision blocking the Biden administration from granting new applications for DACA. The ruling allows current DACA recipients the ability to renew their two-year protected status.
The appeals court panel remanded the case to a district court in Houston to consider a new Biden administration policy enacted in August in hopes of protecting the program. Fifth Circuit Chief Judge Priscilla Richman authored the panel opinion, writing that the lower court is right when to conclude that DACA violated the Administrative Procedure Act.
“DACA created a detailed, streamlined process for granting enormously significant, predefined benefits to over 800,000 people. This constitutes a substantive rule,” Richman, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, wrote in the majority opinion.
“Because DACA did not undergo notice and comment, it violates the procedural requirements of the APA.”
Richman concluded that DACA “contravenes comprehensive statutory schemes for removal, allocation of lawful presence, and allocation of work authorization.”
“Declining to prosecute does not transform presence deemed unlawful by Congress into lawful presence and confer eligibility for otherwise unavailable benefits based on that change,” the opinion added, quoting an earlier ruling against the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA.
Created during the Obama administration in 2012, DACA provided people who were minors when they illegally entered the U.S. with benefits, including protection from being deported, the ability to apply for a driver’s license, a social security number and a permit to work. Other conditions to be eligible for DACA relief included having no criminal record, being a student or honorably discharged veteran of the armed forces, being under the age of 30 when the memorandum was released and having lived in the U.S. for at least five years from when the program was initiated. The policy protected over 800,000 immigrants — known as Dreamers — but didn’t grant them a pathway to citizenship or official legal status.
Richman acknowledged that “DACA has had profound significance to recipients and many others in the ten years since its adoption.”
“Given the ‘uncertainty of the final disposition’ and the ‘inevitable disruption that would arise from a lack of continuity and stability,’ we preserve the stay as to existing recipients,” the opinion states.
President Donald Trump’s efforts to rescind DACA were thwarted by litigation, with the U.S. Supreme Court stopping the Trump administration from ending the program in a 5-4 decision in 2020. In July 2021, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen issued an order halting the Biden administration from granting new applications for DACA, concluding in part that the Obama-era DHS violated the APA with the creation and continued operation of DACA.
“The DACA Memorandum and the DACA program that it created are hereby vacated and remanded to DHS for further consideration,” wrote Hanen last year.
World Relief, an Evangelical humanitarian organization that has helped to file more than 4,300 DACA applications, released a statement denouncing the district court’s order as “devastating” to Dreamers.
“This new decision is devastating for these resilient young people, and for their families, churches, communities and employers,” stated World Relief President Scott Arbeiter at the time.
“Congress should not wait for further court decisions: they must act immediately to finally pass legislation that the significant majority of Americans. Including the majority of evangelical Christians, say they support.”
Immigration advocates have been calling on the U.S. Congress for years to pass immigration reform legislation. Those calls will be heightened in the aftermath of Wednesday’s ruling.
Neil Mockford / Contributor, Ronald Martinez / Staff | Getty Images
Kanye West is not as confusing as he often sounds. His outlook on life stems from a defined set of values spelled out in the Bible. His actions and words often conflict with his outlook. He’s normal. Every human being struggles to align their values and deeds. The difference between West and most human beings is the transparency of his failures.
Yesterday, West sat down for an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson. The 45-year-old rapper, fashion designer, and provocateur was his usual mix of brilliance, confusion, contradiction, and oddity. When asked how people respond to a baby ultrasound lanyard he wears, West proclaimed his faith.
“I don’t care about people’s responses,” he said. “I care about the fact that there’s more black babies being aborted than born in New York City at this point, that 50 percent of black death in America is abortion. So I really don’t care about people’s responses. I perform for an audience of one, and that’s God.”
It was a brilliant and courageous answer, especially for a Hollywood celebrity. We’ve come to expect that from West.
Earlier this week, at a fashion show in Paris, West and gal pal Candace Owens donned T-shirts emblazoned with the words “White Lives Matter.” The shirts mocked the Black Lives Matter movement. Via Instagram, Kanye called BLM a “scam.” Owens has a documentary set to release in five days – “The Greatest Lie Ever Told” – that is expected to further expose BLM’s financial malfeasance and LGBTQ agenda.
Kanye is drumming up attention for Owens’ takedown of BLM. The progressive establishment, the globalists using race to divide, conquer, and queer America, are frustrated by their inability to control “Kunta Kinte” West. Adidas is threatening to dissolve its long-standing partnership with West. Corporate media outlets dispatched their legion of race police to publicly flog West for affirming the value of white life. Rolling Stone complained that the shirts legitimized extremism. A potpourri of black intellectuals deemed the shirts disgusting, harmful, and dangerous.
West did not back away from the controversy in his conversation with Carlson. He said he acted on a “gut instinct.” He then oddly analogized the stunt to disgraced Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding.
That’s classic Kanye West. He contradicts. He produces an album titled “Jesus Is King” and then collaborates with Lil Nas X on the song and video “Industry Baby,” which depicts gay prison sex.
West, like most of us, serves God and the world. The pull of the world is much stronger for West. He’s one of the world’s biggest celebrities. The success of his music and fashion depend on public opinion and popularity. He succumbs to those pressures.
Fame is an intoxicating and destructive drug. Kanye is battling his addiction to it with biblical faith. I respect the sincerity of his fight. He truly values family and being a good father. He wants to see black Americans improve our plight. He believes in the power of truth.
His comments related to abortion and the normalization of obesity – “it’s actually clinically unhealthy. And for people to promote that, it’s demonic” – reveal a deeper understanding of the cultural rot destroying America.
We’re in a battle of good vs. evil. Kanye is one of the good guys. He’s trying to be on the right side of God rather than the history left-wing atheists plan to write.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
While students post low literacy rates in math and reading, Chicago teachers are acing their performance evaluations, according to the Illinois Report Card. In 2021, 100% of Chicago Public School teachers were evaluated as “proficient or excellent” by an administrator, according to the Illinois Report Card, the”state’s official source” for information on its public schools. The same year, students posted a 23.1% proficiency rate in English language arts, a 20.6% proficiency rate in math and a 29.3% proficiency rate in science. (RELATED:Chicago Children’s Hospital Promotes Sex Toys And Gender Affirming Tools For Schools)
“It sounds like the teachers or teacher unions are the ones performing the evaluations,” No Left Turn in Education Chief Operating Officer Melissa Jackson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “It most certainly is not ensuring that Chicago Public School students will graduate equipped to become productive and self sufficient independent citizens. What are the teachers actually being graded on? So students are failing and teachers are excelling? How is that equitable?”
Grade 11 black students had a 11.2% proficiency rate in English and Hispanic students scored a 15.7% proficiency rate, the report showed. In math, grade 11 black students had an 8.3% proficiency rate and Hispanic students showed a 16.6% proficiency rate, the report stated.
About 36% of students in the district are black, 46.8% are Hispanic and about 11% are white, according to the report.
The same year, 2021, Chicago Public Schools announced a record high graduation rate of nearly 84%, according to Fox 32 Chicago. In 2011 the graduation rate was about 57%.
Students arrive for classes at A. N. Pritzker elementary school on January 12, 2022 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
“Something is horribly wrong in Chicago if teachers are earning perfect evaluation scores when only one in ten black students in Chicago Public Schools can read at grade level,” Parents Defending Education Investigative Fellow Alex Nester told the DCNF. “Chicago teachers called parents ‘racist’ and ‘misogynist’ for wanting to reopen schools during the pandemic. They chose to strike over teaching kids. And now, while they receive perfect scores, kids are suffering. Make no mistake: Chicago teachers may have passed in the eyes of the state, but test scores don’t lie. They’ve failed their kids.”
The Illinois Report Card notes that the suspension of in-person learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic may have effected the 2020-2021 data collection and evaluations.
Enrollment at Chicago Public Schools has been dropping since the 2011-2012 school year; that year 404,243 students were enrolled in the school district, but now just 322,106 are enrolled, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Chicago Public Schools did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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Mermaids touts itself as one the United Kingdom’s “leading LGBTQ+ charities,” committed to “supporting transgender, nonbinary and gender-diverse children.” Over the last three weeks, the taxpayer-subsidized group has faced intense scrutiny. In late September, it was condemned for giving out so-called “breast binders” to children against their parents’ wishes. This week, a trustee of the group quit after it was revealed he had both advocated for destigmatizing pedophilia and spoke at a conference hosted by a group that serves pedophiles.
The perversions linked to the so-called charity drew the ire of British author J.K. Rowling, author of the “Harry Potter” series and notable critic of transsexual extremism, misogyny, and those who reject the reality of biological sex.
Responding to a tweet that said Mermaids was on its way to “be the new Savile” — a reference to the notorious pedophile and rapist Jimmy Savile — Rowling noted how the group’s influence would not have been possible “without the money and public support of certain corporations and celebrities, who eagerly boosted them even though the red flags have been there for years.”
We've now learned that Mermaids appointed a paedophilia apologist as Trustee and that their online moderator encouraged kids to move onto a platform notorious for sexual exploitation. This is a charity that's achieved unprecedented influence in the UK. 2/5 https://t.co/7guDJYAalJ
Extra to a host of big corporate sponsors like Starbucks, Mermaids has benefitted from donations from high-profile celebrities like Emma Watson, an actress who came to prominence in the “Harry Potter” movies.
I donate to @Mermaids_Gender and @mamacash. If you can, perhaps you’ll feel inclined to do the same. ❤️
Rowling suggested that “Mermaids’ fingers were all over the Tavistock Gender Identity Clinic debacle.”
The Tavistock clinic, opened in 1989, is shutting down this year. It was accused of hurriedly foisting puberty-blocking drugs onto children, which reportedly cause sterility and deformities. One former patient, Keira Bell, took Tavistock to court, claiming that the clinic didn’t challenge her ahead of prescribing her sterilizing medications when she was a minor.
They've been allowed into classrooms, trained police and had unprecedented influence over health policy, even though by their own admission they aren't a medical charity. We've also found out they're sending devices to flatten breasts to underage girls w/o parental consent. 4/5
Rowling raised the matter of Mermaids sending so-called “chest binders” to children without their parents’ consent. Chest binders are pieces of compression clothing that flatten a woman’s chest to make her more “male-presenting.” They reportedly can cause breathing difficulties, chronic back pain, headaches, skin infections, broken ribs, and malformations of the spine. 97% of those who use them suffer health problems as a result.
The Telegraph reported late last month that Mermaids was sending “potentially dangerous chest-flattening devices to 13-year-olds against their parents’ wishes.” In one instance, Mermaids agreed to send an adult whom they believed was a 14-year-old girl a breast binder, despite her informing them that her mother would “not allow” it.
According to the Telegraph, Mermaids has been running a free “binder scheme” since 2019.
In addition to pushing these devices on children, the group allegedly told individuals whom they believed to be minors that sterilizing puberty-blocking drugs were safe and “totally reversible.” A study published last month in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy indicated that such claims are far from being true.
Parents have suggested that Mermaids also convinced children they were transsexual and that hormones and mutilation might “cure” their issues.
Stephanie Davies-Arai, founder and director of Transgender Trend, a group that combats the mutilation of children, told the Telegraph that Mermaids “are giving out inaccurate and partial information and they are encouraging people to trust in what is a medical experiment.” When the Telegraph published its report revealing how Mermaids circumnavigated parents and contravened their wishes in efforts to mutilate their children, Rowling welcomed greater scrutiny of the organization.
On September 29, it was announced that the U.K.’s Charity Commission would be investigating Mermaids. A spokesman from the commission stated, “Concerns have been raised with us about Mermaids’ approach to safeguarding young people. We have opened a regulatory compliance case and have written to the trustees. We now wait their reply.”
One of Mermaids’ trustees from whom the commission wanted to hear, Dr. Jacob Breslow, resigned days later, on October 3, after it was revealed he had previously given a presentation at an event hosted by B4U-ACT, a group that promotes services and resources for pedophiles.
In his presentation and in its corresponding paper, Breslow employed the phrase “minor attracted persons” instead of “pedophile” to when referring to degenerates who are sexually attracted to children.
According to Breslow, “Allowing for a form of non-diagnosable minor attraction is exciting. … This understanding may displace the stigma, fear and objection that is naturalised as being attached to minor-attracted persons and may alter the terms by which non-normative sexualities are known.”
Breslow, who had been a trustee of the children-focused group Mermaids up until this week, also stated, “Many tend to begin with the linkage of paedophilic desire to harmful and abusive relationships and acts … rather than questioning, normative gendered and sexual intelligibility.”
Rowling wrote that an individual who had been arguing for the destigmatization of pedophilia, never recanted those beliefs, and “then wheedled” his way onto the board of a charity for vulnerable kids should be fired. She went onto tweet that either Mermaids did not do due diligence or “they were fine with [Breslow’s] views.”
When you appoint a trustee to a children's charity, you do due diligence. A simple google search would have enabled Mermaids to read Breslow's own words. Either they did literally no checking, or they were fine with his views. Either way, it's a catastrophic safeguarding failure. https://t.co/TBWHiDbXca
India Willoughby, Britain’s first man to read the news while claiming to be a woman on Channel 5, suggested that someone “needs to take legal action against JK Rowling.”
Rowling embraced Willoughby’s initiative, writing, “India, I swear to God, if you want to start a petition for Mermaids to take me on in court, the first signature will be mine.”
India, I swear to God, if you want to start a petition for Mermaids to take me on in court, the first signature will be mine. https://t.co/1HZ6BbCX55
Rowling highlighted that some of her leftist critics were apparently less concerned that a trustee for a so-called trans charity for children “wrote sympathetically about orgasming ‘on or with’ a child … but that the TERFs might ‘twist’ his appointment.”
Perfect example. The problem isn't that a man who wrote sympathetically about orgasming 'on or with' a child was made trustee of a children's charity, but that the TERFs might 'twist' his appointment. Then straight back to the self-soothing mantras, with a glow of inner virtue. pic.twitter.com/KwDWSK2B79
In light of this recent controversy, Mermaids has shut down its hotline, citing “intolerable abuse.”
Due to intolerable abuse, we have made the decision to close the helpline and webchat services for the rest of today and tomorrow. Next week, to enable us to take all volunteers off the rota, we will reduce hours to 9am to 6pm only.
When gas prices rise, it instantly fuels political rhetoric about price gouging and the need to help motorists pay at the pump. It’s as automatic as pushing the starter button and hearing the engine crank up.
“Crude oil prices are down. Oil industry profits are up. Yet gas prices in CA have increased by record amounts. It doesn’t add up,” the governor tweeted.
“We’re not going to stand by while greedy oil companies fleece Californians.”
It caught the recessed Legislature by surprise. But leaders reacted instinctively.
“Californians are still being gouged by oil companies’ indefensible nonstop price increases,” Senate leader Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) responded in a joint statement.
They pledged “to take a hard look at any proposal to go after windfall profits that oil companies are raking in by bilking consumers. In fact, we’ll look at every option to end the oil industry profiteering off the backs of hard-working Californians.”
UC Berkeley energy economist Severin Borenstein put it quite well in a May blog. “Politicians and the media have been obsessed with ‘doing something’ about high gasoline prices,” he wrote.
“On the left, leaders express outrage that oil companies are making so much money and not sharing it with consumers…. Like that’s a thing. Apple is going to lower its iPhone price because it’s making too much money?”
“From politicians on the right, comes the ‘drill, baby, drill’ policy response….“It’s frustrating when straightforward economic analysis takes a back seat to political rhetoric and ideology.”
Borenstein is faculty director of the UC Berkeley Energy Institute. I asked him about Newsom’s proposed windfall profits tax.
“It wouldn’t do anything to lower gas prices,” the professor said. “It would just recover some of the money.
“We should tax oil extraction” — tax the goo as it’s pumped from the ground. “We’re the only major oil producing state that doesn’t. The oil industry fights like hell against that.”
The Legislature passed an oil severance tax in 2009, but then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it. In 2006, the oil industry spent $95 million to defeat a severance ballot measure. That would raise at least $1 billion a year, but it won’t happen in the foreseeable future. Democratic lawmakers are skittish about taxes, and Republicans are protective of the oil industry.
In my imagination, I could see Democratic legislators rolling their eyes as Newsom unveiled his tax proposal by posting a few characters on Twitter, rather than spelling out details in a carefully crafted policy paper. They’re thinking, “There he goes again.”
The rhetoric comes easy for this governor. He promised the details in a week or two. They’ll be much tougher. How do you determine what’s a windfall profit?
And is this an oil industry political ploy? An old-fashioned “October surprise” designed to hurt the party in power — Democrats — with untenable gas prices as the election nears? If Democrats think that, Newsom should call the Legislature back into special session immediately to deal with the mischief. The governor would have to work closely with legislative dealers to round up the necessary two-thirds majority vote. That’s not his style. It’s possible but very difficult in an election year. It would require flexing all the governor’s and leaders’ muscles.
Or is it the natural result of too many oil refineries simultaneously being shut down for repairs — a coincidence, rather than collusion?
Only a few people really know that. And they sit in corporate suites, not the governor’s office or Legislature. If the Legislature doesn’t convene before the Nov. 8 election, it probably won’t consider the matter until new members take office in early December. It probably would be at least January before the new Legislature acted.
Meanwhile, the state is beginning to send Californians $9.5 billion in so-called rebates inspired by last winter’s gas price hike. You don’t have to be a car owner to benefit. The reimbursements will range from $200 per individual income taxpayer to $1,050 per family, with lower-income people receiving the most. If your income exceeds $250,000 for an individual or $500,000 for a couple, you get nothing. This relief package won’t cost oil companies. It’ll cost the state.
Newsom thankfully did take some meaningful action that should lower pump prices — maybe by 50 cents a gallon in a week or two. He asked the California Air Resources Board to allow refineries to begin producing cheaper winter-blend gasoline. That could make Los Angeles smoggier. But costly summer-blend gas is one reason California’s fuel prices are so much higher than in other states. Other reasons are very high state taxes, environmental regulations and extra refining costs. California is also isolated: There isn’t a pipeline that brings gas into the state. We import by ship. And our own oil production has fallen over the decades, largely because wells have been pumped out.
It’s probably going to get worse as we move away from gas engines. Less demand will mean fewer refineries and less supply. Higher prices. But fewer climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions. It’s going to be a bumpy road for motorists, no matter the merits of an unlikely windfall profits tax.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com, and WhatDidYouSay.org.
Source: AP Photo/Steven Senne, File
News reports about the hardships endured by the Venezuelan illegal immigrants sent by Gov. Ron DeSantis to Martha’s Vineyard are hard to hear.
One “migrant” told The New York Times that he felt “betrayed” because he didn’t know … the Florida government had paid for his flight! “If I had known, I would not have gotten involved.”
It’s one thing for the Venezuelans to accept a free flight from federal taxpayers, but quite another to have Floridians paying for their transportation!
Another illegal immigrant was crying “uncontrollably” into the phone with his wife, saying “My love, we were tricked. This woman lied to us. She lied.”
I was really hoping for Honolulu. Plus, The Black Dog was out of avocado toast. THEY LIED!!!
But this preposterous article apparently took MSNBC by storm.
MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace: “sadistic politicians.”
Former Sen. Claire McCaskill: How can “someone who professes to be a Christian … treat these people this way”?
MSNBC “Republican” Charlie Sykes: Will DeSantis “wake up in the middle of the night and ask, ‘What was I thinking? What did I do?'”
I have to assume Times reporters are toying with MSNBC:
I bet I can get MSNBC to somberly report this story.
Nah, no one’s going to believe anyone was emotionally scarred from spending a day on Martha’s Vineyard.
Alan Dershowitz has a place there.
You’re right — send it to Nicole Wallace.
Massachusetts Democrat Dylan Fernandes tried to goose the illegals’ martyrdom, saying, “When [the Venezuelans] opened up their phones and put on Google Maps to see where they were and found out that they were surrounded entirely by water — that was terrifying.”
This remark was earnestly reported by the Times.
Hello? Between 70% and 85% of Venezuelans live on the coast. Water terrifies them?
One fact to bear in mind when listening to the illegals’ tales of woe is that asylum-seekers are the biggest liars on Earth. You, hardworking taxpayer, may not know this, but journalists do.
The asylum scam has been extensively documented in places like The New Yorker and the Times. (This was back when “journalism” consisted of something more than hourly Trump updates.)
In a 2011 article, “The Asylum Seeker,” The New Yorker described the dramatic performance of one central African asylum-seeker, “Caroline,” who’d flown to America for a wedding and decided to stay.
The following next paragraph contains graphic content about a story an asylum-seeker told an immigration official about rape:
Weeping — just like the Venezuelans in Martha’s Vineyard — Caroline told a U.S. immigration official: “[Government soldiers] took me by the head and they put my head against their penis. … They spat on us. They wanted us to do things. … They beat us up and did horrible things to us … They forced us to do fellatio and they put objects in our genitals. They stamped on us, they trampled us for three days. I suffered many infections because of the rape. My kidneys got infected.”
Earlier, Caroline had laughingly admitted to the reporter, “I have never been raped.” But as she performed for the immigration officer, “[t]he tears were flowing now, and she asked [for] tissues.”
Asylum-seekers like the Venezuelans learn their lines by memorizing scripts given to them by immigration activists and lawyers (all paid for by you, taxpayer). A former immigration lawyer told The New Yorker that there are persecution scripts for each country. “There’s the Colombian rape story” he said. “They all say they were raped by the FARC. There’s the Rwandan rape story, the Tibetan refugee story. The details for each are the same.”
It is beyond certain that the Venezuelans are spouting lines being fed to them by activists. (Though, to be fair, a fake violent gang rape does not remotely compare to the fake tragedy of being flown to Martha’s Vineyard.)
A law clerk (again: paid for by you) working for Caroline had proposed, “Why don’t you say you were circumcised?” A Russian woman claiming she was persecuted in Russia for being gay openly told her immigration attorney, “I’m not gay at all. I don’t even like gay people.” That last one was quoted in a 2011 Times article on the gigantic scam of asylum cases, “Asylum Ploys Play Off News To Open Door.”
From top to bottom, the entire asylum process is staffed by known liars who hate our country — the third-world invaders, their lawyers, the activists, as well as the government officials overseeing the “Wreck America” program.
Displayed prominently in the immigration office visited by Caroline was a poster for Cuba’s Communist Party. Why go to Latin America to fight for communism and risk ending up in a Peruvian prison for 15 years, like Lori Berenson? You can fight for communism right here at home, approving asylum applications!
In fact, the asylum officer and Caroline could have shared a good laugh about how much America sucks. While applying to stay in the U.S. permanently (with full welfare benefits), she carped, “I don’t know why I didn’t just go back. They are racists and xenophobes here.”
We ought to make all immigrants sign a form upon entering our country: I hereby acknowledge I am not descended from American slaves and am not allowed to complain about “racism.”
The good news is that, at this rate, soon there will be no difference in our country and the second-rate countries these people are fleeing. No point to applying for asylum after that! We’ll all be exactly the same. The bad news is, there will be no country left where Americans can seek asylum.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
An attorney with the voting rights division of the Department of Justice — which enforces federal laws related to voting — allegedly violated election law when she voted in the 2020 presidential election in North Carolina, a new memo by the American Accountability Foundation outlines.
Longtime DOJ attorney Janie Sitton cast a ballot in North Carolina’s 2020 general election, despite being a resident of Washington, D.C., at the time. While Donald Trump ended up carrying North Carolina by just 1.3 points, the race was a dead heat until the very end. This was not the case in the District of Columbia, however, where Trump earned only 5 percent of the vote. Perhaps this is why Sitton chose to vote in the Tar Heel State rather than D.C. — and it’s a prime example of how skirting election laws can contribute to rigged elections.
On Monday, the American Accountability Foundation (AAF) filed bar complaints in both North Carolina and D.C. over Sitton’s presumed misconduct. In the memo compiled by AAF, voter data shows Sitton as a resident and active voter in D.C. since Aug. 13, 2010, voting in five elections leading up to 2018. Since 2018, Sitton has claimed a D.C. homestead deduction on her tax filings. To claim that tax deduction, residents must declare that the property is their principal residence, according to the memo.
“Submitting a false statement on these property tax records can subject the applicant to criminal penalties, according to the fraud and false statement laws under 47-4106 of the Code of the District of Columbia,” according to AAF.
Sitton also owns a condominium in North Carolina, which she bought in 2002. Tax documents indicate Sitton’s mailing address for the condominium is her Washington, D.C., address.
In August 2020, however, Sitton registered to vote in North Carolina using the address of her condo, per the state’s Board of Elections Voter Database. Shortly after Sitton registered to vote in North Carolina, she cast a ballot in the 2020 general election as well as a municipal election in November 2021. In May 2022, Sitton abruptly restored her voter registration in Washington, per D.C. Board of Elections data.
Sitton was essentially voting in North Carolina as if that were her primary residence while claiming a homestead deduction on her apparently real primary residence in D.C. A year prior to casting her ballot in the 2020 election, Sitton even signed a mortgage agreement to keep her North Carolina condo as a second non-residence property, per AAF.
Such behavior ostensibly violates North Carolina state statute, which, according to AAF, defines “what is and is not considered residency for the purposes of registering to vote within the state.” The statute defines residency as:
(1) That place shall be considered the residence of a person in which that person’s habitation is fixed, and to which, whenever that person is absent, that person has the intention of returning….4) If a person removes to another state or county, municipality, precinct, ward, or other election district within this State, with the intention of making that state, county, municipality, precinct, ward, or other election district a permanent residence, that person shall be considered to have lost residence in the state, county, municipality, precinct, ward, or other election district from which that person has removed [emphasis added].
Presumably, Sitton never had the intention of making her North Carolina condo her primary residence when she cast her ballot in the 2020 election.
“Janie Sitton, a senior attorney in the DOJ Voting Section, lied about her residency to register to vote in North Carolina so she could vote in a competitive Presidential election,” AAF Founder Tom Jones told The Federalist. “If DOJ election attorneys are unwilling to abide by the most straightforward of election laws, how can we trust them to enforce voting laws in the upcoming election?”
Sitton’s alleged partisanship is nothing new to the DOJ, which has a history of politically motivated abuse of federal law. For example, the agency is actively involved in delaying election integrity efforts in Florida, has sued both Georgia and Texas over additional election integrity legislation, and is helping facilitate Biden’s federal takeover of elections. The DOJ’s current associate attorney general, Vanita Gupta, headed a DOJ lawsuit attempting to block voter ID laws in North Carolina in 2015.
Not to mention that the current head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division (which Sitton’s voting rights division falls under), Kristen Clarke, led a lawsuit against then-Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s election integrity policies as a private lawyer, peddled the Jussie Smollett hate crime hoax, and in college argued that blacks are the superior race. In other words, it’s not just Sitton that appears to be a politically motivated actor, it’s pretty much the entire DOJ.
“Instances like this show how sophisticated election lawyers can game the system,” former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell told Breitbart. And ” how easily voting laws can be leveraged by those who know how those laws are written.”
The DOJ did not respond to The Federalist’s request for comment.
Victoria Marshall is a staff writer at The Federalist. Her writing has been featured in the New York Post, National Review, and Townhall. She graduated from Hillsdale College in May 2021 with a major in politics and a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @vemrshll.
On October 3, the New York Times’ Stuart Thompson criticized so-called “far-right election deniers” for a “conspiracy theory” alleging that Konnech, an election software company based in East Lansing, Michigan, had “secret ties to the Chinese Communist Party and had given the Chinese government backdoor access to personal data about two million poll workers in the United States.” Thompson, a “misinformation and disinformation” reporter, suggested that these claims, which allegedly made the CEO of the company cry, were used to “raise doubts about the integrity of American elections.”
The NY Times piece ended in a quote from the company’s 51-year-old Chinese-born CEO, Eugene Yu: “They had no interest in the truth. … The truth is inconvenient.”
On October 4, Konnech CEO Eugene Yu was arrested on suspicion of theft of personal identifying information and computer hard drives.
In a statement issued after Yu’s arrest, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón said, “Data breaches are an ongoing threat to our digital way of life. When we entrust a company to hold our confidential data, they must be willing and able to protect our personal identifying information from theft. Otherwise, we are all victims”
According to Gascón’s office, while Konnech was required to store sensitive election-related data in the United States and only make it accessible to citizens and permanent residents, the company had stored data on servers in China.
True the Vote, a Texas-based nonprofit founded in 2009 with a mandate to bolster election integrity, was sued by Konnech last month for defamation, after True the Vote claimed the company was guilty of that for which Yu has now been arrested.
On Tuesday, True the Vote issued a statement, saying, “Konnech CEO Eugene Yu was arrested based on alleged evidence of the very activities he and his organization attempted to suppress.”
True the Vote, tarred by Thompson as “far-right election deniers” and “conspiracy theorists,” added, “Konnech was assisted by many reporters who unblinkingly accepted their now discredited claims as fact, and simply repeated them.”
Yu was arrested in Meridian Township in Michigan with the assistance of the East Lansing Police and the Ingham County sheriff’s office. Investigators dispatched by the LA DA’s office seized computer hard drives and other “digital evidence” relevant to the charges. The DA’s office is seeking Yu’s extradition to Los Angeles.
Gascón noted that the investigation was concerned with the personal identifying information of election workers and assured that Yu’s alleged criminal conduct “had no impact on the tabulation of votes and did not alter election results.”
Konnech sells a proprietary software called PollChief, an election worker management system. It was used by Los Angeles County in the last California election, where it has a five-year, $2.9 million contract. Its software requires election workers to submit personal identifying information. Konnech retains that information.
According Konnech’s lawsuit, the company holds other contracts nationwide. The company previously claimed that all of its data was stored on servers in the United States. The NY Times reported that, according to Konnech, the company had “no ties to the Chinese government.” However, Gascón suggested that Konnech had “allegedly violated its contract by storing critical information that the workers provided on servers in China,” where Yu had lived until 1986. Gascón added, “We intend to hold all those responsible for this breach accountable.”
The LA Times reported that prosecutors learned of the data breach through a “separate investigation.”
In the statement it released after Yu’s arrest, True the Vote noted that it was “honored to have played a small role in what must have been a wide ranging and complex investigation.” The organization’s founder, Catherine Engelbrecht, said, “Election integrity should not be a partisan issue, nor should media try to suppress all conversation about it in a way that benefits one party.” Engelbrecht added that True the Vote “will continue to report evidence of threats to our election process and work with law enforcement to ensure our elections are a secure space for all American voters.”
When working with a cyber analyst in 2021, Engelbrecht and True the Vote’s Gregg Phillips reportedly found “an oddity in some of the URLs” related to PollChief’s data gathering. After determining that some of the URLs resolved in a Chinese IP address and concluding that “this was a major national security risk,” they took the information to the FBI. The FBI allegedly “said the information was forwarded to their counter-intelligence operation, and a counter-intelligence op was opened up in January or February of 2021.” It is unclear if Tuesday’s arrest was the result of that alleged investigation.
Konnech Inc. filed a defamation lawsuit against True the Vote on September 12, suggesting that the group’s accusations of wrongdoing were damaging and would prove “particularly problematic in light of the upcoming 2022 midterm elections, for which Konnech has contracts to provide election logistics software for voting districts across the country.” The lawsuit suggested that True the Vote and its leaders “falsely claimed that they discovered that Konnech had an unsecured server located in Wuhan, China.”
The lawsuit stated, “Defendants have falsely accused Konnech of storing sensitive and personal data—including social security numbers, email addresses, phone numbers, and banking information—on 1.8 million U.S. poll workers on servers in China.”
It also emphasized that “Konnech does not, and has never, stored any actual customer or poll worker data on any server in China as Defendants falsely claim.”
Konnech and members of the media who reported on the lawsuit suggested that True the Vote leaders’ intimations that Yu may have been cooperating with Chinese communists were racist and xenophobic and that the claim Yu was spearheading a “Red Chinese communist op run against the United States” was not an expression of geopolitical concern but of bigotry.
Last month, Judge Kenneth Hoyt of the U.S. District Court granted Konnech’s request for a temporary restraining order against Engelbrecht and Phillips, finding that the company would “suffer irreparable injury” without it. The defamation lawsuit is likely to be affected in the event of Yu’s conviction.
The New York Times has come under fire for boldly parroting the Konnech CEO’s claims a day before his arrest. The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway wrote, “I have never seen anything age this poorly, this quickly.”
WOW WOW WOWWWWWWWWWWWW.
I have never seen anything age this poorly, this quickly. By NYT's @stuartathompson
Also, could adults stop using the Democrat propaganda term "election denial" to describe people with legitimate challenges to election administration? It's so puerile. pic.twitter.com/YEcevYjhdI
Thompson has kept his discredited article pinned to his Twitter page.
"Konnech’s founder & chief executive, Eugene Yu, an American citizen who immigrated from China in 1986, went into hiding with his family after receiving threatening messages"
Average California price stood at $6.25 a gallon Monday
JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES
California has pretty much always paid much more than the nation for gasoline at the pump, in part due to higher taxes and a more expensive blend of fuel, but an average price that’s nearly 70% more than most everyone else in the U.S. is a bit extreme.
The national average price for regular gasoline is little changed from a month ago, but drivers in California have seen a jump of nearly 20%from Sept. 3, as refinery issues tighten supplies of the fuel in the Golden State.
The average price for regular unleaded gasoline stood at $3.765 a gallon early Monday afternoon, down 0.4% from $3.779 a month ago, according to data from GasBuddy. The average in California, however, was at $6.25 Monday, That’s 66% higher than the national average and up nearly 20% from $5.221 on Sept. 3.
Average prices for regular gasoline in California. vs. the nation GASBUDDY
The Golden State pays more than double the $3.024 average price for the state of Mississippi, GasBuddy data show. California’s average price also isn’t far from its record high of $6.429 from June 14 of this year. There are “many refinery issues in the West, including six refineries that are either undergoing planned or unplanned maintenance,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, on Monday. “That has caused gasoline supply on the West Coast to drop to its lowest level in a decade and caused wholesale gas prices to skyrocket.”
Total motor gasoline inventories on the West Coast were at 24.9 million barrels for the week ended Sept. 23, at the lowest since 2012, according to data from the Energy Information Administration.
On Friday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom directed the California Air Resources Board to increase the state’s gasoline supply and lower fuel prices by allowing oil refiners to make an early switch to winter-blend gasoline.
Normally, most gas stations can’t stop selling the more environmentally-friendly, and expensive, summer-blend fuel, and start selling the cheaper, winter-blend gasoline until Nov. 1.
Following Newsom’s move, San Francisco-area gasoline prices are down 21 cents Monday, though Los Angeles is “still smoking hot” and up 8.31 cents a gallon, said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service, a Dow Jones company, on Monday.
Kloza said he believes the “worst is over for California wholesale prices, and that might filter to retail prices in a few days.”
“Nationally, gasoline is like real estate — everything is tied to what region one lives,” he told MarketWatch, adding that most gasoline markets are up Monday on speculation surrounding the outcome for a meeting Wednesday of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies.
OPEC+ may agree to cut production in November by more than 1 million barrels a day, according to news reports, with concerns that a potential recession would lead to lower demand for oil. An output cut could create a “catalyst that could push gas prices up further,” said De Haan. Still, Kloza points out that the fourth quarter will not be a typical one.
“Deep recession might lead to modest prices, but other scenarios point to strength for crude CLX22, 1.78%CL.1, 1.78%, gasoline RBX22, -0.78% and diesel,” said Kloza. “We will lose some Russia oil in early December,” as the European Union’s ban on Russia oil kicks in.
More important, about 3 million barrels per day, or perhaps 18% of U.S. refining capacity, “will be idled by work [maintenance] or events this month,” he said. “That will keep upward pressure on gasoline, diesel and jet fuel but probably deter some of the speculative buying in crude.”
Myra P. Saefong, assistant global markets editor, has covered the commodities sector for MarketWatch for 20 years. She has spent the bulk of her years at the company writing the daily Futures Movers and Metals Stocks columns and has been writing the weekly Commodities Corner column since 2005.
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Fox News journalist Peter Doocy bulldozed through the Biden administration’s narratives on gas prices during the media briefing with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. President Joe Biden (D) had declared victory on lowering gas prices months ago but has grown quieter after a recent surge in pricing again.
“You said the president was responsible for gas prices coming down. Is the president responsible for gas prices going up?” Doocy asked on Tuesday.
“So, it’s a lot more nuanced than that, right?” Jean-Pierre responded.
“Peter, you know this. There have been global challenges that we have all have dealt with, when I say ‘all’ I mean other countries, as well, have dealt with, since the pandemic, there’s been pandemic and there’s been [Russian Federation President Vladimir] Putin’s war,” she continued.
“And Putin’s war has increased gas prices at the pump. We have seen that over the past several months,” Jean-Pierre added. “And what the president has been able to do, he took some historic steps, when you think about the strategic petroleum reserve, and making sure that he, we were able to do everything that we can to bring that cost down for American families, give them a little bit more of a breathing room.”
Doocy went on to point out that consumers in some areas of the country were paying up to $6.41 a gallon for gas.
“Who can afford that?” he asked.
“And we understand that!” Jean-Pierre responded. “That’s why the president works so hard the past several months to make sure he did everything we can to bring gas prices down!”
Jean-Pierre went on to keep praising Biden for the “historic actions” he took to lower gas prices despite the recent increases.
The American Automobile Association calculated that the national average for a gallon of gas was $3.80. Prices hit a high of about $5.01 per gallon in June but have fallen for several months before reversing course.
Despite the drop, Americans are still paying about $1.50 more, or 60% more, than they did when Biden was inaugurated in January 2021.
To our TGP readers: We had the honor and pleasure to speak with and interview Victoria White on Sunday. We hope you take the time to watch this riveting interview. Victoria is a wonderful American, a committed mother, a victim of unbelievable police violence, and a beautiful person.
Victoria White from Rochester, Minnesota attended the Stop the Steal rally in Washington DC on January 6th. Like many Americans that day it was her first time she ever visited Washington DC. She was excited to attend the rally and stand with President Trump at the Ellipse.
What started as a wonderful trip with family and friends turned into a bloody nightmare. Victoria White was nearly killed by DC police officers during the rally. The police officers beat her in the face and shoulders nearly 40 times with sticks and their fists. Then they dragged her through the US Capitol shoeless and forced her to wait outside without a phone, a coat, or a ride after they released her hours later.
This was after Victoria broke up Antifa activists breaking windows at the US Capitol.
To add insult to injury, the FBI later raided her home and arrested her in Minnesota.
Victoria White was brutally beaten near death by the US Capitol Police. According to previous statements by attorney Joseph McBride:
She is hit approximately thirty- five times over the course of 4 minutes and 30 seconds, while appearing to be begging for mercy the entire time. She is hit with the baton while facing away. She is hit with the baton while facing forward. She is speared and poked with the baton about the face so as to inflict maximum pain. She collapses more than once and is stood up by the officers only to be maced and beaten again. At some point, White-shirt puts away his baton, not because he is showing mercy because he has a clear avenue to her face. As such, he unloads on the defenseless woman punching her five times in five seconds, directly in the face, with all of his might.
** Her DOJ report is here. Not once in the DOJ report do they describe the brutal pummeling she received at the hands of the Capitol Police officers.
The fact that they ignored the police brutality in their report is absolutely frightening.
It should be clear to any conservative in America today that you cannot trust the Department of Justice.
The fake news mainstream media has also refused to report on this brutal police beating in any of their reporting.
After the police officers beat Victoria with batons for several minutes and smashed her in the face with their fists, they put her in zip-tie handcuffs and paraded her through the US Capitol and into a police vehicle.
Victoria White is lucky to be alive today. Two other female Trump supporters were not so lucky that day.
Here is the shocking description of her attack released earlier by Attorney Joseph McBride. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) commander Jason Bagshaw is the officer who brutally beat Victoria that day. Bagshaw was promoted after he nearly killed Victoria White after she was pushed into a crowd of police officers and gassed until she could not see.
The monster was promoted.
Watch on the right, as soon as the man getting hit jumps up and escapes the tunnel. Officer White Shirt turns to Victoria White and begins his assault.
Victoria White was pushed into the tunnel and desperately tried to escape. She never raises a finger to the police and never commits an offensive act. She is simply stuck, and they know it. What do they do? They attack her mercilessly. And there is nothing she can do about it…
She is hit with the baton while facing forward. She is speared and poked with the baton about the face so as to inflict maximum pain. She collapses more than once and is stood up by the officers only to be maced and beaten again…
This is an evil man that should be stripped of his position of power and sent to prison for his crimes. Instead, the people who came to her aid, and others like her— are languishing in prison in pre-trial detention.
On Sunday Victoria told us threw tears that she blacked out during the beating. She had no idea she was beaten so many times by the police. She described the beating and the abuse afterwards. This was a riveting interview.
Our hearts go out to Victoria White. What a courageous woman.
Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a bill signing ceremony at Nido’s Backyard Mexican Restaurant on Feb. 9, 2022 in San Francisco, California. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a new law that critics say would effectively make California a sanctuary state for trans-identified minors seeking life-altering surgeries and hormones. A prominent legal group contends the new law creates serious parental rights concerns.
Newsom signed into law SB 107 Thursday, which contains several provisions related to “gender-affirming healthcare.” The measure passed the California State Assembly in a 60-19 vote on Aug. 29, followed by a 30-9 vote in the California Senate on Aug. 31. In both cases, the vote fell along party lines, with all support coming from Democrats and all opposition coming from Republicans.
The legislation amends the Sunshine State’s family code to grant a state court “temporary emergency jurisdiction” if a child “is subjected to, or threatened with, mistreatment or abuse, or because the child has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care.”
Opponents of the law, such as the Alliance Defending Freedom, believe the language opens the door for a state court to take a child away from a parent or guardian who refuses to allow their trans-identified children to undergo puberty suppression, cross-sex hormone regimens or body-mutilating gender transition surgeries. The law’s proponents contend that the new law doesn’t give the state courts any additional authority than they already have.
The bill also bars healthcare providers, insurers and contractors from “releasing medical information related to a person or entity allowing a child to receive gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care” when requested by other state law enforcement agencies bringing criminal action against “a person or entity that allows a child to receive gender-affirming health care.”
Additionally, the measure prohibits healthcare providers from releasing medical information if “the information is being requested pursuant to another state’s law that authorizes a person to bring a civil action against a person or entity who allows a child to receive gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care.”
The Alliance Defending Freedom, a national legal nonprofit that has won cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, is one of several organizations that have expressed concerns about the implications of the new law.
In an Aug. 2 letter to the California Assembly Committee on Appropriations, ADF Senior Counsel Matt Sharp warned that “SB 107 violates parental rights protected by the U.S. Constitution by giving California courts the ability to strip parents who reside in another state of their parental rights if their child travels to California to obtain gender transition procedures.”
“This bill would lead to significant harm to families throughout the country,” Sharp predicted.
Sharp outlined several scenarios that, he believes, could result following the legislation’s passage, such as “an unfit parent about to lose custody could travel to California with the child, give the child puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones, and in doing so win custody under SB 107, even if the home-state court has already entered judgment on the case.”
In addition, Sharp claims that “parents whose child visits a relative in California could lose custody of their child forever if the relative persuades the child to identify as a different gender during the visit.”
Another potential consequence of the bill, Sharp claims, involves the deprivation of jurisdiction from courts in other states if “the case involved gender identity and the child travels to California, even if all of the evidence and parties involved in the case are located in the home state.”
“Parents of children who never travel to California could be denied medical information about their child if the child obtains puberty blockers from a doctor in California via telemedicine,” Sharp added, calling the bill California’s attempt to “undermine parental rights [and] pit children against their parents.”
A spokesperson for Sen. Scott Wiener, who sponsored the bill, told Reuters that the legislation “doesn’t give courts (new) authority to take custody from parents of minors seeking gender-affirming care.”
“All the bill does is provide guidance to courts about hearing cases where they already are allowed to do so under California law,” the spokesperson said.
However, the bill does give jurisdiction to state courts for children who travel to California for “gender-affirming healthcare” they can’t receive elsewhere under a category of “emergencies” because the child has been “unable to obtain gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care.”
“State courts around the country have the authority to consider whether to retain jurisdiction over a custody matter involving a child who recently came into the state,” Asaf Orr, an attorney at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, told Reuters.
“This typically occurs in instances of domestic violence or other crisis situations. This law simply clarifies that courts should retain jurisdiction in situations where a parent brings their child to California so that they can obtain medical treatment for gender dysphoria from a state that has banned or restricted access to that care.”
Emilie Kao, the senior counsel and vice president of advocacy strategy at Alliance Defending Freedom, said in a statement that the new law is an “astonishing disregard for the Constitution and the laws of other states.”
“California will now be able to take away custody of children from their own parents — no matter what state they’re from — and deny families the right to access their child’s medical information,” she said.
“Parents have the fundamental right to direct the upbringing and care of their children, which includes making the best decisions regarding their children’s mental, emotional, and physical health.”
Kao warned the new law is the “latest in an onslaught of attacks against parental rights and a demonstration of just how far some governments are willing to go to replace parents as the ultimate decision makers of what’s best for children.”
Other states have passed laws prohibiting children from receiving gender transition surgeries, puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. Alabama, Arizona and Arkansas have implemented laws banning children from obtaining such procedures. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services and the state’s Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton have classified them as a form of child abuse.
The American College of Pediatricians has maintained that “there is not a single long-term study to demonstrate the safety or efficacy of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries for transgender-believing youth.”
The group, which describes itself as a “national organization of pediatricians and other healthcare professionals dedicated to the health and well-being of children,” lists “osteoporosis, mood disorders, seizures, cognitive impairment and, when combined with cross-sex hormones, sterility” as possible side effects of puberty blockers.
ACP reports that the use of cross-sex hormones is accompanied by “an increased risk of heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, blood clots and cancers.”
Parental rights have developed into a major hot-button issue in American politics.
Some school districts in the U.S., including Leon County Public Schools in Florida and Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland, have been sued for policies requiring teachers to affirm trans-identified children’s preferred gender identities without their parental consent. A bill signed into law by Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this year instructs school districts not to enact policies that keep parents in the dark about any changes to their children’s mental health.
Florida forbids the adoption of “procedures or student support forms that prohibit school district personnel from notifying a parent about his or her student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being” that “encourage or have the effect of encouraging a student to withhold from a parent such information.”
CNN polling expert Harry Enten explained Monday that President Joe Biden is hemorrhaging support with black voters — and it may cost Democrats in November. Breaking down the data on CNN’s “New Day,” Enten spotlighted the notable drop-in support for Democrats among black voters. Examining pre-electoral preferences, Enten showed how Democrats in Congress are receiving 74% of support among black voters. The figure seems high, but when you compare that number with what it was just two or four years ago, the concerning development for Democrats becomes obvious.
“Compare [74%] to the final polling for 2020 president and 2018 Congress. Back in 2020 it was 84%, 85% in 2018,” Enten said. “So, you’re clearly seeing right here that there is less support for Democratic candidates for Congress among African-Americans.”
That drop translates to a sizable pickup for Republicans, Enten explained.
“You can look at the Republican column as well and you can see that 12%, not exactly high, but that’s actually the high-water mark. It was 9% in 2020, 9% in 2018,” he said. “So, basically, what was about a 75, 76-point margin is now down in the low 60s.”
— CNN This Morning with Kasie Hunt (@CNNThisMorning) October 3, 2022
Enten attributed the drop-in support for Democrats broadly to President Joe Biden’s low approval rating.
“Take a look at Joe Biden’s approval rating among black adults. If you go back to January to June 2021… it was 87%, basically matching what he got in the 2020 election,” Enten noted. “But look at that approval rating now, in August and September 2022, it’s all the way down to 64%.’
“Now, obviously, Joe Biden’s approval rating with all Americans is down, but it’s not down by anywhere near this amount— this 23-point drop,” he continued. “Among all Americans, it’s only down about 10–15 points. So, there is a disproportionate drop in Joe Biden’s approval ratings among African-Americans. And I think that’s kind of driving why you’re seeing Democrats running for Congress, getting a significantly lower margin than we’re used to seeing.”
Host Brianna Keilar responded, “That is huge. That is a huge drop there.”
Turning to Georgia, where Democrat Stacey Abrams is challenging Gov. Brian Kemp, the same phenomenon is occurring.
“Among African-American voters, Stacey Abrams’ lead is actually down from 79 points in the final 2018 polling to 67 points now,” Enten said.
“So, in Georgia, this key state where black voters make up such a large portion of the electorate, you’re seeing, again, more movement among black voters away from the Democratic Party than you’re seeing among voters overall,” he explained.
Meanwhile, the same thing is happening with Hispanic voters, Enten said. Fewer are supporting Democrats than in past elections, and more are supporting Republicans.
Fox News reporter Bill Melugin directly confronted Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and other Democrats recently about the border crisis. But none of them were interested in providing substantive answers for a crisis that rages on unaddressed.
First, Melugin questioned Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) whether she has “an issue” with a record number of unaccompanied migrants coming to the U.S., some of them dying. He also asked whether she agrees with the Biden administration that the border is “secure.” Pressley refused to answer either question and instead walked away from him.
Second, Melugin confronted Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), asking him whether the border is secure. Thompson refused to answer the question and immediately walked away after telling Melugin, “I have to go give a speech.”
When Melugin approached Mayorkas, the secretary also refused to answer questions. Mayorkas, however, was more polite than Pressley or Thompson.
“I’m sorry, I don’t,” Mayorkas said when Melugin asked if he had a brief moment to discuss the border crisis.
Fox News confronts Democrats on border crisis www.youtube.com
Interestingly, the Democrats who answered Melugin’s questions — Reps. Veronica Escobar, Colin Allred, and Henry Cuellar — represent districts in Texas, including those on the front lines of the border crisis.
“This is unsustainable. It has been unsustainable for years,” Escobar told Melugin.
“This is our administration. I’m a Democrat. And you know, they need to understand they own it now,” Cuellar said. “They own it now. And they have to take the steps to correct this, otherwise, you know, when are we going to see an end to this?”
Speaking to party leadership, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer blamed Republicans for zero progress on immigration legislation. On the other hand, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told Melugin that moderate Democrats support securing the border but will not publicly advocate that support as long as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remains in power.
Melugin’s dogged reporting of the crisis, which often goes viral on social media, has angered the White House. Melugin, however, is clearly not backing down.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
The number of illegal aliens labeled as “special interest migrants” for potential national security risks increased by nearly 600% to 25,627 in fiscal year 2022, according to internal Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Of the total, 60% of the illegal migrants were from Turkey, a country where Islamic State and other foreign terrorist organizations are known to operate, according to the State Department.
“Anybody that doesn’t think that serious threats to this country are sneaking in right now is naïve,” former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott told the DCNF.
Border Patrol saw an almost 600% increase in fiscal year 2022 in the number of illegal migrants flagged as “special interest” over national security concerns, according to internal U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
A “special interest” migrant is someone who isn’t a U.S. citizen who frequently travels in areas designated as national security concerns due to terrorist activity or other types of “nefarious activity,” according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Border Patrol agents encountered 25,627 “special interest” illegal migrants compared to the 3,675 encounters in fiscal year 2021, according to the data.
“Special interest aliens” can include individuals who “possibly have a nexus to terrorism,” according to 2019 DHS fact sheet. The newly-obtained internal data refers to these individuals as “special interest migrants,” however.
Most of the encounters were recorded at the southern border, with the highest in El Paso, Texas, according to the data.
“When you have an open border, you don’t get to control who or what enters your home,” former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “There are significant real threats coming across the border.”
“Unfortunately, all the current administration wants to focus on as an economic migrants and trying to say that they have a kinder, gentler migration policy, but they’re putting the entire Nation at Risk, as well as the millions of migrants that are handed to the cartels to be trafficked across the border,” Scott said.
CBP officials encountered over 2,000,000 migrants at the southern border between October 2021 and August 2022, a record number. Of those, CBP encountered 78 individuals on the terror watchlist.
Daily Caller News Foundation
“What you’re seeing is like a snapshot of what’s crossing the border, what the agents are encountering. That the bigger threat is they’re so overwhelmed that they’re leaving hundreds of miles of border on patrols every day,” Scott said.
If CBP can’t find derogatory information on them, “special interest” illegal migrants are typically released into the country, according to Scott.
“Unless when they run the record checks on that individual person flagged for some type of derogatory information, they’re going to be processed just like any other illegal alien. It basically means that they’re going to be processed, set up for a hearing in the future and released into the United States. We overly rely on the United States to have by current and valid information people that are global database, and that does not exist.”
Most of the “special interest” illegal migrants were from Turkey, which made up 60% of the grouping, with 15,376 encountered. Border Patrol also encountered 3,246 illegal migrants from Uzbekistan and 2,446 from Bangladesh.
Turkey, for example, is a “source and transit country” for Islamic State terrorists and other terrorists operating in Syria and Iraq, according to the State Department.
The Biden administration has implemented a number of policies that have allowed many illegal migrants to stay in the country. In August, it ended the Migrant Protection Protocols, which forced certain illegal migrants to await asylum proceedings in Mexico.
On the president’s first day in office, DHS issued a memorandum putting in place a 100-day moratorium on deportations. The notice also limited immigration enforcement to those who pose risks to national security, border security and public safety.
“Anybody that doesn’t think that serious threats to this country are sneaking in right now is naïve,” Scott said.
The FBI declined to comment on the matter. DHS did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
President Joe Biden personally congratulated a U.S. Coast Guard rescue swimmer for saving lives of victims of Hurricane Ian in southwest Florida. However, the Coast Guard hero said he is about to be discharged because of Biden’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccine order for the U.S. military.
On Thursday, there were areas ravaged by Hurricane Ian that were only accessible by aircraft. Coast Guard members flew to the coastal areas destroyed by the Category 4 hurricane from the air station in Clearwater, Florida. For more than eight hours, the teams ventured into the hurricane-ravaged areas in Fort Myers and Naples – where they rescued 15 people and several pets.
One of the Coast Guard heroes is rescue swimmer and aviation survival technician second class Zach Loesch. He reportedly kicked through a wall to pull out a disabled woman and her husband – who were marooned in their storm-smashed home.
“I’m just trying to smile and be happy and show up to them as a light at the end of their dark day,” Loesch told WFLA. “A lot of them are desperate and need help and in despair. Everything they know is gone, and when they’re leaving with us it may be the last time they see their house.”
President Biden personally congratulated Loesch for his bravery in rescuing helpless people stranded in southwest Florida.
“I told him how proud of him I was and thanked him for all the work he and his Coasties are doing to save lives,” Biden said.
The White House added, “The President thanked them for saving lives and asked for a report on the work that continues to rescue Floridians. He also asked if they needed any additional support that he can provide to accelerate successful rescues; they indicated they have gotten what they need to execute their vital mission.”
However, Loesch is reportedly one of the dedicated federal employees who are being discharged from their jobs over the Biden administration’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccine policy for the U.S. military. Loesch will reportedly be kicked out of the Coast Guard within 30 to 60 days for not being fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
Loesch said that he submitted a request for a religious exemption, but it was denied. His appeal was also denied. Loesch allegedly told journalist Kristina Wong, “If I had asked any of the people I saved yesterday if they wanted to come with me even though I am unvaccinated, every single one of them would have said ‘yes.’ It just sucks that he thanked me yet his vaccine mandate is what’s kicking me out.”
Republican lawmakers pushed back on Biden’s mandatory shots.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) remarked, “Joe Biden said it himself — COVID is over. Yet, he is still firing our brave men and women who serve our nation, like Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer Zach Loesch. Zach kicked through a wall to save an elderly couple trapped due to Hurricane Ian.”
Last month, Biden declared that the COVID-19 “pandemic is over.”
Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) told the Daily Mail, “This will cripple our ability to effectively respond to the next natural disaster if the Biden Administration doesn’t reverse course. We need more service members like Zach Loesch who put their life on the line to save others – not less. And with the military’s current recruiting crisis, these skills will be extremely difficult to replace.”
As of September 2022, there are 2,632 members of the Coast Guard who are not fully vaccinated.
Last month, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of approximately 1,200 Coast Guard members against the Biden administration for denying religious exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
You can watch some of the extraordinary rescue missions accomplished by the Coast Guard in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian below.
Hurricane Ian: Coast Guard releases video of incredible rescues www.youtube.com
(Photo by Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for March For Our Lives)
Teachers unions are helping school districts implement Critical Race Theory (CRT) and gender identity through different initiatives such as LGBTQ badges, summer reading lists and advertisements.
The more recent push by the unions comes from the backing of the Biden administration, whose beliefs align with the teachers unions.
“Teachers unions are certainly embracing ‘wokeness’ and showing their true self: their actions show they don’t care about the academic success of our kids, they only care about money and furthering their own political ambitions,” Parents Defending Education Director of Community Engagement Mailyn Salabarria told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Teachers’ unions have a long history of political action, but now teachers unions are advocating for gender identity and Critical Race Theory (CRT) to be taught in schools. This recent push has come because of the support of the Biden administration, experts tell the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Teachers unions have been notorious for entering political races; in the 2021-2022 school year, the nation’s two largest teachers unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, poured millions into political funding. The belief that gender ideology and CRT should be in classrooms has long been present, but the Biden administration has empowered the beliefs to be embraced, experts told the DCNF. (RELATED: Major Teachers Union Goes On Strike, Delaying The First Day Of School For Thousands)
“I was a former school board member from 2016 and 2020 and we did not see this stuff like we’re seeing now,” Laura Zorc, director of education reform for Building Education for Students Together, a parental rights in education organization, told the DCNF. “I was not a school board member under the Biden administration. I’ve seen a radical change starting to take place in January 2021 when he took office. Underneath the school districts, you had people that had those beliefs in those feelings that we should be embracing this, but there was never that support and this is really where we see all this coming from, the Biden administration.”
As a part of a summer reading list in August, the National Education Association recommended students read “Why We Fly” by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal, a book that describes two girls who kneel for the national anthem. The book explicitly talks about marijuana use and is paired with discussion questions on activism.
In September, an Ohio chapter of the National Education Association provided Hilliard City Schools in Columbus, Ohio, with LGBTQ ally badges that featured a flag with the words “I’m Here.” The badges were for educators to wear in order to show their support for the LGBTQ community.
The badges featured a QR code that took students to the National Education Association’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer+ Caucus website which provides adult resources on sexual education. An Ohio parental rights in education group called the website “age-inappropriate” and said it “crosses the line.”
“The way that they’re bringing this in is through an inclusive, safe environment, you know, the mental health aspect,” Zorc told the DCNF. “‘If our kids don’t feel safe, then they’re not going to be able to learn so we have to fix that because that helps us improve the quality of academics if our kids are feeling more safe at school.’ When I look at this, it’s hard to separate. It’s not one group of LGBTQ teachers. It’s not one group that’s wanting the Critical Race Theory ideologies. It’s really coming from that Democratic teacher union leadership like these Randi Weingartens and people like that.”
Weingarten is the president of the American Federation of Teachers.
The New Jersey National Education Association ran an ad ahead of the 2022-2023 school year that depicted parents who speak out against gender identity and CRT as “extremists.” The ad cites two articles, one describing groups working to remove books featuring LGBTQ and CRT imagery from school libraries and the other discussing a New Jersey state senator’s bill which prohibits lessons on gender identity for kindergarten through sixth grade.
About a year ago, the National School Boards Association sent a letter to the Biden administration comparing parents at school board meetings to “domestic terrorists.” Attorney General Merrick Garland called on the FBI to “use its authority” on the parents who disrupt school board meetings and pose a threat.
“The current administration actions also show they are on board with making politics and ideologies the priority in the classrooms,” Parents Defending Education Director of Community Engagement Mailyn Salabarria told the DCNF, “instead of addressing the historically low proficiency scores of our students and the learning loss they’ll suffer for generations to come. And this has emboldened teachers unions and activist teachers to push for even more ideology instead of the basics of academic instruction.”
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, speaks during a protest near the office of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) to ask him to work on gun-safety legislation on June 03, 2022 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Ahead of the 2022-2023 school year, the Department of Education (DOE) called for action to address a nationwide teacher shortage. The DOE announced partnerships with schools across the country to address the problem they say was brought on during the pandemic.
“They’re saying that we have a teacher shortage,” Zorc told the DCNF. “We do not have a teacher shortage. Teachers are moving to other environments where they’re not forced to teach this stuff. So when it comes to Critical Race Theory, when it comes to this gender ideology, it is really being spearheaded from the top down. That’s why we’re seeing this massive exodus of our public school teachers, because they were waiting on retirement, but a lot of them are like, ‘I cannot even I can’t do this anymore.’”
The push from the teachers unions for CRT and gender identity curricula comes as students across the nation post record learning losses; K-12 reading levels have dropped to where they were in 1990, the largest ever drop in the scores, while math levels saw their first ever decline.
“Teachers unions are certainly embracing ‘wokeness’ and showing their true self: their actions show they don’t care about the academic success of our kids, they only care about money and furthering their own political ambitions,” Salabarria told the DCNF.
The National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers and the DOE did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Female students at a Vermont high school have reportedly been banned from using the girls’ locker room after objecting to a transgender student changing there.
Members of the Randolph Union High School girls volleyball team were banned by school officials from using the locker room pending an investigation after some members objected to a biological male changing with them, WCAX-TV reported. One of the female students told WCAX-TV that the dispute began when the trans student made an inappropriate comment as the volleyball team was changing in the locker room, triggering an incident between students.
The outlet reported that school officials emailed parents to tell them an investigation into whether the transgender student was harassed has been launched.
Female students at Randolph Union High School were reportedly banned from the girls’ locker room after objecting to a trans student using it. (Google Earth)
“My mom wants me to do this interview to try to make a change,” female volleyball player Blake Allen told the outlet. “I feel like for stating my opinion — that I don’t want a biological man changing with me — that I should not have harassment charges or bullying charges. They should all be dropped.”
Allen added that when students have gone to the school about their concerns, they have been told that state law allows for transgender students to change in the locker room based on their gender identity.
A protester holds the trans flag and snaps in solidarity with other speakers, during a demonstration at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio, on June 25, 2021. (Stephen Zenner/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Officials reportedly told parents that the school provides “plenty of space where students who feel uncomfortable with the laws may change in privacy.”
“They want all the girls who feel uncomfortable — so pretty much 10 girls — to get changed in a single-stall bathroom, which would take over 30 minutes. Where if one person got changed separately, it would take a minute, like no extra time,” Allen told WCAX-TV.
Lawmakers listen as parents speak about the prospect of their children competing against transgender girls in school sports at the Utah State Capitol (AP Photo/Samuel Metz, File)
School officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Vermont Agency of Education policy states that the “use of restrooms and locker rooms by transgender students requires schools to consider numerous factors” while also saying that a “transgender student should not be required to use a locker room or restroom that conflicts with the student’s gender identity.”
Andrew Mark Miller is a writer at Fox News. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to AndrewMark.Miller@Fox.com.
An electric Hummer is seen at General Motors Factory Zero in Detroit, Michigan, in a file photo from November 2021. (Mandel Ngan – AFP / Getty Images)
Congratulations. You’ve just purchased one of the most expensive high-performance electric trucks on the market. You’ve gone green and you’ve done it in style with the GMC Hummer, starting at $86,645. That’s right — the Hummer’s now a green vehicle! What was once the biggest villain in the left’s war on fossil fuels is now the poster child for responsible off-roading. That’s a hefty chunk of change, but at least you’ll be able to save a bit with government incentives. Most importantly, you can charge the car at home just like it was any other appliance. Easy, convenient and cheap, right?
Well, if you have a day or four to spare, sure.
In a viral video from a YouTube channel that specializes in electric vehicles, a man who tries to plug the Hummer into his home to charge finds it will take, at best, one day to charge — and that’s with special equipment installed. Without it, you could be there for four days.
The video begins with standard 120V charging — or Level 1 charging, to use official jargon. This is the standard current your home already offers.
“Right now it’s about 6 p.m. on Tuesday,” the man says. “And it says it will be full by Saturday at 10:55 [p.m.], which is four-plus days of charging. Wow.”
To be fair, however, this won’t be how most Hummer owners will be charging their vehicle. Level 2 chargers are upgraded home stations which deliver a significantly higher amount of electricity than your regular home circuit would be able to deliver — but they require special equipment and installation.
According to Compare.com, the cost of a Level 2 charger is about $500 without installation, which must be done by a professional electrician. However, our intrepid Hummer owner had one of those — the JuiceBox, a 240v charger, installed in his garage. How much difference did that make? Not as much as you might think.
“Now it says it will be done tomorrow by 6:30 [p.m.],” the video narrator says. “So, about 24 hours of charging from four percent to 100 percent.”
Of course, you don’t have to go to full charge; the vehicle’s screen says the Level 2 charger was adding 14 miles of range per hour. However, when you can fill a gas-powered truck in five minutes and not have to worry about installing a fast charger or leaving your truck plugged in every night, that’s not exactly easy or convenient.
And by the way, it’s not entirely cheap, either — especially if you decide you don’t want to charge your Hummer at home but at fast-charging stations that can get the job done in two hours. Car and Driver went to an Electrify America charging station, where it cost over $100 to “fill up” the Hummer at 43 cents per kilowatt hour.
This is roughly consistent with how much it would cost to fill up a gas-powered Hummer made in the final production year — although Electrify America does provide a membership program that reduces the cost by roughly one-quarter. If you charge it at home, you’ll only be spending about $35 to fill it up — but you’ll be waiting quite a while.
And, by the by, don’t expect to use your electric truck to do truck-like things quite as well as gas-powered trucks do. Automotive YouTuber Tyler “Hoovie” Hoover put Ford’s F-150 Lightning — another electric truck, although somewhat more modestly priced than the Hummer — to the test by towing an empty aluminum trailer 32 miles, and then assessing how well it handled its maximum towing capacity by then ferrying a recently purchased 1930 Ford Model A pickup truck back to home base.
Hoovie called the experience a “complete and total disaster from beginning to end.” He started with a 200-mile charge but lost 68 miles of range in the 32 miles he was towing just the aluminum trailer. Once the Model A was aboard, he lost “almost 90 miles of range in 30 miles.”
Cheer up, Hoovie. Plug that baby into a Level 1 charger and you’ll be ready to make a return trip in another few days.
Now, I don’t pretend that most — in fact, almost any — Hummer owners are going to be using Level 1. If you can drop a cool $86k on a retro-styled EV pickup truck, you can also get a Level 2 charger installed in your garage without your bank account incurring too much of a scrape. That still means 24 hours of charging, though, something that could be critical in an emergency.
Say you live in the state of California, which plans to outlaw the sale of new gas vehicles by 2035. Let’s also say your residence is suddenly threatened by a wildfire — I know, a very unusual thing in California, but we’re just spitballing hypotheticals here. If you only have 10 percent charge and you have to load everything you can into your vehicle, you don’t have a day to get a full tank. Good luck getting far and good luck finding an open fast-charging station on the highway, particularly in times of natural disaster.
Look, this isn’t to say electric vehicles don’t have their time and place. If you don’t mind the charging times and high price, the Hummer is actually a pretty sweet ride; it can go from 0-60 mph in 3.3 seconds, something the original Hummer might not have been able to do in 3.3 hours. It’s a high-tech, versatile vehicle that, from all appearances, is a blast. But let’s be clear: The Hummer and its electric brethren aren’t at the point where they can replace gas-powered trucks, the same way EVs across the spectrum aren’t at the point where they can replace equivalent internal-combustion vehicles. Why are we on the precipice, then, of forcing new-car buyers to pay more for a vehicle that’s less convenient and often can’t do the work they need it to do?
EV technology won’t be ready to replace gas-powered cars anytime soon, and ignoring reality doesn’t make it go away — no matter how many pro-EV laws the Democrats pass.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he’s written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a new law Thursday night to strip rights away from parents who protest their children’s blind pursuit of destructive surgeries sold to confused minors as “gender affirmation.”
Under Senate Bill 107 introduced by San Francisco-area State Sen. Scott Wiener, California will now become a “refuge” for trans-identifying minors who seek irreversible medical treatment for gender dysphoria. The legislation was supposedly aimed at blocking red states from enforcing laws barring extreme treatments for underage victims, and instead invited those minors to seek surgeries in California.
“In California we believe in equality and acceptance. We believe that no one should be prosecuted or persecuted for getting the care they need — including gender-affirming care,” Newsom said upon signing the bill into law. “Parents know what’s best for their kids, and they should be able to make decisions around the health of their children without fear. We must take a stand for parental choice.”
Except the bill undermines parental choice by empowering the state to strip custody from those who refuse to support their children’s demand for “gender-affirming care,” a euphemism used to describe something that is neither gender-affirming nor caring. Such procedures could range from puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to surgeries leaving a child’s genitals permanently altered. The bill extends California’s reach beyond its borders, enabling minors in other states to pursue treatment on the West Coast away from parental oversight.
Jay Richards, a policy expert at the Heritage Foundation, and Emilie Kao, a vice president and senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, broke down the components of the law in Newsweek.
“California courts will have the power to strip custody from parents, wherever they live, who doubt the wisdom of these experimental and irreversible procedures — if their child so much as steps foot in California,” the pair explained. “It would also allow California doctors to treat minors still in other states. With the advent of telehealth, a child could get a prescription for hormones from a California doctor while at home in Arkansas or in Florida.”
Both states have instituted protections to restrict cross-sex hormones from ending up in the hands of gender-confused minors.
Under California’s new law, parents might not even know whether their children are pursuing these dangerous drugs and procedures. Senate Bill 107 mandates that doctors hide children’s medical information from parents if related to “gender identity,” even if requested by subpoena.
Last week, a coalition of organizations representing parents both in and out of state condemned the law’s reach with a letter to the governor.
“[Senate Bill] 107 makes California akin to the Pied Piper, enticing minor children nationwide to leave their families and run away in pursuit of harmful drugs and sterilizing surgeries, all of which cause irreversible harm to the minds, bodies, and family relationships of America’s precious children,” they wrote. “Children experiencing gender confusion need the love, support, and guidance of their parents. They do not need to be taken from their parents and rushed down a pathway which leads to a lifetime of medicalization and sterilization.”
This summer, researchers at the Heritage Foundation found that “easing access to cross-sex treatments without parental consent significantly increases suicide rates.” The findings contradict a key argument among proponents of aggressive “gender affirmation” who claim minors denied permanently life-altering procedures are more likely to kill themselves.
“There is a 14% increase in suicide rates among young people by 2020 in states that have a provision allowing minors to access care without parental consent relative to states that do not,” explained Heritage Senior Research Fellow Jay Greene. “Easier access to puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones by minors actually exacerbated suicide rates.”
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.
The core index of the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation went up in August, despite a historically aggressive campaign of interest rate hikes intended to slow it.
The Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCE), which measures the value of goods and services purchased by “persons” residing in the U.S., was down slightly in August from 6.4% to 6.2% annually, but was higher than economists anticipated, according to CNBC. This decline was almost entirely off the back of falling energy prices, with so-called core PCE, which does not consider the more-volatile food and energy indices, increasing in August from 4.7% to 4.9% annually, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
This new data closely mirrors the results of the more well-known Consumer Price Index (CPI), released earlier this month, which also saw core prices rise as overall inflation remained near historic highs. As inflation lingers, investors have grown increasingly concerned that the Fed’s aggressive campaign of interest rate hikes will continue unabated, prompting the Dow Jones Industrial Average to seesaw in and out of a major slump known as a bear market.
Aug PCE #inflation hotter than expected, w/headline +6.2% down from +6.3% in Jul but higher than expected +6%. Core +4.9% (up from 4.7% in Jul & ahead of 4.7% expectations). This is not positive, but it also won’t be terribly shocking after firm CPI & PPI, @knowledge_vital writes pic.twitter.com/uVoEUVl4tJ
The Fed has been consistent at all levels that high interest rates will remain “until the job is done,” even at the cost of jobs or triggering a recession, as Fed Chair Jerome Powel has said multipletimes. On Tuesday, Neel Kashkari, head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said that the Fed would not repeat the mistakes of the 1970s by bringing down interest rates too quickly, with Vice Chair Lael Brainard echoing that sentiment in a Friday morning speech, according to CNBC.
This messaging, in conjunction with the Fed’s aggressive rate hike campaign, has led Goldman Sachs to slash its expectations for the S&P 500 stock index by about 16%, anticipating the Fed will raise rates by at least another 1.25% by the end of the year, to 4.5% from 3.25%.
Food, rent and utilities are among the critical products that the Fed anticipates will continue to face significant inflation until next year at the earliest as the Fed struggles to bring inflation back to its target of 2%.
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A 25-year veteran EMS worker with the FDNY was brutally stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack. The suspect was later arrested following a standoff in New York City.
FDNY EMT Lt. Alison Russo-Elling was on duty and walking near her station house by 20th Avenue and 41st Street around 2:20 p.m. on Thursday. A gruesome video shows a man lunging at Russo-Elling with a knife. She is slammed to the ground, bashing her head on the sidewalk. The madman stabbed her 19 times in Astoria, Queens.
The New York Post reported, “A witness confronted the madman, but he snarled, ‘F*** you, f*** you!’ before stepping away from his victim and charging at the scooter-riding pedestrian while still holding the knife, police sources said.”
The 61-year-old EMT suffered fatal stab wounds to the chest. Russo-Elling was rushed to Mount Sinai Queens Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Russo-Elling was killed on the job just six months before she was set to retire. She reportedly planned to spend more time with her daughter and grandchildren after retirement.
A Good Samaritan chased the suspect back to his home – where he barricaded himself in his nearby apartment. Hostage negotiators were able to talk him out of the third-floor apartment, and he was arrested.
An FDNY source told the New York Post, “At this point in the investigation there doesn’t appear to have been any prior contact between them. He just walked toward her, sped up, and then stabbed her to death.”
A security camera at a local business caught the savage stabbing on video. The business owner turned over the video to the NYPD. The business owner told WCBS-TV, “It was totally unprovoked. There was no rhyme or reason. There was no back and forth.” The anonymous business owner said he had previously seen the suspect wandering around the neighborhood aimlessly. He added that the suspect looked “unhinged” and “like he was on another planet.”
A local resident said she had seen the suspect in the neighborhood before the knife attack and referred to him as “the crazy guy.”
Police charged Peter Zisopoulous in the deadly stabbing attack. The 34-year-old faces charges of second-degree murder and possession of a weapon.
In April 2018, Zisopoulous allegedly made anti-Asian threats on Facebook and was taken to the Elmhurst Hospital for being emotionally disturbed and suffering a serious mental health issue at the time, according to the New York Post.
Tributes poured in for Russo-Elling – who was a first responder at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, and assisted in the rescue and recovery efforts at Ground Zero after 9/11.
FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh said, “While outside her station she was stabbed multiple times in a barbaric and completely unprovoked attack. Members of EMS serve only to help and save other people’s lives. To be attacked and killed in the course of helping others is both heartbreaking and enraging for our department in ways I cannot describe.”
“Lieutenant Russo exemplified FDNY EMS. She served the city for 25 years,” Kavanagh continued. “She was a World Trade Center first responder. She was cited multiple times for her bravery and her lifesaving work, and she was absolutely beloved on this job.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said, “She was on duty, doing her job, saving the people of the City of New York. That was her role and that’s the role of the countless men and women who are moving through the city, saving New Yorkers.”
Adams added, “She was working for this city. She paid the ultimate sacrifice because of that.”
The NYPD Chaplains Unit honored the slain EMT: “Our thoughts and prayers are with the family, friends and colleagues of FDNY Emergency Medical Service Lieutenant Alison Russo-Elling who was stabbed and killed in the line of duty. May God grant her eternal peace.”
The Uniformed Firefighters Association wrote on Twitter, “Today 25 year veteran EMS Lt. Alison Russo-Elling was murdered in the line of duty while attending to a patient. The UFA and all members of the FDNY are enraged at the senseless killing and ever increasing violence in our city. It has to stop. Her senseless killing brings sorrow to every member of the FDNY and every New Yorker. We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the department with bowed heads, and we will forever be here to support our FDNY family in this unspeakably difficult time. We extend our deepest sympathies and condolences to Alison’s family, loved ones, and colleagues.”
Today 25 year veteran EMS Lt. Alison Russo-Elling was Murdered in the Line of Duty while attending to a patient. The UFA and all members of the FDNY are Enraged at the senseless killing and ever increasing violence in our city.
Former New York City police commissioner Bill Bratton added, “The senseless murder of FDNY EMS Lt. Alison Russo-Elling is tragic loss mourned by all of NYC. A 25-year veteran, she was a dedicated public servant who selflessly cared for people in their time of need. Lt. Russo-Elling led a life of significance. Praying for her family.”
The senseless murder of @FDNY EMS Lt. Alison Russo-Elling is tragic loss mourned by all of NYC. A 25-year veteran, she was a dedicated public servant who selflessly cared for people in their time of need. Lt. Russo-Elling led a life of significance. Praying for her family. pic.twitter.com/sE7z0vciFr
Fellow first responders paid tribute to Russo-Elling by lining the streets as a procession transported her body from the hospital to the medical examiner’s office.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Adams ordered that all flags be lowered to half-staff to pay respect to FDNY EMS Lieutenant Alison Russo-Elling.
Several brave members of a girls’ high school volleyball team in Vermont have taken a stand against a trans teammate sharing their locker room. And now, they may be under investigation by the school for possible harassment.
According to WCAX-TV, several girls on the Randolph Union High School girls’ volleyball team raised concerns about a trans teammate using the girls’ locker room. They allege that the trans teammate made an inappropriate comment in the locker room while they were changing, and now they feel uncomfortable. And at least one of those girls has spoken out publicly in the hopes of effecting “change.”
“My mom wants me to do this interview to try to make a change,” said team member Blake Allen, who spoke on camera wearing her team uniform.
Allen told a local reporter that she and her fellow female teammates did not object to having a trans teammate, but that they did want to have a space where they can change with only other biological females.
Some of girls and their parents then contacted the school about their concerns but were met with resistance. The school defended the status quo, explaining that state law permits a trans student to use the bathroom and locker room that corresponds with their perceived gender identity.
In an email sent to families, school officials also claimed that the girls’ locker room offers “plenty of space where students who feel uncomfortable with the laws may change in privacy.” However, Allen countered that the “plenty of space” is actually a “single stall bathroom” and that forcing all the girls to use one stall rather than the main girls’ locker room itself would be an impractical waste of time.
WCAX reports that Randolph has since banned the entire team from using the locker room while it conducts an investigation into claims that the girls on the team harassed their trans teammate. Allen alleged that volleyball team members are not even allowed to use the locker room during gym class.
And she believes that the negative image that has been cast on her just for raising concerns is unfair.
“I feel like for stating my opinion — that I don’t want a biological man changing with me — that I should not have harassment charges or bullying charges. They should all be dropped,” Allen asserted.
School co-principal Lisa Floyd reportedly said in an email that student safety remains the school’s highest priority and that any violation of school policies will be met with disciplinary action. The school also added that its decision to close the locker room should not be seen as taking sides in the dispute, but rather an as attempt to find a solution that suits the needs of all involved.
The city of Randolph is located near central Vermont, approximately 30 minutes south of the state capital of Montpelier.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
The New Jersey Department of Education is imposing sex education standards that require school districts to teach middle school students about anal sex and pregnancy options like abortion or face potential “disciplinary action.” The state board of education approved several changes to the statewide education standards in June 2020, which school districts are required to implement this month under threat of losing state funding.
The new standards expect students by the end of grade eight to be able to “describe pregnancy testing, the signs of pregnancy, and pregnancy options, including parenting, abortion, and adoption” and be able to define “vaginal, oral, and anal sex.”
The state’s education standards also state that children by eighth grade should be able to “differentiate between gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation,” and schools should “develop a plan … to promote dignity and respect for people of all genders, gender identities, gender expressions, and sexual orientations in the school community.”
The Christian Post contacted the New Jersey Department of Education for comment on the sex education standards. A response was not received by press time.
Melissa Varley, superintendent of the Berkeley Heights Public Schools, told Fox News that while parents can have their children opt out, the sex education requirements still have to be taught in her school district.
“If we do not, we do not pass New Jersey Quality Single Accountability Continuum (NJQSAC) monitoring. If the district fails this process, we may become ineligible for state and even federal funding,” Varley explained.
A spokesperson for the New Jersey Department of Education told Fox News that the learning standards are “mandatory for Local Education Agencies (LEAs) to implement and failure to comply can result in disciplinary action.”
“Under [New Jersey Statutes Annotated] 18A:35-4.7, for children to be excused from any part of instruction in health, family life, or sex education, their parent or guardian must inform the school principal in writing that the instruction conflicts with their conscience or sincerely held moral or religious beliefs,” the spokesperson said.
The NJQSAC system the state uses to monitor school systems evaluates based on five “core components” that research has identified as “key factors in effective district operations,” the spokesperson added.
“Specific indicators in each of the five areas are self-evaluated by the district and verified by the Department,” the spokesperson said. “If a district scores below 80% in any of the NJQSAC areas, the district is required to create a district improvement plan to address the indicators found to be out of compliance. An assessment is made of the district’s capacity and effectiveness based on its compliance with the indicators.”
“Following the assessment, the district is placed on a performance continuum that will determine the level of oversight, and technical assistance and support it receives in accordance with NJSA 18A: 7A-10,” the spokesperson continued. “Dependent upon the percentage of quality performance indicators a district satisfies upon review of the improvement plan, the Department may determine whether additional monitoring or intervention is warranted, pursuant to NJSA 18A:7A-14.”
In 2020, following five months of discernment, public comments and revision, the state board of education voted to revise the 2020 New Jersey Student Learning Standards for Comprehensive Health and Physical Education for classroom instruction, with a key focus on the “Personal and Mental Health” section.
Concerns over how the standards will be implemented prompted Gov. Phil Murphy to ask the state DOE on April 13 “to review the standards and provide further clarification on what age-appropriate guidelines look like for our students.”
Acting Education Commissioner Angelica Allen-McMillan issued a memo on April 14 to school officials declaring that “the State does not mandate curriculum” and that specific materials for the course remain at “the discretion of local educational agencies.”
“To be clear, any report indicating that the NJDOE has approved a specific vendor or instructional material (e.g., lesson plan) related to the implementation of NJSLS-CHPE or any other content area is not accurate,” stated the memo.
“These standards are based on research making clear that receiving age-appropriate information about health education is essential for students’ physical and emotional well-being.”
Regarding the requirement that students know about “vaginal, oral, and anal sex,” Allen-McMillan said this is “foundational to keeping [students] safe and protecting themselves from pressure, dating violence, and assault.”
“It is important to provide students language for, and understanding of, specific acts, empowering them to stay safe, evaluate risks, make informed decisions, and communicate health issues or injuries if necessary,” the memo continued.
“Further, youth who are unable to appropriately name sexual acts may not be able to accurately report instances of sexual harm or abuse if it occurs.”
In May, four state board of education members wrote an open letter to Allen-McMillan, expressing an ongoing concern about the sex education standards and their implementation.
“As board members, we continue to hear views of parents and educators with passionate feelings about what is appropriate and inappropriate for their children to learn, especially about sex,” they wrote.
“[W]e are hoping the committee and department will recommend removing some of the more controversial and graphic language as well as reexamine the age appropriateness of the grade at which some of these topics are recommended to be taught.”
(Photo credit JASON CONNOLLY/AFP via Getty Images)
A Colorado school board proposed a “gender expansive” toolkit that directs educators on how to address transgender and non-binary students, including keeping gender transitions a secret from parents, according to the Post Independent.
“We previously affirmed students’ rights without yet specifying supporting practices,” Roaring Fork School District Chief Of Student And Family Services Anna Cole wrote in a memo to the board. “We have since learned the importance of providing clear guidance and programmatic support and have heard requests from students and staff for more explicit procedures. The toolkit is our response to these requests.”
The toolkit suggests a “gender tree” to explain gender identity and calls the soil, “societal influence,” which is the way “social, cultural and institutional influence” shape “gendered individuals.” Included is “fluidity and history” as the “rings of the tree” to represent a person’s “deeply-felt sense of gender” that can expand beyond man and woman to “genderqueer and agender,” the toolkit showed.
Under the “toolkit,” educators are advised to allow students to use whichever restroom and locker room corresponds with their gender identity. On overnight trips, students should receive accommodations “on a case-by-case basis with the goals of maximizing the student’s social integration.”
“It’s one thing to identify as a gender, but quite another to compel others to use special pronouns, and to open bathrooms and locker rooms to transgender students or allow transgender students onto sports teams of the opposite sex,” a board meeting attendee said to the Post Independent. “The rights of those not identifying as transgendered are being trampled.”
A Civil Union license is signed at a midnight ceremony in the Denver Office of the Clerk and Recorder, at the Wellington E. Webb Municipal Office Building on May 1, 2013 in Denver, Co. Colorado is the eighth state to have civil unions or similar laws implemented, permitting unmarried couples, both gay and heterosexual, the ability to form civil unions and get similar rights to those of married couples. (Photo by Marc Piscotty/Getty Images)
In Florida, a school board implemented a sexual education curriculum that links to Planned Parenthood documents and teaches 12-year-olds “all the ways pregnancy can occur.” An Ohio school is allowing educators to wear LGBTQ badges, despite parental pushback, in an effort to show students they are allies to the community.
The Roaring Fork School Board and Roaring Fork School District did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Peter Doocy Wrecks Karine Jean Pierre And The FBI Goes After … Barron?
Teachers from a Pennsylvania school district are refusing to follow the district’s transgender policy, saying it deadnames, or disrespects, students’ gender identity, according to the Courier Times.
At least four teachers from Lenape Middle School and Central Bucks High School West, both in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, said they would not be following the district policy which requires educators to call students by the name and pronouns on their official records, according to the Courier Times. The district implemented the policy in September, which allows students to change their official record on a case-by-case basis.
“We’re not doing it,” Central Bucks High School West David Klein told the outlet. “If we adopt what they’re suggesting we’re putting a very, very fragile small minority of kids at a risk.”
Central Bucks West teacher Rebecca Cartee-Haring said all of the coworkers she talked to will not be following the policy, the Courier Times reported. At least two Lenape Middle School teachers said they will not be following the policy and know other educators in their building who will be doing the same.
Grand Marshals wave from a float as they participate in the 2016 Gay Pride Parade march through downtown on June 12, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images)
In May, the school district required any political symbols to be removed from classrooms which included pride flags, according to the Courier Times. In July, a district policy was passed that gives the community the right to challenge any book held in the school library.
“If we’re going to, as a way of making it easier for some angry parents to control their kids, we’re going to by policy make it worse for the most marginalized in a school where we’ve already seen the negative consequences of this? No, we can’t,” Klein told the Courier Times.
In Virginia, students in nearly 95 schools walked out on Tuesday to protest Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s proposed transgender policy which requires educators to call students by the name on their official records, which can only be changed with parental consent. The policy also requires students to use bathrooms that correspond with their biological sex rather than their gender identity.
The Central Bucks School District, Klein and Cartee-Haring did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com, and WhatDidYouSay.org.
Source: AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos
The massive news coverage of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “political stunt” of sending 50 illegal aliens to Martha’s Vineyard reminds me of the media’s “political stunt” of referring to illegals as “legal asylum-seekers.”
Number one: They broke into our country. They’re illegal aliens. Number two: All asylum claims are frauds. Every single one.
Asylum is nothing but a conveyer belt to bring the worst people on Earth to our shores. You say you turned your own country into a hellhole? Fantastic! Come right in!
No one gets asylum from a well-run country. Why would we want to admit people who have demonstrated the wisdom, foresight and diligence to produce a functioning society? Rewards await only those who’ve participated in the creation of complete disaster zones. (Just think of what these great thinkers could do for our country!)
Take the Venezuelan illegal aliens whom DeSantis sent to Martha’s Vineyard. Biden’s press secretary and human kewpie doll, Karine Jean-Pierre, repeatedly referred to the briefly loved illegals as “people who are fleeing communism, who are fleeing hardship … desperate people — people who are trying to come here because they’re fleeing communism themselves.”
How did Venezuela become communist again?
As The Martha’s Vineyard Times explained (once the illegals were safely expelled and the island fumigated), Venezuela’s “humanitarian crisis” resulted from that country’s “complicated political and socioeconomic history.”
Actually, it’s not that complicated. Poor people in Venezuela voted for it. Oh boy, did they vote for it.
The ridiculous peasant Hugo Chavez promised Venezuela’s poor that he would take vengeance on the rich — “the squalid ones” — and give their stuff to the poor. Millions of poor people responded: YESSSSS!!!
Beginning in 1998, and five times after that, the poor came out in droves to support this clown. Fist pumping! Dancing in the streets! Red shirts as far as the eye could see!
As The New York Times described it, “To the adoring, impoverished masses who catapulted him to power, Hugo Chavez Frias is El Comandante, their protector and benefactor, the bold leader who will wipe out 40 years of inequality and corruption and redirect this country’s enormous oil wealth to better their lives.”
Chavez basically promised to deliver the Ta-Nehisi Coates “equity” agenda that’s so popular with the Democratic Party right now. The poor believed the rich were rich because they had stolen from the poor. Chavez vowed to take it back. It was sort of a 1619 Project for Venezuela.
As promised, Chavez proceeded to seize private businesses, farms (by 2011, he’d expropriated 6 million acres of farmland) and golf resorts, telling poor people to move onto the club greens.
Anybody want asylum yet? Nope!
Between 1998 and Chavez’s death in 2013 — whereupon he was promptly replaced with his handpicked successor, President Nicolas Maduro — Venezuela’s poor voted for him over and over and over again: in 1998 (80% public approval rating his first year in office), in 2000 (winning 60% of the vote), in 2004 (59% against recalling him), in 2006 (winning 63% of the vote), in 2009 (54% voted to make him president for life) and finally in 2012 (winning 55% of the vote).
Never has any public been polled more often and returned the same resounding answer.
Well, they’re not fist-pumping anymore. Instead, Venezuela’s poor are claiming they “deserve” to access America’s generous welfare state.
Twenty years of Chavez’s Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DIE!) produced this: “a country whose economy has collapsed … malnutrition and disease are soaring [and m]illions have emigrated to escape the grind of finding enough to eat, of living without reliable electricity or tap water,” as Bloomberg News put it in 2019.
Venezuela is sitting on the largest oil reserves in the world, and the communists still couldn’t get it to work.
Who could have seen that coming??? Oh, anyone with two functioning brain cells. There were little hints, like Chavez promising his very first year in office “to follow the path of Fidel,” and describing Cuba as “a sea of happiness, social justice and true peace.”
Millions of Venezuela’s poor thought that sounded just peachy, and the rest did nothing. They act as if this 100% predictable catastrophe was a natural disaster for which they bear no responsibility.
Yeah, I definitely want these people as my fellow citizens. They’ve shown solid judgment.
Now that their own choices have wrecked their country, they demand free admission into ours. Unless they’re professional baseball players, I’m not seeing what’s in it for us.
In the kewpie doll’s press conference proclaiming that these innocent little lambs “deserve better” (than being sent to a fabulous beach resort), she cheerfully listed the great heaping portions of welfare being ladled out to Hispanics:
“[O]ur administration has delivered billions of dollars in loans to Hispanic small businesses, expanded the child tax credit to provide help to millions of families and reduce Hispanic child poverty by more than 40%, expanded access to quality healthcare to thousands of Latino families … And thanks to President Biden’s student loan debt relief program, almost half of Latino students with federal loans will see their debts forgiven.”
The Democratic Party is cribbing Chavez’s lines. And it will work, because the same people who fell for it last time will be voting for it here.
To be sure, the Venezuelan “asylum-seekers” aren’t any worse than other members of that illustrious group. If (when) they are granted asylum, these poor decision-makers will join:
— Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bombers (sometimes, they’re persecuted for a reason);
— Ibragim Todashev, who, along with Tamerlan, slit the throats of three Jewish men in Boston;
— Beatrice Munyenyezi, a genocidal Rwandan, who won asylum by lying about being a victim of the genocide, rather than a perpetrator.
Those are just a few of our standout asylum grantees. To be fair, the illegal Venezuelans haven’t killed anybody yet, as far as we know. They’re more like a homeless guy who shows up on your doorstep after a lifetime of bad choices and demands that you give him your house.
Perhaps, just this once, we should defer to the wisdom of our moral betters on Martha’s Vineyard and tell the Venezuelans: We love you! Now get the hell out.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
An elderly pro-life volunteer is recovering after she was shot during an apparent dispute while canvassing a Michigan neighborhood.
The 83-year-old woman from Ionia County was passing out pamphlets on behalf of Right to Life of Michigan (RLM) on Sept. 20 when police say she was shot in the shoulder after an “alleged verbal altercation” at a home in the area.
The woman then drove herself to the Lake Odessa Police Department and reported the incident, according to Michigan State Police. She was transported to an area hospital and was later released, authorities said.
According to a statement from RLM, the victim was shot “while leaving a residence during a heated conversation” by a man who was not involved in that conversation.
The victim does not know the identity or motive of her shooter, according to the statement.
While RLM Education Coordinator Chris Gast could not provide much additional info, he said the victim — who has been a pro-life volunteer “for a very long time” — is recovering and “in good spirits.”
“She hasn’t mentioned returning to door-to-door activities, but she was asking me about when our yard signs come in, so she’s clearly still engaged,” Gast told The Christian Post.
Michigan State Police are investigating the case and will turn over the investigation’s results to Ionia County prosecutors.
The woman was among a group of volunteers who were going door-to-door to inform residents about Proposal 3, titled “Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative,” a state measure which, if approved by voters, would allow abortion to take place up to and including the moment of birth.
By prohibiting “state discrimination” against enforcement of Proposal 3, the measure also would allow people without medical training to assist with an abortion procedure without fear of prosecution.
While Michigan law currently requires parental consent for virtually all medical procedures for underage children, Proposal 3 would allow for children as young as 12 to undergo an abortion without parental consent.
Gast said Proposal 3 would “dramatically” impact dozens of state laws.
“It would remove basic health and safety regulations from abortion clinics; it would allow minors to take hormone-blocking pills, undergo sex changes, and have abortions without notifying their parents; it would allow abortions until birth,” he said. “There’s a long list of other problems it would create.”
The Michigan attack comes as pro-life activists, pregnancy centers, and others are being increasingly targeted by abortion activists after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
“The Detransition Diaries: Saving Our Sisters” is a cautionary tale that exposes not only how influential the spread of trans ideology is on social media and in doctors’ offices, schools, and therapy sessions, but also how that same ideology weaponizes vulnerable young women’s identity struggle against them.
The film from the Center for Bioethics and Culture documents the testimonies of three women — Helena, Cat, and Grace — who went through various forms of so-called “gender-affirming” prescriptions and procedures only to discover that the wrongly named “treatments” marketed to make them feel better about their bodies did more harm than good.
The featured women do not shy away from mentioning the irreversible procedures and damage this mutilative movement had on their bodies and souls, but they also don’t leave viewers feeling hopelessly doomed in a world that works overtime to normalize the destruction of healthy bodies.
Social Contagion
The documentary starts with the women explaining not just how they learned about transgender ideology but why it appealed to them.
“I don’t think anybody would have described me as gender nonconforming, or a tomboy or anything like that,” Helena admitted.
Though Helena said she never would have been considered “gender nonconforming” or even a tomboy, after hours of scrolling Tumblr, the social contagion of transgender ideology took root in her mind and began fueling her mental health problems.
“By the time I was about 13, I started to feel really depressed. I started self-harming. I started developing an eating disorder. That kind of isolation led me to go on Tumblr because I was spending a lot of time online generally,” Helena said. “I was introduced to a belief system that it had a lot to do with gender, but it was more like, ‘If you don’t fit in, that’s a sign that you’re trans. If you don’t like your body, that’s a sign that you’re trans. And if you transition, all these problems will be fixed.’”
Similar to Helena, Cat’s interest in “transitioning” was piqued when she was 13 after she visited a website boasting all things trans, prompting her to determine she had gender dysphoria.
Grace testified that she had “a lifelong like preoccupation and discomfort with my body” that turned out to be a “very normal sort of young adult female issues.” It’s not uncommon for children and young adults like Grace to feel uncomfortable in their growing bodies, but the vast majority outgrow their sex-related woes if left alone. For instance, in one Canadian study of boys with gender-identity disorder released last year, over time, nearly 88 percent of the subjects “desisted,” or abandoned their desire to identify as the opposite sex.
Grace, however, wasn’t left alone. After years of feeling “lost,” suicidal, and depressed, she jumped at the opportunity to alter her body. Grace also attributed her eventual decision to take testosterone and go through with a double mastectomy at 23, something she said she regrets, to “trans influencers” online.
“I was looking at trans influencers who had the body that I wanted and reading all of that stuff like the happy testimonials, also feeling the hysteria of the online trans community which was really freaking out because Donald Trump was president and they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s going to be illegal to transition.’ It felt like it was a little bit of time pressure,” Grace said.
How could vulnerable young women not entertain the idea of “transitioning” when it is marketed as the end-all to their mental distress? Especially since it is plastered all over social media, and “doctors” advertising castration and mutilation get endless positive press coverage.
There’s plenty of scientific evidence to suggest that kids, especially girls, are heavily influenced by this shameless online trans peddling and the ideology’s popularity among their friends. That’s why “transition” procedures on U.S female adolescents alone quadrupled between 2016 and 2017.
The online world of trans ideology is so pervasive that when Grace began to question whether amputating her breasts was a wise decision, she admitted that she believed she was experiencing “internalized transphobia.”
As Helena explained, it was easy to get swept up into the world of “social justice ideology” with just a few taps on a screen:
In this social justice ideology, there’s kind of a hierarchy of who is the most oppressed versus who is the most privileged. The further along you are on the oppressed scale, that means you know that your opinion is listened to more. I found myself in this place where I had found the only community of other girls who are more like me in terms of personality. I could relate to them, but it was so enmeshed in this kind of belief system that made me feel really guilty about being a cis, straight, white girl. You begin to feel a kind of pressure to constantly apologize for yourself. “OK, well, how do I not be this privileged person anymore?” And one thing that’s really easy to do is just change your pronouns.
Changing pronouns, of course, was just the beginning. Eventually, Helena, Cat, and Grace all began taking testosterone.
Beyond the Screen
When Helena didn’t get the affirmation she wanted from her parents over her gender confusion, she sought help from her school’s guidance counselor and psychologist, both of whom were more than willing to push the teen to “transition” behind her parents’ backs.
“Ironically, one of the things that really kind of supported my idea of being trans was that before I was trans, none of the adults in my life at school or anything really cared that much. They didn’t really see that I was struggling. But when I said I was trans, then they all wanted to like bend over backwards to help me be trans,” she said.
Helena eventually found an in with a medical office that, after she requested it, prescribed her the maximum dosage of testosterone on her first visit.
Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for public school officials to urge and aid kids who want to reject their sex. This is documented well on the Libs of TikTok Twitter account. But schools aren’t the only trans-crazed accomplices.
“After just a 30-minute conversation, the doctor prescribed testosterone over the phone,” Cat said. “It was pretty clear she did not look at my chart, because she would have seen some things that would at least be cause for concern, because like I had a history of suicide attempts, I had been institutionalized before, I had been to inpatient eating-disorder treatment. The outcome of that conversation was, ‘Here’s your drugs.’”
At first, the young women saw what they believed was an improvement in their sex-related confusion and other problems.
“It did kind of feel like, you know, one of the better antidepressants that I’d ever taken in my life,” Cat recalled.
Eventually, however, Helena, Cat, and Grace all learned that taking drugs designed to inhibit their bodies’ natural functions was not the cure they’d hoped it would be. It ultimately left them feeling physically ill, angry, and even more depressed than before.
But in the case of Helena, who was on testosterone for 17 months, her health professionals never considered her symptoms to be a result of the male hormone. Instead, she was prescribed more medications to combat what her hospital’s psych unit deemed borderline personality disorder and psychosis.
“My life just became like a total disaster,” Helena said. “I wasn’t functioning at all. I wasn’t holding down a job. I wasn’t going to school. I just felt like a monster. Once I stopped the testosterone, the symptoms all went away and I started feeling like myself again.”
It was then that Helena gave up on the idea of doing surgeries, saying, “I just became so dysfunctional that I wasn’t really able to have the mental wherewithal to go through the process of calling surgeons, dealing with insurance.”
Cat, a singer, had plans to dive deeper into the trans world with a double mastectomy and legal name change but paused those when she realized “how detrimental the changes to my voice had been and how devastated I was that I had made irreversible changes to myself.”
Grace, who went through with her double mastectomy, experienced regret and the unnerving feeling that no matter how much she altered her body, “this will never be over for me.”
“I just was realizing that there might not be a light at the end of the tunnel like I thought there was. I also don’t really feel like a man, I just feel like a woman who has had her breasts cut off,” Grace admitted.
It was then that she began thinking about all of the irreversible damage her body was subjected to because she was told it was necessary to combat her gender confusion.
“I’m concerned that the testosterone may have affected my fertility and potentially will cause me some like infertility issues, but I really don’t know,” Grace said. “…I feel, I think more than anything else, regret over that. I just hadn’t been thinking about having children at that time. I didn’t think I really wanted them, and that’s something that I began to really want in my mid-20s.”
All Hope Is Not Lost
There were plenty of people, organizations, and resources available to Helena, Cat, and Grace when they first considered “transitioning,” but support for their “detransition” was severely lacking — so they started doing their own research.
“I started looking into a lot of studies, and what I found is that there actually isn’t much quality evidence supporting medical transition as the best treatment,” Cat said. “I started to grow concerned with scientific and medical misinformation being tried by the trans community.”
These young women found a way around the smokescreen with help from truthtellers such as Posie Parker, who ignored the threat of censorship from Big Tech to state hard and fast truths about sex.
“I went on YouTube, and I just searched ‘trans women aren’t women’ because I had never ever listened to gender-critical people or TERFs because I was just told they were hateful people,” Cat explained.
Helena found solace in talking to others like her who had started taking hormones and considering surgeries before waking up to the deception.
“I realized that like, oh, OK, there’s a lot of people going through this. It’s not just a handful of people. It’s like hundreds and thousands of people going through this. And so once I started meeting these people, I just started having conversations,” she said.
Those conversations are why it’s so important for young women like Helena, Cat, and Grace to share their stories.
“I’m really worried about other people who are getting sucked into thinking that gender transition is the answer to problems that would be better solved elsewhere,” Grace said. “I am hopeful, but I think it’s going to be a really ugly time. … The fallout is going to be really severe from all of the detransitioners. … But our voices can no longer be denied.”
Helena, Cat, and Grace will be labeled transphobic and hateful for speaking up, but their transparency offers a message of warning and of hope for real care that parents, policymakers, and people all around the world need to hear: Mangling healthy bodies is a sickness, not a cure.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
Over the weekend, a church in Texas became a lightning rod for protesters and counter-protesters alike when it invited members of “all ages” to a drag event to support so-called “trans and exploring” minors.
On Saturday evening, the First Christian Church of Katy, Texas, an affiliate of the Disciples of Christ denomination, held a bingo event featuring drag queens that was billed as fun for the whole family.
“We create a place for people to feel welcomed and understand that there will always be people who disagree with us,” said Reverend Heather Tolleson, the pastor of the church.
The purpose of the bingo event — and the adults-only drag show later that night — was to raise funds for the church’s “Transparent Closet,” a resource where “trans and exploring teens, youth and young adults” can find cross-sex clothing, shoes, and accessories such as makeup.
The church itself claims to be “a place where all are welcome,” and nearly all of the events and ministries listed on its website refer to LGBTQ issues in some way.
However, the all-ages drag event outraged many others in the community, including parents and members of other churches, who claim that drag queens and those who sponsor them have no business marketing such entertainment to children.
Rebecca Clark, a member of the Fort Bend-based County Citizens Defending Freedom, denounced the drag bingo event.
“We are done tolerating the exploitation and sexualization of our children in this country,” Clark told the Epoch Times.
“Drag queens and children don’t mix,” added Sarah Feigleson of CCDF. “These events are happening in your back yard. Stand up and raise a respectful ruckus.”
Along with CCDF, members of the Proud Boys protested the event, as did other churches. Several Catholics prayed the rosary.
On the other side of the street stood supporters of the family drag bingo day. Members of Antifa wore all black and obscured their faces. Others who were not associated with Antifa proudly showed their identities and their support for exposing kids to LGBTQ-themed entertainment.
“Drag in itself is just a costume,” said one unnamed man wearing a face mask and holding a pride flag. “It’s no different than someone dressed up like a superhero at a comic convention or someone who puts on a Halloween costume.”
Both sides were heavily armed, and a steady police presence remained in the middle of the road to help keep the peace during drag bingo night. There were no reports of violence or arrests, and only church members were allowed to enter the property.
Though the event itself was controversial, there was yet another aspect of it that drew further ire from critics. The event was originally supposed to feature drag queen Tisha Flowers, aka Jaysen Kettl. Not only does Kettl now don a macabre persona when dressed as Flowers, but he also has a troubling past. Back in 2004, Kettl, then 17, pled guilty to conspiracy to commit capital murder after administrators at his school learned that he and at least one other student had plotted to commit a mass school shooting. Thankfully, the plot was foiled before anyone could carry it out.
However, once Kettl’s criminal history was made known, the church quietly removed him from event promotions. It is unclear whether Kettl attended the event.
Despite the controversy, the event sold out and was deemed a success, Rev. Tolleson claimed.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis blasted a reporter Tuesday afternoon for “politicizing” the response to Hurricane Ian.
The tongue-lashing from DeSantis came on the heels of the White House earlier in the day dodging questions about why President Joe Biden hadn’t called DeSantis — a Republican running for reelection in November — about the storm, yet calling mayors in the state, the Daily Wire said.
The reporter said, “FEMA Administrator [Deanne] Criswell said today that she acknowledged concerns that … Florida, as was said, lacks response to the storm so far and that —” before DeSantis cut him off.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Give me a break! That is nonsense! Stop politicizing, okay? Stop it,” the governor barked. “We declared a state of emergency when this thing wasn’t even formed. We’ve had people in here, you’ve had counties doing … a lot of hard work, and honestly, you’re trying to attack me, I get, but like you’re attacking these other people who’ve worked very hard. And so that’s just totally false. I don’t think we’ve ever, certainly since I’ve been governor, declared a state of emergency this early. We made sure that we were very inclusive with it. We said that there was a lot of uncertainty, and then we’ve worked to make sure the preparations that have been done … you talk to the people at the counties, when they’ve needed something, stuff gets there very quickly …”
The media can't help themselves – everything must be politicized. No opportunity to smear opponents is too low. This reporter misrepresented FEMA Director's words
@RonDeSantisFL won't accept it. He'll always stand up for Florida & our world class emergency response professionals pic.twitter.com/Uemzm5vcPH
DeSantis amid his remarks appeared to criticize Biden over the no-phone-call flap, saying that “we don’t have time for pettiness,” the Daily Wire reported.
“So I have not personally spoken with the president, but FEMA has approved our pre-landfall request,” DeSantis noted, the outlet said.
“We feel like we have a good relationship with FEMA,” the governor continued, according to the Daily Wire. “You know, I’m happy to brief the president if he’s interested in hearing what we’re doing in Florida, you know, my view on all this is like you got people’s lives at stake, you got their property at stake, and we don’t have time for pettiness. We got to work together to make sure we’re doing the best job for them.”
“So, my phone — my phone line is open,” DeSantis added, the outlet said. “But we are — we do appreciate the quick approval of the pre-landfall declaration.”
Politicization from the left seems to be the name of the game when it comes to Hurricane Ian:
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota referenced the hurricane and climate change as reasons why Democrats have “gotta win in the midterms” during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
Rachel Vindman — wife of former U.S. Army officer Alexander Vindman, an infamous anti-Trumper — tweeted a suggestion that people should refer to Hurricane Ian using “they/them pronouns” to irritate DeSantis.
CNN’s Don Lemon tried and failed to get an expert from the NHC to blame Ian’s intensity on climate change.
Priorities, anyone?
A Wednesday morning report from the Orlando Sentinel said Hurricane Ian was exhibiting “dangerous winds near Category 5 status” and “has begun to make landfall” and was “expected to barrel its way up toward Orlando tonight.”
The Sentinel, citing the National Hurricane Center, said at 11 a.m. Wednesday the center of Ian was about 45 miles west-northwest of Naples. Gusts of 190 miles per hour are predicted when it makes landfall around 2 p.m., the paper said, citing the NHC.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
Image used for illustration only. | Pixabay/PublicDomainPictues
In August 2011, I participated in a brainstorming session held at Liberty University together with a number of conservative leaders, all of whom had been on the front lines of confronting LGBTQ activism.
As we discussed the impact of this activism on the nation, we asked ourselves what words we could find to help awaken the national conscience. What slogan or saying would capture our concerns and would appeal to the masses? One phrase we agreed on was: “Stop sexualizing our children!”
Now, more than 10 years later, that cry must rise from coast to coast, from all concerned parents from all stripes and backgrounds, and it must speak to heterosexuals activists and LBGTQ activists alike: “Stop sexualizing our children! They do not belong to you, and you will not continue to influence them and degrade them and pollute them and pervert them. Enough is enough! This must stop, and it must stop now.”
From the heterosexual side, the attack has come through sex-ed curricula in schools, presenting inappropriate subjects in inappropriate ways, beginning with the youngest school children. It has been going on for a long time.
In her 1989 book Sex Education: The Final Plague, Catholic author Randy Engel cited Dr. Melvin Anchell’s 1981 statements, noting that:
“When sex educators devalue parental influence … they in effect devalue the student’s conscience. At the same time, they are instrumental in ‘removing societal inhibitions,’ they intensify their efforts for ‘sexual openness’ and they teach the students ‘to rely entirely on their own inexperienced and immature judgments and those of their peers.’
“One of the results of this indoctrination process, charges Dr. Anchell is the formation of a ‘horde culture,’ which is characterized by ‘sexual indulgences … devoid of love.’ ‘The indoctrinated show no guilt, nor do they display concern for morality.’ They are in effect the new barbarians!”
Anchell made these remarks more than 40 years ago, yet some parents are still unaware of just how pervasive this curriculum is in some of their schools. Isn’t it beyond time to wake up?
The heterosexual sexualizing of our children also continues apace through movies and music and social media, where it seems that nothing is sacred anymore.
As I wrote in 2011 after attending that conference at Liberty, “The recent cover of the French edition of Vogue magazine caused considerable controversy, and it was not because of the all too typical, female model featured in a sensual pose. Instead, it was the fact that the model this time was a 10-year-old girl.
“The headline of an article appearing on JewishJournal.com announced that, ‘Vogue Blurs the Line between Fashion & Pedophilia with 10-Year-Old Model,’ and the article’s author, Ilana Angel, rightly noted that, ‘A 10 year old is not able to distinguish between playing dress up in mommy’s make-up and high heels and proving a sexual aid to pedophiles.’ How true!
“But this is only one, extreme example of the way our kids are being sexualized. How many children watch MTV and VH1, mimicking the moves and memorizing the lyrics of the latest song by Britney Spears or Lady Gaga, having no clue that the moves they are making and the words they are mouthing are sexually charged. These kids are too young to have any understanding of sexuality, and yet it is no secret to the TV execs that these same children are a major part of the viewing audience.”
Fast forward to 2019, when I wrote (and here’s a reader alert for graphic content coming), “It was not enough for Teen Vogue to celebrate anal sex, promote prostitution and teach kids how to have an abortion without parental permission. Now this popular young people’s magazine is offering guidelines on ‘sex spells,’ guaranteed to ‘make your orgasms magical’ (What wholesome reading for teens!)”
Tragically, this is barely the tip of a massive, destructive iceberg.
As for the LGTBQ+ sexualizing of our children, much of it comes in the form of indoctrination. Gay is good. Queer is cool. Being trans is something to celebrate. And your kids need to know this starting in pre-school, if not earlier. In fact, let’s normalize drag queens for toddlers!
As I wrote in 2011, it is outrageous “to introduce the categories of adult homosexuality and bisexuality to elementary school children, and now is the time to draw the line. Otherwise, your 8-year-old daughter might come home from school to tell you that she just learned that Joan of Arc was transgender. (After all, wasn’t she a cross-dresser?) Or perhaps your little boy will tell you how exciting it was to learn about the drag queens who started a riot at the Stonewall Inn in 1969.
“The fact is that our educational system is having a hard enough time teaching our kids the three R’s. Must they now learn LGBTQ’s? Now is the time to stop sexualizing our children. They should not be casualties of the culture wars. Do you agree?”
Do these words seem eerily prophetic today?
No wonder, then, that a March 2022 article was titled, “Joan of Arc: Cross-dressing warrior-saint and LGBTQ role model.” Your kids might well have heard about this too. And I already mentioned the perverse new fad of drag queens reading to toddlers. Should I add that they do so with the enthusiastic affirmation of the American Library Association?
This past July, I wrote an article titled “The Only Surprise is That Parents are Just Now Learning About LGBTQ+ Curricula in Their Children’s Schools.”
What, then, prompted me to address this topic yet again?
It was reading about “Gays Against Groomers, an organization comprised entirely of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and even transgender people, launched in 2022 [which] has had meteoric success at attracting followers to their cause exposing the harms done to children by some radicals hiding behind the LGBTQ banner.” Yes, these are gays (and others) who are against the grooming of children. They, too, recognize what is happening.
It was also this story that got my attention: “In Chicago, the city’s largest children’s hospital offers ‘kink’ and ‘trans-friendly’ sex toys for minors.”
Enough with this unbridled assault on our children. However, one may attempt to justify this madness, it must stop, and it must stop now. Parents, grandparents, educators, influencers, politicians, pastors, and other spiritual leaders, whoever you are, whatever stage of life you are in, it’s time that we stand together and raise our voices as one, shouting: “Stop sexualizing our children!”
Gay Pride Attendees Struggle To Define The Word ‘Queer’
K-12 school districts are implementing gender-affirming closets to provide students with products to help change their gender identity.
Items stocked in these gender-affirming closets include tucking tape, chest binders and stand-to-pee devices.
“An aspect of concern is that children see their peers getting special treatment and access to these closets, and that leads to developing resentment towards students with actual gender dysphoria, which could then lead to harassment and bullying, and even contribute to the social contagion we are seeing among our nation’s children,” No Left Turn In Education Chief Communications Director Yael Levin told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
In a push to create a “safer and more inclusive” environment, K-12 school districts are creating gender-affirming closets, giving students access to chest binders, stand-to-pee devices and makeup to help students change their gender identity.
The Driftwood Public Library in Lincoln City, Oregon, held a “Gender-Affirming Closet Donation Kickoff” in August to receive donations from the community for the gender-affirming closet at the local high school. The library asked for donations of tucking tape and chest binders in addition to bras and boxers.
“No Left Turn in Education is concerned by the trend of public schools across the nation offering gender-affirming closets for students that include products such as chest binders for girls and tucking tape for boys,” No Left Turn In Education Chief Communications Director Yael Levin told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Not only does this usurp parents’ rights, but it is practicing mental health gender-affirming medical care without staff being licensed mental health professionals and without parental knowledge or consent.”
Tucking tape is used to push “breast tissue flat” in order to create “chest masculinization” over time, according to the website for TransTape, a company that sells tape for gender transitioning. Tutorials are found online for different patterns and ways students can use the tape to bind the chest and “give the appearance of pectoral muscles.”
The tape can also be used to tuck male genitals to reduce their appearance, the TransTape website stated. The tape is water and sweat proof, allowing it to stay on for a few days.
Chest binders are a tank top-like item with “double panel binders” that come in nude colors to flatten the breast area, gc2b, a trans-owned company that makes chest binders, stated on its website. The binder is meant to match the color of the skin and hide a female’s breasts to give them a male appearance.
Binder exchange programs are offered for kids who want to transition but cannot afford to purchase a chest binder, the DC Area Transmasculine Society, a trans-led nonprofit organization, showed on its website. In order to be eligible to receive a free chest binder, applicants must have gender dysphoria that is caused by their chest and be unable to afford a binder.
“Chest binders can cause restricted breathing, break the skin around the edges of the binder, cause overheating and even bruise or fracture the ribs,” Levin told the DCNF. “Tucking tape can cause chafing, urinary tract infections, problems with urine flow and twisting of the testicles. Further research is needed to determine if tucking tape might lead to hernias and to infertility in boys.”
People in Pride colors attend and march during the 2022 New York City Pride March on June 26, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)
The Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago partnered with several schools in the city to provide LGBTQ resources such as websites for gender-affirming products. The website FtM Essentials, which sells gender-affirming items, has stand-to-pee devices, packers and packer holders.
Stand-to-pee devices are prosthetic penises “designed for standing urination” for females, according to the FtM Essentials website. Harnesses and tight boxer briefs are required to keep the devices in place and it is recommended that females try the device out in the shower first to learn how to use the device.
Females can also use packers, or a prosthetic penis, to give a “realistic bulge,” the FtM Essentials website showed. The packers come in different “colors, sizes and materials” for different ages of transitioning people.To keep packers or stand-to-pee devices in place, packing straps and underwear are available to keep the items “comfortable and discreet,” the FtM Essentials website stated. Some packing underwear come with a cup as an “enhancer” to help with packing.
“An aspect of concern is that children see their peers getting special treatment and access to these closets, and that leads to developing resentment towards students with actual gender dysphoria, which could then lead to harassment and bullying, and even contribute to the social contagion we are seeing among our nation’s children,” Levin told the DCNF.
Aside from items to give the appearance of having genitals of the opposite sex, gender-affirming closets contain makeup, fake eyelashes, jewelry and other clothing items like button-up shirts or leggings to allow students to dress like the opposite sex.
The “It Gets Better Project”gave out 50 grants of $10,000 each to schools across the country to create gender-affirming closets and start “Gender Sexuality Alliance” clubs in an effort to build “safer and more inclusive” environments in schools. Rock Bridge High School in Columbia, Missouri, is one of the schools that received a grant and put the money toward stocking the school with clothing, chest binders, bras, underwear and makeup for a gender-affirming closet.
“In many cases the advertised availability of such items in a school setting suggests a deliberate attempt to circumvent parental involvement,” Free To Learn Coalition President Alleigh Marre told the DCNF. “The distribution of these types of items without the express cooperation of the minor student’s family is completely inappropriate. Our schools should be focused on core competencies and academic achievement.”
The Driftwood Public Library, the “It Gets Better Project,” the Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and the gender-affirming product companies did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
Several black rights groups in Texas recently took to the state capital of Austin to protest against illegal immigration and in favor of their Second Amendment rights and black reparations. On Saturday, the groups, led by the Elmer Geronimo Pratt Pistol and Rifle Gun Club, held the third annual “Second Amendment Unity Walk,” chanting various slogans, including:
“What do we want?” “Closed borders!” “When do we want them?” “Now!”
“Guns up!” “Shoot back!”
“Black power!”
“We all we got!” “We all we need!”
They also carried a banner that read, “REPARATIONS NOW!”
One person reportedly even tried to begin a “Build the wall!” chant in reference to former President Trump’s call to build a wall on the U.S. southern border, but the rest of the crowd did not follow along with it.
At least one group leader stated very candidly that the marchers do not necessarily align with those on the political right.
“Republicans, do not dare to make the mistake of thinking you will get our vote just because we believe in exercising our Second Amendment,” the unnamed woman said into a microphone.
“Yes, I’m talking to you, [Senator] Ted Cruz and Governor [Greg] Abbott,” she continued. “Don’t think we are standing with you because we are against illegal immigration.”
Various speakers also called out Vice President Kamala Harris for failing to protect black Americans by failing to secure the border. The founder of the EGP gun club, Nick Bezzel, elaborated on the reasons why his fellow marchers believe illegal immigration is particularly harmful to the black community.
“We don’t have a problem with immigration itself,” Bezzel said, “but we do have a problem with illegal immigration because, a lot of times, jobs are taken away from black people.
“Black people are locked out from employment due to illegal immigration,” he added.
Bezzel also argued that reparations are a matter of justice.
“What we don’t want to hear is ‘America doesn’t have the money,'” he said, especially as the federal government continues to send money overseas to foreign allies such as Ukraine.
Now that the march is over, the gun club and other groups say they plan to continue lobbying politicians in Austin until they address what marchers called the “black agenda.”
And the gun club views the so-called “black agenda” as multifaceted. In addition to advocating for “responsible gun ownership, gun safety, and protecting our Black communities,” the EGP also works to end no-knock raids and collects food, clothing, and hygiene products for the homeless and those in single-parent homes. Whether the club distributes these items exclusively to black recipients is unclear.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
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American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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Bible Gateway
The Bible Gateway is a tool for reading and researching scripture online — all in the language or translation of your choice! It provides advanced searching capabilities, which allow readers to find and compare particular passages in scripture based on
What Did You Say? 
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