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Might future humans resurrect the dead?

Well, Russian researchers Alexey Turchin and Maxim Chernyakov, who belong to the transhumanism movement, wrote a paper explaining the “roadmap to immortality” that involves superintelligent AI systems powered by Dyson spheres as the primary technology might someday make resurrection possible.

Turchin and Chernyakov wrote, “there no evidence of an afterlife. But there’s also no proof that medical death is the end of subjective experience, or that death is irreversible, or immortality impossible.”

The paper, which Popular Mechanics first reported, is titled “Classification of Approaches to Technological Resurrection,” which offers a roadmap to immortality.

ALex Jones breaks down how the U.N. setting medical tyranny policy gets around the checks and balances of a representative government enforcing on its people.

“Death seems to be a permanent event, but there is no actual proof of its irreversibility,” the authors write. And “while no method is currently possible, many…may become feasible with future technological development.”

Turchin and Chernyakov examine both conventional and future technologies of making humanity immortal, from cryogenics to uploading brains onto the cloud then transplanted into clone bodies. They said “strong AI” will be the most critical technology to download the brain’s contents, but that technology could years away.

“The development of AI is going rather fast, but we are still far away from being able to ‘download’ a human into a computer,” Turchin told Russia Beyond. “If we want to do it with a good probability of success, then count on [the year] 2600, to be sure.”

The authors said the power supply behind the AI would be so powerful that it would need a “Dyson spheres,” a megastructure of solar panels that encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output.

The paper describes life as a “continued stream of subjective experiences” and death as an end of that stream. Immortality, to the researchers, is a “life stream without end,” and resurrection is the “continuation of that same stream of experiences after an arbitrarily long gap.”

Digital immortality is inevitable…",-0.027882679428597384
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Badass Uncle Sam explains how some discussions with leftists on the street inevitably derail due to their rage or lack of common sense.

The Big Tech purge is here! Follow Infowars and Alex Jones on other growing platforms now to stay informed as the information blackout accelerates.",-0.3178705871061043
"In multiple articles I have published recently I outlined why an attempt at a new national covid lockdown in the US is inevitable.

In my article ‘The Real Reasons Why Millions Of Americans Will Defy Covid Mandates And Vaccines’, I examined new polling numbers which show that a vast portion of the US population is refusing to comply with medical controls. The bottom line is this: Covid is a non-threat to 99.7% of the public, and the citizenry is getting wise to this fact. However, there are certain people that NEED the pandemic lockdowns to continue regardless of what the public wants.

The Biden Administration and its globalist handlers have BIG plans for the next few years, and all of it relies on pandemic fears and totalitarian restrictions.

The “Great Reset”, as Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum calls it, is never going to happen unless global populations are locked down and placed under control. Unconstitutional pieces of legislation that undermine or destroy the 2nd Amendment, like HR 127, will be impossible to enact if Americans are organized and unified to resist. Carbon taxation and “shared economy” policies will never be allowed to touch ground. Conservative Americans and many moderates will stamp out such measures like cockroaches within their own states. Law enforcement agencies in most areas would have no interest in being used as cannon fodder to enforce them.

The only option the globalists have at this stage is to barrel forward with the pandemic narrative despite the fact that Covid has turned out to be a hollow issue with a death rate of 0.26% outside of nursing home patients. At least half the country is ready to revolt over the mandates, and almost half the country is refusing to take the vaccines or accept medical passports. That is millions of people that are laughing in the face of the Reset agenda.

So, the question for the thwarted globalists is this: How do they turn their conservative enemies into unwitting allies? What is a 4th Generation warfare solution to their problem? How do they get a larger number of conservatives to support their own enslavement through the lockdown mandates?

Well, one method would be to cause a convincing distraction that compels conservatives to embrace the notion of the lockdowns as an acceptable sacrifice in exchange for dealing with a potentially more dangerous problem.

The crisis of mass illegal immigration is turning into a growing national debate right now. I suspect we haven’t even begun to see the consequences yet, and I also suspect that there is a plot hidden within these events. But let’s look at the surface arguments first…

Obviously, most conservatives are going to view a huge influx of illegals into the US as a means for Democrats to secure elections for decades to come. I’m sure most people reading this article are aware of the “Cloward Piven Strategy”, and I won’t delve into it too much here except to say that I get it, and I realize it’s a problem; it’s just not the biggest problem that conservatives should be worried about right now.

Yes, this exact program of social dilution was used in Europe only a few years ago, and to be clear, this is not a problem of “race”, it is a problem of culture and ideology. Muslim culture and Sharia law, for example, are for the most part incompatible with Western society. Forcefully mixing the two is a recipe for disaster as we have seen already in the EU. When Muslims immigrate LEGALLY and individually assimilate into Western culture instead of trying to import their own culture by attrition, things work. Otherwise things do not work. This is reality.

By extension, mass illegal migration without assimilation of people from Central and South America into the US will also lead to disaster. These migrants are coming from predominantly socialist countries that have failed systems (that’s why these people are leaving and coming to the US). But, illegals tend to bring their socialist politics with them. They have no experience living within a culture that treats freedom as inherent and inalienable and are often motivated by access to government programs and handouts.

This is why we have borders in the first place – to protect our society from intrusion and co-option by another society or group of people with incompatible values. Despite what leftists and some false libertarians might claim, without borders, freedom dies.

Conservatives easily understand this simple concept, but leftists just don’t get it. They live in a Marxist fantasy land where Utopia is right around the corner and open borders are a magical tool for peace and prosperity. They also hate conservatives and that pesky Bill of Rights that we defend so much. They think inviting an army of potential socialists into the country will help to marginalize us and make us disappear. They’ll even brag about it openly on occasion.

So, it’s not surprising that whenever a giant caravan of illegals starts marching towards the southern border, conservatives rally in opposition. We might even put more energy into this issue than we do for gun rights.

Here is the problem…

The migrant crisis is suddenly receiving heavy attention from the mainstream media after being ignored for months. Why is that? It feels as if there was a complete blackout on this issue, and now, the floodgates have opened and the media coverage is growing. With the amount of protection Biden has been lavished with by the MSM so far, their sudden critical position on his border policies has me suspicious. Since when do leftist corporate journalists care about the border?

Well, reports of a possible “surge in covid” due to mass illegal migrations into America might explain everything.

Think of it this way – The establishment and Biden need some kind of rationale for a new covid lockdown. I continue to predict that Biden will try to institute a Federal lockdown mandate similar to the Level 4 lockdowns used in parts of Europe, Australia and New Zealand. They know that there is too much conservative opposition and that they will not be able to get red states to comply. But, what if conservatives were made to think that the border would be more heavily guarded and illegal immigrants rounded up if they supported a new lockdown policy?

What if conservatives were tricked into supporting covid lockdowns as a means to control illegal immigration?

The solution should be obvious: Biden should be enforcing border protocols and laws WITHOUT needing covid lockdowns. But, he’s not going to do that. What he’s going to do is keep the border as porous as possible, do little to stem the tide of immigrant caravans until the situation devolves into chaos, and then announce that a “new wave” of covid infections has been brought to the US by the caravans.

Again, covid is a non-threat to 99.7% of the population outside of nursing homes, but what about a “covid mutation”? Brazil has been conveniently reporting such a mutation that is supposedly “more dangerous” than the original covid virus.

As this variant spreads, whether or not it presents any actual danger, Biden will then announce a national lockdown including a hard lockdown on the southern border. The question is, will some conservatives be more inclined to back off of their opposition to the mandates if it means illegal immigration will be stopped?

This is essentially a protection racket. In other words, Biden will refuse to protect the border until we comply with the pandemic restrictions, just as he and the establishment will continue to push for restricted freedoms until ALL Americans submit to vaccinations and medical passports.

However, there is another way…

Counties on the southern border can take over the job of securing the region and refuse to allow illegal migrants to pass. If the border patrol is understaffed or is being hobbled by the federal government, then the locals can take control and do the job that Biden refuses to do. Furthermore, if the problem persists and the federal government seeks to interfere in local efforts to secure the border, then it may be time to create new borders. It may be time to do that anyway.

Conservatives and moderates have almost nothing in common with the political left anymore; conservatives want freedom of speech, the right to self defense, the right to honest and accurate information, self reliance, economic freedom, secure borders and small government. Leftists support mass censorship, disarmament, business shutdowns, lockdown mandates, open borders, the big government nanny state, centralization and tyranny. Perhaps it is time we separate and build the societies we want, and well away from each other.

Iet’s see which system thrives and which one collapses. Let’s see which system people want to join and which system people want to escape.

My point is, at no time should conservatives feel compelled to accept covid lockdowns or other totalitarian measures just to get border protections from the federal government in return. And, I probably don’t need to say this, but don’t buy into the covid mutation narrative. The pandemic is a failed part of the Reset agenda, nothing more. The elites are trying to pick up the pieces and turn garbage into gold. As long as conservatives and liberty minded people refuse to comply, their plans will crumble. And, if the border needs to be secured and the federal government refuses to do their job, then we should take control and make the border safe ourselves.

Alex Jones breaks down how humanoid entities are being created to circumvent human rights violations in experimental research.",0.3012536077591336
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The notion that Americans will always be free is part of the catechism that is force-fed to public school students.

For hundreds of years, philosophers, politicians, and reformers have touted a law of history that assures the ultimate triumph of freedom.

“Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The urge for freedom will eventually come,” Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

But few political follies are more hazardous than presuming that one’s liberties are forever safe.

None of the arguments on why liberty is inevitable can explain why it has not yet arrived.

Most of the human race existed with little or no freedom for 95+ percent of recorded history. If liberty is God’s gift to humanity, then why were most people who ever lived on Earth denied this divine bequest?

Many efforts at limiting state power have failed almost immediately. In the thirteenth century, oppressed English nobles revolted and sought to bind their kings in perpetuity.

King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215, petulantly accepting a limit to his prerogative to pillage everything in his domain.

While the Magna Carta is celebrated nowadays as the dawn of a new age, it failed to even bind the king who signed the document.

The ink on his signature was barely dry before King John brought in foreign forces and proceeded to slaughter the barons who forced his signature.

King John died just after his vengeance commenced, providing a respite for Englishmen. In the final realm, the Magna Carta was simply a political pledge that was honored only insofar as private courage and weaponry compelled sovereigns to limit their abuses.

History is a chronology of nations pillaged by reckless regimes.

English kings recited coronation oaths that limited their power.

Such oaths were as binding as a congressional candidate’s campaign promises.

Rampaging kings sometimes converted smouldering discontent into a raging fire of resistance.

Historian Thomas Macaulay summarized England’s path to its Glorious Revolution of 1688: “Oppression speedily did what philosophy and eloquence … failed to do.”

King James II was ousted in 1688 and Parliament speedily enacted laws to curb all subsequent monarchs.

The United States was the first government to be created with strict limitations on its power, enshrined in the Constitution.

As James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”

The Founders included numerous checks and balances in the Constitution to restrain political ambition.

But they were never so naïve as to presume that a parchment barrier would keep American liberty safe in perpetuity.

Within the first decade of the nation’s existence, Congress and President John Adams enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts, which destroyed freedom of the press and speech.

Thomas Jefferson responded by writing a resolution in 1799 that warned, “Free government is founded in jealousy, not confidence…. In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

Senator John Taylor, in his 1821 book Tyranny Unmasked, scoffed at presuming “our good theoretical system of government is a sufficient security against actual tyranny.”

Those “chains of the Constitution” have often been illusory or merely a placebo phantasm for government victims.

Politicians perennially invoke the Constitution to prove that citizens have no reason to fear the government.

When the House of Representatives considered the PATRIOT Act in October 2001, Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) assured fellow members of Congress that “the bill does not do anything to take away the freedoms of innocent citizens.

Of course we all recognize that the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution prevents the government from conducting unreasonable searches and seizures, and that is why this legislation does not change the United States Constitution or the rights guaranteed to citizens of this country.”

Sensenbrenner talked as if that the mere existence of the Bill of Rights shackled Congress.

This is akin to claiming that because automobiles have brakes, drivers can never exceed the speed limit.

The PATRIOT Act unleashed a constitutional crime wave, as the Bush administration suspended habeas corpus and conducted waves of secret arrests, unleashed the FBI to conduct hundreds of thousands of warrantless searches, and entitled the National Security Agency to vacuum up Americans’ emails and other personal data.

American presidents take an oath of office solemnly swearing to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

But this has long been an empty ritual, akin to Roman emperors making public sacrifices to pagan gods they knew did not exist.

Fealty to the Constitution has evaporated in part because philosophical trends have long favored absolute power.

Intellectual servility has been perennially profitable and there has never been a shortage of writers exalting supreme rulers.

Writing in 1651, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes labeled the state as Leviathan, “our mortal God.”

Leviathan signifies a government whose power is unbounded, with a right to dictate almost anything and everything to the people under its sway.

While Hobbes was reviled in the first century after his book was published, his ideas later became fashionable as academics rushed to echo his derision of “tyrannophobia.”

Hobbes declared that it is forever prohibited for subjects in “any way to speak evil of their sovereign” regardless of how badly they are abused. Hobbes offered “suicide pact sovereignty”: to recognize a government’s existence is to automatically concede the government’s right to destroy everything in its domain.

Hobbes profoundly influenced subsequent political philosophers, including German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel, who trumpeted the doctrine that history is the actualization of freedom.

But Hegel was not using “freedom” in the sense that the Founding Fathers did.

Instead, Hegel declared, “The State in-and-for-itself is the ethical whole, the actualization of freedom.”

Hegel also proclaimed that “[t]he State is the Divine Idea as it exists on earth” and derided the notion of freedom as individual choice as “uneducated superficiality.”

Hegel’s slavish version of freedom was difficult to distinguish from Hobbes’ s totalitarian vision of sovereignty.

Hegel had a profound influence on communism (via Marx), fascism, and on the most popular philosopher in Washington in recent decades.

Francis Fukuyama, a State Department functionary, hailed Hegel as the supreme “philosopher of freedom.”

In 1989, Fukuyama proclaimed the “unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism” and boasted that “we in the liberal West occupy the final summit of the historical edifice.”

He announced “the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”

Fukuyama’s “law of history” supposedly proved that government was no longer a threat to freedom.

By making political power appear innocuous, Fukuyama became an instant hero inside the Beltway.

Fukuyama’s “end of history” revelation was zealously embraced by the political-media establishment. Fukuyama provided a law of history that supposedly negated all the warnings from history about political power.

Fukuyama’s doctrine “liberated” presidents in the name of freedom.

In his 2002 National Security Strategy, President George W. Bush echoed Fukuyama’s view: “The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom—and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise.”

At a 2002 Republican fundraiser dinner, Bush declared: “We will do whatever it takes to make the homeland secure and to make freedom reign across the world.”

In his 2005 inaugural address, Bush whooped, “We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom.”

Bush used “freedom bosh” to sanctify his wars, torture regime, and militaristic threats against any foreign regime that disobeyed Washington.

Why would history stop after either liberty or democracy is achieved?

The experience of many countries has been “one person, one vote, one time.”

Faith in democracy as a perpetual guarantor of freedom is tricky to reconcile with the collapse of more than thirty democracies around the globe in recent years.

Few of the democracies that have survived have fastidiously respected citizens’ rights.

Some libertarians are confident that, despite post–9/11 debacles, liberty will inevitably triumph in the end.

But why would freedom be safer in the future than now?

Because of a law of history that was never enacted by God, a convocation of cardinals, or even the Arkansas state legislature?

Presuming that America or any other nation is destined to be free lulls people against potential oppressors.

Author Robert Anton Wilson observed, “Every national border in Europe marks the place where two gangs of bandits got too exhausted to kill each other any more and signed a treaty.”

Similarly, the current extent of government power marks the boundary of political onslaughts into the private domain of liberty.

There will be no perpetual truce along this border, because political marauders will continually create new pretexts to invade citizens’ lives.

The private domain relies primarily on voluntary agreements, independence, and peaceful coexistence.

The political domain relies on command and control, subjugation, and threats and penalties.

One of the greatest perils to the private domain is the notion that Leviathan is more legitimate than liberty.

Downplaying government coercion is the key to this propaganda coup.

For most of the American media, compelling submission to political commands is a nonissue, equivalent of the sun rising in the east each morning.

At the time when political power began soaring, in the 1930s, American political thinking systematically disregarded the danger from government.

In the 1940s, as Professor David Ciepley observed, “the State was dropped from American social science, as part of the reaction to the rise of totalitarianism.

All traces of state autonomy, now understood as ‘state coercion,’ were expunged from the image of American democracy.”

Ciepley explained that “the emergence of Hitler and Stalin as the ultimate social engineers led American political scientists to … fall silent about all such activities in the American governmental system. If totalitarianism means elite social engineering, then American democracy must mean popular control.”

Democracy became the purported champion of freedom, because people were taught that democracies were inherently nonoppressive.

But as Senator John Taylor warned two centuries ago, “Self-government is flattered to destroy self-government.”

For many people, liberty is an abstraction until government agents ravage their lives.

A lucid recognition of the coercive nature of Leviathan is vital for the defense of freedom. Leviathan’s abuses and atrocities must be weaponized to awaken as many people as possible to the perils they face.

“Legitimacy” spawns a political fog that obscures people’s recognition of their own victimhood.

Lenin reputedly said that the capitalists would sell communists the rope with which the capitalists were hanged.

Similarly, Leviathan perennially provides ample gunpowder for detonating its legitimacy.

Leviathan without legitimacy is simply a regime that must rely on brute force to compel submission to its decrees.

At some point, the brute force becomes too great for regime lackeys to cover up.

Once legitimacy is lost, governments can collapse like overheated soufflés.

For instance, East Bloc regimes imploded much faster than almost anyone expected.

Prior to 1989, Soviet leaders believed that cosmetic reforms would keep people subdued despite a failing economic system.

CIA analysts predicted that 100+ million people in East Europe would remain docile and downtrodden for decades longer.

But proliferating protests in several nations spurred the Hungarian government to permit a breach in the Iron Curtain along the Austrian border in May 1989.

That breach quickly spurred a flood of humanity rushing to escape communism, taking with them the tattered remnants of regimes’ legitimacy.

Six months later, the Berlin Wall was breached and governments fell like dominos.

On Christmas Day, Romanian soldiers celebrated by lining their dictator and his wife up in front of a stone wall and executing them.

Most contemporary governments have more popular support than Soviet Bloc regimes received in the 1980s.

But sustained abuses can be an acid drip that eventually topples any government regardless of its purported mandate.

More Americans believe in witches, ghosts, and astrology nowadays than trust the federal government.

In the Covid-19 era, America is degenerating into a cage keeper democracy, where voters merely select the politicians who place them under house arrest.

Expecting liberty to permanently triumph would require rulers to miraculously become selfless if not self-sacrificing. But, as Hayek warned in his essay “Why the Worst Get on Top,” power is a magnet for the dregs of humanity.

Faith in the state will continue reviving as long as some people feel entitled to domineer other people.

Political action pays a higher premium on deceit than almost any other human activity and thus will remain perilous to everything decent.

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” as our forefathers recognized in the nineteenth century.

To presume that liberty is inevitable is to absolve oneself from fighting oppression.

As soon as people drop the reins on government, politicians will leash the people.

Rather than hoping for an “end of history” triumph, people must battle forever to defend their rights.

As long as individuals continue to defy oppressors, the seeds of resistance will produce bountiful harvests of freedom in better times.",-0.8727743221513927
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Niall Ferguson holds a PhD in philosophy from Oxford, taught history at Harvard and NYU, and wrote perhaps the definitive biography of Henry Kissinger.

So, naturally, Bloomberg hired him to write on economics.

His most recent column for Bloomberg is a strained mix of the Scot’s views on inflation, tempered slightly by a welcome skepticism toward Jerome Powell’s dismissal of the threat.

Ferguson is still gun-shy from an exchange with Paul Krugman back in 2010 over inflation, but he’s at least willing to challenge Powell’s unwarranted reassurances.

Yet as Ferguson wends his way through an examination of yields curves and velocity, and the “breakeven” inflation rate, readers get the strong impression he’s offering nothing more than a crapshoot designed to show off his historical knowledge.

Nowhere is economic theory offered, considered, or even excused for its absence.

The whole mess of an article is a shining example of Rothbard’s law, whereby people specialize in the very things in which they are least qualified or knowledgeable.

Now, Ferguson is admittedly a brilliant and charming person, the kind of intellectual Georgetown likes.

And he is not required to stay in his lane, as they say, either as an historian or otherwise.

But his elevation to economic soothsayer, particularly in the incoherent nonfield of macroeconomics, does neither him nor readers any good.

In short, almost all economics journalism lacks any foundation in economic theory.

It is mostly “business” writing and business reporting, focused almost entirely on economic data—simply the aggregated and narrowly focused recent results of corporate performance, along with untrustworthy measures of inflation, unemployment, and GDP.

The financial press gives us the what, when we need the how and why.

The wholly observable “what” is presumed to provide both explanatory and predictive value.

To be fair, as mentioned, Ferguson does weave some history of previous inflationary periods into his article.

He also injects a bit of boilerplate theory in his opening quote from Milton Friedman on inflation as a monetary phenomenon.

But does Mr. Ferguson think an analysis of inflation begins in 1970 with Milton Friedman?

He would be well advised to consider the wisdom of Henry Hazlitt, a journalist who truly knew economics and spent more than twenty years documenting postwar inflation as an express policy in his famous Business Tides column at Newsweek.

Does Ferguson have any conception of the Cantillon effect, or of Austrian business cycle theory—even if only to attempt a refutation?

Does he have any feel for the enormous distortions caused by rapid expansion of money and credit, the misallocation of resources?

For the gross income and wealth inequality that central bank machinations leave behind, like blood at a crime scene?

Though he is an historian by trade, one immediately realizes that for Ferguson this story is all about data.

The “numbers” will tell us whether Chairman Powell’s latest gambits will work.

What Ferguson cannot or will not answer are the fundamental questions: Why is some inflation good, but not too much?

Why is 2 percent beneficial, but 10 percent clearly harmful?

And why is deflation per se bad, without explanation? Why does “everyone know” it’s bad, without the same analysis given to inflation?

In fact, deflation remains almost comically misunderstood among economists.

Deflation is a salutary force in any society, one which makes once luxurious goods and services widely available to average people.

Like recessions, deflation is the needed corrective to the central bank and fiscal interventions which caused higher prices in the first place.

Rather than a bogeyman, deflation is the natural and expected process when an economy becomes more productive.

The legendary James Grant even describes deflation as the process by which societies get richer.

But Ferguson, like most financial journalists, is stuck in the world of “everyone knows.”

Like all positivists, he holds a set of assumptions which can be proven away by the next downturn.

As such he has the process of economic analysis completely backwards, meaning he starts from data and then attempts to reverse engineer an explanation.

He cannot for a moment consider ideas or thinkers on the margin, but only the views of mainstream voices like Larry Summers and Lael Brainard.

He can’t get out of his own way, because he lacks any baseline of economic theory to analyze the pronouncements and the statistics.

Economic journalism needs a reset.

There are good economists writing about finance and economics, but Niall Ferguson is not one of them.

Ferguson, however, is merely a symptom of the greater problem—namely the gross lack of knowledge of economic theory among people who write professionally about markets.

Bloomberg would do well to jettison Ferguson and offer its biweekly column to James Grant, or perhaps the outstanding John Tamny of RealClearMarkets.

Gene Epstein, retired from Barron’s, would be an excellent contrarian voice.

Austrians like Robert Murphy or Per Bylund also come to mind, as both excel at writing for lay audiences and both would provide sorely needed intellectual diversity in a sea of (faintly) Keynesian orthodoxy.

Economic commentary without theoretical understanding brings to mind Rothbard’s metaphor of a behaviorist trying to explain the hustle and bustle of Grand Central Station without knowing about the trains and destinations.

As it turns out, dismissing theory to understand “how the world really works” only leads us to understand it less.",-0.8081065955677773
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Reflecting on the current crisis unfolding on the US-Mexico border, Democrat Joe Biden’s ‘open borders agenda’ has been slammed by former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Tom Homan.

The current US President “sold out” America to progressives in order to be elected, claimed Homan in an interview on Fox News’ “Life, Liberty & Levin” that aired on Sunday.

When the host, Mark Levin, suggested that the strategy of the Biden administration in dealing with the overwhelming surge of migrants at the US-Mexico border was to “overwhelm the system, break the system, then blame the system and take control,” the ex-government official who is currently a Fox News contributor voiced agreement.

“You’re correct. The Biden administration is still trying to blame President Trump for what’s going on the border right now. They’re ignoring the fact that — I don’t care if you love President Trump or hate him — you cannot deny the fact that he gave us the most secure border in my career, which is almost thirty-five years,” Homan responded.

The acting immigration enforcer under then-president Donald Trump, who testified to Congress in 2017 that undocumented immigrants “should be afraid” and “you can’t be part of this country and not respect its laws”, added:

“I started in 1984 as a Border Patrol agent. I spent my entire career on border enforcement, immigration enforcement, and President Trump got it right. He had unprecedented success on that border.”

Homan praised Donald Trump for having “understood that 90 percent of the Central Americans that come to our border to claim asylum never get relief from US courts. They simply don’t qualify. That data’s easily available on the Department of Justice website; anybody can look at it”.

As for President Joe Biden, who campaigned on an agenda seeking to undo much of his predecessor’s tough migration policies, Homan expressed doubt that President Biden or [DHS Secretary] Alejandro Mayorkas had looked at the data.

“… because if they did, then they’re facilitating immigration fraud on the border,” said Homan.

‘ICE Decapitated’

Tom Homan recalled the efforts that had been made during ex-president Barack Obama’s second term, when Joe Biden was vice president and Mayorkas was deputy homeland security secretary.

“… We built detention facilities, thousands of them. We held people long enough to see a judge. We let ICE remove them and we took away the enticements,” said the former official.

Now, according to him, “Joe Biden has sold out this country to the progressive left to win an election… He’s a different person … Alejandro Mayorkas is a different person.”

Deploring the current changes to the immigration policies, Homan pointed out that migrants detained at the border were being released “as soon as they can, within three days. ICE has been decapitated. They lost 90% of their authority. They’re not executing judges’ orders, and we keep throwing out more enticements.”

Summing up the border situation, which the current White House administration still persists in referring to as a “challenge” and not a “crisis”, Homan said:

“This isn’t incompetence. This is by design. This is an open borders agenda that we all knew was coming.”

‘National Disaster’

Former President Donald Trump weighed in on the enormous influx of illegal immigrants, including unaccompanied children, crossing the US border with Mexico, in a statement shared by his ex-press secretary Sean Spicer on Sunday.

Statement from President Trump on the situation on the border as well his thoughts on @DHSgov Secretary Mayorkas #BorderCrisis #Border pic.twitter.com/8LQ3V4NHhY — Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) March 21, 2021

As he urged the Biden administration to immediately resume construction of the wall on the US-Mexico border, which had been brought to a halt by the Democratic president’s new team in the White House, he said:

“We proudly handed the Biden Administration the most secure border in history. All they had to do was keep this smooth-running system on autopilot.”

He decried the fact that “in the span of a just few weeks, the Biden Administration has turned a national triumph into a national disaster”.

After he assumed the Oval Office in January, President Joe Biden acted on his campaign promises and signed a number of decrees, including softening the country’s migration legislation.

One of the first orders was the cancellation of the state of emergency imposed by Trump in connection with the situation on the US-Mexican border, which had made it possible to finance the construction of the wall, bypassing Congress’ approval.

Dire Border Situation

This comes as Fox News confirmed on Sunday that in an unprecedented move, Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector (RGV) had started processing and releasing illegal border crossers who claim asylum without issuing a Notice to Appear (NTA).

As they reportedly forgo the hours-long process of paperwork required to issue an NTA amid the surge of migrants at the border, the migrants are allowed to depart custody without a court date for a hearing scheduled, the outlet reported.

The controversial move comes as the ongoing crisis on the border has “become so dire that BP [Border Patrol] has no choice but to release people nearly immediately after apprehension,” a senior source with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) told Fox News on Saturday.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chief Alejandro Mayorkas acknowledged last week that border crossings were on track to be the highest registered in 20 years, with the CBP announcing that over 100,000 migrants were apprehended at the border in February.

Data from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shows 9,457 unaccompanied migrant children were apprehended at the southern border in February – a substantial surge from the 5,858 unaccompanied migrant children apprehended in January.

Migrants from across the world are accepting the Biden administration’s invitation to flood the southern border.",0.052213299822067245
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The Biden administration has announced that it will nationalize an estimated $1 billion in student debt without action by Congress or President Joe Biden by using a little-understood program called Borrower Defense to Repayment.

This price tag applies only to the claims already adjudicated, many of which were found to be entitled to partial relief. Those borrowers who previously received partial relief will now have the rest of their loans canceled, and they may receive refunds for any student loan payments they have already made.

Borrower Defense to Repayment, commonly called Borrower Defense, was created at the tail end of the Obama administration ostensibly to protect borrowers from schools that misrepresented themselves to potential students, perhaps about their future earnings, odds of passing a licensing exam, where their credits may transfer, or their post-graduation job prospects. The program allowed borrowers who were lied to by their schools to file a Borrower Defense claim that may entitle them to student debt relief.

The Obama administration moved to create a rule that would leave the door wide open for borrowers to have their loans nationalized, even if they were not misled and did not suffer harm.

The Trump administration raised the bar for loan relief substantially by requiring borrowers to demonstrate that they had suffered actual financial harm. The Trump administration’s final rule included:

“Requir[ing] a borrower applying for a borrower defense to repayment loan discharge to supply documentation that affirms the financial harm to the borrower is not the result of the borrower’s workplace performance, disqualification for a job for reasons unrelated to the education received, or a personal decision to work less than full-time or not at all.”

Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos created a methodology that allowed for partial relief, with harm suffered being measured based on how much a claimant earns compared to graduates from similar programs. If a borrower earns as much or more as the median graduate of similar programs, under the DeVos methodology, that borrower would not be entitled to relief.

This methodology was estimated by the Department of Education to save taxpayers $1.1 billion over a 10-year span, while still providing full relief to students who received an education that was unsatisfactory.

If a borrower earns just under the median income of their cohort, they may be entitled to have 25 percent of the loan amount canceled. Depending on how little a borrower earns, they could be entitled to 50 percent or 75 percent loan relief; if they earn less than two standard deviations from the median income in their cohort, he may be entitled to 100 percent loan relief.

Biden Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Thursday replaced that methodology with an all-or-nothing system that grants 100 percent relief to any borrower with a valid borrower defense claim. In other words, borrowers whose earnings place them in the 49th percentile of earners in their cohort would have their loans paid for by taxpayers.

As the new methodology is used to process new Borrower Defense to Repayment claims, the cost to taxpayers is likely to climb exponentially higher.

The Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

Migrants from across the world are accepting the Biden administration’s invitation to flood the southern border.",-0.4761186691591935
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The trend of Bitcoin ATMs has already started in some delis and gas stations in places like Montana, the Carolinas and New York City.

Companies like CoinFlip and Coin Cloud have installed “thousands” of the ATMs across the country, according to Reuters. Coin Cloud has 1,470 machines around the United States and is aiming for 10,000 by the end of 2021.

Quad Coin founder Mark Shoiket said: “I just assumed there was demand and people wanted bitcoin everywhere.” He just recently flew to Montana to find 7 new places to install bitcoin ATMs, including a local vape shop.

There’s currently 28,185 bitcoin ATMs in the United States. About 10,000 of those have popped up over the last 5 months, the report notes. Some people use the ATMs because they sometimes feel more comfortable interacting with a physical machine, while others do it for anonymity purposes. Fees can range from 6% up to 20% of a total transaction.

There’s now Bitcoin ATMs in every state except Alaska.

51 year old Pittsburgh resident Rebecca White said: “When we do our grocery shopping and we have $60 left, I will stop at the bitcoin ATM.”

Pamela Clegg, director of financial investigations and education at cryptocurrency compliance firm CipherTrace, said: “The growth of the ATM market – it is not even a gentle increase, it is almost a 45% increase. The growth is quite astonishing.”

But regulators have been watching the pop-up of the machines closely. The New Jersey State Commission of Investigation, for example, recently published a report called “Scams, Suspicious Transactions and Questionable Practices at Cryptocurrency Kiosks.”

Coin Cloud CEO Chris McAlary said: “We expected the worst as Covid hit, but stimulus payments came out and that helped quite a bit. Some people took stimulus and bought digital currency with it.”

CoinFlip CEO Daniel Polotsky said: “There are people who don’t have bank accounts or don’t like to use them.”

Bitcoin Depot, from Atlanta, has also grown its number of ATMs from 500 to more than 1,800 in the past year. Customers are mostly “25-40 years old”. General Bytes, a Bitcoin ATM manufacturer, said that demand “soared” and the company ran out of stock last year.

They sold 3,000 machines last year. 90% of those machines went to North America, the report says.

Migrants from across the world are accepting the Biden administration’s invitation to flood the southern border.",-1.4744751345388545
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President Trump issued a statement Sunday slamming the Biden administration and particularly the Department of Homeland Security for allowing the situation at the border to spiral out of control while simultaneously instituting a cover up by denying press access.

As we reported last week, the immigration crisis on the border is worsening every day, and reporters have demanded to know why they have not been given any access to facilities housing migrants, and why border officials have effectively been placed under a gag order, as reported by NBC News.

Trump declared Sunday “We proudly handed the Biden Administration the most secure border in history. All they had to do was keep this smooth-running system on autopilot.”

Trump releases statement on latest developments in border crisis: pic.twitter.com/G2qHsxTgZI — Byron York (@ByronYork) March 21, 2021

“Instead, in the span of a just few weeks, the Biden Administration has turned a national triumph into a national disaster. They are in way over their heads and taking on water fast,” Trump’s statement continues.

The world heard the call of President Biden that the borders would be open for them, and they heeded the call, all coming through Mexico.

The 45th President also addressed the “pathetic, clueless performance of [DHS] Secretary Mayorkas on the Sunday Shows”.

“His self-satisfied presentation—in the middle of the massive crisis he helped engineer—is yet more proof he is incapable of leading DHS,” Trump urged.

“Even someone of Mayorkas’ limited abilities should understand that if you provide Catch-and-Release to the world’s illegal aliens then the whole world will come,” Trump further emphasised.

Mayorkas appeared on practically every news channel Sunday attempting to gloss over the massive humanitarian crisis that has emerged in under one month at the border, and to deny there is any ‘gag order’.

The DHS head was repeatedly called out by news anchors who usually only throw softball questions without challenging the responses:

ABC Raddatz fact checks DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas: the Biden administration was warned of crisis, migrants cite Biden’s policy changeshttps://t.co/BOYiOJskjz pic.twitter.com/jR4IiI4JTS — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 21, 2021

NBC News' Chuck Todd fact checks DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas after he claims that border is secure amid the crisishttps://t.co/SxVKHPfu6F pic.twitter.com/5Q804gi1Qg — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 21, 2021

Fox News’ Chris Wallace calls out DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for Biden’s media blackout on the border crisishttps://t.co/ddP6LzmV8l pic.twitter.com/QgGYlzYCJt — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 21, 2021

CNN’s Bash confronts DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on border-state Democrats saying Biden has fueled the crisishttps://t.co/Rzbmp9mtnz pic.twitter.com/EqXCaNlXdt — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 21, 2021

CNN’s Pamela Brown reports “as the situation at the US-Mexico border gets worse, the media is being kept from it”https://t.co/aQNE02RH7X pic.twitter.com/FVUm2IfyE2 — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 21, 2021

In his statement, Trump also addressed the silencing of the border agents and the press, noting “Mayorkas Gag Order on our Nation’s heroic border agents and ICE officers should be the subject of an immediate congressional investigation. But it’s clear they are engaged in a huge cover-up to hide just how bad things truly are.”

Trump further proclaimed that “The only way to end the Biden Border Crisis is for them to admit their total failure and adopt the profoundly effective, proven Trump policies.”

He concluded “They must immediately complete the wall, which can be done in a matter of weeks—they should never have stopped it. They are causing death and human tragedy. In addition to the obvious, drugs are pouring into our country at record levels from the Southern Border, not to mention human and sex trafficking.”

“This Administration’s reckless policies are enabling and encouraging crimes against humanity. Our Country is being destroyed!” Trump urged.",0.03090498932450545
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Senator Rand Paul appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show Friday night and recounted a run-in he had with a particularly vociferous ‘Karen’ who reported him to the management for using the running machine without a face mask.

“I was on the treadmill the other day and some Karen goes and tells the people ‘He’s on a treadmill; he’s running without a mask’ Paul told the Fox News host.

“Is this the world we’re going to live in, where everybody’s reporting everyone and the Gestapo’s going to come [and] arrest you?” the Senator questioned.

Arguing that the burden of proof regarding masks should be on the government, Paul continued, “One thing about freedom is, freedom doesn’t have to be practical or have a study to say why you should have to have freedom. They need to have a study and a scientific proof to show us why we shouldn’t have freedom. I shouldn’t have to prove that I want to be free and I want to be left alone and I want to breathe the air.”

Watch:

Elsewhere in the interview, Paul commented on his exchange with Anthony Fauci earlier last week when he accused Fauci of engaging in ‘theater’ by wearing two masks.

“There was Dr. Fauci’s opinion, his conjecture that someday there might be a [COVID-19] variant that escapes the control of the vaccine and becomes a pandemic and hospitalizes and kills people — but there’s no evidence that it has happened. He thinks it might happen, so you need to wear the mask until he’s sure that things that might happen are not going to happen,” Paul said.

He added, “There are no news reports and no scientific studies saying that after vaccination that there is some sort of widespread contagion that people vaccinated are spreading the disease.”

The Senator further noted “What Fauci won’t tell you is that he’s telling you a noble lie. He’s lying to you because he doesn’t think we’re smart enough to make decisions. His fear is, if the vaccinated quit wearing the mask, the unvaccinated will say, ‘What the hell, I’m not wearing a mask either.’”",0.954952254920865
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President Joe Biden told reporters Sunday he would visit the Southern border “at some point,” appearing unwilling to commit to the idea soon.

“At some point, I will, yes,” Biden replied when a reporter asked if he would visit the border.

EXCLUSIVE: @GStephanopoulos presses Pres. Biden on the border crisis.



""Do you have to say quite clearly, 'Don't come'?



Biden: ""Yes, I can say quite clearly: Don't come over…Don’t leave your town or city or community."" https://t.co/zFJaRXjCI8 pic.twitter.com/osZKR64ypq — ABC News (@ABC) March 17, 2021

Biden spoke to reporters as he returned from his weekend trip to Camp David.

When asked if he would visit some of the detention facilities for migrants personally, Biden replied, “I know what’s going on in those facilities.”

One reporter asked Biden why his message urging migrants not to come from the United States was not working.

Biden said he and his administration were working to handle the dramatic surge at the border.

Read more

Owen Shroyer breaks down how even the mainstream media is distancing itself from Joe Biden as his de facto open-border policy has quickly resulted in a historic border crisis, with border patrol begging for help as tens of thousands of migrant children surge across the U.S.-Mexico border.",2.0989564431204704
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When your actual passport – the one and only, for most people – a super serious piece of document issued by an actual government, based on hard facts like your nationality, place of birth, or long-term place of residence, is no longer enough to allow you to cross borders – what’s happening?

Usually, it’s because there’s a war. Any “boost” will help for sure – that sounds silly, but some people, and it’s no joke, will rely on a US supermarket chain to “boost their credentials” in this area.

Apparently, in the US, the serious business of administering the rushed-to-market Covid vaccines is also being done in Walmart and Sam’s Club stores. But that’s not all folks – now these retail establishments will be allowed to issue Covid “passports” of their own, verifying that the person with their app on their smartphone is eligible to board a plane out of Dodge – or if they must stay, enter school premises.

From the look of it, it’s bad news: Walmart is joining the likes of Microsoft, Salesforce, Oracle, and the Mayo Clinic to become “a verified verifier” of Covid-free people.

Jack Hadfield joins with Tom Pappert to discuss his new project and the insight he’s learned following this covered up illegal immigration nightmare in Europe.

It seems like a whole industry is growing around these “Covid passports” now. What they’re counting on is that millions will want that summer vacation, and will sign on to whatever’s on offer, whether it ends up working or not.

And there’s reason to worry. Four months into the first Covid vaccines being administered, countries and regions are getting freshly locked down with an increase in the daily numbers of coronavirus cases.

Read more",-1.5221915023672234
"A Fredericksburg, Virginia restaurant owner who scrapped a state mask mandate has defeated the Northam Administration in court, successfully defending both his business and the freedom of choice after refusing to back down amidst health department efforts to shutter his business.

Judge Ricardo Rigual denied the state’s request to force the immediate and permanent closure of the Gourmeltz restaurant, writing that the state “has failed to clearly demonstrate the factors necessary to grant a temporary injunction,” nor has it demonstrated that Gourmeltz poses any actual threat to the general public. While the case may yet be brought to trial, the restaurant’s doors will stay open in the meantime, dealing a strong blow to the efforts of the Northam Administration’s shutdown agents.

As previously reported by National File, Gourmeltz owner Matt Strickland refused to back down from big government as he vowed to fight for his business against the state, raising over $9,000 for his legal defense and hiring former GOP Congressman Bob Barr of Georgia as his attorney.

It took Matt Strickland, a Marine Corps veteran of the War on Terror, five years to build his business up from a food truck to a popular brick and mortar eatery. Now, after scrapping Governor Northam’s mask mandate and giving his employees and customers alike the freedom of choice, he is at risk of losing his hard work as he prepares to fight for his livelihood in court against his own government.

Recent events concerning the current version of the President of the United States make the chaos at the border actually seem secondary. Now, that Biden’s homage to Gerald Ford and Hillary Clinton is begging for deeper analysis. Regardless that there was a blanketed media blackout by the leftist media. There’s cautious and then there is the Gold Medal performance of the Air Force One Olympic Event that 78 year old brain surgery survivor Biden, the leader of the dwindling free world,pulled off.

“I’m not afraid of the state, I’m not afraid of the federal government,” Strickland says. “I spent most of my adult life fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have no problem coming home and fighting here in Virginia.”

Though his permit was revoked by the health department a month ago, Strickland has refused to close his doors. When blackface donning Attorney General Mark Herring decided to make an example of him, he hired former GOP Congressman Bob Barr of Georgia to represent him in court and raised over $9,000 for his defense.

“We are pleased with the judge’s ruling and happy for our client,” one of Strickland’s attorneys, Martha Norton told local reporters. “We look forward to having the merits of the case resolved in a full trial.”

“This is a HUGE win!,” read a post from the Gourmeltz Facebook account, thanking but also reminding supporters of looming court fights in the near future and once again vowing to never back down, and to continue to fight for the spirit of America.

“We will continue to stand for Old Glory and what she represents to all of us. As these so-called ‘leaders’ continue to try and chip away at our rights & freedoms, we will continue to stand for them. We’ll stand for them knowing all of you are standing with us!”",-1.3217877846426758
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Training on “extremism” is needed to re-educate troops who see the “Capitol riot” and last year’s Black Lives Matter “protests” as similar, according to the Pentagon.

From Military.com, “Some Troops See Capitol Riot, BLM Protests as Similar Threats, Top Enlisted Leader Says”:

Some troops have drawn equivalencies between the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and last year’s protests for racial justice during recent stand-downs to address extremism, worrying the military’s top enlisted leader. In a Thursday briefing with reporters at the Pentagon, Ramón “CZ” Colón-López, the senior enlisted adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that some troops have asked, when the Jan. 6 riot is brought up, “How come you’re not looking at the situation that was going on in Seattle prior to that?” […] Colón-López said the confusion some younger troops have expressed shows why the training sessions on extremism are needed. […] Those conducting the sessions wanted “to make sure that military members understand the difference between Seattle and [the Jan. 6 riot in] Washington, D.C.,” Colón-López said. “But some of our younger members are confused about this, so that’s what we need to go ahead and talk to them about and educate them on, to make sure that they know exactly what they can and cannot do.”

Here’s the difference:

– The Capitol “riot” was a mostly peaceful protest where 5 Trump supporters died, including 14-year Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt who was shot in the chest by a Capitol police officer while unarmed.

– The BLM riots were the most damaging riots in U.S. history, costing some $2 billion in insurance payouts alone. The police, FBI and military kneeled before the “protesters” in humiliating acts of submission. The media covered-up attacks on their own reporters so they could describe the riots as “peaceful protests.” At least 25 people were killed during the riotsand an unprecedented deadly crime wave followed.

Military.com continues:

Colón-López also noted the military was called to respond after the Capitol attacks, but was not called up to support law enforcement during the Seattle protests. And he drew a distinction between those who lawfully exercised their First Amendment rights to protest during last summer’s protests in support of racial justice and the Black Lives Matter movement, and those who “latched on” to the protests to loot, destroy property and commit other crimes. But sometimes, he said, younger troops see messages on TV that blur the lines between the two, and “we needed to educate them” on the difference.



“No, that’s not what that meant,” Colón-López said. “There were people advocating [against] social injustice, racial injustice and everything else, and it is the right of citizens.” When asked about networks or television personalities popular among service members who have drawn those equivalencies, Colón-López said, “Those are very, very tough conversations to have with people, because sometimes they’re emotional about the subject.” […] Colón-López stressed the refrain commonly heard from top military leaders that the vast majority of troops do not share extremist views. And the military isn’t interested in monitoring troops’ online activities at home, he said. A service member who Googles QAnon, for example, may just want to become educated on the online conspiracy theory movement, he explained. That wouldn’t mean someone necessarily believes in that ideology. But, he noted, the military needs to be watchful of how service members carry themselves while on duty, and what troops’ friends say they are doing. Colón-López said it’s too soon to tell whether extremist organizations are becoming more or less likely to recruit from among the military’s ranks. But, he said, the force is being made aware that such groups are actively recruiting service members, “and we need to make sure that they stand clear from them.” “It’s not good for the department, and it’s not good for the image of the military,” he said.

We’re supposed to be grateful that the Pentagram is (allegedly) not spying on our troops’ “online activities” while they’re at home.

Cardi B and pepsi kegs are the only answer to calm to the savage beast that is a South Beach drunken street oarty gone wild.

How do ideological purges help the image of the military?

How does going to war with Tucker Carlson help the image of the military?

How does demanding the troops deny what’s right before their eyes help the image of the military?",-1.1561957502031939
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The spate of attacks on Asians in recent months is the fault of memes shared on Telegram and 4chan even though there’s no evidence proving that’s the case, so says the New York Times.

From the New York Times (Archive):

How Anti-Asian Activity Online Set the Stage for Real-World Violence On platforms such as Telegram and 4chan, racist memes and posts about Asian-Americans have created fear and dehumanization. By Davey Alba In January, a new group popped up on the messaging app Telegram, named after an Asian slur. Hundreds of people quickly joined. Many members soon began posting caricatures of Asians with exaggerated facial features, memes of Asian people eating dog meat and images of American soldiers inflicting violence during the Vietnam War. This week, after a gunman killed eight people — including six women of Asian descent — at massage parlors in and near Atlanta, the Telegram channel linked to a poll that asked, “Appalled by the recent attacks on Asians?” The top answer, with 84 percent of the vote, was that the violence was “justified retaliation for Covid.” The Telegram group was a sign of how anti-Asian sentiment has flared up in corners of the internet, amplifying racist and xenophobic tropes just as attacks against Asian-Americans have surged. On messaging apps like Telegram and on internet forums like 4chan, anti-Asian groups and discussion threads have been increasingly active since November, especially on far-right message boards such as The Donald, researchers said. The activity follows a rise in anti-Asian misinformation last spring after the coronavirus, which first emerged in China, began spreading around the world. On Facebook and Twitter, people blamed the pandemic on China, with users posting hashtags such as #gobacktochina and #makethecommiechinesepay. Those hashtags spiked when former President Donald J. Trump last year called Covid-19 the “Chinese virus” and “Kung Flu.”

A search of Twitter for the hashtag #makethecommiechinesepay shows not one single result before this article came out.

A large portion of the results for #GoBackToChina link to a 2019 movie named “Go Back to China” about a “spoiled rich girl” blowing through her trust fund and having to go back to China to work for her family’s toy business.

Note, the Telegram channel Alba cites, according to her own claims, had just “hundreds” of followers.

Gina Bontempo joins the show to discuss the current media darling topic: the narrative of the world being anti-Asian and how it apparently correlates to white people.

The desperation here is remarkable. They’re looking for any excuse they can find to try and get Telegram and 4chan shut down.

While some of the online activity tailed off ahead of the November election, its re-emergence has helped lay the groundwork for real-world actions, researchers said. The fatal shootings in Atlanta this week, which have led to an outcry over treatment of Asian-Americans even as the suspect said he was trying to cure a “sexual addiction,” were preceded by a swell of racially motivated attacks against Asian-Americans in places like New York and the San Francisco Bay Area, according to the advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate.

They refuse to say who carried out those attacks.

“Surges in anti-Asian rhetoric online means increased risk of real-world events targeting that group of people,” said Alex Goldenberg, an analyst at the Network Contagion Research Institute at Rutgers University, which tracks misinformation and extremism online.

The Network Contagion Research Institute, headed by Joel Finkelstein, says on its website it’s affiliated with the Anti-Defamation League, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and the Charles Koch Foundation — all of whom are lobbying for internet censorship.

The ADL is the leading pro-censorship lobby in America.

Despite painting all Asians as victims of evil White oppressors, the Times made sure to put Asians in their place — lest they convince themselves they’re at the top of the victim hierarchy:

Anti-Asian speech online has typically not been as overt as anti-Semitic or anti-Black groups, memes and posts, researchers said. On Facebook and Twitter, posts expressing anti-Asian sentiments have often been woven into conspiracy theory groups such as QAnon and in white nationalist and pro-Trump enclaves. Mr. Goldenberg said forms of hatred against Black people and Jews have deep roots in extremism in the United States and that the anti-Asian memes and tropes have been more “opportunistically weaponized.” But that does not make the anti-Asian hate speech online less insidious.

Sorry Asians, according to Mr. Goldenberg you’re pretty much at the bottom of the victim hierarchy!

After the shootings in Atlanta, a doctored screenshot of what looked like a Facebook post from the suspect circulated on Facebook and Twitter this week. The post featured a miasma of conspiracies about China engaging in a Covid-19 cover-up and wild theories about how it was planning to “secure global domination for the 21st century.” Facebook and Twitter eventually ruled that the screenshot was fake and blocked it. But by then, the post had been shared and liked hundreds of times on Twitter and more than 4,000 times on Facebook.

This is the screenshot:

Facebook confirms this screenshot is a fake, and it is removing it from the platform for violating its policies. https://t.co/WA4UjgrNo6 pic.twitter.com/vKOcxQ34Qv — Davey Alba (@daveyalba) March 17, 2021

The Times failed to mention it was shared all over the place by leftists who wanted to try and link the shooting to their political enemies.",0.7259996541274983
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Dr. Anthony Fauci is coming off a year of unprecedented media fawning, awards and political praise, but his latest honor – a children’s book that bestows him the title “America’s doctor” – may push his star even higher.

Simon & Schuster plans to publish a picture book biography of Fauci, titled ‘Dr. Fauci: How a Boy From Brooklyn Became America’s Doctor,’ with the release scheduled for June 29. Mainstream media promotion of the book has already kicked off.

“Here’s a little bit of a reveal,” CNN host Brian Stelter said on his show on Sunday. “Simon & Schuster is actually publishing a children’s book about Dr. Fauci… That tells you something about media when Fauci gets his own children’s book.”

Exciting morning here – @CNN's @brianstelter just revealed the cover for DR: FAUCI: HOW A BOY FROM BROOKLYN BECAME AMERICA'S DOCTOR on @ReliableSources!



(Coming 6/29 from @simonschuster & available for pre-order today – https://t.co/f8OxdyPeTf) pic.twitter.com/0rasv2s7Np — katemessner (@KateMessner) March 21, 2021

Indeed, mainstream media helped make Fauci a national hero by heaping praise on him and interviewing him frequently on Covid-19 to help paint Donald Trump as the villain of the pandemic, even though the former president largely followed his advice.

It's cover reveal day for DR. FAUCI: HOW A BOY FROM BROOKLYN BECAME AMERICA'S DOCTOR!



I'm so excited to share Alexandra Bye's amazing cover art for our picture book biography – out 6/29 from @SimonKIDS.



Available for pre-order now: https://t.co/f8OxdyPeTf pic.twitter.com/xyF195JNHO — katemessner (@KateMessner) March 21, 2021

Fauci’s 80th birthday last December was such a political occasion that it was named Dr. Anthony Fauci day in Washington, DC, and he was serenaded on social media by Joe and Jill Biden.

Happy Birthday Dr. Fauci 💕 pic.twitter.com/fhdVvtHvvy — Dr. Jill Biden (@DrBiden) December 24, 2020

Given the cancel mob’s partially successful campaign to cancel Dr. Seuss in recent weeks, perhaps children’s literature needed a new ‘medical hero’. But technically, this won’t even be the first children’s book about Fauci. He’s also the star of ‘Doctor Fauci Is Never Grouchy!’

That tribute to Fauci was self-published by its author, so the new biography marks the doctor’s breakthrough with one of America’s big-name publishers. Ironically, Simon & Schuster is the same publisher that canceled Senator Josh Hawley’s book after the Missouri Republican voted to block certification of President Biden’s election victory. Hawley called the decision an “Orwellian” assault on free speech. Simon & Schuster previously published anti-Trump bestsellers by Mary Trump and former National Security Adviser John Bolton.

The pandemic and the media’s use of Fauci as a political tool made the doctor one of the most hyped government employees in recent memory. Other Fauci merchandising has included prayer candles, bobblehead dolls, Christmas ornaments and, of course, masks. There are mugs and T-shirts, a WWFD (what would Fauci do?) bumper sticker and “In Fauci We Trust” socks.

He was chosen last July to throw out the first pitch on Opening Day for the Washington Nationals baseball team. While Trump was blamed for killing 400,000 Americans, Fauci was given several awards and named by Time magazine as one of the most influential people of 2020. He has his own Twitter fan club. Fauci was awarded the $1 million Israeli prize for “speaking truth to power.” He also got a lifetime achievement award for fighting the AIDS crisis.

Fauci has already made strides to raise his profile among children. He went on CNN’s Sesame Street Special in December to assure children that they shouldn’t worry because he had flown to the North Pole to give Santa Claus a Covid-19 vaccine. Just a few weeks earlier, he told children that Santa wouldn’t need inoculation because of his “innate immunity” – one of his many flipflops on pandemic advice.

Migrants from across the world are accepting the Biden administration’s invitation to flood the southern border.",0.8078273797860606
"James O’Keefe of Project Veritas released photographs Monday from inside a border facility in Texas where migrant children are being held — and taunted the White House as he did so, for denying the media access to such facilities for weeks.

As Breitbart News has reported, President Joe Biden and his administration have denied the media access to border facilities even during tours by senior administration officials, even restricting officials from sharing information with reporters.

In 2014, Breitbart News broke the story of children being held in Border Patrol facilities, which was the first report on the crisis of unaccompanied minors arriving at the southern border.

On Monday morning, Axios released the first photographs from the present wave, noting that the photographs came from Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX). That apparently prompted O’Keefe to release his own photographs and video footage, which he did on social media and at the Project Veritas website.

BREAKING: Project Veritas Obtains Horrifying NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN Images From Within Donna, TX Immigrant Detention Center; THOUSANDS of Illegal Immigrants PACKED Into Tight Spaces And Wrapped In Space Blankets On Floor; Insider: '50+ COVID Positive'#BidenBorderCrisis pic.twitter.com/mXQM6YbttJ — James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) March 22, 2021

As he did so, O’Keefe called out White House Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki, who has repeatedly deflected questions from the media about when journalists would be allowed to visit the border facilities to see the conditions for themselves.

Last Thursday, Psaki continued to claim that “the White House and we all in the administration support finding a way to grant access to the media,” but declined to do so, even as she continued to defend Biden’s commitment to transparency.

Why did Project Veritas have to do your job @PressSec? Did the public not have a right to know? #BidenBorderCrisis pic.twitter.com/mXQM6YbttJ — James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) March 22, 2021

These photos were taken within the last few days. There are eight pods with eight cells each in the facility. At any given moment there are an average of 3,000 people in custody here. The illegal immigrants are separated by age or physical size depending on room. pic.twitter.com/kFmZgTG2Iv — James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) March 22, 2021

As recently as Sunday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was claiming that the reason the media had not yet been allowed to tour the migrant facilities was because of concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.

Both the Trump administration and the Obama administration had allowed the media access to the migrant facilities. The media and the Democratic Party opposition cited the facilities in condemning Trump’s “zero tolerance” border policy.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book is How Not to Be a Sh!thole Country: Lessons from South Africa. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.",-0.6846726162179996
"National Guard troops should be redeployed from protecting politicians against non-existent threats in Washington, D.C., to the U.S.-Mexico border, said Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC) on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Sunday with host Joel Pollak.

Murphy introduced legislation — the Guard Our Border Act — last Tuesday to reassign 95 percent of national guardsmen currently deployed in the national capital to the southern border.

Democrats and the broader left regularly claim the existence of a “domestic terrorist” threat against them driven by conservative politics and “white supremacy.” They have framed the deployment of national guard troops to Washington, D.C., as a “security” response to the so-called “insurrection” on January 6.

Murphy said, “Nancy Pelosi and her crew have built a fortress around Washington, D.C., for no reason whatsoever. The Capitol Police have said there are no credible threats, but unfortunately now we still have ten feet of razor wire. … We have 2,200 national guard that are standing out in the cold and the rain guarding us against something that doesn’t exist.”

He continued, “But at the same time, several thousand miles away, we have a crisis at our southern border because Biden said, basically, open up the doors, come on in, we’re going to bring you in — and then now, as of last week — we’re going to offer you amnesty. The Border Patrol is being overrun, facilities are over capacity, and it’s a crisis at our border.”

LISTEN:

He remarked, “Why don’t we do something that’s actually smart? Why don’t we take the National Guard that are stationed around Washington, D.C., guarding nothing, and take them down to our southern border where they’re actually attending to a crisis, and I don’t care what Biden says [or] doesn’t say, or what his administration accidentally says, it is a crisis of humanitarian proportions. This is why we use our National Guard, so let’s relocate the ones that are in Washington, D.C., take down the razor wire, and move them down to our southern border.”

“The National Guard was founded with the idea of responding to national emergencies, national crises, and that’s what they’ve done, historically, when there are floods, hurricanes, et cetera,” Murphy added.

Murphy remarked, “We spent, by all accounts, over half a billion dollars so far in Washington, D.C., guarding something that doesn’t need to be guarded. … We’re spending that money to keep up Pelosi’s perpetual wall and instead of down at the border, where we should be actually putting in policies that make sense.”

Transnational criminal cartels are beneficiaries of President Joe Biden’s policies towards border security and immigration, Murphy noted.

“The real winners at our southern border the drug cartels,” he said. “They’re pushing so much more drugs across our borders, now because our border [and] customs folks are overblown. They can’t handle this. [Drug cartels] are pushing cash, they’re pushing human trafficking to an extent we haven’t seen before, and reports are that up to a third of the women coming across in the border have been abused.”

“These are people — and their children, especially, the unaccompanied minors — they’re going to be sold into what is essentially slavery in return for safe passage here in the United States,” he added.

Pollak asked if the Biden administration’s tacit acceptance of illegal immigration is part of a broader strategy to change American demographics for partisan political advantage.

“I don’t think [that is] conjecture,” Murphy replied. “I think it’s reality. I think they’re definitely planning on that.”

Murphy contrasted the Biden administration’s contradictory public health policies applied against Americans with those of migrants seeking entry to the U.S. across the southern border.

“If you fly into this country, you have to have a negative COVID [coronavirus] test, but to run over our borders, we don’t even care,” Murphy stated. “What a contradiction in terms, and so the people here [in North Carolina’s 3rd District] are outraged, as everybody in America should be.”

Murphy concluded, “We’re providing free health care, we’re providing housing, we’re doing all these things for people [illegally entering the country], and now we’re putting folks to come into the border illegally up in hotels. Taxpayer dollars — millions — will be spent for that, so appropriately, they are outraged.”",-0.21189538361075397
"Queen Elizabeth II is reportedly considering the appointment of a “diversity chief” following claims of racism within Britain’s Royal Family from the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle.

The Queen is said to be looking at a range of woke proposals to increase the representation of so-called marginalised groups, such as ethnic minorities, the transgendered, and the disabled. The move would potentially empower the diversity chief to oversee operations at Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, and Clarence House — the official residences of the Queen, the Duke of Cambridge (Prince William), and the Prince of Wales (Prince Charles).

The revelation comes in the wake of Meghan and Prince Harry being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey, with Meghan and her husband alleging that a member of the family raised “concerns” over the potential skin colour of their then-unborn son, Archie.

A royal source told The Times: “This is an issue which has been taken very seriously across the royal households. We have the policies, the procedures and programmes in place but we haven’t seen the progress we would like and accept more needs to be done… we can always improve.

“Therefore we are not afraid to look at new ways of approaching it. The work to do this has been underway for some time now and comes with the full support of the family,” the source added.

As to the idea of appointing a diversity chief, the source said: “It is something that has to be considered but it is too early for any firm plans to be announced. We are listening and learning, to get this right.”

During her tell-all interview, Meghan also strongly suggested that her son was denied the title of prince out of prejudice. As Breitbart London reported, however, it is royal conventions laid down over a hundred years ago to stem the proliferation of minor royals which mean he is not due the title automatically — although he could be styled as Lord Archie, Earl of Dumbarton, if his parents so chose.

Several of the Queen’s other great-grandchildren and even grandchildren have titles below the rank of prince or no titles at all.

Thomas Markle Defends British from Allegations of Racism Before Calling Prince Harry ‘Snotty’ https://t.co/ojBlYX3w98 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 9, 2021

Following the widely publicised interview, Buckingham Palace made an uncharacteristic public statement on the matter, saying that while the allegations of racism were “concerning”, “some recollections may vary”.

Separately, Harry’s older brother Prince William said that “We are very much not a racist family.”

American TV personality and friend to both the Sussexes and Oprah Winfrey, Gayle King, suggested last week that the woke couple are unhappy over the fact that the media coverage of the interview focussed so strongly on racism.

“I think it’s frustrating for them to see that it’s a racial conversation about the Royal family when all they wanted all along was for the royals to intervene and tell the press to stop with the unfair, inaccurate, false stories that definitely have a racial slant. And until you can acknowledge that, I think it’s going to be hard to move forward,” King told CBS.

“I think what is still upsetting to them, is that the Palace keeps saying they want to work it out privately, but yet, the false stories are coming out that are disparaging against Meghan still,” she added.

King also revealed that Prince Harry had “unproductive” conversations with his brother Prince William, as well as his father, Prince Charles.

She claimed that, so far, no-one within the Royal Family has spoken with Markle.

Are We Supposed to Care? Woke Millionaires Meghan and Harry Lambasted as Out of Touch https://t.co/ORC8KffYAE — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 8, 2021

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka",1.236108834283375
"Simon & Schuster is publishing a new children’s book that will celebrate the life of Dr. Anthony Fauci by chronicling his Brooklyn upbringing and tracing his medical career to become “America’s doctor.”

Dr. Fauci: How a Boy from Brooklyn Became America’s Doctor is set to hit bookshelves June 29. Author Kate Messner unveiled the cover art for the book on Sunday.

It's cover reveal day for DR. FAUCI: HOW A BOY FROM BROOKLYN BECAME AMERICA'S DOCTOR! I'm so excited to share Alexandra Bye's amazing cover art for our picture book biography – out 6/29 from @SimonKIDS. Available for pre-order now: https://t.co/f8OxdyPeTf pic.twitter.com/xyF195JNHO — katemessner (@KateMessner) March 21, 2021

The publisher’s official description says the author conducted interviews with Dr. Fauci for the new book:

This engaging narrative, which draws from interviews the author did with Dr. Fauci himself, follows Anthony from his Brooklyn beginnings through medical school and his challenging role working with seven US presidents to tackle some of the biggest public health challenges of the past fifty years, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Extensive backmatter rounds out Dr. Fauci’s story with a timeline, recommended reading, a full spread of facts about vaccines and how they work, and Dr. Fauci’s own tips for future scientists.

Dr. Fauci, 80, has become a media darling since he began appearing at then-President Donald Trump’s daily coronavirus press briefings last year. He has appeared on the covers of Time and In Style magazines, made the rounds on the late night shows, and is the subject of the upcoming Nat Geo documentary Fauci, which praises him as a “hero.”

At the same time, Dr. Fauci, who is the country’s highest paid federal employee, has come under fire for making contradictory statements about masks and pushing devastating economic lockdowns that have done little to stop the spread of the virus.

Early in the pandemic, he discouraged people from wearing masks, saying they weren’t effective in stopping the virus. He later changed his position, saying “masks work.”

More recently, Dr. Fauci spoke in favor of double masking, saying two masks are more effective than one. But the doctor subsequently backtracked, saying that “there’s no data that indicates that that is going to make a difference.”

Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at dng@breitbart.com",1.1058110357760662
"Bristol was plunged into anarchy on Sunday night, as far-left rioters set fires, vandalised buildings and attacked police officers, as a protest against Home Secretary Priti Patel’s policing bill turned violent.

A so-called #KillTheBill protest on Sunday in Bristol saw at least two police officers hospitalised as the leftist protest turned into a riot, with one officer suffering from a broken arm and another from broken ribs.

Local news outlet Bristol Live reported that around 5,000 protesters initially gathered in College Green at around 2 p.m., but by 6 p.m. several thousand radical agitators began to surround the Bridwell Police Station.

Riot police squared off with the leftist mob, which began hurling makeshift missiles at officers. The leftists burnt police vans, smashed the windows of the station, and scrawled graffiti on the building including the phrase “Fuck the Police”.

The chairman of the Avon and Somerset Police Federation, Andy Roebuck said: “This is the worst violence in Bristol for many, many years.

“It’s really unprecedented violence. Between four and six or possibly more officers are seriously injured and some have broken bones,” he said, although it is now known that at least 20 officers were injured and 12 police vans destroyed.

“No-one had any indication it would erupt this way,” Roebuck added.

Far-left rioters take over the police station in Bristol, England. pic.twitter.com/p1zzZJ4lIO — Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) March 21, 2021

The left-wing Labour Party Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees said that while he understood “the frustrations” about the proposed Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill which was the pretext for Sunday’s riots, “smashing buildings in our city centre, vandalising vehicles, attacking our police will do nothing to lessen the likelihood of the bill going through”.

Home Secretary Priti Patel, who is leading the charge to introduce stricter limits on protesters in the United Kingdom, claimed that “thuggery and disorder by a minority will never be tolerated” — although it was in fact tolerated in Bristol last year during a BLM protest which saw a historic statue ripped down while police did nothing.

In response to the chaotic scenes, Brexit champion Nigel Farage wrote: “In Bristol tonight we see what the soft-headed approach to the anti-police BLM leads to. Wake up everyone, this is not about racial justice. These people want all-out anarchy and street violence.”

“The BLM protests were anti-police, it is a key goal of the organisation. The worrying events in Bristol tonight are an extension of that. We have given into and encouraged the extreme left, and this is the result,” Farage added.

In Bristol tonight we see what the soft-headed approach to the anti-police BLM leads to. Wake up everyone, this is not about racial justice. These people want all-out anarchy and street violence. pic.twitter.com/pBXFL5Iy1Z — Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) March 21, 2021

As in the US, rioters in #Bristol, England set dumpsters on fire and used them to block the roads to prevent law enforcement from responding. pic.twitter.com/5YTfIt46Hl — Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) March 22, 2021

The actions taken by the rioters was seemingly excused, however, by the far-left grassroots political organisation Momentum, whose Bristol chapter wrote: “The attack on the police station this evening likely wouldn’t have happened if the police hadn’t acted aggressively, including bringing in dogs.”

“Let’s not forget that the police protect a culture of violence against women and other marginalised groups — which has been one trigger behind the outrage the last few weeks,” the Labour-linked group alleged.

The South West English port city has as of late become a hotbed for left-wing activism, with Black Lives Matter radicals tearing down the statue of British philanthropist Sir Edward Colston and dumping it in the local harbour in June, as mentioned previously.

Superintendent Andy Bennet, who was in charge of the police response during the Colston riot, later received a medal in the New Year Honours.

Bennet had excused the inaction of officers by expressing concerns that if the police were to uphold the law it would further inflame the Black Lives Matter radicals.

“[T]he right thing to do was just to allow it to happen, because what we did not want is tension,” he wheedled.

London mayoral candidate David Kurten remarked: “The criminal violence of the Antifa mob in Bristol yesterday is deplorable, but they should have been dealt with last year when Bristol Police stood back and let far-left Marxists and anarchists run riot.”

Bristol Should Be Proud over Destruction of Colston Statue, Says Police Chief https://t.co/FPiXfVmZG9 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 11, 2020

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka",0.36953508249503497
"San Francisco Mayor London Breed and other leading officials are demanding that San Francisco Unified School District Vice President Alison Collins resign over tweets in 2016 in which she accused Asian Americans of being insufficiently critical of President-elect Donald Trump.

In a tweet thread barely seen until now (with, at most, several dozen retweets in the chain), Collins complained that Asian American students and teachers would not engage in “critical race” conversations, and were insufficiently concerned about the black community. She also claimed that Asian Americans used “white supremacist thinking to assimilate” and were silent about anti-black racism.

“Where are the vocal Asians speaking up against Trump?” she asked, presuming Trump to be anti-black. “Don’t Asian Americans know they are on his list as well?” She added: “Do they think they won’t be deported? profiled? beaten? Being a house n****r is still being a n****r. You’re still considered ‘the help.'”

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday:

In an unprecedented move, San Francisco’s top elected officials, including the mayor, state legislators and nearly all supervisors, called Saturday for a school board member to resign over racist tweets she posted in 2016 directed at Asian Americans. “We are outraged and sickened by the racist, anti-Asian statements tweeted by school board Vice President Alison Collins that recently came to light,” 22 current and former elected officials said in a statement Saturday. “No matter the time, no matter the place, and no matter how long ago the tweets were written, there is no place for an elected leader in San Francisco who is creating and or/created hate statements and speeches.”",0.1313452573192896
"Most GOP senators are dodging the Democrats’ efforts to seduce them into joining very unpopular amnesty bills by citing President Joe Biden’s border meltdown, according to Politico.

“Many of us support giving a path to citizenship,” to younger illegal migrants, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), told Politico. “But now the border is such a disaster that I don’t see how you can do just a bill to deal with [that],” she said March 18.

Politico accepts the border rationale for the GOP evasiveness — and ignores the huge unpopularity of wage-cutting amnesty bills even if the border is under control. In 2014, GOP Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) made that mistake and lost his seat in a surprise primary defeat.

The March 19 Politico report cited other GOP senators’ claim that Biden’s border problem precludes amnesty deals:

“There’s no scenario I would support even what we called the SUCCEED Act, which was a path to citizenship for the [Dreamers], without it being paired with border security,” [Sen. Thom] Tillis said, referring to the conservative alternative to the DREAM Act that he had endorsed. … “I’m in the bipartisan group, but we haven’t touched it,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). “There’s a problem that needs to be fixed, but I don’t think we’re anywhere near stepping up to it right now.” … “The concern is, as soon as you bring something up to even start discussing it [an amnesty], you’re going to get a surge,” [Sen. James] Lankford said. “So if you’re not ready to really do it, you shouldn’t play with that. I don’t hear us ready to do it.”

Establishment GOP senators have an incentive to hide behind Biden’s mismanagement at the border — it allows them to dodge incompatible and competing demands by voters and business donors, either to block or approve amnesties and migration expansion bills. By talking about the border, the reporters and GOP senators can also jointly ignore the central question — whether migration and amnesty are good for working Americans’ pocketbooks.

Democrat senators need ten GOP senators to overcome the 60-vote threshold for scheduling votes in the Senate. So far, only two GOP senators have attached their names to bills that would amnesty illegal aliens and import even more workers for the jobs needed by Americans.

The zig-zag strategy is also useful because the GOP senators know that immigrant voters cost them their Senate majority in the January 2021 Senate races in Georgia. Any further amnesties will likely push the GOP — and their careers — into long-term political irrelevance and also push the smaller Red states into political oblivion.

The main GOP supporter for amnesty, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), says deals are off the table until Biden recovers control of the border. “We find ourselves in a situation where there is no way forward until you control the border,” Graham told a pro-amnesty March 17 press conference on Capitol Hill. He continued:

The Biden administration has created chaos where there was order [under former President Donald Trump]. And the only way we’ll ever be able to sit down with our Democratic colleagues is for us to regain control of the border, and I want to say without any hesitation, Biden has lost control of the U.S. Mexican border. Until he regains control by implementing policies that work, it’s going to be very hard to do the [DACA young illegal aliens] “dreamers” or anybody else. Why? Because … legalizing anybody under these circumstances will lead to even more illegal immigration.

To Democrats, he said:

So if you’re serious about solving the immigration problem, you will be serious about changing our laws on asylum, you will finish building the wall where it makes sense. You will restore the Remain in Mexico policy, you will go back into the treaties with the [Northern] Triangle countries because that will lead to the calmness at the border we need to find a solution here in Washington.

The evasive, zig-zag strategy adopted by many GOP senators shows the intense pressure they are under from voters and business donors.

The donors gain greatly each time the government OKs another huge inflow of migrants who serve as cheap workers, taxpayer-aided consumers, and high-occupancy renters. But while business groups offer valuable donations — the populist groups can expand or shrink the politicians’ vital vote totals.

The populist groups include Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, NumbersUSA, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform. They have to compete with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the tech companies advocacy groups, such as FWD.us.

A few GOP senators are standing up for amnesty talks:

Sen Rick Scott (R-FL) has drafted an amnesty for at least one million illegal aliens, which his staffers are quietly trying to sell an amnesty bill to staffers who work for other GOP senators. But his office is suggesting that Biden’s policy makes a deal less likely.

“Senator Scott does not support amnesty,” a staffer told Breitbart. “Look at what Biden’s open borders and amnesty plan is doing to our Southern border. Senator Scott has long said reforms to the immigration system become much more simple once the border is secure, and that’s his focus.”

Scott is in charge of fundraising for the Senate GOP’s 2022 campaigns, so he is under intense pressure to import for business donors a new round of cheap labor, taxpayer-aided consumers, and high-occupancy renters.

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) has announced he will propose an amnesty for a million illegal farmworkers and combine it with a plan to import very cheap H-23A visa workers to fill up all the jobs — and more — that will be opened up when the amnesty’s migrants move to non-agriculture jobs in towns and cities.

“House passage of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act is an important step toward bringing certainty to our country’s agriculture industry and the hard-working producers and farmworkers,” said a statement from Crapo and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO). “We will work together to introduce companion legislation in the U.S. Senate that appropriately addresses the needs of both the industry and the farmworkers that uphold it.”

But that bipartisan swap — cheap workers for the industry in exchange for amnestied farmworkers for Democrats — leaves many ordinary Idahoans and their rural communities in the dust. The H-2A workers would be so cheap that they will be used for additional jobs now held by Americans, and they will also take most of their meager payroll — and their possible tax payments — back home with them every year.

Retiring Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) is also talking up hopes for a deal, Politico reported:

He opposed the sweeping bill in 2013 but wants to put something together before he leaves the chamber and is the GOP’s rare optimist when it comes to seeing the potential for a deal: “I do. But no one else does.”

Portman is one of five retiring GOP senators, along with Roy Blunt (R-MO), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Richard Burr (R-NC) and Richard Shelby (R-AL). The pro-amnesty groups will target them for votes, in part, because they do not have to fear the voters’ response.

In July 2019, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) complained about the voters’ objecting to his pro-amnesty, business-first perspective, saying, “The problem is, Republicans, fear that no matter what you do, someone is going to start screaming amnesty … And if you don’t know, in a Republican primary that [can be] devastating. I know that. I’ve been accused of that.”

On March 18, Simpson denied that his vote for the 2021 farmworker amnesty is a vote for amnesty, saying:

This bill is not about what’s happening at the southern border … this bill is not amnesty. It does not grant anybody amnesty. It allows individuals to get right with the law and to become a legal workforce in the United States. It’s about providing a stable, legal workforce for the people who put food on our tables.

For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to legal migration, labor migration, and to the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.

The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.

The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves wealth from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from agriculture-heavy and central states to the coastal states.",-1.005293571815475
"Monday, former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe reacted to Department of Justice prosecutor Michael Sherwin telling CBS “60 Minutes” he believes “facts do support” charges of sedition against some of the January 6 Capitol rioters.

McCabe said he is “kind of shocked” some from the group that breached the Capitol building have not been charged with sedition already, given there is “abundant evidence.”

“[S]edition is a federal crime that basically says anyone who seizes by force the property of the United States government or who impedes or blocks the execution of a U.S. law can be guilty of sedition,” McCabe outlined. “Now, in this case, the U.S. law would, of course, but the Constitution itself, which specifies the process upon which we certify the election of our United States president. So, quite frankly, John, to think that we don’t have abundant evidence of sedition here is amazing to me, and I’m kind of shocked that they haven’t charged some of these folks with sedition yet.”

He added, “The fact we haven’t seen those charges yet is really remarkable, and it may be an indication that there’s more kind of legal debate about that within the Justice Department that we’re not aware of.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent",0.013117532727157107
"Zarah Sultana, the leftist Labour party Member of Parliament for Coventry South, claimed that “racism is a feature of capitalism” on the United Nations’ so-called “Anti-Racism Day”.

Sultana, an acolyte of former Labour leader and fervent socialist Jeremy Corbyn, wrote on social media late Saturday night that the only way to fight racism is through the adoption of “internationalist socialism”.

The 27-year-old MP went on to share an article she penned in Tribune Magazine in January, in which she wrote: “Racism in society isn’t a glitch, it’s a feature. It’s functional to the key driver of our economic system: the accumulation of capital. This, rather than meeting human need, is fundamental to capitalism. And it is why racism is embedded in its social relations.”

“This racism isn’t incidental. It’s central to capitalism — both its history and in the present day,” she claimed.

“The wealth that enriched the British Empire and established it as a global superpower meant the murder, destruction, and brutalisation of people across the world. Millions died and civilisations were destroyed. The perpetrators of these crimes had to believe that what they were doing was justified,” she suggested.

Sultana concluded by quoting directly from the author of the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx, writing: “There is an old socialist slogan, ‘workers of the world, unite!’ It’s not a relic from history, it’s an injunction for today. It calls us to an internationalist approach to socialism, one which can truly tackle racism at its core. It’s a vision worth fighting for.”

Racism is a feature of capitalism. It is used to divide our communities here at home and to justify imperialism abroad. On UN Anti Racism Day, let’s recommit to building a #WorldAgainstRacism through anti-racism that is internationalist socialism. 🌹https://t.co/ipwxf83tez — Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) March 20, 2021

Conservative MP Paul Bristow responded to her attacks on Western capitalism, writing: “Free markets break down discrimination, and is eliminating poverty for millions in countries that turned away from Soviet models of socialist central planning. You might also want to check what the racist & anti-Semitic writings of Marx and [Friedrich] Engels inspired some people to do.”

Under the rule of socialist and communist governments in the twentieth century, an estimated 94 million people lost thier lives, making communism the leading ideological cause of death in the last century.

London mayoral candidate David Kurten also critisised Sultana’s claims, saying: “What utter nonsense. A free-market economy with few and fair regulations generates greater prosperity for all.”

The Labour MP has not shied away from her admiration of leftist regimes, as earlier this year she nominated the communist Cuba’s medical slavery system for a Nobel Peace Prize for work done during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

“The internationalism by the Cuban people and the medical brigade is an incredible example of humanity and solidarity across borders,” she suggested.

The Cuban medical system has long been hailed by Western leftists, yet under the Castro regime doctors face near slave-like conditions, being shipped to foreign countries in which they live in poor conditions and as much as 90 per cent of their wages are stolen by the communist government in Havana.

Useful Idiot: Labour MP Nominates Communist Cuba’s Slave Doctor Regime for Nobel Prize https://t.co/HiTVxatuhf — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 7, 2021

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka",-0.05447033625278912
"Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Sunday slammed the legislative process used by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to ram through the Democrats’ legislation.

Gingrich told John Catsimatidis, host of New York WABC 770 AM radio’s “The Cats Roundtable,” that members of the House are acting like “robots” in voting in-step with Pelosi. He said the “machine-like” process is “a total collapse of the legislative process.”

“I think that it really tells you how the system is evolving that they’re ramming through all of this legislation,” Gingrich said of the House. “They have a five-vote margin, and basically, they’re saying to their members, ‘You don’t have to read anything. You don’t have to know what’s in it. We don’t have to have any hearings. You can’t offer any amendments. All you need to know is show up and vote yes.’ And It is the most machine-like House I can remember going back to Joe Cannon in around 1905. And these folks don’t represent anybody except Nancy Pelosi. And so, they walk in. They’re told, ‘We’re bringing up this next bill and vote yes.’ And they go, ‘Absolutely.’ And it’s a total collapse of the legislative process.”

“[T]he Democrats are expected to automatically vote yes no matter what. I mean, it’s working, but it has nothing to do with a free society or a representative government,” he continued. “It’s just pure machine politics. And that to me has been probably the biggest surprise of what’s happened so far this year.”

Gingrich later added, “[Y]ou’re getting an automatic, robotic, you know, sort of like Pelosi’s robots are walking out there, and they’re voting yes automatically. If the Republicans offer an amendment — even if it’s a smart amendment — they vote no automatically. The same thing is happening in the Senate.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent",0.5940005749080256
"BERLIN (AP) – German authorities are expected to extend lockdown measures again on Monday and possibly tighten some restrictions as they face a steady rise in new coronavirus infections.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and the country’s 16 state governors, who in highly decentralized Germany are responsible for imposing and lifting restrictions, are holding a videoconference nearly three weeks after they agreed a several-step plan paving the way to relax some rules.

Since then, infections have increased steadily as the more contagious variant first detected in Britain has become dominant. Most lockdown restrictions are currently set to run through March 28. The chancellery is proposing an extension to April 18th.

Politician from Merkel's Party Resigns over Profiting from Mask Contracts https://t.co/63Woc16k6d — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 7, 2021

Rather than new moves toward a more normal life, one focus now is pressing regional officials to use consistently an “emergency brake” mechanism under which relaxations granted in recent weeks — such as the partial reopening of nonessential shops — are supposed to be reimposed if new weekly infections in an area exceed 100 per 100,000 residents on three consecutive days.

“Unfortunately, we will have to make use of this emergency brake,” Merkel said Friday.

The weekly infection rate per 100,000 people stood at 107 nationwide on Monday, up from the mid-60s three weeks ago.

Merkel Party Suffers Worst Regional Defeats Since Second World War https://t.co/e0lZC0E6Ab — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 15, 2021",0.09358653632234411
"Sunday on Fox News Channel’s “The Next Revolution,” Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) discussed his recent visit to see firsthand the crisis at United States’ border with Mexico.

Gimenez described the situation at the border as “modern-day slavery.” He added the border crisis is seeing the molestation of young females, indentured servitude until families can come up with the funds for being transported across the border, and the murdering of immigrants who cannot come up with the funds.

“Look, what I saw at that Customs and Border Protection facility hundreds and hundreds of children, boys and girls — and I’m talking boys and girls — I’m not talking 17, 16 — I’m really talking boys and girls — I’m talking five, six, seven — they come across the border by themselves,” Gimenez recalled. “They have little pieces of paper telling them call so-and-so and an address. But here is the thing — a lot of these girls, young girls, are being molested. Maybe up to 30% are being molested. It costs their parents $4,00o to $6,000 to get them across. A Chinese immigrant trying to get across $35,000. We estimate that the cartels — the multinational cartels — are making close to half a billion dollars per month. They use these migrants to divert Customs and Border Protection agents to a certain section, and then they go ahead and rush the other sections that are unprotected, and they bring us drugs and all other kinds of mayhem that they bring in.”

“[T]his is great for the multinational cartels. It’s horrible for the migrants who … some are being murdered on the other side of the border if they can’t come up with the money,” he continued. “They are being extorted. And they are also being used —- if they get across — ‘Hey, you owe us $6,000. You are now an indentured servant here in the United States until you pay us back.’ Basically, it’s modern-day slavery. That is what is going on in the border, and it’s outrageous.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent",-0.06967212171741802
"President Joe Biden’s easy-migration strategy has converted a “national triumph into a national disaster,” former President Donald Trump said in a March 21 statement:

We proudly handed the Biden Administration the most secure border in history. All they had to do was keep this smooth-running system on autopilot. Instead, in the span of a just few weeks, the Biden Administration has turned a national triumph into a national disaster. They are in way over their heads and taking on water fast. The pathetic, clueless performance of Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas on the Sunday Shows today was a national disgrace. His self-satisfied presentation—in the middle of the massive crisis he helped engineer—is yet more proof he is incapable of leading DHS. Even someone of Mayorkas’ limited abilities should understand that if you provide Catch-and-Release to the world’s illegal aliens then the whole world will come. Furthermore, the Mayorkas Gag Order on our Nation’s heroic border agents and ICE officers should be the subject of an immediate congressional investigation. But it’s clear they are engaged in a huge cover-up to hide just how bad things truly are. The only way to end the Biden Border Crisis is for them to admit their total failure and adopt the profoundly effective, proven Trump policies. They must immediately complete the wall, which can be done in a matter of weeks—they should never have stopped it. They are causing death and human tragedy. In addition to the obvious, drugs are pouring into our country at record levels from the Southern Border, not to mention human and sex trafficking. This Administration’s reckless policies are enabling and encouraging crimes against humanity. Our Country is being destroyed!

From 2017 onwards, Trump gradually built up a layer of legal, physical, and diplomatic barriers to migration, including the border wall, multiple treaties with CentreAmerican countries, deals with Mexico, and numerous legal changes that allow his border deputies to quickly deploy migrants before they could get jobs they needed to repay their smuggling debts.

Trump’s policies were so effective that the cross-border inflow dropped to record low levels — both the migrants who sought asylum and the migrants who tried to sneak across the border. That shut-off of migrant labor forced U.S. companies to gradually offer higher pay to working Americans, including to both blue-collar and white-collar workers.

The success of Trump’s lower-migration, higher-wage policies enraged progressives.

Now, with Biden’s approval, the progressives have restarted the pre-Trump economic policy of extracting migrants from Mexico and Central Ameican for use in the United States’ economy.

The migrants act as low-wage workers to reduce average pay for Americans. They also serve as consumers to boost retail sales and welfare payments. They also add to the number of renters to fill high-cost, high-occupancy housing in coastal cities.

The progressives’ extraction migration policy boosts Wall Street, but it strip-mines young people from the small, vulnerable Central American countries, helps local despots suppress political reform, and fuels cartel-dominated crime throughout the region.

The resulting economic and political damage pressures the next generation of young men and women to undertake the expensive and dangerous trek into Americans’ jobs, where progressives are ready to welcome the victims of their own migration policies and to declare their own moral virtue. “We are a nation of laws, and we treat vulnerable children humanely,” Mayorkas told Fox News on May 21.

“The best thing for both of us is to keep our people here and to provide for our people right here in our country, and that’s what people here want,” El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele said March 16.",-2.611078354861775
"President Joe Biden’s easy-migration strategy has converted a “national triumph into a national disaster,” former President Donald Trump said in a March 21 statement:

We proudly handed the Biden Administration the most secure border in history. All they had to do was keep this smooth-running system on autopilot. Instead, in the span of a just few weeks, the Biden Administration has turned a national triumph into a national disaster. They are in way over their heads and taking on water fast. The pathetic, clueless performance of Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas on the Sunday Shows today was a national disgrace. His self-satisfied presentation—in the middle of the massive crisis he helped engineer—is yet more proof he is incapable of leading DHS. Even someone of Mayorkas’ limited abilities should understand that if you provide Catch-and-Release to the world’s illegal aliens then the whole world will come. Furthermore, the Mayorkas Gag Order on our Nation’s heroic border agents and ICE officers should be the subject of an immediate congressional investigation. But it’s clear they are engaged in a huge cover-up to hide just how bad things truly are. The only way to end the Biden Border Crisis is for them to admit their total failure and adopt the profoundly effective, proven Trump policies. They must immediately complete the wall, which can be done in a matter of weeks—they should never have stopped it. They are causing death and human tragedy. In addition to the obvious, drugs are pouring into our country at record levels from the Southern Border, not to mention human and sex trafficking. This Administration’s reckless policies are enabling and encouraging crimes against humanity. Our Country is being destroyed!

From 2017 onwards, Trump gradually built up a layer of legal, physical, and diplomatic barriers to migration, including the border wall, multiple treaties with CentreAmerican countries, deals with Mexico, and numerous legal changes that allow his border deputies to quickly deploy migrants before they could get jobs they needed to repay their smuggling debts.

Trump’s policies were so effective that the cross-border inflow dropped to record low levels — both the migrants who sought asylum and the migrants who tried to sneak across the border. That shut-off of migrant labor forced U.S. companies to gradually offer higher pay to working Americans, including to both blue-collar and white-collar workers.

The success of Trump’s lower-migration, higher-wage policies enraged progressives.

Now, with Biden’s approval, the progressives have restarted the pre-Trump economic policy of extracting migrants from Mexico and Central Ameican for use in the United States’ economy.

The migrants act as low-wage workers to reduce average pay for Americans. They also serve as consumers to boost retail sales and welfare payments. They also add to the number of renters to fill high-cost, high-occupancy housing in coastal cities.

The progressives’ extraction migration policy boosts Wall Street, but it strip-mines young people from the small, vulnerable Central American countries, helps local despots suppress political reform, and fuels cartel-dominated crime throughout the region.

The resulting economic and political damage pressures the next generation of young men and women to undertake the expensive and dangerous trek into Americans’ jobs, where progressives are ready to welcome the victims of their own migration policies and to declare their own moral virtue. “We are a nation of laws, and we treat vulnerable children humanely,” Mayorkas told Fox News on May 21.

“The best thing for both of us is to keep our people here and to provide for our people right here in our country, and that’s what people here want,” El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele said March 16.",-0.1327063124489528
"During this week’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show,” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) acknowledged the Biden border plan, which has led to what some are describing as a crisis, much to be desired.

She said, however, there was a plan in place the Biden administration had shared with members of Congress.

“[N]ow Jonathan, we have a situation that is a humanitarian concern,” she said. “We do have issues with any number of children. The numbers are coming up, but I will say that the Biden administration has met with members of Congress. They have a plan. The plan does not look like it’s working at this time, but you have to get it implemented.”

Jackson Lee walked through what the plan was, which she said included measures for preventing the spread of COVID-19.

“[W]e need to put in more resources so that our asylum protocols can go quickly and those that do not meet the standards — they have to be returned safely and securely,” Lee continued. “But what the administration is saying that they’re not going to cage children. They’re not going to turn children back to their deaths. They’re not going to have young girls, 13 years old, subject to rape and pilage. And so it does look a little unseemly. But these are human beings. And so, they’re not coming to endanger our lives. They’re coming basically to save their lives.”

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor",0.38294405921721586
"During this week’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show,” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) acknowledged the Biden border plan, which has led to what some are describing as a crisis, much to be desired.

She said, however, there was a plan in place the Biden administration had shared with members of Congress.

“[N]ow Jonathan, we have a situation that is a humanitarian concern,” she said. “We do have issues with any number of children. The numbers are coming up, but I will say that the Biden administration has met with members of Congress. They have a plan. The plan does not look like it’s working at this time, but you have to get it implemented.”

Jackson Lee walked through what the plan was, which she said included measures for preventing the spread of COVID-19.

“[W]e need to put in more resources so that our asylum protocols can go quickly and those that do not meet the standards — they have to be returned safely and securely,” Lee continued. “But what the administration is saying that they’re not going to cage children. They’re not going to turn children back to their deaths. They’re not going to have young girls, 13 years old, subject to rape and pilage. And so it does look a little unseemly. But these are human beings. And so, they’re not coming to endanger our lives. They’re coming basically to save their lives.”

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor",-1.1708308978012938
"President Joe Biden told reporters Sunday he would visit the Southern border “at some point,” appearing unwilling to commit to the idea soon.

“At some point, I will, yes,” Biden replied when a reporter asked if he would visit the border.

Biden spoke to reporters as he returned from his weekend trip to Camp David.

When asked if he would visit some of the detention facilities for migrants personally, Biden replied, “I know what’s going on in those facilities.”

One reporter asked Biden why his message urging migrants not to come from the United States was not working.

Biden said he and his administration were working to handle the dramatic surge at the border.

“We are in the process of doing it now including making sure we re-establish what existed before, which is they can stay in place and make their case from their home countries,” he said.

The Department of Health and Human Services is housing nearly 10,500 unaccompanied minors in emergency facilities and about 5,000 in custody at a Customs and Border Protection facility, according to a Saturday CBS News report.

In an interview Wednesday, Biden advised migrants not to come to the U.S. border, but his administration has struggled with mixed messaging on the issue.

EXCLUSIVE: @GStephanopoulos presses Pres. Biden on the border crisis. ""Do you have to say quite clearly, 'Don't come'? Biden: ""Yes, I can say quite clearly: Don't come over…Don’t leave your town or city or community."" https://t.co/zFJaRXjCI8 pic.twitter.com/osZKR64ypq — ABC News (@ABC) March 17, 2021

“Yes, I can say quite clearly: Don’t come over,” he said. “We’re in the process of getting set up.”

Biden has refused to admit the crisis on the border is an actual crisis, as more migrants flood to the border.

“We’ll be able to handle it,” he replied to reporters at the White House on March 2. “God willing.”",-1.5836217026988864
"National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chairman Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) told Breitbart News he “does not support amnesty” after crafting and circulating an amnesty plan that could provide about 1.5 million illegal aliens a fast-track to American citizenship.

As Breitbart News confirmed, Scott’s office had been passing the amnesty legislation around to Senate Republicans in an attempt to garner support.

In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News, a spokesperson for Scott said the Florida senator “does not support amnesty.”

“Senator Scott does not support amnesty,” the spokesperson said. “Look at what Biden’s open borders and amnesty plan is doing to our Southern border. Senator Scott has long said reforms to the immigration system become much more simple once the border is secure, and that’s his focus.”

Amnesty, by definition, provides immigration relief to individuals who would otherwise have been eligible for removal from the United States. If not for an amnesty, for example, an illegal alien who crossed U.S. borders or overstayed their visa would have no route to becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen outside of fraud.

The amnesty provisions of Scott’s draft summary and draft legislation, obtained by Breitbart News, are explicit in giving broad authority to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary the ability to cancel deportation for eligible illegal aliens.

The draft summary, for example, mentions providing “conditional permanent resident” status to eligible illegal aliens who can renew the status for two five-year periods before applying for green cards and eventually, after securing a green card, applying to be a naturalized U.S. citizen.

The beginning of the draft summary states:

Likewise, the text of the draft legislation describes in depth how an illegal alien would be eligible for “cancellation of removal and conditional permanent resident status.” The text also explains how the DHS Secretary would have broad authority over who receives the amnesty:

Another portion of Scott’s draft legislation details when the amnesty, or “conditional permanent resident” status, for an illegal alien would begin:

At least a few senates Republican offices are questioning whether Scott is cut out to continue leading the NRSC, the committee tasked with helping the GOP win back the Senate in 2022.

Aides to three Senate Republicans have expressed concern with Scott’s looming amnesty plan, suggesting he may hurt Republicans’ chances to retake the Senate majority.

An analysis by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) found that the plan, as written in its draft, would benefit about 1.5 million illegal aliens and potentially more considering the authority given to the DHS Secretary.

Coupled with the amnesty provisions of the legislation is increased federal funding for DHS to hire additional Border Patrol agents, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, federal immigration judges, funding for a “border wall system,” and a ban on the catch and release of border crossers into the U.S. interior.

Specifically, the enforcement funding provisions include $20 billion for DHS to procure, construct, and maintain a border wall system,” according to the draft summary, and hundreds of millions more for hiring more federal immigration officials across the agency.

Scott’s office did not answer when specifically asked if these provisions in the draft summary and draft legislation will be in the legislative text as introduced by the Senator when he rolls out the bill. If they are, it will mean the quote the senator’s office provided to Breitbart News is inaccurate as these provisions are, by definition, amnesty.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.",-0.09963122944343888
"National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chairman Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) told Breitbart News he “does not support amnesty” after crafting and circulating an amnesty plan that could provide about 1.5 million illegal aliens a fast-track to American citizenship.

As Breitbart News confirmed, Scott’s office had been passing the amnesty legislation around to Senate Republicans in an attempt to garner support.

In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News, a spokesperson for Scott said the Florida senator “does not support amnesty.”

“Senator Scott does not support amnesty,” the spokesperson said. “Look at what Biden’s open borders and amnesty plan is doing to our Southern border. Senator Scott has long said reforms to the immigration system become much more simple once the border is secure, and that’s his focus.”

Amnesty, by definition, provides immigration relief to individuals who would otherwise have been eligible for removal from the United States. If not for an amnesty, for example, an illegal alien who crossed U.S. borders or overstayed their visa would have no route to becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen outside of fraud.

The amnesty provisions of Scott’s draft summary and draft legislation, obtained by Breitbart News, are explicit in giving broad authority to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary the ability to cancel deportation for eligible illegal aliens.

The draft summary, for example, mentions providing “conditional permanent resident” status to eligible illegal aliens who can renew the status for two five-year periods before applying for green cards and eventually, after securing a green card, applying to be a naturalized U.S. citizen.

The beginning of the draft summary states:

Likewise, the text of the draft legislation describes in depth how an illegal alien would be eligible for “cancellation of removal and conditional permanent resident status.” The text also explains how the DHS Secretary would have broad authority over who receives the amnesty:

Another portion of Scott’s draft legislation details when the amnesty, or “conditional permanent resident” status, for an illegal alien would begin:

At least a few senates Republican offices are questioning whether Scott is cut out to continue leading the NRSC, the committee tasked with helping the GOP win back the Senate in 2022.

Aides to three Senate Republicans have expressed concern with Scott’s looming amnesty plan, suggesting he may hurt Republicans’ chances to retake the Senate majority.

An analysis by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) found that the plan, as written in its draft, would benefit about 1.5 million illegal aliens and potentially more considering the authority given to the DHS Secretary.

Coupled with the amnesty provisions of the legislation is increased federal funding for DHS to hire additional Border Patrol agents, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, federal immigration judges, funding for a “border wall system,” and a ban on the catch and release of border crossers into the U.S. interior.

Specifically, the enforcement funding provisions include $20 billion for DHS to procure, construct, and maintain a border wall system,” according to the draft summary, and hundreds of millions more for hiring more federal immigration officials across the agency.

Scott’s office did not answer when specifically asked if these provisions in the draft summary and draft legislation will be in the legislative text as introduced by the Senator when he rolls out the bill. If they are, it will mean the quote the senator’s office provided to Breitbart News is inaccurate as these provisions are, by definition, amnesty.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.",0.28073467406902725
"NBC host Chuck Todd during Sunday’s “Meet the Press” on NBC called the surge of unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S.-Mexico border is a political crisis “with no easy way out.”

Todd said, “It’s fair to call the deteriorating situation at the U.S.-Mexico border a crisis — even if the Biden administration refuses to use that word. But it’s more than that: It’s a political crisis for the new president, with no easy way out.

He added, “Republicans are quick to blame Mr. Biden for the growing number of migrants crossing the border, saying it’s his rhetoric and policy shifts that caused the surge in migrants. The Democratic administration says it was left with an unworkable immigration system left by President Trump. Conservatives want a big wall. Progressives want nothing less than humane treatment from migrants fleeing violence wherever it is, and a path to citizenship for those already here.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN",-0.06404696348552451
"NBC host Chuck Todd during Sunday’s “Meet the Press” on NBC called the surge of unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S.-Mexico border is a political crisis “with no easy way out.”

Todd said, “It’s fair to call the deteriorating situation at the U.S.-Mexico border a crisis — even if the Biden administration refuses to use that word. But it’s more than that: It’s a political crisis for the new president, with no easy way out.

He added, “Republicans are quick to blame Mr. Biden for the growing number of migrants crossing the border, saying it’s his rhetoric and policy shifts that caused the surge in migrants. The Democratic administration says it was left with an unworkable immigration system left by President Trump. Conservatives want a big wall. Progressives want nothing less than humane treatment from migrants fleeing violence wherever it is, and a path to citizenship for those already here.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN",-0.051551511114530636
"During an appearance on this week’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas declared the U.S.-Mexico border “secure” and “closed.”

“The border is secure,” he said. “The border is closed. We’ve been unequivocal in that and we are operationalizing our processes, executing our plans, we are a nation of laws, and we treat vulnerable children humanely. We can do it, and we are doing it.’

Following Mayorkas giving those remarks, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) disputed the claim.

Cotton, also speaking to “Fox News Sunday,” told host Chris Wallace the border was “wide open,” and he blamed the Biden administration’s immigration policy in the early stages of Joe Biden’s presidency for the crisis.

Partial transcript as follows:

WALLACE: You just watched my interview with Secretary Mayorkas. Your reaction, sir? COTTON: Chris, it’s rich that Secretary Mayorkas won’t let press travel with him to the border, but he will come on your Sunday morning show and peddle the same kind of nonsense that has created the Biden border crisis in the first place. I mean, he’s basically saying the United States will not secure our border and that is a big welcome sign to migrants from across the world. WALLACE: So you say that you have three simple solutions. What are they? COTTON: Yeah, Chris, the Biden administration keeps saying that Trump somehow dismantled the immigration system. That’s false. It was the Biden administration that dismantled three highly effective policies. First, the public health exclusionary order. They lifted that order as it relates to minors. Well, guess what we have now with the border? Lots more minors. That’s not a surprise. Second, the “remain in Mexico” policy. The Trump administration worked with the government of Mexico to allow migrants who showed up on our border to make an asylum claim but remain in Mexico while we adjudicated rather than just releasing them into the country. And third, the so-called safe third country agreement with countries like Guatemala that says if you pass through a country that’s not your own seeking asylum, you have to make that asylum claim when the first country to pass through. That’s the international norm, that’s what we should do. Joe Biden could reimpose all three of those things this week if you wanted to. WALLACE: One of the things I was struck by at the end of the interview, Secretary Mayorkas said, quote: The border is secure, the border is closed. Is it? COTTON: No, Chris, of course not. The border is wide open. There are reports now Custom and Border Patrol may be directed to simply start processing people into the country without even giving them a notice to appear in court. And, of course, all of these bogus asylum claims are taking up so much manpower and resources of the border, that means that we also have other threats, like increases in fentanyl and other kinds of drug trafficking or persons on the terrorist watch list crossing to our border. The border right now is wide open because the Biden administration dismantled the very effective policies of the Trump administration and the agreements we had with Mexico and other Latin American countries.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor",-0.3564042286220589
"A couple in Florida who spent many years serving as missionaries and ministers recently died 15 minutes apart of the coronavirus.

Bill and Esther Ilnisky were married nearly 67 years when they passed away at a Palm Beach County hospice, the Associated Press (AP) reported Sunday.

The couple’s only child, Sarah Milewski, whose father was 88 and her mother 92, told NBC Miami the circumstances may have been a hidden blessing although it was a devastating loss. “It is so precious, so wonderful, such a heartwarming feeling to know they went together,” Milewski commented, adding, “I miss them.” The NBC report continued: Bill Ilnisky grew up in Detroit, deciding at 16 to devote his life to God, Milewski said. He headed to Central Bible College, an Assemblies of God school in Springfield, Missouri. He preached at nearby churches and needed a piano player. Friends suggested Esther Shabaz, a fellow student from Gary, Indiana. They fell in love. … After graduation and their wedding, Bill Ilnisky opened churches in the Midwest. In the late-1950s, the Ilniskys took congregants to Jamaica for a mission, fell in love with the island, and stayed on to run a church in Montego Bay for a decade. At that time, the couple adopted Milewski, then a two-year-old, from a foster home in Miami. “In 1969, the family moved from Jamaica to Lebanon, where Bill Ilnisky ministered to college students and taught. His wife started an outreach center and had a Christian rock band,” the outlet said. When civil war erupted in 1975 and bombs exploded outside their Beirut apartment building, they eventually left in 1976 as United States Marines evacuated Americans and got on the last plane out of the area.

Upon their return to America, Bill became a pastor in West Palm Beach and his wife started a program teaching kids how to pray.

“Bill Ilnisky retired three years ago and while physically healthy for a late octogenarian, had some dementia. His wife still ran her prayer network and did Zoom calls,” the NBC report said.

The couple took precautions when the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020 and Milewski said her mom stayed at home but Bill occasionally left the house.

“He couldn’t take it,” she recalled. “He needed to be around people.”

Milewski and her husband visited her parents on her mother’s birthday and a few days later, her mother became ill. It was not long before the couple was diagnosed with the virus and was hospitalized.

When their illness got worse, it was decided on February 27 the couple would be placed in hospice care and Jacqueline Lopez-Devine, chief clinical officer at Trustbridge hospice, said there was no question about putting them in a room together.

Milewski bid her parents goodbye through a window, and her father lay on the right side of the bed while her mom faced him. He nodded as Milewski spoke to him and her mother tried to talk but could not.

“It was horrible,” Milewski recalled.

Esther passed away at 10:15 a.m. on March 1, and her husband died 15 minutes later.",-0.10211987623330596
"A six-year-old girl died at an apartment complex in Texas after being shot multiple times Friday over an argument about spilled water.

The child’s mother identified the girl as Laurionne Walker, KTRK reported.

“I’m at a loss for words right now,” Earline House, Laurionne’s grandmother, told KPRC. “My granddaughter was still a baby. She got shot twice in the chest this morning.”

Police in Pasadena, which is a city southeast of Houston, said officers responded to reports of an apartment complex shooting around 11:30 a.m. Friday.

A man who was related to Laurionne shot the girl multiple times, police said.

Laurionne was rushed to a hospital, where she later succumbed to her injuries and was declared dead, NBC News reported.

Pasadena Police charged Raymeon Means, 35, on Saturday with one count of capital murder in connection with Laurionne’s death.

Means is being held in custody without bond.

Laurionne’s mother said her daughter was being cared for by a relative on Friday so she could attend the vigil for Laurionne’s three cousins, all three of them children, and their mother.

The three cousins and their mother died in a car crash Sunday night in Spring, Texas, after being hit by a suspected drunk driver. The crash was unrelated to the shooting.",-0.462898571216102
"When Jane Cunningham’s home was in dire need of repairs and medical debt grew after her son was diagnosed with cancer, neighbors stepped in to help.

“Her home of 25 years in Sudbury, Massachusetts was a sanctuary as she became a single mother raising three children, including a son diagnosed with cancer,” CBS News reported Saturday.

However, the home was falling apart. The roof had collapsed, animals took up residence, and the family stopped living in parts of the house to protect their health.

“There was mold everywhere. Other things were just crumbling. It was kind of like our life fell apart a few years ago. It just became too much,” Cunningham recalled.

She knew their family was not safe there but could not afford the needed repairs. However, just when Cunningham thought she was out of options, a friend started a GoFundMe page to help remedy the situation, according to WBZ-TV.

“She has been struggling with ongoing health issues in the family, and this would really take some of the stress away for all of them,” the page read.

“Not only have they been dealing with water in the house, but also critters getting into the house too. Please donate what you can. Thank you so much!” it continued.

When construction executive Dave Fenton heard about the effort, he picked up the phone and made some calls.

“It was in my town, and without a doubt, it was something we needed to do,” Fenton said.

It did not take long before multiple people got involved by donating materials and labor to do the repairs.

Community members raised around $50,000 in donations to repair the house and pay off medical bills.

“When you’re carrying a lot of problems alone, it can feel very alone with them and very overwhelmed. What they did, it’s like taking a boulder off my back,” Cunningham noted.

Fenton said the crews plan to return in the near future to work on landscaping and the home’s exterior.",1.6965880269234437
"Police in Pittsburgh say a 12-year-old boy was stabbed inside a McDonald’s Saturday in the city’s downtown area.

“Police said they arrested 51-year-old Charles Edward Turner in connection with the stabbing. He’s facing several charges, including criminal attempted homicide,” KDKA reported.

The victim was taken to a hospital in critical condition and a criminal complaint said a doctor later upgraded his condition to stable.

“It also said a black and yellow box cutter was recovered from the scene and a piece of razor blade that broke off the box cutter was recovered where the stabbing happened,” the report continued.

Officers said the boy was stabbed in the neck while inside the McDonald’s restaurant on Liberty Avene and Stanwix Street a few minutes after 2:00 p.m.

“He was with his family, he was standing in line, they had just zipped in for one quick thing,” said Cara Cruz, the Deputy Public Information Officer for the Pittsburgh Public Safety Department.

According to Cruz, Turner was in line behind the boy and his family. A criminal complaint said a witness claimed Turner tackled the child from behind and while others tried to get him off the boy, they noticed his neck was cut.

“Documents also state that Turner resisted arrest by punching and kicking officers. Court documents said one officer had cuts on his face and two other victims had minor injuries,” the KDKA article read.

Cruz said restaurant workers also stepped in to help during the incident.

“Two McDonald’s employees did try to intervene and help the child then police and EMS arrived on the scene,” she noted, adding that police do not believe the boy and Turner knew one another, neither do they know if the incident was random.

The public safety department shared a photo Saturday of the suspect and detailed the charges against him. Turner is currently being held at Allegheny County Jail:

UPDATE: Police have arrested Charles Edward Turner, 51, in connection with this stabbing incident. He is charged with: – Criminal Attempt Homicide

– 4 counts of Aggravated Assault

– 2 counts of Simple Assault

– Resisting Arrest Turner is being held at Allegheny County Jail. https://t.co/3cNAlS0ndx pic.twitter.com/SUHli1q5Ku — Pgh Public Safety (@PghPublicSafety) March 21, 2021

“We’re here all the time, people are here all the time, it’s scary, very scary and a child…that’s terrifying,” Maggie Kishbaugh, a Duquesne University student, said of the incident.",-0.96375989118792
"Multinational corporate executives, who often serve as the biggest donors for the nation’s political class, are the driving forces behind an amnesty plan passed by House Democrats and nine House Republicans.

Last week, the House passed H.R. 6, known as the “Dream and Promise Act of 2021,” to provide potentially 4.4 million illegal aliens with amnesty and put them on a track for American citizenship. All 218 House Democrats voted to support the amnesty and nine House Republicans joined them, including:

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE)

Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL)

Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA)

Rep. David Valadao (R-CA)

Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI)

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA)

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ)

Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL)

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL)

The amnesty’s biggest backers are a series of multinational corporations and their executives who often provide campaign cash to lawmakers.

In a March letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the corporations’ executives urged the Senate to pass the expansive amnesty.

“This important legislation has our strong support and we ask that you and your colleagues consider and pass it in the immediate weeks ahead,” the executives wrote.

The full letter can be read here:

Schumer McConnell Letter by John Binder

Those who signed off on the letter include tech conglomerates like Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Google, IBM, Uber, and PayPal. Also lobbying for the amnesty is the United States Chamber of Commerce, Visa, Marriott International, Verizon, Johnson & Johnson, Chobani, Starbucks, General Motors, Target, and Hilton.

A flooded U.S. labor market has been well documented for its wage-crushing side effects, so much so that economist George Borjas has called mass immigration the “largest anti-poverty program” at the expense of America’s working and lower-middle class. The biggest winners are corporations and investors who can not only keep the cost of labor low, but also have a steady stream of consumers to buy their products and services.

Other research finds current legal immigration to the U.S. results in more than $530 billion worth of lost wages for Americans.

Recent peer-reviewed research by economist Christoph Albert acknowledges that “as immigrants accept lower wages, they are preferably chosen by firms and therefore have higher job finding rates than natives, consistent with evidence found in US data.”

Albert’s research also finds immigration “raises competition” for native-born Americans in the labor market. Similarly, research from June 2020 on U.S. wages and the labor market shows that a continuous flow of mass immigration exerts “stronger labor market competition” on newly arrived immigrants than even native-born Americans, thus contributing to the wage gap.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), likewise, has repeatedly noted mass immigration cuts Americans’ wages.

In 2013, CBO analysis stated that the “Gang of Eight” amnesty plan would “slightly” push down wages for the American workers. A 2020 CBO analysis stated “immigration has exerted downward pressure on the wages of relatively low-skilled workers who are already in the country, regardless of their birthplace.”

Every year, about 1.2 million legal immigrants receive green cards to permanently resettle in the U.S. In addition, 1.4 million foreign nationals get temporary visas to fill U.S. jobs that would otherwise go to Americans.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.",1.1409275523554883
"Multinational corporate executives, who often serve as the biggest donors for the nation’s political class, are the driving forces behind an amnesty plan passed by House Democrats and nine House Republicans.

Last week, the House passed H.R. 6, known as the “Dream and Promise Act of 2021,” to provide potentially 4.4 million illegal aliens with amnesty and put them on a track for American citizenship. All 218 House Democrats voted to support the amnesty and nine House Republicans joined them, including:

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE)

Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL)

Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA)

Rep. David Valadao (R-CA)

Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI)

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA)

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ)

Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL)

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL)

The amnesty’s biggest backers are a series of multinational corporations and their executives who often provide campaign cash to lawmakers.

In a March letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the corporations’ executives urged the Senate to pass the expansive amnesty.

“This important legislation has our strong support and we ask that you and your colleagues consider and pass it in the immediate weeks ahead,” the executives wrote.

The full letter can be read here:

Schumer McConnell Letter by John Binder

Those who signed off on the letter include tech conglomerates like Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Google, IBM, Uber, and PayPal. Also lobbying for the amnesty is the United States Chamber of Commerce, Visa, Marriott International, Verizon, Johnson & Johnson, Chobani, Starbucks, General Motors, Target, and Hilton.

A flooded U.S. labor market has been well documented for its wage-crushing side effects, so much so that economist George Borjas has called mass immigration the “largest anti-poverty program” at the expense of America’s working and lower-middle class. The biggest winners are corporations and investors who can not only keep the cost of labor low, but also have a steady stream of consumers to buy their products and services.

Other research finds current legal immigration to the U.S. results in more than $530 billion worth of lost wages for Americans.

Recent peer-reviewed research by economist Christoph Albert acknowledges that “as immigrants accept lower wages, they are preferably chosen by firms and therefore have higher job finding rates than natives, consistent with evidence found in US data.”

Albert’s research also finds immigration “raises competition” for native-born Americans in the labor market. Similarly, research from June 2020 on U.S. wages and the labor market shows that a continuous flow of mass immigration exerts “stronger labor market competition” on newly arrived immigrants than even native-born Americans, thus contributing to the wage gap.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), likewise, has repeatedly noted mass immigration cuts Americans’ wages.

In 2013, CBO analysis stated that the “Gang of Eight” amnesty plan would “slightly” push down wages for the American workers. A 2020 CBO analysis stated “immigration has exerted downward pressure on the wages of relatively low-skilled workers who are already in the country, regardless of their birthplace.”

Every year, about 1.2 million legal immigrants receive green cards to permanently resettle in the U.S. In addition, 1.4 million foreign nationals get temporary visas to fill U.S. jobs that would otherwise go to Americans.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.",0.47827043562690014
"Mexican authorities disrupted a large-scale human smuggling attempt at a border state international airport. The discovery led to the arrest of 95 migrants found to be illegally in Mexico. The group was made up mostly of family units and unaccompanied minors.

The arrests took place this week at the Monterrey International Airport, according to information provided to Breitbart Texas by Mexico’s National Immigration Institute. Monterrey is located 100 miles from the Texas border and is considered a main logistical hub for legal and illegal commerce — including human smuggling.

The migrants arrived at the airport via two separate airplanes from the southern Mexico cities of Villa Hermosa, Tabasco, and Cancun, Quintana Roo. Authorities did not reveal if the migrants were headed to a particular place in Mexico or to the Texas border as part of the ongoing immigration crisis as family units, unaccompanied minors, and asylum seekers continue to arrive in numbers not seen in many years.

The group consisted of 70 migrants from Honduras, 14 from Guatemala, six from El Salvador, and five from Cuba. According to Mexican immigration officials, the group included 8 unaccompanied minors and 27 families made up of two to five individuals each for a total of 70 migrants.

Officials turned the unaccompanied minors over to a Mexican entity tasked with caring for children called DIF. The family units remained with immigration authorities. The remainder of the adults who were not part of any families were sent to an immigration station for deportation.

Mexican authorities did not reveal information about the human smuggling organization behind the operation or if they made any arrests of human smugglers in connection with the case.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.

Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.

Gerald “Tony” Aranda is a contributing writer for Breitbart Texas.",-1.3412787147520389
"Mexican authorities disrupted a large-scale human smuggling attempt at a border state international airport. The discovery led to the arrest of 95 migrants found to be illegally in Mexico. The group was made up mostly of family units and unaccompanied minors.

The arrests took place this week at the Monterrey International Airport, according to information provided to Breitbart Texas by Mexico’s National Immigration Institute. Monterrey is located 100 miles from the Texas border and is considered a main logistical hub for legal and illegal commerce — including human smuggling.

The migrants arrived at the airport via two separate airplanes from the southern Mexico cities of Villa Hermosa, Tabasco, and Cancun, Quintana Roo. Authorities did not reveal if the migrants were headed to a particular place in Mexico or to the Texas border as part of the ongoing immigration crisis as family units, unaccompanied minors, and asylum seekers continue to arrive in numbers not seen in many years.

The group consisted of 70 migrants from Honduras, 14 from Guatemala, six from El Salvador, and five from Cuba. According to Mexican immigration officials, the group included 8 unaccompanied minors and 27 families made up of two to five individuals each for a total of 70 migrants.

Officials turned the unaccompanied minors over to a Mexican entity tasked with caring for children called DIF. The family units remained with immigration authorities. The remainder of the adults who were not part of any families were sent to an immigration station for deportation.

Mexican authorities did not reveal information about the human smuggling organization behind the operation or if they made any arrests of human smugglers in connection with the case.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.

Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.

Gerald “Tony” Aranda is a contributing writer for Breitbart Texas.",-1.8242112967896387
"The pause on construction of the border wall costs taxpayers about six million dollars per day while construction sites sit idle, Breitbart Texas learned from a senior Department of Homeland Security official. On Sunday, March 21, the 60-day pause in construction of the border wall is scheduled to end.

According to the source, the expenditures are required for materials orders placed before the pause and expenses for the cost of equipment sitting idle. When the issuance of a stop work order causes a contractor to idle equipment, they are entitled to be compensated for rental expenses or costs of ownership.

Shortly after taking office, President Biden signed an executive order temporarily halting any further progress on the border wall so individual contracts could be evaluated. With the exception of “make-safe” activities at the worksites, construction projects immediately came to a standstill, Breitbart Texas reported. The end of the 60-day pause does not, however, signal an automatic restart of construction.

Early in the pause, a spokesperson for the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) informed Breitbart Texas that contractors would be informed of a final decision sometime after the 60-day pause concludes. The time was to be used for evaluating each contract to reach a decision to terminate-for-cause or continue.

The Biden administration has not indicated which direction they will take regarding the end of the pause. Little information concerning the immigration crisis on the border has come from the leadership team within DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Senior officials within DHS reported being instructed not to speak to national media on the issues facing DHS at the border. Information from other agencies within the new administration is equally elusive. USACE did not respond to a request for information concerning the end of the pause and the border wall contracts currently being evaluated.

As the deadline looms for a decision to be reached, equipment still sits idle. In Eagle Pass, Texas, a 51.9-million-dollar fence contract hangs in the balance. The equipment gathers dust and the contractor still awaits a decision. Other problems appearing along the border may be taking precedent over the status of the border wall contracts.

In recent days, the Secretary of DHS, Alejandro Mayorkas has said “We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years,”. In addition to the surge of migrants that are being apprehended along the border, a significant amount of illegal migrant traffic is also avoiding arrest. The administration was also not prepared for the onslaught of unaccompanied children crossing the border as policy changes were being made.

In addition to the daily expenses related to the pause of border wall construction, additional costs to taxpayers are likely on the horizon if the administration does decide to close out the contracts permanently.

Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.",0.007722639206184795
"The pause on construction of the border wall costs taxpayers about six million dollars per day while construction sites sit idle, Breitbart Texas learned from a senior Department of Homeland Security official. On Sunday, March 21, the 60-day pause in construction of the border wall is scheduled to end.

According to the source, the expenditures are required for materials orders placed before the pause and expenses for the cost of equipment sitting idle. When the issuance of a stop work order causes a contractor to idle equipment, they are entitled to be compensated for rental expenses or costs of ownership.

Shortly after taking office, President Biden signed an executive order temporarily halting any further progress on the border wall so individual contracts could be evaluated. With the exception of “make-safe” activities at the worksites, construction projects immediately came to a standstill, Breitbart Texas reported. The end of the 60-day pause does not, however, signal an automatic restart of construction.

Early in the pause, a spokesperson for the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) informed Breitbart Texas that contractors would be informed of a final decision sometime after the 60-day pause concludes. The time was to be used for evaluating each contract to reach a decision to terminate-for-cause or continue.

The Biden administration has not indicated which direction they will take regarding the end of the pause. Little information concerning the immigration crisis on the border has come from the leadership team within DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Senior officials within DHS reported being instructed not to speak to national media on the issues facing DHS at the border. Information from other agencies within the new administration is equally elusive. USACE did not respond to a request for information concerning the end of the pause and the border wall contracts currently being evaluated.

As the deadline looms for a decision to be reached, equipment still sits idle. In Eagle Pass, Texas, a 51.9-million-dollar fence contract hangs in the balance. The equipment gathers dust and the contractor still awaits a decision. Other problems appearing along the border may be taking precedent over the status of the border wall contracts.

In recent days, the Secretary of DHS, Alejandro Mayorkas has said “We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years,”. In addition to the surge of migrants that are being apprehended along the border, a significant amount of illegal migrant traffic is also avoiding arrest. The administration was also not prepared for the onslaught of unaccompanied children crossing the border as policy changes were being made.

In addition to the daily expenses related to the pause of border wall construction, additional costs to taxpayers are likely on the horizon if the administration does decide to close out the contracts permanently.

Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.",1.192722888184643
"Actress Sandra Oh made a surprise appearance at a “Stop Asian Hate” protest in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, where she led a chant proclaiming, “I am proud to be Asian.”

“Pittsburgh, I am so happy and proud to be here with you, and thank you to all the organizers for organizing this just to give us an opportunity to be together, and to stand together, and to feel each other,” Oh can be heard saying in a video published by CBS Pittsburgh.

“For many of us in our community, this is the first time we are even able to voice our fear and our anger, and I really am so grateful to everyone willing to listen,” Oh continued. “I know many of us in our community are very scared, and I understand that.”

“And one way to get through our fear is to reach out to our communities,” she added. “I will challenge everyone here, if you see something will you help me? If you see one of our sisters and brothers in need, will you help us?”

From there, the actress led a chant, proclaiming, “I am proud to be Asian. I belong here.”

“Many of us don’t get our chance to be able to say that, so I just wanted to give us an opportunity to be able to shout that,” Oh concluded.

Before Saturday’s rally, Oh posted an statement to Instagram, responding to a fatal shooting spree at two Atlanta-area massage parlors that left eight people dead and another wounded.

“I send loving kindness and support to the families of the eight souls murdered in Georgia on March 16. And to all the victims of racist violence,” Oh wrote.

“I am devastated and profoundly angry,” the actress added. “I know many of you are scared, but let us not be afraid.”

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.",-0.07710349438617903
"Netflix plans to celebrate the one-year anniversary of its documentary series Tiger King with a TikTok drag queen musical adaption, titled The Tiger Queens: The Tiger King Musical LIVE.

“Tiger King was unleashed on the world one year ago today,” tweeted Netflix on Saturday. “Looking back, it feels like Tiger King was the perfect series to match the mood of March 2020 — it was like nothing we’d ever seen before, nothing quite made sense, and we didn’t exactly know how it would end.”

Looking back, it feels like Tiger King was the perfect series to match the mood of March 2020 — it was like nothing we’d ever seen before, nothing quite made sense, and we didn’t exactly know how it would end https://t.co/fOi2hiGUpn — Netflix (@netflix) March 20, 2021

“Because just when you thought life — or Tiger King — couldn’t get any wilder, it did,” Netflix continued in a follow-up tweet. “But somehow, if even for a moment, it felt like we were a little more prepared to endure the madness.”

“Because even though so many of us were literally alone, we had one fun thing to share together,” the streaming giant added. “And it gave us an excuse to laugh, gasp, and stare in shock at something that wasn’t the news for a second.”

And it gave us an excuse to laugh, gasp, and stare in shock at something that wasn’t the news for a second https://t.co/qpU95dYi8C — Netflix (@netflix) March 20, 2021

“It also foreshadowed a bit of what the rest of 2020 would bring… And gave us something to look forward to,” Netflix wrote.

“And to celebrate Tiger King’s one year anniversary, we’re hosting Tiger Queens: The Tiger King Musical LIVE on TikTok next week!!” the streaming giant announced.

And to celebrate Tiger King's one year anniversary, we’re hosting Tiger Queens: The Tiger King Musical LIVE on TikTok next week!! pic.twitter.com/6cSt5VDans — Netflix (@netflix) March 20, 2021

Casting for the musical was revealed in a promotional poster tweeted by Netflix, which revealed that Tiger Queens is slated to star Kim Chi as Carole Baskin, Heidi N Closet as “The Tiger,” and Willam as Joe Exotic.

All three are alums of RuPaul’s Drag Race. The drag queen musical will debut next week, on March 28.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.",0.5547710134634887
"Netflix plans to celebrate the one-year anniversary of its documentary series Tiger King with a TikTok drag queen musical adaption, titled The Tiger Queens: The Tiger King Musical LIVE.

“Tiger King was unleashed on the world one year ago today,” tweeted Netflix on Saturday. “Looking back, it feels like Tiger King was the perfect series to match the mood of March 2020 — it was like nothing we’d ever seen before, nothing quite made sense, and we didn’t exactly know how it would end.”

Looking back, it feels like Tiger King was the perfect series to match the mood of March 2020 — it was like nothing we’d ever seen before, nothing quite made sense, and we didn’t exactly know how it would end https://t.co/fOi2hiGUpn — Netflix (@netflix) March 20, 2021

“Because just when you thought life — or Tiger King — couldn’t get any wilder, it did,” Netflix continued in a follow-up tweet. “But somehow, if even for a moment, it felt like we were a little more prepared to endure the madness.”

“Because even though so many of us were literally alone, we had one fun thing to share together,” the streaming giant added. “And it gave us an excuse to laugh, gasp, and stare in shock at something that wasn’t the news for a second.”

And it gave us an excuse to laugh, gasp, and stare in shock at something that wasn’t the news for a second https://t.co/qpU95dYi8C — Netflix (@netflix) March 20, 2021

“It also foreshadowed a bit of what the rest of 2020 would bring… And gave us something to look forward to,” Netflix wrote.

“And to celebrate Tiger King’s one year anniversary, we’re hosting Tiger Queens: The Tiger King Musical LIVE on TikTok next week!!” the streaming giant announced.

And to celebrate Tiger King's one year anniversary, we’re hosting Tiger Queens: The Tiger King Musical LIVE on TikTok next week!! pic.twitter.com/6cSt5VDans — Netflix (@netflix) March 20, 2021

Casting for the musical was revealed in a promotional poster tweeted by Netflix, which revealed that Tiger Queens is slated to star Kim Chi as Carole Baskin, Heidi N Closet as “The Tiger,” and Willam as Joe Exotic.

All three are alums of RuPaul’s Drag Race. The drag queen musical will debut next week, on March 28.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.",0.8627332075700589
"With the debut of WandaVison and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Disney is getting back in the swing of its Marvel Superhero stories, but at least for the latter show’s Falcon and Bucky, the story is bringing in moments of woke politics.

According to Malcolm Spellman, head writer for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (FAWS) debuting on Disney+, the show dove into its political themes quite pointedly even from the first episode. In an interview with Variety, he breaks down how the series touches on contemporary politics, from Black Lives Matter to the coronavirus pandemic.

An early scene, for instance, shows the Falcon, aka Sam Wilson (played by Anthony Mackie) visiting a bank, and a banker asks about his income with suspicion and ultimately turns him down for a loan.

“That was a really, really fun moment, where what was supposed to be a scene that mostly dealt with the issues of, you know, a black family from a certain background dealing with a bank loan, and the fact that him being a celebrity does not transcend him being black,” Spellman says.

The writer told Variety that their drive to make the writer’s room “all-black” was a key to success. It was “pointed” that the episode ends with Falcon finding out that the government lied to him about becoming Captain America’s replacement because he isn’t white.

I think this is going to be an extremely relevant show in a lot of ways, and that is not by accident. The magic of embracing diversity in the writers room and having an almost all-Black staff allows you to tap into pop culture. I mean, Black folk are the masters of it, and when we get a shot, to do what we do, it is universal for everyone because our struggle and our point of view is a concentrated version of the greater human struggle. So it is yeah, those moments you’re talking about are pointed, and we dig deeper and deeper and deeper as the series progresses.

The betrayal of the government was a particularly important point for the writers.

“That was the primary reason I showed up, which was for Sam, the idea of a black man confronting the stars and stripes is whether it’s even appropriate to carry that shield,” Spellman said.

After telling Variety how “exciting” it was for the writers to show actors Don Cheadle and Anthony Mackie portraying black superheroes talking like normal people. “Just the concept of two black superheroes being on screen together said a million things,” he gushed.

If you’d seen how much dialogue we wrote, because I was so excited to get them together. They were just riffing. Like, it was a moment for them. I was psyched about it. A lot of that got distilled. But I think this bigger issue that’s going on, they don’t have to say that much. Everybody knows these are two Black men, and they’re dealing with the stars and stripes. They don’t even have to say that much for you to get how much it’s weighing on them, and how much these dudes probably cooked up and talked behind the scenes in the MCU.

Spellman concluded by noting that after their production was shut down due to the coronavirus, they went back into the story to “rework and retrofit” the story to include more coronavirus-inspired themes.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.",0.5540829415006694
"Lana Del Rey’s latest album, Chemtrails Over the Country Club, is perhaps the first post-pandemic reflection of life in organized, often coercive, isolationism and the longing for escape.

As is frequently the case with Lana, there are subtle hints and notes to her work’s aesthetics and lyrics — a sort of glimpse into her thoughts. What does she really believe? Who is she actually dating, and thus, singing about? Is she really living this glamorously destructive life? Is she woke?

Over the last year, following her Grammy-nominated Norman Fucking Rockwell!, the lockdowners and neolibs have tried desperately to sink Lana’s career with claims of racism, being anti-women, not having enough nonwhite friends, and even for briefly dating a cop! Each time, she’s given a subliminal middle finger.

For Chemtrails, Lana seems to take on a specific kind of hater: The lockdowners.

There are more than a handful of instances where we see Lana challenging the lockdown lifestyle that has eliminated the wonder of upper-middle-class eccentricities, forced small businesses to close, weaponized the establishment media against the citizenry, and become a virtue signal of those least impacted by the last year.

This isn’t far-fetched. Entertainment Weekly noted Lana’s “yearning for freedom.”

Waitressing Dreams

In the music video for the album’s first track, titled “White Dress,” a rollerblade girl cruises down an open highway, drifting off back and forth through each lane.

Flashes of open land and the sunrise are sporadic throughout and later, Lana is seen serving diner food to her friends at a little food stand with a giant open sign. At one point, a pirate flag is seen waving in the wind, imagery that’s become synonymous with rebellion.

In another scene, the rollerblader does an interpretive dance in front of a closed, abandoned gas station off the highway.

The video is paired with the track’s lyrics that are primarily tied to Lana’s time as a 19-year-old waitress when she was a nobody. Interestingly enough, Lana fantasizes about her past waitress work, the job hardest hit by lockdown states:

Sun stare, don’t care with my head in my hands Thinking of a simpler time … When I was a waitress wearing a white dress Look how I do this, look how I got this

In the track’s first chorus, Lana remarks fondly about attending a large gathering in Orlando, Florida — arguably the most open state in the nation — with an old crush:

Down at the Men in Music Business Conference Down in Orlando, I was only nineteen Down at the Men in Music Business Conference I only mention it ’cause it was such a scene

The nostalgia always runs deep with Lana. But the difference this time is that she’s nostalgic for a time she did, in fact, experience rather than eras that predate her. And those times she’s thinking about aren’t all that significant, except when you’re being asked to lock yourself up for more than a year.

Chemtrails Conspiracies and Useless Masks

The title track of the album is trippy hippy dippy and quintessential Lana. Filled with emotions, talk of God (at the most inappropriate time — while chillin’ at the local country club), a suggestion of chemtrail conspiracies, old America iconography, and making household chores sound desirable.

At the track’s opening, Lana notes that she’s “on the run” and later “I’m not unhinged or unhappy, I’m just wild” while piling on her jewelry to go grocery shopping and the swimming pool.

The music video brings all the acid-tripping to life where Lana is literally “drag racing my little red sports car,” as she states, dressed up in pearls — almost cartoonishly overdone — as a woman of suburbia would heading to the country club.

About a minute into the video, Lana decides to bring back the Swarovski crystal mesh face mask that the lockdowners came after her over back in November 2020. Two months after that attempt at canceling her, she released the video and sported the mask.

Getting Out of Lockdown

Whereas in Norman Fucking Rockwell! Lana sings of her newfound carefree attitude in California, harking back to Joni Mitchells’ Ladies of the Canyon, she takes a right turn for the small towns and open regions of the midwest in Chemtrails.

In “Tulsa Jesus Freak,” she drags on about road-tripping to the Great Plains and the West South Central states. For Lana, it’s the freedom and the simplicity:

We should go back to Arkansas Trade this body for that can of Gin Like a little piece of heaven No more candle in the wind

Most significantly, Lana is no longer singing “we should go back to New York” as she did in 2014’s Ultraviolence. That lyrical repetition and theme of time and place in Lana’s work are when she sometimes reveals the most.

Lana does it again in “Dance Til We Die” where she almost explicitly refuses to stop living her life despite the lockdowners. Like with the last track mentioned, Lana goes off on a bridge, torching the closed cities she’s leaving for the wide open spaces:

I went down to Woodside I left Berkley, out of city, out of mind Killin’ it, talkin’ shit Joan said she was gonna quit Tearin’ it up at the Afro-Caribbean two-step I left San Francisco, I’ve been coverin’ Joni And I’m dancin’ with Joan It’s kinda hard to find love When you’re used to rolling like a rolling stone

“Wild at Heart,” maybe the album’s greatest track, and “Dark But Just a Game” Lana belts about her lack of wanting fame, or more, wanting a return to normalcy:

I left Calabasas, escaped all the ashes, ran into the dark And it made me wild, wild, wild at heart The cameras have flashes, they cause the car crashes But I’m not a star …

We keep changing all the time The best ones lost their minds So I’m not gonna change I’ll stay the same No rose left on the vines Don’t even want what’s mine Much less the fame It’s dark, but just a game

Getting out of the city that brought America the Kardashians and running free is all she wants in the midst of travel restrictions.

Can you even be free as a famous person? You can try, but they’ll try to cancel you. And when they’re not canceling you, they’re asking you to stay indoors for just a little longer.

Wild West as a Way of Life

Lana’s albums are described as “eras” where her looks change and her mood board visions are emulated in her DIY music videos.

Undoubtedly, Chemtrails takes on a Wild West aesthetic. is it any wonder? The antithesis of lockdowns is the period in American history when the lawless ruled and the ruled were lawless.

In most of the promotional shoots for Chemtrails, Lana seemingly breaks California’s state orders urging people not to gather in large groups with folks from three or more households. The album’s cover, for instance, captures Lana excitingly smiling amidst her girlfriends in pilgrim-style ensembles.

It’s like Lana and her friends are the new settlers on a lockdown’d land. Rulebreakers and pirates amongst controlled bots spouting Center for Disease Control orders.

In other photos, Lana is on a quasi-trailer park ranch with her friends and siblings. One particular photo is set to a sepia filter as if it were taken at one of those tourist attractions in Tennessee where you get your picture taken as a saloon gangster.

Even in the album’s alternate cover, when Lana is photographed alone, she stands amidst an open field in a white dress, a reference to “White Dress” which sets the mood for the rest of Chemtrails.

“While the whole world is crazy, we’re getting high in the parking lot,” Lana sings. Maybe this was the answer all along to the last year?

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.",-0.5198675122429222
"Lana Del Rey’s latest album, Chemtrails Over the Country Club, is perhaps the first post-pandemic reflection of life in organized, often coercive, isolationism and the longing for escape.

As is frequently the case with Lana, there are subtle hints and notes to her work’s aesthetics and lyrics — a sort of glimpse into her thoughts. What does she really believe? Who is she actually dating, and thus, singing about? Is she really living this glamorously destructive life? Is she woke?

Over the last year, following her Grammy-nominated Norman Fucking Rockwell!, the lockdowners and neolibs have tried desperately to sink Lana’s career with claims of racism, being anti-women, not having enough nonwhite friends, and even for briefly dating a cop! Each time, she’s given a subliminal middle finger.

For Chemtrails, Lana seems to take on a specific kind of hater: The lockdowners.

There are more than a handful of instances where we see Lana challenging the lockdown lifestyle that has eliminated the wonder of upper-middle-class eccentricities, forced small businesses to close, weaponized the establishment media against the citizenry, and become a virtue signal of those least impacted by the last year.

This isn’t far-fetched. Entertainment Weekly noted Lana’s “yearning for freedom.”

Waitressing Dreams

In the music video for the album’s first track, titled “White Dress,” a rollerblade girl cruises down an open highway, drifting off back and forth through each lane.

Flashes of open land and the sunrise are sporadic throughout and later, Lana is seen serving diner food to her friends at a little food stand with a giant open sign. At one point, a pirate flag is seen waving in the wind, imagery that’s become synonymous with rebellion.

In another scene, the rollerblader does an interpretive dance in front of a closed, abandoned gas station off the highway.

The video is paired with the track’s lyrics that are primarily tied to Lana’s time as a 19-year-old waitress when she was a nobody. Interestingly enough, Lana fantasizes about her past waitress work, the job hardest hit by lockdown states:

Sun stare, don’t care with my head in my hands Thinking of a simpler time … When I was a waitress wearing a white dress Look how I do this, look how I got this

In the track’s first chorus, Lana remarks fondly about attending a large gathering in Orlando, Florida — arguably the most open state in the nation — with an old crush:

Down at the Men in Music Business Conference Down in Orlando, I was only nineteen Down at the Men in Music Business Conference I only mention it ’cause it was such a scene

The nostalgia always runs deep with Lana. But the difference this time is that she’s nostalgic for a time she did, in fact, experience rather than eras that predate her. And those times she’s thinking about aren’t all that significant, except when you’re being asked to lock yourself up for more than a year.

Chemtrails Conspiracies and Useless Masks

The title track of the album is trippy hippy dippy and quintessential Lana. Filled with emotions, talk of God (at the most inappropriate time — while chillin’ at the local country club), a suggestion of chemtrail conspiracies, old America iconography, and making household chores sound desirable.

At the track’s opening, Lana notes that she’s “on the run” and later “I’m not unhinged or unhappy, I’m just wild” while piling on her jewelry to go grocery shopping and the swimming pool.

The music video brings all the acid-tripping to life where Lana is literally “drag racing my little red sports car,” as she states, dressed up in pearls — almost cartoonishly overdone — as a woman of suburbia would heading to the country club.

About a minute into the video, Lana decides to bring back the Swarovski crystal mesh face mask that the lockdowners came after her over back in November 2020. Two months after that attempt at canceling her, she released the video and sported the mask.

Getting Out of Lockdown

Whereas in Norman Fucking Rockwell! Lana sings of her newfound carefree attitude in California, harking back to Joni Mitchells’ Ladies of the Canyon, she takes a right turn for the small towns and open regions of the midwest in Chemtrails.

In “Tulsa Jesus Freak,” she drags on about road-tripping to the Great Plains and the West South Central states. For Lana, it’s the freedom and the simplicity:

We should go back to Arkansas Trade this body for that can of Gin Like a little piece of heaven No more candle in the wind

Most significantly, Lana is no longer singing “we should go back to New York” as she did in 2014’s Ultraviolence. That lyrical repetition and theme of time and place in Lana’s work are when she sometimes reveals the most.

Lana does it again in “Dance Til We Die” where she almost explicitly refuses to stop living her life despite the lockdowners. Like with the last track mentioned, Lana goes off on a bridge, torching the closed cities she’s leaving for the wide open spaces:

I went down to Woodside I left Berkley, out of city, out of mind Killin’ it, talkin’ shit Joan said she was gonna quit Tearin’ it up at the Afro-Caribbean two-step I left San Francisco, I’ve been coverin’ Joni And I’m dancin’ with Joan It’s kinda hard to find love When you’re used to rolling like a rolling stone

“Wild at Heart,” maybe the album’s greatest track, and “Dark But Just a Game” Lana belts about her lack of wanting fame, or more, wanting a return to normalcy:

I left Calabasas, escaped all the ashes, ran into the dark And it made me wild, wild, wild at heart The cameras have flashes, they cause the car crashes But I’m not a star …

We keep changing all the time The best ones lost their minds So I’m not gonna change I’ll stay the same No rose left on the vines Don’t even want what’s mine Much less the fame It’s dark, but just a game

Getting out of the city that brought America the Kardashians and running free is all she wants in the midst of travel restrictions.

Can you even be free as a famous person? You can try, but they’ll try to cancel you. And when they’re not canceling you, they’re asking you to stay indoors for just a little longer.

Wild West as a Way of Life

Lana’s albums are described as “eras” where her looks change and her mood board visions are emulated in her DIY music videos.

Undoubtedly, Chemtrails takes on a Wild West aesthetic. is it any wonder? The antithesis of lockdowns is the period in American history when the lawless ruled and the ruled were lawless.

In most of the promotional shoots for Chemtrails, Lana seemingly breaks California’s state orders urging people not to gather in large groups with folks from three or more households. The album’s cover, for instance, captures Lana excitingly smiling amidst her girlfriends in pilgrim-style ensembles.

It’s like Lana and her friends are the new settlers on a lockdown’d land. Rulebreakers and pirates amongst controlled bots spouting Center for Disease Control orders.

In other photos, Lana is on a quasi-trailer park ranch with her friends and siblings. One particular photo is set to a sepia filter as if it were taken at one of those tourist attractions in Tennessee where you get your picture taken as a saloon gangster.

Even in the album’s alternate cover, when Lana is photographed alone, she stands amidst an open field in a white dress, a reference to “White Dress” which sets the mood for the rest of Chemtrails.

“While the whole world is crazy, we’re getting high in the parking lot,” Lana sings. Maybe this was the answer all along to the last year?

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.",-0.32325089364060106
"Roku has acquired the long-running home improvement series This Old House, including the TV studio behind the show and all episodes of This Old House and Ask This Old House.

The acquisition comes as the streaming entertainment company seeks to beef up its free, ad-supported Roku Channel as competition heats up from Tubi, Amazon’s IMDb TV, and other free streaming options.

In January, Roku acquired the distribution rights to the defunct Quibi’s library of 75 shows and documentaries, giving Roku customers exclusive access to Quibi content.

Roku said the executive team behind This Old House will join the company, including This Old House Ventures CEO Dan Suratt. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Past seasons of This Old House and Ask This Old House are currently available for free on The Roku Channel. Episodes from the current seasons will stream on-demand after they air on local PBS stations.

“As the top-rated home improvement program in America, This Old House has the broad appeal that is perfectly suited to support The Roku Channel’s ad-supported growth strategy,” Rob Holmes, vice president of programming at Roku, said in a press release Friday.

Free streaming services have seen viewer numbers climb during the pandemic.

Fox’s Tubi said viewership of its free, ad-supported offerings exceeded 2.5 billion hours in 2020, up 58 percent from the previous year, while Pluto TV, which is owned by ViacomCBS, reported that it is now attracting approximately 20 million users every month, up nearly 70 percent for 2020.

Subscription services have also experienced a boon from the pandemic, with global streaming subscriptions passing one billion for the first time, according to a report last week from the Motion Picture Association.

The free streaming market is heating up as services that once relied exclusively on TV re-runs and old movies seek to differentiate themselves with original content. Amazon’s IMDb TV has launched original TV series, including the spy drama Alex Rider and an upcoming show with Judge Judy.

Bloomberg recently reported that Tubi is planning on producing original movies, with an eye to also make TV series.

Roku said its acquisition of This Old House exemplifies its effort to stream shows with a wide audience appeal, which will in turn attract more advertisers.

“The more relevant the content becomes for a larger audience, the more appealing it is to advertising partners,” Roku’s Holmes said.

Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at dng@breitbart.com",-1.5082666963201417
"Roku has acquired the long-running home improvement series This Old House, including the TV studio behind the show and all episodes of This Old House and Ask This Old House.

The acquisition comes as the streaming entertainment company seeks to beef up its free, ad-supported Roku Channel as competition heats up from Tubi, Amazon’s IMDb TV, and other free streaming options.

In January, Roku acquired the distribution rights to the defunct Quibi’s library of 75 shows and documentaries, giving Roku customers exclusive access to Quibi content.

Roku said the executive team behind This Old House will join the company, including This Old House Ventures CEO Dan Suratt. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Past seasons of This Old House and Ask This Old House are currently available for free on The Roku Channel. Episodes from the current seasons will stream on-demand after they air on local PBS stations.

“As the top-rated home improvement program in America, This Old House has the broad appeal that is perfectly suited to support The Roku Channel’s ad-supported growth strategy,” Rob Holmes, vice president of programming at Roku, said in a press release Friday.

Free streaming services have seen viewer numbers climb during the pandemic.

Fox’s Tubi said viewership of its free, ad-supported offerings exceeded 2.5 billion hours in 2020, up 58 percent from the previous year, while Pluto TV, which is owned by ViacomCBS, reported that it is now attracting approximately 20 million users every month, up nearly 70 percent for 2020.

Subscription services have also experienced a boon from the pandemic, with global streaming subscriptions passing one billion for the first time, according to a report last week from the Motion Picture Association.

The free streaming market is heating up as services that once relied exclusively on TV re-runs and old movies seek to differentiate themselves with original content. Amazon’s IMDb TV has launched original TV series, including the spy drama Alex Rider and an upcoming show with Judge Judy.

Bloomberg recently reported that Tubi is planning on producing original movies, with an eye to also make TV series.

Roku said its acquisition of This Old House exemplifies its effort to stream shows with a wide audience appeal, which will in turn attract more advertisers.

“The more relevant the content becomes for a larger audience, the more appealing it is to advertising partners,” Roku’s Holmes said.

Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at dng@breitbart.com",-0.7164473894664543
"Pop star Lizzo has announced a plus-size model reality show with Amazon, in which contestants will compete for the chance to accompany the Grammy-winning star onstage as a member of her next dance crew.

“Here’s your chance to twerk it out on world stages and stomp it out on the runway for the adventure of a lifetime. Come as you are and be sure to bring good energy,” reads the casting call for Lizzo’s new unscripted reality series in development with Amazon.

Lizzo adds that she is seeking dancers “who have for far too long been underrepresented and under-appreciated.”

“Where are all the big girls? That’s what I want to know,” Lizzo said in an Instagram video announcing the show.

“So me and Amazon are going to find out,” the pop star continued. “I’m developing an unscripted show with Amazon to find my next crew of big girl dancers and models. So bring yourself, and that ass.”

Watch Below:

“I BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE! Are you a full figured dancer or model? Have you felt underrepresented and under appreciated? THEN I’M LOOKIN FOR YOU! It’s time to find my dream team of beautifully talented big grrrls and @amazonstudios is helping ya grrrl on this journey!” Lizzo wrote in the video’s caption.

The description for the series — which is currently untitled — reads: “a new unscripted series following global superstar Lizzo as she continues to search for dynamic, full-figured women to join her world and perform with her on stage. Only the most talented dancers and models will have what it takes to twerk it out on tour and stomp it out on the runway.”

The show was first announced last year in August, after the deal was welcomed by Jen Salke, head of Amazon Studios.

“Lizzo is one of the most exciting, creative, joyful artists in the industry, and it is such a pleasure to announce this new deal with her,” Salke said at the time. “She has such a unique perspective and we’re so excited to hear her ideas for new content that our Prime Video customers are sure to love.”

Last year, Lizzo claimed that the “body positivity” movement isn’t big enough, and that it has yet to “normalize” women sizes 18 and over, saying, “girls with back fat, girls with bellies that hang, girls with thighs that aren’t separated” are not being featured often enough.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.",0.11661351526966557
"Pop star Lizzo has announced a plus-size model reality show with Amazon, in which contestants will compete for the chance to accompany the Grammy-winning star onstage as a member of her next dance crew.

“Here’s your chance to twerk it out on world stages and stomp it out on the runway for the adventure of a lifetime. Come as you are and be sure to bring good energy,” reads the casting call for Lizzo’s new unscripted reality series in development with Amazon.

Lizzo adds that she is seeking dancers “who have for far too long been underrepresented and under-appreciated.”

“Where are all the big girls? That’s what I want to know,” Lizzo said in an Instagram video announcing the show.

“So me and Amazon are going to find out,” the pop star continued. “I’m developing an unscripted show with Amazon to find my next crew of big girl dancers and models. So bring yourself, and that ass.”

Watch Below:

“I BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE! Are you a full figured dancer or model? Have you felt underrepresented and under appreciated? THEN I’M LOOKIN FOR YOU! It’s time to find my dream team of beautifully talented big grrrls and @amazonstudios is helping ya grrrl on this journey!” Lizzo wrote in the video’s caption.

The description for the series — which is currently untitled — reads: “a new unscripted series following global superstar Lizzo as she continues to search for dynamic, full-figured women to join her world and perform with her on stage. Only the most talented dancers and models will have what it takes to twerk it out on tour and stomp it out on the runway.”

The show was first announced last year in August, after the deal was welcomed by Jen Salke, head of Amazon Studios.

“Lizzo is one of the most exciting, creative, joyful artists in the industry, and it is such a pleasure to announce this new deal with her,” Salke said at the time. “She has such a unique perspective and we’re so excited to hear her ideas for new content that our Prime Video customers are sure to love.”

Last year, Lizzo claimed that the “body positivity” movement isn’t big enough, and that it has yet to “normalize” women sizes 18 and over, saying, “girls with back fat, girls with bellies that hang, girls with thighs that aren’t separated” are not being featured often enough.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.",0.15823817552425667
"Actress Sharon Stone is claiming in her new memoir that a movie producer once pressured her into having sex with her co-star, saying that she ultimately refused the suggestion, which contributed to her reputation for being “difficult.”

Stone did not name the male producer or the movie in an excerpt published Friday in Vanity Fair. The actress said the producer wanted her to “fuck my costar” so that they could have “onscreen chemistry.”

I had a producer bring me to his office, where he had malted milk balls in a little milk-carton-type container under his arm with the spout open. He walked back and forth in his office with the balls falling out of the spout and rolling all over the wood floor as he explained to me why I should fuck my costar so that we could have onscreen chemistry. Why, in his day, he made love to Ava Gardner onscreen and it was so sensational! Now just the creepy thought of him in the same room with Ava Gardner gave me pause. Then I realized that she also had to put up with him and pretend that he was in any way interesting. I watched the chocolate balls rolling around, thinking, You guys insisted on this actor when he couldn’t get one whole scene out in the test.… Now you think if I fuck him, he will become a fine actor? Nobody’s that good in bed. I felt they could have just hired a costar with talent, someone who could deliver a scene and remember his lines. I also felt they could fuck him themselves and leave me out of it. It was my job to act and I said so. This was not a popular response. I was considered difficult.

In the past, Stone has expressed some skepticism of the #MeToo movement, saying that the accused deserve due process under the law.

“I don’t feel like these trials without due process are entirely appropriate,” she said on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast in 2018. “I feel that it’s appropriate that people have to take responsibility for the actions, but I do feel that some due process is in order. There’s a range of activities. And you can’t charge somebody with a felony over a misdemeanor.”

In her new book, Stone repeated her claim that she was outraged at Basic Instinct director Paul Verhoeven after she saw the movie’s infamous leg-crossing scene.

“I went to the projection booth, slapped Paul across the face, left, went to my car, and called my lawyer,” she recalled. But she eventually calmed down.

“So I thought and thought and I chose to allow this scene in the film. Why? Because it was correct for the film and for the character; and because, after all, I did it.”

Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at dng@breitbart.com",1.2900389587990366
"Actress Sharon Stone is claiming in her new memoir that a movie producer once pressured her into having sex with her co-star, saying that she ultimately refused the suggestion, which contributed to her reputation for being “difficult.”

Stone did not name the male producer or the movie in an excerpt published Friday in Vanity Fair. The actress said the producer wanted her to “fuck my costar” so that they could have “onscreen chemistry.”

I had a producer bring me to his office, where he had malted milk balls in a little milk-carton-type container under his arm with the spout open. He walked back and forth in his office with the balls falling out of the spout and rolling all over the wood floor as he explained to me why I should fuck my costar so that we could have onscreen chemistry. Why, in his day, he made love to Ava Gardner onscreen and it was so sensational! Now just the creepy thought of him in the same room with Ava Gardner gave me pause. Then I realized that she also had to put up with him and pretend that he was in any way interesting. I watched the chocolate balls rolling around, thinking, You guys insisted on this actor when he couldn’t get one whole scene out in the test.… Now you think if I fuck him, he will become a fine actor? Nobody’s that good in bed. I felt they could have just hired a costar with talent, someone who could deliver a scene and remember his lines. I also felt they could fuck him themselves and leave me out of it. It was my job to act and I said so. This was not a popular response. I was considered difficult.

In the past, Stone has expressed some skepticism of the #MeToo movement, saying that the accused deserve due process under the law.

“I don’t feel like these trials without due process are entirely appropriate,” she said on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast in 2018. “I feel that it’s appropriate that people have to take responsibility for the actions, but I do feel that some due process is in order. There’s a range of activities. And you can’t charge somebody with a felony over a misdemeanor.”

In her new book, Stone repeated her claim that she was outraged at Basic Instinct director Paul Verhoeven after she saw the movie’s infamous leg-crossing scene.

“I went to the projection booth, slapped Paul across the face, left, went to my car, and called my lawyer,” she recalled. But she eventually calmed down.

“So I thought and thought and I chose to allow this scene in the film. Why? Because it was correct for the film and for the character; and because, after all, I did it.”

Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at dng@breitbart.com",0.31854144259857253
"Former MTV news correspondent SuChin Pak has accused the network of being a hotbed of racism, saying that a “white male executive” once used a racial slur about her in the workplace.

“Years ago, when I was a news correspondent at MTV, I overheard a colleague of mine, while watching me do the news that evening, tell a room full of people that I looked like a ‘me sucky sucky love you long time’ whore,” Pak wrote.

“I was young, afraid as usual to cause a fuss or be seen as difficult or too ‘sensitive’ being the only female in the news room, so I didn’t say anything in the moment,” she added.

The next day, however, Pak said, “it hit me that he said it in a room full of people, mostly women, who somehow now think subconsciously or consciously that this kind of [misogynistic] violent, racist language could be overlooked and dismissed and that worse, that someone like me would just swallow it and shrink into the small space that I had been allowed to occupy.”

Therefore, Pak said that she “fought to have this person removed,” and stopped coming into work.

“The executives tried to mediate to reconcile but I refused. It dragged on for months,” she said. “I did not do this because I had an agenda or even courage, I just had this sinking feeling in my gut that I had to do this.”

“It’s the kind of sinking feeling though that doesn’t give you strength, or bravery, it was the kind that kept me in bed for a month, crying, scared and uncertain about everything,” Pak added.

The media personality says that she now realizes “there was a fire, an anger, a burning rage that kept me on the course,” adding that she had a lawyer “who believed that I could not walk back into a place that harbored this kind of hate.”

Pak went on to say that “one last attempt was made at ‘reconciliation’ as if that was even appropriate,” when the “white male executive” wrote her a letter as a “final gesture,” which Pak says came off to her as an attempt to “bring me into submission” and remind her “that someone’s livelihood was on the line, that I was somehow responsible for that.”

Pak says she never opened the letter.

“Asians have been the butt of jokes, but these jokes are not to be dealt with lightly,” Pak continued. “These jokes are just the timid veneer that hide violence, hate, [misogyny], racism and white supremacy.”

“Our grandparents, our elders, our brothers and sisters are being spit on, punched, shot, attacked and murdered while these ‘jokes’ are being spit in our faces. Be angry. Be fucking enraged. And then do something to repair this damage,” she added.

In recent years, MTV has teamed up with social justice groups to launch a “diversity, equity, and inclusion” orientation initiative seeking to construct new “baseline cultural norms” across Viacom CBS’ brands.

MTV has also been accused of being sexist. Last year, pop star Miley Cyrus expressed that she was a victim of sexism at the MTV Video Music Awards after the show’s directors were reportedly reluctant to meeting her demands regarding the lighting on stage.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.",-1.294509147084602
"Former MTV news correspondent SuChin Pak has accused the network of being a hotbed of racism, saying that a “white male executive” once used a racial slur about her in the workplace.

“Years ago, when I was a news correspondent at MTV, I overheard a colleague of mine, while watching me do the news that evening, tell a room full of people that I looked like a ‘me sucky sucky love you long time’ whore,” Pak wrote.

“I was young, afraid as usual to cause a fuss or be seen as difficult or too ‘sensitive’ being the only female in the news room, so I didn’t say anything in the moment,” she added.

The next day, however, Pak said, “it hit me that he said it in a room full of people, mostly women, who somehow now think subconsciously or consciously that this kind of [misogynistic] violent, racist language could be overlooked and dismissed and that worse, that someone like me would just swallow it and shrink into the small space that I had been allowed to occupy.”

Therefore, Pak said that she “fought to have this person removed,” and stopped coming into work.

“The executives tried to mediate to reconcile but I refused. It dragged on for months,” she said. “I did not do this because I had an agenda or even courage, I just had this sinking feeling in my gut that I had to do this.”

“It’s the kind of sinking feeling though that doesn’t give you strength, or bravery, it was the kind that kept me in bed for a month, crying, scared and uncertain about everything,” Pak added.

The media personality says that she now realizes “there was a fire, an anger, a burning rage that kept me on the course,” adding that she had a lawyer “who believed that I could not walk back into a place that harbored this kind of hate.”

Pak went on to say that “one last attempt was made at ‘reconciliation’ as if that was even appropriate,” when the “white male executive” wrote her a letter as a “final gesture,” which Pak says came off to her as an attempt to “bring me into submission” and remind her “that someone’s livelihood was on the line, that I was somehow responsible for that.”

Pak says she never opened the letter.

“Asians have been the butt of jokes, but these jokes are not to be dealt with lightly,” Pak continued. “These jokes are just the timid veneer that hide violence, hate, [misogyny], racism and white supremacy.”

“Our grandparents, our elders, our brothers and sisters are being spit on, punched, shot, attacked and murdered while these ‘jokes’ are being spit in our faces. Be angry. Be fucking enraged. And then do something to repair this damage,” she added.

In recent years, MTV has teamed up with social justice groups to launch a “diversity, equity, and inclusion” orientation initiative seeking to construct new “baseline cultural norms” across Viacom CBS’ brands.

MTV has also been accused of being sexist. Last year, pop star Miley Cyrus expressed that she was a victim of sexism at the MTV Video Music Awards after the show’s directors were reportedly reluctant to meeting her demands regarding the lighting on stage.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.",0.013752655552512753
"Jeff Bezos’ pro-migration Washington Post is warning President Joe Biden his failure to control fast-growing migration through the U.S. southern border threatens the Democrats’ political power in Washington, DC.

The warning was buried in the last paragraph of a March 19 editorial by the newspaper’s editorial board:

Mr. Biden, intentionally or not, has encouraged the flow, in the name of a more humane policy. Americans would be wise to welcome a new approach while insisting on orderly management at the border, along with focused enforcement and messaging, to prevent a surge from becoming a real crisis.

The editorial was mostly supportive of Biden, but it was headlined: “The influx of migrants isn’t a crisis. But it could become one without careful management.”

The editorial is worried that Biden’s policy is threatening Democratic power:

The main risks are political — for Democrats, forced to defend the administration’s border policies as they seek to retain control of Congress next year — and humanitarian, for unaccompanied minors who have been packed into ill-equipped border stations. Officials are deploying the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the border and opened additional facilities in Texas to handle an overflow that must not be allowed to get out of hand.

But the newspaper downplays Biden’s role in starting the migration and instead blames coyotes and cartels for supposedly fooling migrants into thinking that Biden will accept migrants’ entry into the United States.

In reality, the Biden administration demolished President Donald Trump’s multi-layer diplomatic and legal barriers to the inflow of migrants eager for jobs in the United States.

Since January, the administration has tried to keep the media focused on a small number of children amid the growing inflow of job-ready “Unaccompanied Alien Child” teenagers, the rising rush of “get-aways” adult male illegals, and the expanding flow of the illegals’ wives and children who are being allowed to enter via the nation’s expanding asylum doorway.

Administration officials are eager to portray this government-backed migration as driven by “push” factors in the migrants’ home countries, such as floods, crime, corruption. They are eager to downplay the “pull” factors in U.S. policy — such as the expanded asylum welcome — that help extract the next wave of migrants and send them on the dangerous trek to U.S. jobs, apartments, and K-12 schools.

But a March 20 news article in the Washington Post shows that poor migrants are rationally accepting Biden’s offer of easy migration into Americans’ jobs, apartments, schools, and society:

In the meantime, one clear message has resonated with migrants. The week after Rice’s border visit, [Rep. Henry] Cuellar [D-TX] visited a detention facility for migrant children in Carrizo Springs, Tex. Cuellar said he asked 16- and 17-year-olds whether they had heard Biden when he said not to come to the United States. The teenagers looked at each other and said no, he recalled. Okay, Cuellar pressed, what about the messages from friends, neighbors and family saying now is the time to come — were they hearing those? “They all raised their hands and said yes,” Cuellar recalled. “They said, ‘We see this on TV. We see images of people coming across. . . . We see people coming across, so we’re going to do the same thing.’”

“This,” the migrants told him, “is our opportunity to do this.” For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to legal migration, labor migration, and to the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates. The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim. The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from the central states to the coastal states.",-0.6793093256180022
"Jeff Bezos’ pro-migration Washington Post is warning President Joe Biden his failure to control fast-growing migration through the U.S. southern border threatens the Democrats’ political power in Washington, DC.

The warning was buried in the last paragraph of a March 19 editorial by the newspaper’s editorial board:

Mr. Biden, intentionally or not, has encouraged the flow, in the name of a more humane policy. Americans would be wise to welcome a new approach while insisting on orderly management at the border, along with focused enforcement and messaging, to prevent a surge from becoming a real crisis.

The editorial was mostly supportive of Biden, but it was headlined: “The influx of migrants isn’t a crisis. But it could become one without careful management.”

The editorial is worried that Biden’s policy is threatening Democratic power:

The main risks are political — for Democrats, forced to defend the administration’s border policies as they seek to retain control of Congress next year — and humanitarian, for unaccompanied minors who have been packed into ill-equipped border stations. Officials are deploying the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the border and opened additional facilities in Texas to handle an overflow that must not be allowed to get out of hand.

But the newspaper downplays Biden’s role in starting the migration and instead blames coyotes and cartels for supposedly fooling migrants into thinking that Biden will accept migrants’ entry into the United States.

In reality, the Biden administration demolished President Donald Trump’s multi-layer diplomatic and legal barriers to the inflow of migrants eager for jobs in the United States.

Since January, the administration has tried to keep the media focused on a small number of children amid the growing inflow of job-ready “Unaccompanied Alien Child” teenagers, the rising rush of “get-aways” adult male illegals, and the expanding flow of the illegals’ wives and children who are being allowed to enter via the nation’s expanding asylum doorway.

Administration officials are eager to portray this government-backed migration as driven by “push” factors in the migrants’ home countries, such as floods, crime, corruption. They are eager to downplay the “pull” factors in U.S. policy — such as the expanded asylum welcome — that help extract the next wave of migrants and send them on the dangerous trek to U.S. jobs, apartments, and K-12 schools.

But a March 20 news article in the Washington Post shows that poor migrants are rationally accepting Biden’s offer of easy migration into Americans’ jobs, apartments, schools, and society:

In the meantime, one clear message has resonated with migrants. The week after Rice’s border visit, [Rep. Henry] Cuellar [D-TX] visited a detention facility for migrant children in Carrizo Springs, Tex. Cuellar said he asked 16- and 17-year-olds whether they had heard Biden when he said not to come to the United States. The teenagers looked at each other and said no, he recalled. Okay, Cuellar pressed, what about the messages from friends, neighbors and family saying now is the time to come — were they hearing those? “They all raised their hands and said yes,” Cuellar recalled. “They said, ‘We see this on TV. We see images of people coming across. . . . We see people coming across, so we’re going to do the same thing.’”

“This,” the migrants told him, “is our opportunity to do this.” For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to legal migration, labor migration, and to the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates. The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim. The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from the central states to the coastal states.",1.1778502205116275
"Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he is “close” to securing the Republican votes needed to overcome a Senate filibuster to advance the so-called DREAM Act, which would create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.

Anchor Dana Bash asked, “I know you’ve been working on the issues for decades. Even the DREAM Act, which has pretty bipartisan support, could you get that done right given the fact that Republicans are saying I’m not doing anything until what is going on at the border is fixed right now?”

Durbin said, “Listen, I introduced the DREAM Act 20 years ago. Most people know what it’s about. A vast majority of Americans of all political faiths support it.”

He added, “I brought to the floor five times, and I’ve been stopped by the filibuster five times from passing it. I had a majority. I didn’t have 60 votes. Do I have 60 now? I think I’m close. I’m going to sit down with members of the Republican side and ask them if they would consider supporting it. I think I’ll have some support. Whether it’s enough remains to be seen.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN",0.5519854772286865
"The official SUV, produced by General Motors (GM), of the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) annual “March Madness” tournament is made in China.

Last week, Buick — a division of GM — announced its 2021 Buick Envision is the official SUV of March Madness.

Get fired up and get ready to #EnvisionGreatness. The All-New Buick Envision. Official SUV of March Madness. pic.twitter.com/cU9Ecwr7u3 — Buick (@Buick) March 17, 2021

The Buick Envision is built in China and imported to the U.S. market to sell. GM Authority reported in May 2020:

The 2021 Buick Envision debuted just yesterday, dropping in with an all-new second generation for the nameplate. Now, GM Authority has confirmed that the next-gen model will continue to be built in China. [Emphasis added] According to our sources, the 2021 Buick Envision will be produced at the SAIC-GM Jinqiao South plant in China. From there, the new Envision will be shipped to each of the four markets where the Buick brand is available, including the U.S., Canada, and Mexico (comprising the North American market), as well as in China. [Emphasis added] … For reference, the first-generation Buick Envision was also produced in China, but at a different facility, namely the SAIC-GM Dongyue North plant. Like the 2021 Envision, the first-gen model was also sold in China and throughout North America. [Emphasis added]

In November 2018, Breitbart News Economics Editor John Carney urged GM to start manufacturing its Buick Envisions in the U.S. rather than China.

“The Envision is the first car built in China for the U.S. market. Last year, Americans purchased 42,000 Envisions, which are made by a joint venture between General Motors and SAIC Motor, a state-owned Chinese automaker,” Carney wrote:

China, however, is now the largest market for General Motors. Last year the company sold 4,040,789 vehicles there. And China has high tariffs on automobiles and other requirements that make exporting cars into China all-but impossible. General Motors policy of “we build where we sell” is a requirement in China. But it would be a far simpler matter to bring just the U.S. portion of Envision manufacturing back to the U.S. The basic architecture of the Envision is the same as the soon-to-be late Chevy Volt, which was built at the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant that the company announced would close by the end of next year.

“It likely would not take an enormous amount of retooling to keep the plant open and making Envisions,” he concluded.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.",-0.3977862157876952
"Ohio State forward E.J. Liddell shared offensive comments, including racial slurs and threats of violence, posted to his Instagram account after the Buckeye’s 75-72 loss to Oral Roberts on Friday in the first major upset of the NCAA Tournament. Charles Barkley responded immediately, calling the people responsible for the posts “losers” and “cowards,” and Ohio State sports officials announced they have called the police to report the “vile” and “dangerous” threats to their players.

Messages included one that read, “I hope somebody shoot you in ya face,” and that he wants to “kill” Liddell. Another said, “You are such a f—ing disgrace. Don’t ever show your face at Ohio State … I hope you die, I really do.”

Liddell posted screenshots of the messages to his Twitter page Friday. “Honestly, what did I do to deserve this? I’m human,” he said:

Honestly, what did I do to deserve this? I’m human. pic.twitter.com/djXzhSH0q8 — E.J. Liddell (@EasyE2432) March 20, 2021

Barkley said during the March Madness broadcast, “You guys give me a hard time because I refuse to do any type of social media, this is the reason why.”

“No. 1, he had a great game,” Barkley continued, “But for you to give this kid death threats and hurl racial slurs at him because you’re safe in your own home like a coward, behind a computer and nobody know who you are, you need to take a hard look at yourself in the mirror.”

“I am never gonna dignify these losers and interact with them ever; I don’t care how much money somebody offers me, I’ll never do social media because of this,” Barkley added:

Charles Barkley on EJ Liddell harassment from fans on Instagram “I’m never gonna dignify these losers and interact with them ever, I don’t care how much money some offers me, I’ll never do social media because of this” pic.twitter.com/fCpgC0O12f — gifdsports (@gifdsports) March 20, 2021

Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann defended Liddell on Saturday, posting to his Twitter account, “Recent social media comments to E.J. Liddell, while not from or representative of Ohio State fans, are vile, dangerous and reflect the worst of humanity.”

“E.J. is an outstanding young man who had a tremendous sophomore season and he was instrumental in our team’s success. We will take all the necessary actions to address this immediately,” Holtmann concluded:

Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith defended Liddell on Saturday, saying, “The threatening social media attack E.J. Liddell faced after the game yesterday is appalling and will not be tolerated. … If you cross the line and threaten our players, you will be hearing from the authorities. That I promise you”:

I will support our student-athletes in and out of competition! I have nothing but love and respect for E.J. He epitomizes all that we hope for in our student-athletes. pic.twitter.com/BxejMWvo1x — Gene Smith (@OSU_AD) March 20, 2021

Ohio State associate athletic director for communications Dan Wallenberg told reporters he contacted police on Saturday morning about the threats.",0.38689169126073
"A new poll shows that there is a deepening racial divide over politics in sports, especially about taking a knee during the national anthem.

The Axios-Ipsos poll of 2,035 adults taken in March finds a deep racial divide in mixing politics with sports. A slight majority (54 to 44) feel it is inappropriate for athletes to take a knee during the national anthem. However, as Axios notes, that slight majority only exists because the preponderance of white respondents had serious objections to the practice.

According to the poll, 67 percent of whites find it is inappropriate to kneel during the national anthem. However, only 14 percent of blacks are against the practice. Also, 38 percent of Hispanics disagree with kneeling as did 42 percent of Asian respondents.

The divide is starker when broken down by party. Fully 89 percent of Republicans oppose kneeling during the national anthem while only 25 percent of Democrats are against it. For independents, 51 percent oppose kneeling.

The results were similar for the question of whether athletes should use their sport to speak out on political issues. The poll found a near-even split on the question with 60 percent of white respondents saying athletes should not use their sport to advocate for political causes. However, 84 percent of blacks, 63 percent of Hispanics, and 68 percent of Asians said it was OK for athletes to speak out.

There was, however, an agreement that athletes should not be fired for speaking out, regardless, and that they have a First Amendment right to speak.

Though, as to using Native American names, symbols, or mascots for sports teams, the poll found that most overall had no problem with the practice.

The poll found that 64 percent said that changing team names to get rid of Native American imagery had gone too far in America today. But there was a racial divide here, too, with blacks skewing to the far left on the topic. 61 percent of blacks said that teams should not be allowed to use Native American names or mascots. A strong majority of whites disagreed with the black respondents and slight majorities of Hispanics and Asians joined whites in their positive view of using Native American names and mascots.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.",0.19997065045528434
"A new poll shows that there is a deepening racial divide over politics in sports, especially about taking a knee during the national anthem.

The Axios-Ipsos poll of 2,035 adults taken in March finds a deep racial divide in mixing politics with sports. A slight majority (54 to 44) feel it is inappropriate for athletes to take a knee during the national anthem. However, as Axios notes, that slight majority only exists because the preponderance of white respondents had serious objections to the practice.

According to the poll, 67 percent of whites find it is inappropriate to kneel during the national anthem. However, only 14 percent of blacks are against the practice. Also, 38 percent of Hispanics disagree with kneeling as did 42 percent of Asian respondents.

The divide is starker when broken down by party. Fully 89 percent of Republicans oppose kneeling during the national anthem while only 25 percent of Democrats are against it. For independents, 51 percent oppose kneeling.

The results were similar for the question of whether athletes should use their sport to speak out on political issues. The poll found a near-even split on the question with 60 percent of white respondents saying athletes should not use their sport to advocate for political causes. However, 84 percent of blacks, 63 percent of Hispanics, and 68 percent of Asians said it was OK for athletes to speak out.

There was, however, an agreement that athletes should not be fired for speaking out, regardless, and that they have a First Amendment right to speak.

Though, as to using Native American names, symbols, or mascots for sports teams, the poll found that most overall had no problem with the practice.

The poll found that 64 percent said that changing team names to get rid of Native American imagery had gone too far in America today. But there was a racial divide here, too, with blacks skewing to the far left on the topic. 61 percent of blacks said that teams should not be allowed to use Native American names or mascots. A strong majority of whites disagreed with the black respondents and slight majorities of Hispanics and Asians joined whites in their positive view of using Native American names and mascots.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.",-2.1744039745653367
"Corporate media is lauding Leyna Bloom, the first black and Asian transgender to model in Sports Illustrated’s annual Swimsuit Issue.

“Leyna is legendary in the world of activism, strikingly gorgeous, and has an undeniable sense of self that shines through the minute she walks on set” MJ Day, editor at Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, wrote in an Instagram caption.

“Her story represents one grounded in resilience and we couldn’t be more thrilled to help her tell it,” Day continued. “Her presence as the first trans woman of color to be in our issue is a result of her lifetime dedication to forging her own path that has led to acceptance, love and change.”

“She represents every person’s right to love themselves and be who they want to be,” Day added. “We are honored to have her in this year’s issue and understand the effect it will have on so many others. She joins our team, not because of what she represents but because of her beauty, commitment and desire to leave the world a better place.”

“This is what it looks like to be in full bloom,” Bloom wrote in an Instagram caption. “Thank you [Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue] for allowing me to showcase my heavenly form.”

“In this moment, I am a representation of all the communities I grew from, and all the communities I’m planting seeds in,” Bloom added.

Bloom is not the only transgender model to be featured in the magazine.

Last year, Valentina Sampaio became the first transgender model to appear in Sports Illustrated‘s annual Swimsuit Issue as part of the magazine’s attempts to increase the diversity of its showcased swimwear models.

In recent years, the magazine had also added plus-size models and a Muslim model wearing a hijab and a modesty swimsuit.

This week in Nevada, Kataluna Enriquez — another biological male who identifies as a woman — was crowned Miss Silver State USA, besting the biological females in the competition, and putting him in the position to compete for the state’s Miss Nevada USA title.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.",-0.12702169070244987
"Corporate media is lauding Leyna Bloom, the first black and Asian transgender to model in Sports Illustrated’s annual Swimsuit Issue.

“Leyna is legendary in the world of activism, strikingly gorgeous, and has an undeniable sense of self that shines through the minute she walks on set” MJ Day, editor at Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, wrote in an Instagram caption.

“Her story represents one grounded in resilience and we couldn’t be more thrilled to help her tell it,” Day continued. “Her presence as the first trans woman of color to be in our issue is a result of her lifetime dedication to forging her own path that has led to acceptance, love and change.”

“She represents every person’s right to love themselves and be who they want to be,” Day added. “We are honored to have her in this year’s issue and understand the effect it will have on so many others. She joins our team, not because of what she represents but because of her beauty, commitment and desire to leave the world a better place.”

“This is what it looks like to be in full bloom,” Bloom wrote in an Instagram caption. “Thank you [Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue] for allowing me to showcase my heavenly form.”

“In this moment, I am a representation of all the communities I grew from, and all the communities I’m planting seeds in,” Bloom added.

Bloom is not the only transgender model to be featured in the magazine.

Last year, Valentina Sampaio became the first transgender model to appear in Sports Illustrated‘s annual Swimsuit Issue as part of the magazine’s attempts to increase the diversity of its showcased swimwear models.

In recent years, the magazine had also added plus-size models and a Muslim model wearing a hijab and a modesty swimsuit.

This week in Nevada, Kataluna Enriquez — another biological male who identifies as a woman — was crowned Miss Silver State USA, besting the biological females in the competition, and putting him in the position to compete for the state’s Miss Nevada USA title.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.",-0.6089947926557968
"Who Canceled Dr. Seuss? And Why?

It’s now been nearly three weeks since Dr. Seuss erupted into the news. Yes, the eruption is a bit strange, as the famed children’s book author died three decades ago. And yet the story is important because in it we see two things: First, the zealotry of left-wing cancel culture, which made the choice to pick this fight, and second, the power of center-right backlash in response. Yes, when confronted with the abnormal, it’s necessary for normal people to fight back.

Moreover, as the Seuss Saga plays itself out, we are seeing that while the left can win the first battle, the right can win the war.

A recap of how we got there: Back on March 1, a Virginia school district banned Dr. Seuss, and next day, March 2, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, which manages the estate of the late author, announced that it was halting publication of six of his five-dozen or so children’s books. And on that same day, President Joe Biden omitted Dr. Seuss from Read Across America Day; ironically, that very same read-to-kids day had been launched in 1998 specifically to celebrate Dr. Seuss. Then the Chicago Public Library announced that it would be pulling six Dr. Seuss books, and other libraries followed suit.

Ironically, the man behind Dr. Seuss, Theodor Seuss Geisel (1904-1991), was a lifelong political liberal, even if he wasn’t politically correct, let alone woke. But then, how could he be? In today’s world, even the living have trouble keeping up with wokeness, which requires its devotees to abide by an ever-shifting checklist of approved and disapproved phrases and concepts; for instance, the number of genders keeps expanding; by one measure, we’re now up to 64.

Summing up the impact of all this extremism in testimony before Congress earlier this month, Glenn C. Loury, a prominent Black academic, called wokeism “a formula for tyranny and more racism.”

So if these are the stakes—tyranny and, indeed, more racism—then it only makes sense that people of good will should wish to fight wokeism. And yet it turns out that when Republicans do fight the woken, they are mocked. For instance, The New Yorker, that citadel of smug liberalism, made fun of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for bringing up the issue of Dr. Seuss, while allegedly neglecting to talk about the Covid relief bill that was passed last week. In fact, McCarthy put his vote where his mouth was; he voted against that bill, and was not shy about why: “It showers money on special interests, but spends less than nine percent on actually defeating the virus.”

In the meantime, McCarthy felt perfectly capable of expressing himself on both fiscal and cultural issues. Yet even so, on March 11, the queen of the woken, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), tweeted:

This week in Congress: Dems: Passed $1.9T COVID package to deliver stimulus checks (w/ dependents!), cut child poverty in half, extend $300 UI, prevent cuts in state + local services, largest-ever investment in Native communities, etc GOP: Took a week to read The Cat in the Hat — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 12, 2021

So we can see: The left is trying to laugh away the Dr. Seuss issue. And that immediately inspires the question: Why is the left, which picked the fight in the first place, now so eager to bury it? Could it be that the left senses that attacking Dr. Seuss was overreach?

In response, the right should use this as a teachable moment for the nation: Behold the woke left and its works.

Indeed, the Dr. Seuss issue persists, because it’s interesting, and also because it’s revealing; that is, the cancel-culture aspect of wokeism reveals much about how the hard left sees the world. And that worldview is scary, even to many Democrats. For instance, it scares Sarah Silverman, the comedian who loudly supported Bernie Sanders in both 2016 and 2020. Obviously, Silverman is on the left, and yet in the past few years, she has become vexed by censorious hyper-leftism; recently, on Instagram, she raged against “absolutist-ness,” calling it “such a turnoff to me.” She added, “It’s so f ___ing elitist. You know, for something called ‘progressive,’ it allows for zero progress.”

It’s in this harsh light that we might consider other recent eruptions of wokism (which goes by other names, too, including political correctness, critical race theory, identity politics, intersectionality, and successor ideology), and such eruptions include the fights over the toy Mr. Potato Head, the cartoon character Pepe LePew, and the wrongly accused blue-collar workers at Smith College.

Oh, and let’s not forget the posh and oh-so-woke Grace Church School in Manhattan, where the use of the words “boys,” “girls,” and “parents,” is now discouraged; indeed, the list of offending words is now so long that the school has published a 12-page list of linguistic dos and don’ts.

We might also observe that in each of these cases, the left started the fight. That is, it was the woken who found something they didn’t like and sought to crush it. Indeed, it becomes a cruel ritual of purging and scourging, all part of “the religion of identity politics,” in the mordant phrasing of gay conservative Douglas Murray, author of the new book, The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity.

Yet because this process of metaphorical book-burning and witch-hunting is so unseemly to the public, the woken often shrink when exposed in their wokery. Why, precisely? Because widespread exposure makes them look like crazy people, and this revelation can be costly.

Indeed, such was the case, for instance, with journalism professor Melissa Click, who was fired from the University of Missouri for seemingly demanding violence (although all was not lost for Click, as she was soon hired at another university–Gonzaga alumni, please take note).

When the left is caught overdoing its wokeness, it attempts, AOC-style, to stymie the criticism by mocking the critics. At such moments, the new party line then becomes, “Those silly right-wingers, look what they’re worried about now. Don’t they have anything better to worry about?” And the answer is that rightists do have better things to worry about, and yet sometimes, it’s necessary to drop everything and come to the defense of history and tradition—especially when it’s such revered figures as Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt who need defending.

In the meantime, the rest of us might ask: Don’t woke leftists have anything better to do than attack U.S. history, and by extension, the U.S. itself? And since the answer is that they obviously don’t have anything better to do, patriots must rally in opposition to the next round of statue-toppling and history-erasing.

Culture and History First, Then Politics

As the late Andrew Breitbart always said, “Politics is downstream from culture.” That is, today’s cultural fight is tomorrow’s political fight.

We can add, too, that the past is upstream of the present; that is, past events have flowed down to us today. And that’s one reason why even children’s author Dr. Seuss is important–because all history, including cultural history, teaches us something potentially useful. Sometimes we might look upon an historical event and say, “Yes, we should be inspired by that,” while at other times, we can look and say, “Let’s never make that mistake again.” Either way, and at all times, history is important; as the Roman statesman Cicero observed:

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?

And yet if we have such knowledge, we can be adults, participating in the shaping of our culture and the making of our politics. More recently, the 19th century English philosopher and journalist William Godwin explained:

Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.

Such should be our goal: To be wise enough to form our own opinions, thereby doubling our resolve to defend our God-given, as well as constitutional, rights. And so that’s why we can take our stand—not so much to defend Dr. Seuss and everything he ever wrote or drew, but rather, to defend our right to read Dr. Seuss and to decide for ourselves. No woke overseers needed.

In fact, in the case of Dr. Seuss, Americans have been actively defending their right to read. In the days after Dr. Seuss’ cancellation, his books soared to the top of Amazon’s best-seller list; indeed, as the Associated Press reported on March 11, Dr. Seuss sold 1.2 million books in the first week after the partial cancellation, more than quadruple the total from the week before.

Okay, so what about the specific banned Dr. Seuss books? They’ve been selling, too. As of March 20 on Amazon, one of the forbidden works, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, was selling for $200, and some prices have been much higher. The sudden high price is perhaps the result of Amazon’s algorithm reacting to the sudden surge in demand, although one can’t rule out a little opportunistic price-gouging. In any case, such high prices for Dr. Seuss send a clear signal to the crookedly entrepreneurial, and so counterfeiters will soon spring into action. Already, in fact, it’s easy to find dubious PDF versions on the web. We should note, of course, that such sites come with a strong warning of Buyer Beware. And yet at the same time, it seems readily apparent that human curiosity—combined with human greed and the willingness to flout copyright laws—will make sure that the entire Dr. Seuss canon will always be available.

We can observe, incidentally, that much the same thing happened after the HBO Max streaming service pulled the 1939 classic Gone With The Wind; DVD sales soared. And the same sales spike held true for lesser films threatened with cancellation, such as Disney’s Swiss Family Robinson. Indeed, even sales of humble Mr. Potato Head jumped 70,000 percent in the wake of the news that Mr. P. would soon be emasculated.

We can add that this snapping up of endangered cultural items speaks to more than just a desire for historic preservation. It also speaks to the desire not to be pushed around, including the simple desire to push back against noxious authority.

Some times, to be sure, this pushing back can seem knee-jerk, even mindless. For instance, there’s that well-known scene from the 1953 Marlon Brando movie, The Wild One, in which a woman asks the Brando character, “What are you rebelling against?” And he answers with a shrug, “Whaddya got?”

That sort of automatic defiance of authority grew stronger, of course, in the following decade. In fact, in 1967, the Beatles captured that contrary spirit in their simple and yet melodic song, “Hello, Goodbye”; sample lyrics: “You say yes, I say no/ You say stop and I say go,” and “I say high, you say low/ You say why and I say I don’t know.”

Most recently, the French Charlie Hebdo magazine produced a cover cartoon on Meghan Markle and Queen Elizabeth that’s guaranteed to offend many, even as it makes others laugh. And yes, that’s the same Charlie Hebdo that suffered an Islamic terrorist attack in 2015, leaving a dozen dead. After such an awful massacre, the mere fact that the magazine is still publishing is a testament to the resilience of human resolve. (Good taste, of course, is a whole ‘nother issue.)

To be sure, not everyone appreciates the orneriness, even perversity, of the human spirit, and yet it’s woven into our nature—and it’s a deep source of our love of liberty, as expressed, for example, in such resonant phrases as Live Free or Die, Don’t Tread on Me, and Molon Labe.

As the playwright Bertolt Brecht argued, “In the contradiction is the hope.” Indeed, if we look at the thumb on our hand, we see the profound value of contraposition–because in the thumb opposite our other four fingers, we see a highly sophisticated tool for grasping things and for solving problems.

The Thin Red Line

Some might say that the woken are winning. After all, those half-dozen Dr. Seuss books are still banned, and libraries are still pulling their copies.

Yet that’s the battle, not the war. That point was made on March 2 by ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who warned his fellow liberals that such ridiculous PC could bring back You Know Who:

This is how Trump gets reelected, by the way. Cancel Dr. Seuss, cancel Abe Lincoln, melt down Mr. Potato Head’s private parts and throw them at the Muppets. That is his path to victory the next time around.

And it’s not just liberal comedians issuing such warnings to their flocks. On March 10, New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall headlined his piece, “Democrats Are Anxious About 2022—and 2024.” Edsall, who is one of those old-line leftists more focused on class than culture, quoted a procession of academics and politicos concerned that the emergent cultural leftism of the elite would turn off the non-woke masses—who are, of course, a majority of the voters.

For instance, Ryan Enos, a professor of government at Harvard, told Edsall that “college-educated whites” are increasingly a liability to the Democrats “because they repel other voters from the coalition.” Enos added, “The views emanating from these [left-wing] cities and institutions are out of step with a large portion of the electorate.”

Speaking of electorates and elections, one is reminded of the 1884 presidential election, when Grover Cleveland won the White House. As one supporter said of Cleveland at the time, “We love him for the enemies he has made.”

So now today: The woke left has gone to battle against Dr. Seuss, as well as against so many other familiar figures and creations. Meanwhile, Republicans have come to the defense of them, in the name of our heritage—and of common sense.

So what now of the Democrats? It would seem that, fearful of AOC-type challenges from within their party—as just happened in Nevada, where far-left insurgents swept away the old political machine—most elected Democrats wish to only whisper their defense of tradition, if they defend it at all.

So that leaves Republicans to make a full-throated defense of our culture and heritage; we might think of the GOP as the Thin Red Line. And if that defense makes the GOP the enemy of the woken, so be it. And if so, then what was once said about Grover Cleveland might now be said about anti-woke Republicans: We love them for the enemies they have made.",2.3266376912275084
"A senior-level law enforcement source with U.S.Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in the Rio Grande Valley revealed the implementation of a plan to release migrant families soon after apprehension. The plan radically changes how illegal migrants have been processed in the past and orders Border Patrol agents to quickly release migrant families without notifying the immigration courts or issuing a Notice to Appear.

“This is insane, it is another pull factor that will overwhelm us,” a CBP official with knowledge of the plan told Breitbart Texas anonymously because he is not authorized to speak publically on the matter. “We are creating another entirely different class of aliens we will have to deal with years from now. We will never find most of these aliens once they are released.”

Breitbart Texas confirmed the report with a second official operating under the umbrella of CBP.

The implementation of the plan follows a short discussion of the matter reported on by Breitbart News late Saturday night.

The migrant families will be released without a Notice to Appear, a formal charging document that begins the removal process according to sources. The plan was implemented early Sunday morning and is now in effect.

The source states the plan allows for “prosecutorial discretion” by the Border Patrol for all migrants who enter with children to include whole family units. A one-sheet arrest report is completed, along with criminal record checks and a photograph of the migrant. The new process relies on migrants to tell officials what city they will be traveling to. The migrant is subsequently asked to report to the nearest immigration court office when they arrive so that they can place themselves into formal removal proceedings.

The source believes this to be an impossible feat for the immigration courts to achieve. He further added, “If we can’t process them with our staffing of thousands and are being overwhelmed, the minimal staffing of court clerks around the country will never catch up — even if the migrant shows up.”

Without a Notice to Appear, the migrants are free to travel about the country and are not officially placed into the immigration court system. The court cannot order the removal of a migrant in absentia for failing to appear for a future court date, the source explained. the existence of a removal in absentia order from the court allows immigration officials to remove the alien without appeal if they are later encountered. Under this new process, the migrants will not have a removal in absentia order for failure to appear officials issued no order to appear under the unprecedented plan put in place by the Biden administration on Sunday morning.

This is yet another pull factor that will entice more migrants to make the journey north. The source reports the new procedure is only being implemented in the Rio Grande Valley Sector of the Border Patrol in South Texas. This is troubling to the source.

“If they are not doing this in the Laredo or Del Rio Sectors, guess what, their traffic will come here to benefit from the immediate release, this plan will likely backfire,” the source explained.

The CBP official said this plan is a result of capacity issues at Border Patrol stations but feels this will only exacerbate the issues they are dealing with.

“We may be reducing the time it takes to release a family unit but if we encourage more to come once they find out it is quicker here, we’ll be in the same boat again,” the official concluded.

Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.",0.46001128335439817
"Former President Donald Trump’s senior advisor Jason Miller said Sunday on Fox News Channels “MediaBuzz” that Trump will be launching a social media platform in the next few months.

Host Howard Kurtz asked, “Donald Trump obviously has been booted off Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, which were a great megaphone for him. Does he plan to get back on social media perhaps with some new outfit?”

Miller said, “I do think we’re going to see President Trump returning to social media and probably about two or three months here with his own platform. This is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media. It’s going to completely redefine the game. Everyone will be waiting and watching to see what exactly President Trump does. But it will be his own platform.”

Kurtz asked, “Just to follow up, will this be a platform that the former president will create himself, working with another company? Obviously, he’ll be starting from scratch. He won’t start out with 88 million Twitter followers.”

Miller said, “I can’t go much further than what I was able to just share. I can say it will be big once he starts. There have been a lot of high-powered meetings he has been having at Mar-a-Lago with teams of folks that have been coming in. I got to tell you it’s not just one company that’s approached the president. There have been numerous companies. I think the president knows what direction he wants to head here. This new platform is going to be big, and everyone wants him. He’s going to bring millions and millions, tens of millions of people to this new platform.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN",0.7860776082014604
"Zarah Sultana, the leftist Labour party Member of Parliament for Coventry South, claimed that “racism is a feature of capitalism” on the United Nations’ so-called “Anti-Racism Day”.

Sultana, an acolyte of former Labour leader and fervent socialist Jeremy Corbyn, wrote on social media late Saturday night that the only way to fight racism is through the adoption of “internationalist socialism”.

The 27-year-old MP went on to share an article she penned in Tribune Magazine in January, in which she wrote: “Racism in society isn’t a glitch, it’s a feature. It’s functional to the key driver of our economic system: the accumulation of capital. This, rather than meeting human need, is fundamental to capitalism. And it is why racism is embedded in its social relations.”

“This racism isn’t incidental. It’s central to capitalism — both its history and in the present day,” she claimed.

“The wealth that enriched the British Empire and established it as a global superpower meant the murder, destruction, and brutalisation of people across the world. Millions died and civilisations were destroyed. The perpetrators of these crimes had to believe that what they were doing was justified,” she suggested.

Sultana concluded by quoting directly from the author of the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx, writing: “There is an old socialist slogan, ‘workers of the world, unite!’ It’s not a relic from history, it’s an injunction for today. It calls us to an internationalist approach to socialism, one which can truly tackle racism at its core. It’s a vision worth fighting for.”

Racism is a feature of capitalism. It is used to divide our communities here at home and to justify imperialism abroad. On UN Anti Racism Day, let’s recommit to building a #WorldAgainstRacism through anti-racism that is internationalist socialism. 🌹https://t.co/ipwxf83tez — Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) March 20, 2021

Conservative MP Paul Bristow responded to her attacks on Western capitalism, writing: “Free markets break down discrimination, and is eliminating poverty for millions in countries that turned away from Soviet models of socialist central planning. You might also want to check what the racist & anti-Semitic writings of Marx and [Friedrich] Engels inspired some people to do.”

Under the rule of socialist and communist governments in the twentieth century, an estimated 94 million people lost thier lives, making communism the leading ideological cause of death in the last century.

London mayoral candidate David Kurten also critisised Sultana’s claims, saying: “What utter nonsense. A free-market economy with few and fair regulations generates greater prosperity for all.”

The Labour MP has not shied away from her admiration of leftist regimes, as earlier this year she nominated the communist Cuba’s medical slavery system for a Nobel Peace Prize for work done during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

“The internationalism by the Cuban people and the medical brigade is an incredible example of humanity and solidarity across borders,” she suggested.

The Cuban medical system has long been hailed by Western leftists, yet under the Castro regime doctors face near slave-like conditions, being shipped to foreign countries in which they live in poor conditions and as much as 90 per cent of their wages are stolen by the communist government in Havana.

Useful Idiot: Labour MP Nominates Communist Cuba’s Slave Doctor Regime for Nobel Prize https://t.co/HiTVxatuhf — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 7, 2021

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka",0.8480284996796443
"Nigerian government authorities have recently closed at least 618 schools across six northern states to protect students amid a recent string of abductions by bandits tied to the Islamic terror group Boko Haram, Nigerian newspaper This Day reported Monday.

Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, Niger, Yobe, and Kano states have all shuttered their schools in recent days.

“In Sokoto, the state government has closed all boarding schools along border towns,” according to This Day.

News of the mass school closures followed one day after Nigerian security forces in Kaduna state “foiled attempts by bandits to abduct 307 pupils” from the Government Secondary Science School in Ikara on March 13, the newspaper revealed.

“Between the late hours of Saturday night and the early hours of today (Sunday), suspected bandits stormed the Government Science Secondary School [in] Ikara … in an attempt to kidnap students,” Samuel Aruwan, the Kaduna State Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, told reporters on March 14.

“Fortunately, the students utilized the security warning system in place and were thus able to alert security forces in the area,” he said.

“The security forces comprising the troops of the Nigerian Army, the police, and some security volunteers, moved swiftly to the school and engaged the bandits, forcing them to flee,” he added.

“[T]he Kaduna State government can confirm to you that all 307 students have been verified safe and present. The attempted kidnap was foiled completely and no student was taken from the school,” Aruwan claimed.

Aruwan confirmed to reporters two days earlier, on March 12, that unidentified gunmen kidnapped 39 students in a raid on a college in northwestern Nigeria’s Kaduna state overnight on March 11.

“The abductors stormed the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization in Mando, Kaduna state, around 9:30 p.m. Thursday, shooting indiscriminately before taking students,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The Kaduna state commissioner for internal security said 39 students were still missing as of March 12 despite the Nigerian Army’s successful rescue of 180 pupils following a standoff with the militants.

“Further checks in the wake of the attack by armed bandits … indicate that 39 students are currently unaccounted for,” including 23 young women and 16 young men, Aruwan said in a statement.

Nearly 300 girls were kidnapped from Jangebe’s Government Secondary School in northwestern Nigeria’s Zamfara state on February 26 before being allegedly released on March 2 under murky circumstances. An official government ceremony to return the girls to their families saw officials refuse to hand over the girls for several hours and ended with Nigerian soldiers firing upon disgruntled parents demanding their daughters’ release.

Boko Haram is known to contract local criminal gangs across northern Nigeria to help stage abductions for ransom. Security experts suspect that local bandits believed to be associated with the jihadi group likely carried out the Zamfara abduction at Boko Haram’s request. Nigerian government officials denied paying a ransom to secure the Zamfara girls’ release.

Boko Haram is a Nigerian terror group based in northern Borno state that has carried out an Islamist insurgency across northern Nigeria and its neighboring countries — Chad, Cameroon, and Niger — since the early 2000s. Security experts have linked the jihadi group to the surge in school kidnappings across Nigeria’s north over the past several weeks.",-0.2118281078318382
"Nigerian government authorities have recently closed at least 618 schools across six northern states to protect students amid a recent string of abductions by bandits tied to the Islamic terror group Boko Haram, Nigerian newspaper This Day reported Monday.

Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, Niger, Yobe, and Kano states have all shuttered their schools in recent days.

“In Sokoto, the state government has closed all boarding schools along border towns,” according to This Day.

News of the mass school closures followed one day after Nigerian security forces in Kaduna state “foiled attempts by bandits to abduct 307 pupils” from the Government Secondary Science School in Ikara on March 13, the newspaper revealed.

“Between the late hours of Saturday night and the early hours of today (Sunday), suspected bandits stormed the Government Science Secondary School [in] Ikara … in an attempt to kidnap students,” Samuel Aruwan, the Kaduna State Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, told reporters on March 14.

“Fortunately, the students utilized the security warning system in place and were thus able to alert security forces in the area,” he said.

“The security forces comprising the troops of the Nigerian Army, the police, and some security volunteers, moved swiftly to the school and engaged the bandits, forcing them to flee,” he added.

“[T]he Kaduna State government can confirm to you that all 307 students have been verified safe and present. The attempted kidnap was foiled completely and no student was taken from the school,” Aruwan claimed.

Aruwan confirmed to reporters two days earlier, on March 12, that unidentified gunmen kidnapped 39 students in a raid on a college in northwestern Nigeria’s Kaduna state overnight on March 11.

“The abductors stormed the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization in Mando, Kaduna state, around 9:30 p.m. Thursday, shooting indiscriminately before taking students,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The Kaduna state commissioner for internal security said 39 students were still missing as of March 12 despite the Nigerian Army’s successful rescue of 180 pupils following a standoff with the militants.

“Further checks in the wake of the attack by armed bandits … indicate that 39 students are currently unaccounted for,” including 23 young women and 16 young men, Aruwan said in a statement.

Nearly 300 girls were kidnapped from Jangebe’s Government Secondary School in northwestern Nigeria’s Zamfara state on February 26 before being allegedly released on March 2 under murky circumstances. An official government ceremony to return the girls to their families saw officials refuse to hand over the girls for several hours and ended with Nigerian soldiers firing upon disgruntled parents demanding their daughters’ release.

Boko Haram is known to contract local criminal gangs across northern Nigeria to help stage abductions for ransom. Security experts suspect that local bandits believed to be associated with the jihadi group likely carried out the Zamfara abduction at Boko Haram’s request. Nigerian government officials denied paying a ransom to secure the Zamfara girls’ release.

Boko Haram is a Nigerian terror group based in northern Borno state that has carried out an Islamist insurgency across northern Nigeria and its neighboring countries — Chad, Cameroon, and Niger — since the early 2000s. Security experts have linked the jihadi group to the surge in school kidnappings across Nigeria’s north over the past several weeks.",-1.8570646082953293
"Tanzanian President John Magufuli has died at the age of 61 from a heart illness, Tanzanian Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan said on Wednesday.

“Dear Tanzanians, it is sad to announce that today 17 March 2021 around 6:00 p.m. we lost our brave leader, President John Magufuli, who died from heart disease at Mzena hospital in Dar es Salaam where he was getting treatment,” Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan said during a state television broadcast on March 17. Tanzania will now enter a two-week national mourning period for Magufuli, the vice president added.

BREAKING: Tanzanian President John Pombe Magufuli is dead. Vice president Samia Suluhu says Magufuli succumbed to heart disease in Dar Es Salaam #RIPMagufuli pic.twitter.com/h9fl8ZpHYQ — The African Voice (@teddyeugene) March 17, 2021

Magufuli was admitted to the Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on March 6, Hassan said during her speech on Wednesday. The revelation puts to rest weeks of rumors surrounding Magufuli’s nearly three-week disappearance from the public eye since he was last seen on February 27 in Dar es Salaam during a ceremony at the Tanzanian State House. The Tanzanian government’s initial refusal to comment on the president’s whereabouts fueled speculation that he had fallen ill, with some alleging that he had contracted the Chinese coronavirus.

Vice President Hassan seemed to make cryptic references to Magufuli’s illness on Monday during a speech marking the launch of a government project in Tanga, a town in Tanzania’s northeast.

“It’s quite normal for a person’s body to be indisposed and contract the flu or develop a fever,” Hassan said on March 15, without clarifying to whom she referred. The vice president similarly acknowledged “rumors flying around” Tanzania during her speech, without specifying which rumors she referred to or what they claimed.

“As Tanzanians, we must work together, be united and build our nation. Most of the rumors you hear don’t originate in Tanzania … they come from outside the country. I ask you to ignore them. If it’s about prayers, pray, but all in all, we should remain united and take Tanzania forward. We’re safe,” Hassan said.

Tanzanian Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa claimed Magufuli was “safe” and working on March 12 while urging Tanzanians to “ignore fake news” concerning the president’s health status.

“The prime minister asked Tanzanians to be calm because President John Magufuli is safe and he is going about his work,” the Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation quoted Majaliwa as saying.

Tanzanian security forces arrested at least four people for allegedly spreading “false information” about Magufuli’s health on social media in recent days, demonstrating the government’s desire to clamp down on speculation surrounding the head of state.

Magufuli’s death on Wednesday comes just five months after he won a second five-year term as Tanzania’s president in October in a disputed election. Magufuli was first elected president of Tanzania in 2015 after the country’s left-wing ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi, chose him to succeed former Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete. The former parliamentarian was nicknamed “The Bulldozer” for his aggressive leadership style, which saw him push through policies he championed despite opposition from government factions.

Magufli’s policies surrounding the Chinese coronavirus pandemic – which included blanket refusals to force Tanzanians into lockdown or to wear sanitary masks, and an endorsement of alternative remedies for coronavirus, such as prayer and steam inhalation – contributed to fervid speculation over the past few weeks that the president had contracted coronavirus during his disappearance from the public eye.",0.44584216476759103
"Unidentified gunmen abducted a Catholic priest in Nigeria’s Delta State this week, the Premium Times reported Thursday.

The priest, Father Harrison Prhinyovaw, was driving near the town of Abraka Monday evening around 8:00 pm when the assailants held him up at gunpoint and abducted him, leaving his vehicle at the scene.

Prhinyovaw is the pastor of St. John’s Catholic Church, in the Ukwuani Local Government Area of Delta State, and was reportedly in transit from Warri back to his parish when he was kidnapped.

“The Catholic priest was meandering a bad spot in Oria-Abraka, Ethiope East Local Government Area of the state when he was returning to base from Warri in his Highlander Jeep,” said one local eye-witness to the abduction.

“The kidnappers shot sporadically in the air to scare away passers-by at the scene of the operation,” the witness said. “They abandoned the cleric’s car at the scene of the incident.”

Another auricular witness, a member of a local vigilante group, told journalists he and his colleagues had heard the gunshots fired by the kidnappers but did not see them or go after them.

“It looked like they came to fight a war. We have so far picked about 15 shells which are bullets from their AK-47 gun,” the witness told Oasis magazine.

Fellow Nigerian priest Father Ugochukwu Ugwoke also announced the kidnapping on Twitter, asking for prayers. He identified the missing pastor as Father Harrison Egwuenu, a priest of the Catholic diocese of Warri.

Delta State police spokesman Edafe Bright, the Deputy Superintendent of Police, confirmed authorities’ awareness of the incident, adding that a team of police officers had been assigned to the case.

Follow @tdwilliamsrome",-0.514840726621573
"British-based charity Save the Children said Tuesday children as young as 11 years old have been beheaded by the savage ISIS-affiliated Islamist insurgency in Mozambique.

The terrorists are reportedly murdering children before the eyes of their helpless mothers.

Sky News quoted horror stories related to Save the Children by civilians in Mozambique, including a mother who hid in terror with three of her children while the insurgents murdered her 12-year-old eldest son, and a woman who watched the death of her 11-year-old boy.

The Mozambique insurgency calls itself Ahlu-Sunnah Wa-Jama, a name it borrowed from Somalia’s Al-Shabaab terrorist organization; some of the killers, and many terrified local citizens, simply refer to the militants as “al-Shabaab.” The insurgency grew out of a popular movement against corrupt government and foreign exploitation of Mozambique’s oil and gas resources, but its loyalties lie with the Islamic State.

The U.S. State Department formally designated the militants and their leader Abu Yasir Hassan, a Tanzanian national, as a terrorist organization last week. The designation identified them as “ISIS-Mozambique” and noted they pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in the spring of 2018. The State Department held them responsible for the deaths of over 1,300 civilians and the displacement of some 670,000 Mozambicans.

A dozen U.S. Army Green Berets arrived in Mozambique this week on a two-month mission to train local troops. The New York Times (NYT) on Monday described it as “the entry of the United States military into a counterinsurgency effort that has been aided so far mainly by South African mercenaries, who have faced accusations of human rights abuses.”

The NYT quoted a State Department insider who said the Green Beret training program “could lead to more ambitious American help for Mozambique’s military including combat casualty care, planning and logistics.”

“I don’t think anyone saw this coming. For this to crop up so quickly is concerning,” said U.S. Special Operations Africa deputy commander Col. Richard Smith.

The ferocity of the Mozambican insurgents may have intensified this year, but their appearance on the scene should not have come as a sudden surprise to anyone. After years of increasingly bloody activity, they launched their first major offensive in 2017, attacking the port city of Mocimboa da Praia, which they finally managed to conquer in 2020. The Islamic State began claiming responsibility for Mozambican atrocities in the summer of 2019.

The long-held strategic objective of the insurgency is taking control of the gas-rich province of Cabo Delgado, or at least making it so dangerous that foreign energy companies can no longer operate there. Beheadings have been a staple of their tactics for years; they reportedly beheaded 50 people in a mass atrocity in November 2020 and then hacked the bodies into pieces.

The BBC on Sunday described northern Mozambican villages as “cut off from the outside world by roving gangs of machete-wielding Islamist fighters” with a habit of hanging their butchered victims from trees, their severed heads balanced atop the bloody corpses. The jihadis generally behead male villagers while taking the women and girls as slaves, much like Boko Haram in Nigeria.

When one man escaped a village massacre and then tried to phone his brother to see if he was all right, a jihadi answered and said, “We killed your brother. We are afraid of nothing. We are al-Shabaab and we kill as we please.”

“We came here by foot with nothing. We were afraid. We saw al-Shabaab killing others with knives. There are many women I know who were abducted. There are many children in the camp here whose mothers were taken,” another refugee told the BBC.

The intensity of the ISIS-Mozambique campaign should come as no surprise to informed observers. The New York Times noted that 160 gunmen from the Wagner Group, the notoriously brutal Russian mercenary organization, flew into Cabo Delgado to protect its energy operations in 2019 and then flew right back out again after the insurgents killed seven of them.

South African mercenaries proved to have more staying power, but also more indiscriminate firepower, as international human rights groups accuse them of killing civilians while having little significant effect on the insurgency. The U.S. State Department this week dismissed the use of mercenaries as “a feature of the landscape in Cabo Delgado that complicates rather than helps efforts to address the terror threat there.”

Another complicating factor is the Mozambican government, which is almost as corrupt as the jihadis accuse it of being, and has a distressing habit of interfering with humanitarian aid shipments to the starving refugees of Cabo Delgado. Local residents told the BBC the police expect bribes before allowing them to eat. Factions within Mozambique’s political class accuse each other of supporting the insurgents.

Money for food and medicine sent by well-meaning foreign donors wound up supporting the corrupt government instead, with little visible effect on Mozambique’s grinding poverty, which helps the Islamists recruit fighters and market itself as a popular revolutionary movement.",0.42680983833800995
"Tanzanian Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan seemed to imply that Tanzanian President John Magufuli was sick on Monday amid unproven rumors that he may have contracted the Chinese coronavirus since he disappeared from the public eye last month.

“It’s quite normal for a person’s body to be indisposed and contract the flu or develop a fever,” Hassan said on March 15, without clarifying to whom she was referring. The vice president made the remarks at the launch of a government project in Tanzania’s northeastern town of Tanga.

Hassan likewise acknowledged “rumors flying around” Tanzania during her speech, without specifying which rumors or what they claimed; the vice president warned Tanzania’s citizens against trusting such “outside” information.

“As Tanzanians, we must work together, be united and build our nation. Most of the rumors you hear don’t originate in Tanzania … they come from outside the country. I ask you to ignore them. If it’s about prayers, pray, but all in all, we should remain united and take Tanzania forward. We’re safe,” she said.

President Magufuli was last seen in public on February 27 in Dar es Salaam during a government ceremony held at the Tanzanian State House. He has remained out of the public eye for over two weeks since then. The extended absence is unusual for Magufuli, as he regularly speaks at church congregations and political rallies. The Tanzanian government’s refusal to confirm Magufuli’s whereabouts over the past 17 days has fueled speculation that he may have fallen ill. Tanzania’s opposition party alleged without evidence on March 11 that Magufuli had been airlifted first to Nairobi, Kenya, and then to India to receive medical treatment after contracting the Chinese coronavirus.

Tanzanian Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa broke the government’s silence on Magufli’s status on March 12, claiming he was “safe” and working.

“The prime minister asked Tanzanians to be calm because President John Magufuli is safe and he is going about his work,” the Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation quoted Majaliwa as saying while urging Tanzanians to “ignore fake news.”

Police in Tanzania have arrested four people in recent days for allegedly spreading “false information” about Magufuli’s health via social media.

“[T]he Kilimanjaro Regional Police Force is said to be holding two people on suspicion of spreading false information on social media concerning senior government officials’ health, contrary to the law,” Tanzanian newspaper the Citizen reported on Monday. “This brings the number of suspects arrested in connection with spreading online fabricated information related to the health of President John Magufuli to four after two such cases were reported on Sunday [March 14] and Saturday [March 13].”",0.9834834482940555
"Tanzanian President John Magufuli is allegedly in India receiving medical treatment for the Chinese coronavirus, Tanzanian opposition leader Tundu Lissu told Reuters on Thursday.

Magufuli was “flown to Kenya’s Nairobi Hospital at the start of this week and then on to an unknown destination in India,” Lissu told Reuters on March 11.

“He’s comatose since yesterday morning,” the politician claimed, without providing further details.

Lissu did not provide Reuters with evidence for his claims, instead citing unidentified medical and security officials in Kenya as his information sources.

Magufuli was last seen in public on February 27 during a ceremony at the Tanzanian State House in Dar es Salaam. His nearly two week-absence from the public eye since then sparked speculation he may be ill.

“We’re informed when [former Tanzanian President Jakaya] Kikwete had prostate surgery. We’re told when [former Tanzanian President Benjamin] Mkapa went for hip replacement … What’s it with Magufuli that we don’t deserve to know?” Lissu, who lost Tanzania’s last presidential election in 2020 to Magufuli, wrote in a Twitter statement on March 9:

The President’s well-being is a matter of grave public concern. We’re informed when Kikwete had prostate surgery. We’re told when Mkapa went for hip replacement. We’re not kept in the dark when Mwalimu fought leukemia. What’s it with Magufuli that we don’t deserve to know? — Tundu Antiphas Lissu (@TunduALissu) March 9, 2021

Reuters said Thursday it reached out to the governments of Kenya and India to inquire about Magufuli’s whereabouts but had not received any information. Magufuli’s director of communications, Gerson Msigwa, and Tanzanian government spokesman Hassan Abbas have likewise failed to respond to Reuters’ requests for information on Magufuli.

Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper reported on Wednesday “an African leader,” whom it did not name, was being treated for the Chinese coronavirus at Nairobi Hospital and was allegedly on a ventilator. The newspaper cited unidentified political and diplomatic sources in Kenya for the information. Nairobi Hospital representatives told Reuters on Thursday they had “no information to disclose” when asked about the matter.

Tanzania’s constitution stipulates the country’s vice president, currently Samia Suluhu Hassan, assumes presidential duties should the president prove unable to discharge his or her duties.

Magufuli made international headlines over the past year for repeatedly insisting his countrymen would not be locked down or forced to wear masks during the ongoing Chinese coronavirus pandemic. He also claimed in May that coronavirus testing kits imported to Tanzania from China had returned positive test results for a goat and a pawpaw, a papaya-like fruit.

Magufuli encouraged Tanzanians to pray away the coronavirus instead of wearing sanitary masks in March 2020. He endorsed natural remedies to cure symptoms of coronavirus on January 27 in lieu of getting vaccines, which he warned could be dangerous to people’s health.

“Vaccines are not good. If they were, then the white man would have brought vaccines for HIV/AIDS,” the president said during the opening of a new farm in northwestern Tanzania’s Gaita region.

“We Tanzanians haven’t locked ourselves in and we don’t expect to lock ourselves down. I don’t expect to announce any lockdown because our God is living and He will continue to protect Tanzanians,” he said.

“We will also continue to take health precautions including the use of steam inhalation,” Magufuli added.

“You inhale while you pray to God, you pray while farming maize, potatoes, so that you can eat well and corona fails to enter your body [sic]. They will scare you a lot, my fellow Tanzanians, but you should stand firm,” he said.",0.7325906187118706
"A string of huge explosions ripped through a military base in the Equatorial Guinea city of Bata on Monday, killing up to 20 people and causing over 600 injuries. According to President Teodoro Obiang, the explosions were caused by “negligent handling of dynamite.”

“The impact of the explosion caused damage in almost all the houses and buildings in Bata,” Obiang said. Photos from across the city showed rooftops ripped off houses and buildings severely damaged by the shock waves.

At least 17 people are dead and hundreds of others are hospitalized following an explosion at a military camp in Equatorial Guinea, according to the country's health ministry. https://t.co/5oTHJR9im3 pic.twitter.com/GrPdNSWO0d — ABC News (@ABC) March 7, 2021

The Defense Ministry issued a statement that claimed the explosions were caused by ammunition exploding due to a fire in a weapons depot. Obiang said the fire was due to “stubble-burning by farmers in their fields,” while “the negligence of a unit charged with the care and protection of stores of dynamite and explosives” contributed to the blast.

Casualty reports between government agencies were also inconsistent, as the president mentioned 15 fatalities, the health ministry said 17, and local media reported at least 20.

A doctor told state television network TVGE that clinics and hospitals were overwhelmed by the wounded, many of them children, so coronavirus treatment centers were being pressed into service for the treatment of minor injuries. A radio station in Bata reported Monday that residents within four kilometers of the explosion were being evacuated because toxic substances might have been released into the atmosphere.

The health ministry called for blood donors and volunteers to dig through the rubble, while Foreign Minister Simeon Oyono Esono Angue appealed to other nations for emergency aid.

“This is going to have quite a devastating effect on many levels. Equatorial Guinea is one of the richest countries in Africa, with the least distribution of its oil wealth. There have been many coup attempts since independence and so this is going to rock the boat,” former U.S. diplomat William Lawrence told Al Jazeera News on Monday.

Al Jazeera implied the aftermath of the explosion could have political ramifications for 78-year-old Obiang, who has ruled Equatorial Guinea since 1979 and seems to be grooming his son Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, currently vice president in charge of defense and security, to succeed him.

The BBC noted the president has been “repeatedly accused of human rights abuses” and “massive corruption” during his long tenure, which helps to explain why 76 percent of the population lives in abject poverty despite Equatorial Guinea’s rich resources of oil and gas.

Equatorial Guinea is a former Spanish colony located south of Cameroon. It has a total population of 1.3 million, of which 175,000 live in Bata. The Spanish embassy issued a recommendation Monday that “Spanish nationals stay in their homes” during the crisis.",0.03637673766060124
"South African Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier slammed preferential “Black Economic Empowerment” as “racial discrimination” Sunday, saying such favoritism smacks of apartheid.

Cardinal Napier, the archbishop of Durban, wrote on Twitter that Affirmative Action, Black Economic Empowerment and even Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment are all forms of racial discrimination “on a par with apartheid policies” that also favored another group by race.

The cardinal put his assertion in the form of a “Lenten Resolution”: to give up on trying to figure out how preferential treatment for blacks based on skin color can be anything other than discrimination.

A Lenten Resolution:

To stop trying to work out how Affirmative Action, Black Economic Empowerment or even Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment are not Racial Discrimination on a par with apartheid policies which also favoured a certain group by RACE! — Cardinal Napier (@CardinalNapier) March 7, 2021

Cardinal Napier has also been a vocal critic of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, which he said is “committed to dismantling the very values, structure and institutions” central to a healthy society.

The mission statement of Black Lives Matter “indicates the movement is being hijacked by the interests and parties committed to dismantling the very values, structure and institutions which have over the centuries undergird the best civilisations and cultures!” the cardinal tweeted last July.

In his critique, Napier joined a growing group of Christian and conservative black leaders who have denounced BLM for its rejection of the nuclear family and its advocacy of a radical LGBT agenda, including the abolition of “heteronormativity” and the embrace of “queer culture.”

In his appraisal of BLM’s problems, the cardinal also said that if BLM truly cared about black lives, it would denounce the abortion industry and its disproportionate attack on the black population.

“Another crucial test of the authenticity of the Black Lives Matter movement will be its stance vis a vis Planned Parenthood and the Abortion Industry!” the cardinal stated in a separate tweet.

In the United States, the abortion industry disproportionately targets the black population, with black children aborted at more than three times the rate of white children.

According to the most recent abortion data (2018) provided by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), black women have the highest abortion rate in the U.S. and white women have the lowest.

Among white women in the U.S., there are 110 abortions for every 1000 live births, whereas among blacks, there are 335 abortions for every 1000 births. Blacks are therefore aborted at over three times the rate of whites and more than half of all black deaths in the U.S. are the result of abortion.

Apartheid, which the cardinal compared to affirmative action, was a system of institutionalized racial segregation in South Africa that guaranteed absolute dominion of the country by the nation’s minority white population.

Apartheid was finally overcome in the early 1990s thanks to the courage and persistence of members of the anti-apartheid movement.

Follow @tdwilliamsrome",-0.3418545253925141
"At least 20 people died and 30 others were wounded in a suicide car bombing outside of a restaurant near the port in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, late Friday night, emergency officials and police said.

A car full of explosives was set off at the gates of Luul Yemeni restaurant near Mogadishu’s port around 8:00 p.m. local time, Capt. Aden Osman, a senior police officer, told CNN.

Heavy gunfire followed the explosion.

The blast caused mass destruction of several buildings and business centers in the surrounding area, Osman added.

“So far, we have carried 20 dead people and 30 injured from the blast scene,” Dr. Abdulkadir Aden, founder of AAMIN Ambulance services, told Reuters.

Somalia’s state-controlled media outlet Radio Mogadishu reported that police had cordoned off the area of destruction.

“Plumes of white smoke covered the city after the enormous explosion followed by gunfire,” said witness Liban Yusuf, adding that a building near the site of the attack collapsed, and a search-and-rescue operation was ongoing to uncover people from the rubble.

The terror group al-Shabaab took responsibility for the attack through a statement posted on its network of sites.

This is not the first time the restaurant had been attacked. It was first attacked in August 2020. That same month, Al-Shabab attacked a beach resort, killing at least 15 people.

The latest attack comes as Mogadishu has tight security measures in place as the country is reeling from a political crisis having to do with a delayed election.

Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo had a mandate, which expired on February 8, and there has not been an election held since.",1.6376141151338128
"Nigerian soldiers reportedly shot at least three people on Wednesday at a Nigerian Army handover ceremony to return 277 schoolgirls recently freed by their Jihadi kidnappers to their parents in Zamfara state.

Parents at the ceremony reportedly grew frustrated at how long the event was taking and began throwing stones at Nigerian government officials organizing the handover. Nigerian security forces responded to the stoning by opening fire into the crowd of parents, injuring at least three people. It remains unclear if there were any deaths related to the incident.

“Angered by officials’ insistence on a formal handover before parents could leave with their children, mobs began throwing stones at officials outside the school in the remote village of Jangebe when the girls were returned,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on March 3.

“One person was shot in the stomach when security personnel opened fire and was carried away by others in the crowd,” Jangebe resident Bello Gidan-Ruwa told AFP by phone after leaving the ceremony.

Nigerian government officials organizing the event reportedly insisted that the girls first be handed over to a local village chief before they could be reunited with their parents.

“It is infuriating for (officials) to say they had to finish their speeches before handing over our children to us. This is outrageous,” one mother told AFP, explaining that parents were eager to walk their daughters home to nearby villages before nightfall.

“They know the roads are insecure but they didn’t care. If we leave late and are kidnapped with our daughters again, the girls’ rescue will make no sense,” she added.

Many fed-up parents defied the ceremony’s lengthy protocol and began to personally retrieve their children from the building.

“Shooting by the security forces began when the crowd began pelting a convoy carrying regional parliament speaker Nasiru Mu’azu Magarya with stones as it tried to leave the village,” according to AFP.

Despite the chaos, all 277 girls kidnapped from their government-run school in Zamfara last week were released to their parents on March 3, according to Nigerian officials.

The girls were abducted from Jangebe’s Government Secondary School in northwestern Nigeria’s Zamfara state on February 26 by local militants believed to be associated with the terror group Boko Haram, which has carried out an Islamist insurgency in northern Nigeria since the early 2000s and recently ramped up school kidnappings across the region.

The Zamfara girls were released on March 2 under unclear circumstances. While no group has yet claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, Boko Haram is known to contract criminal gangs in northern Nigeria to help stage kidnappings for ransom. Nigerian government authorities have denied paying a ransom to secure the Zamfara girls’ release this week.",1.4877834984290996
"An increasing number of states in northern Nigeria are closing their schools to protect their students from a rise in “abductions and banditry in the last two months,” the Nigerian newspaper This Day reported on Tuesday.

Northern Nigerian states including Kano, Katsina, Yobe, Zamfara, Niger, Jigawa, and Sokoto have closed a significant number of their public schools in recent weeks.

Kano Governor Abdullahi Ganduje recently ordered ten schools located on the remote outskirts of the state, where security is limited, to close down. He later extended the order to five healthcare worker training centers in Kano. Zamfara Governor Bello Matawalle ordered the closure of all schools in the state on February 26.

Zamfara and Katsina states have been most affected by the recent wave of abductions across northern Nigeria. The Islamist terror group Boko Haram has plagued the region with violent attacks since it formed in Kano in the early 2000s with the goal of establishing an Islamic caliphate in West Africa. Boko Haram believes Western education corrupts Muslim values and frequently targets schools and centers of learning for kidnappings. The group’s name loosely translates as “Western education is forbidden.”

Boko Haram’s most infamous school abduction took place in Nigeria’s Borno state in 2014. The group kidnapped 270 schoolgirls from a government-run boarding school in April of that year. Roughly 100 of the girls abducted in Chibok remain missing today, and in recent months Boko Haram has ramped up similar kidnappings.

The terror group claimed responsibility for the December 11 abduction of over 300 schoolboys from a government-run school in Katsina state; all 344 schoolboys were allegedly released under unclear circumstances one week later on December 17.

Security and local sources told Agence France-Press (AFP) that “the raid was carried out by a well-known criminal in the region, Awwalun Daudawa, in collaboration with Idi Minorti and Dankarami, two other crime chiefs with strong local followings, acting on behalf of Boko Haram.”

Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, allegedly ordered Daudawa to kidnap the schoolboys in Katsina.

“After the children were taken, they went across the border into Zamfara state and split them among different gangs ‘for safe keeping.’ And some of the gangs have been in touch with the authorities for the release of the boys,” Nigerian security forces told AFP.

Unidentified gunmen stormed the Government Girls Science Secondary School in Zamfara state on February 26, kidnapping 279 schoolgirls. Zamfara Gov. Matawalle announced on March 2 that all of the kidnapped girls had been released.

Nigerian state government officials speaking on condition of anonymity told Reuters this week that Nigerian authorities “have made payoffs in the past in exchange for child hostages, creating an incentive for abductions.”

“Several of those officials declined to comment on Tuesday [March 2] on whether they believed a ransom had been paid in the latest incident,” Reuters reported of the February 26 kidnapping in Zamfara.",-0.4009815698518624
"Time has run out for Christian pastor Bulus Yakuru, who is due to be executed by the Boko Haram Islamic terror group on Wednesday, after having been abducted in northeast Nigeria on December 24, 2020.

On Wednesday, February 24, Boko Haram released a video threatening to kill the pastor in one week if their demands to the Nigerian government were not met.

In the video, Pastor Yakuru is seen pleading with Nigerian President Buhari, Borno state Governor Babagana Zulum, and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) to intervene to secure his release.

A black-masked Boko Haram terrorist wearing camouflage gear stands behind the pastor brandishing a knife, as the pastor, clad in an orange jumpsuit, insists that his captors issued him an ultimatum, threatening to kill him a week from that date.

“I’m calling on President Muhammadu Buhari and the Governor of Borno to help me because I have been given a one-week ultimatum today, February 24,″ the pastor said.

“If you want me alive, I beg you in your capacity as president, the governor and our local government chairman to save me from this suffering,” he said.

“If you want me alive, I beg you in your capacity as President, the governor and our local government chairman to save me from this suffering,” he added. “I’m calling on the EYN Church of the Brethren President to intervene and secure my release. Please pray for me. Please release me from this pain,”

As Breitbart News reported, on Christmas Eve 2020, a band of armed Boko Haram militants stormed the mostly Christian village of Pemi, near Chibok, in Borno State, on trucks and motorcycles, opening fire on villagers and killing eleven. The jihadists set buildings ablaze, including a church, and stole food and medical supplies.

Nigerian Bishop Moses Chikwe and his driver, who were abducted by gunmen on December 27, were released by their kidnappers late Friday, church officials report. https://t.co/0kb4qcEYVP — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) January 4, 2021

On that occasion, the raiders also kidnapped Pastor Yakuru of the Church of the Brethren (EYN) and have held him captive during the ensuing months.

For its part, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has also urged President Buhari to order the Nigerian military to rescue Pastor Yakuru from his Boko Haram captors before he is executed.

CAN President, Rev. Samson Ayokunle, said that his organization has no details of the kidnappers’ demands, but said the president must ensure the captive is not murdered.

“Why should the government leave the citizens of this country at the mercy of insurgents, bandits and kidnappers? What then is the essence of having a government in place?” Ayokunle asked.

According to reports this week, Pastor Yakuru’s wife has fallen sick and their three children have stopped their schooling in the face of the emotional and financial trauma associated with the kidnapping and death threat.

Last Sunday, the Chibok community began contributing money for ransom and sought to meet Boko Haram factional leader, Abubakar Shekau, in an effort to secure the life of the pastor.

“This is why we are calling on the Boko Haram to come and collect this money and spare the life of Bulus. His family needs him and needs a lot of attention,” said an elder in the Chibok community.

""Christians slaughtered in Nigeria — a Commonwealth country!"" https://t.co/5Ijf6vpoVq — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) March 18, 2019

On Tuesday, March 2, the Borno State House of Representatives urged the federal government to intervene to rescue Pastor Yakuru.

In a motion at the plenary assembly, the lawmaker representing Chibok Federal Constituency in the House, Hon. Ahmadu, noted that “on the 24th day of December 2020 the Boko Haram attacked Pemi Village of Chibok Local Government Area of Borno State.”

The “village was burnt to ashes, eight people killed, two persons abducted and various food and other items were destroyed and carted away from this village during the attack,” Ahmadu said.

“One of the persons abducted was Pastor Bulus Yakuru,” he added, noting that Boko Haram had released a video clip on Feb. 28 showing the pastor appealing for help and giving one week to facilitate his release.

Follow @tdwilliamsrome",-0.4265702777464169
"Vice President Kembo Mohadi of Zimbabwe resigned Monday after a month of media exposes that purportedly caught him soliciting sex from married women, including an intelligence officer who was one of his subordinates.

One of the audiotapes Zimbabwean online media published included Mohadi proposing a sexual liaison inside his vice presidential office.

An online news outlet called ZimLive ignited the scandal last month by posting three recorded telephone conversations of Mohadi, 71, propositioning married women. Mohadi “categorically” denied the authenticity of the recordings at first.

“I am innocent and a victim of political machinations being peddled through hacking and voice cloning,” he said in late February.

One of the phone calls that brought Mohadi down involved him pressuring a female intelligence officer named Abigail Mumpande for sex. Mumpande was reportedly distraught over harassment from the vice president, prompting her husband to hand the recording over to the media and demand reassignment for his wife.

“Despite growing impatient because of days of weird character assassinations, I wish to categorically state that the allegations being levelled against me are not only false but also well-choreographed to demean, condescend, and spoil my image as a national leader and patriot,” he charged.

“I remain a committed leader, father, cadre and servant of this great nation. So, nothing is going to change because all this is concocted to tarnish my image. If anything is going to happen it is going to be His Excellency who will determine my future,” Mohadi vowed, referring to socialist President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

On Monday, Mohadi announced he was resigning “not as a matter of cowardice but as a sign of demonstrating great respect to the office of the President.”

“I have been going through a soul-searching pilgrimage and realized that I need the space to deal with my problem outside the governance chair,” he said.

Mohadi continued to insist the evidence of his improper behavior was fabricated and pledged to take legal action against those who have allegedly defamed him.

Voice of America News (VOA) described Mohadi’s resignation over sexual misconduct allegations as “a rare move by a public official in the southern African country,” even more so because Mohadi was fairly close to both the current and previous strongman rulers of the country.

Like President Mnangagwa, Mohadi had a resume of both military and intelligence work and held ministerial rank under longtime dictator Robert Mugabe. He has been one of Zimbabwe’s two vice presidents since Mugabe’s ouster in 2017. The other is Constantino Chiwenga, 61, the former military commander who engineered the coup against Mugabe a decade after helping Mugabe stay in power after he lost an election.

Mohandi himself is currently single. His marriage to ex-wife Tambudzani Bhudagi, a Zimbabwean senator, dissolved over allegations of Mohandi’s infidelity. In March 2019, an argument between Mohandi and his ex-wife over the disposition of communal property escalated until he used an axe to smash through the door she slammed on him, prodded her with a steel bar, and threatened to shoot her, all in full view of about two dozen police officers.

According to the police, the elderly vice president was too exhausted to assault Bhudagi with his metal bar, so he took a seat for a while until he felt better, then ordered all of the witnesses into every available vehicle and drove away, leaving Bhudagi to walk to the local police station to file a report.

“The police said I must go and report, but they were witnesses to what happened. They saw him commit this crime,” Bhudagi declared in frustration.

Mohadi proceeded to sort-of marry his much younger mistress, Juliet Mutavhatsindi, although she was never formally introduced to the public as the vice president’s wife. Mutavhatsindi left Mohadi abruptly in November 2020.

“She left the VP in a huff. I am not sure what triggered the breakup but it has been a while now since they parted ways. The challenge with these younger women is that they still want to enjoy life. They are free spirited,” a source close to Mohadi sighed to the Zim Morning Post in November.

“The challenge is if you get a trophy woman, she is bound to create some sort of drama,” another of the Zim Morning Post’s sources observed. “It has happened elsewhere, look at how Monica Lewinsky destroyed Bill Clinton’s decorated political career.”",0.5104619761031555
"Scores of armed militants from the Islamic State terror group in West Africa (ISWAP) invaded the town of Dikwa in northeast Nigeria late Monday and attacked a military camp and a U.N. base.

“We have 25 staff sheltering in the bunker which is under siege by the militants,” said a humanitarian source under condition of anonymity. “The humanitarian base was set on fire by the fighters but so far no staff has been affected.”

Borno State authorities have sent military reinforcements — including two fighter planes and a helicopter gunship — to Dikwa from the city of Marte, some 30 miles away, Italy’s ANSA news service reported.

The Islamic State group in West Africa split from Boko Haram in 2016 to partner with the Islamic State and has since become the biggest jihadist threat in Nigeria.

Dikwa, with a population of more than 130,000 people, is located 55 miles from the Borno state capital of Maiduguri. Its camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) houses 75,000 who had fled from other parts of the region.

Three years ago to the day, on March 1, 2018, ISWAP terrorists attacked a UN humanitarian hub in the northeastern city of Rann, killing three aid workers and kidnapping a female worker.

Vatican News reported that the failure by federal authorities and individual states to guarantee security is increasing the number of independent self-defense forces promoted by local communities.

The population of northern Nigeria has been victim of massacres and kidnappings for the purpose of extortion, enduring a decade-long conflict in which jihadist, military, and independent armed groups operate, it said.

The Nigerian bishops wrote in a recent statement that the breakdown of security is weakening national unity and Nigeria is on the “brink of collapse.”

“Our country Nigeria has gone through many crises, and so far, has managed to survive them, by God’s grace,” the bishops wrote in their February 23 communiqué. “But the ongoing crisis in the country should be of grave concern to everyone who still believes in ‘one united nation under God.’”

“We are really on the brink of a looming collapse, from which we must do all we can to pull back before the worst overcomes the nation,” they wrote. “This is not merely crying wolf without cause!”

Follow @tdwilliamsrome",-1.671959691207658
"Hundreds of schoolgirls kidnapped from their boarding school late last week in northwest Nigeria have finally been freed according to reports Tuesday.

The captors have released all 279 girls that had been abducted, most of whom were unharmed, although at least a dozen were sent to the hospital for treatment of injuries.

Earlier reports had placed the number of kidnapped schoolgirls the Government Girls Science Secondary (GGSS) School in the town of Jangebe at 317, but Zamfara state spokesman Sulaiman Tanau Anka clarified that some of the missing girls had escaped into the bush at the time of the assault.

On Friday around 1:00 am, some 100 armed gunmen stormed into the school and kidnapped the girls, aged between 12 and 17. This was the second school kidnapping to take place in Nigeria this year, just a week after bandits raided a school in Niger State and kidnapped over 40 people.

“They carried the sick ones that cannot move. We were walking in the stones and thorns,” said 15-year-old Farida Lawali, describing how kidnappers had taken her and the other girls to a forest.

“They started hitting us with guns so that we could move,” she added. “While they were beating them with guns, some of them were crying and moving at the same time.”

Bello Matawalle, the governor of Zamfara State, said Tuesday the girls had been released at dawn and are safe. “I am happy to announce that the girls have been released. They have just arrived at the government building and are in good health,” Matawalle said.

“Alhamdulillah! It gladdens my heart to announce the release of the abducted students of GGSS Jangebe from captivity,” Matawalle wrote on Twitter. “This follows the scaling of several hurdles laid against our efforts. I enjoin all well-meaning Nigerians to rejoice with us as our daughters are now safe.”

Rumors had been circulating of ongoing negotiations between the authorities and the kidnappers. One source said that authorities were aware of where the girls were being held, but ruled out the idea of a military extraction so as not to endanger them unnecessarily.

More than 600 students have been kidnapped from schools in northwest Nigeria since December, a phenomenon authorities blame on “bandits,” a term encompassing kidnappers and other criminals who are motivated by money.

The rise in abductions has been attributed to a notoriously weak security infrastructure along with the common government practice of paying ransoms, which has made kidnapping a profitable source of income.

News of the girls’ liberation brings “overwhelming joy,” said Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari. “I am pleased that their ordeal has come to a happy end without any incident.”

Last Friday, Buhari released a statement urging state governments “to review their policy of rewarding bandits with money and vehicles,” warning that the policy might “boomerang disastrously.”

Follow @tdwilliamsrome",-0.5679260529721568
"Nigerian police have allegedly killed at least 20 people since last spring as part of the country’s enforcement of government-mandated coronavirus lockdowns, Nigeria’s Premium Times reported on Monday.

“By Thursday, April 9, 2020, ten days after Nigeria entered a partial lockdown due to the COVID-19 [coronavirus] pandemic, Nigerian security officials had extrajudicially killed 13 people while enforcing the curfew – the virus had only claimed six lives by then,” Nigeria’s Premium Times reported on March 1.

“By May 4 [2020], when the government eased the lockdown, about 20 persons had been killed in similar circumstances,” according to the newspaper.

Northwestern Nigeria’s Kaduna State issued an ordinance on March 31, 2020, barring trade at local markets as part of an effort to curb transmission of the Chinese coronavirus. Residents in Kaduna State’s capital, Kaduna, defied the ordinance a few days later to hold an illegal marketplace. The unauthorized action prompted local authorities to crack down on traders, resulting in several deaths.

Residents of Kaduna’s Sabon Trikania community set up a makeshift grocery market at a local junction on the morning of April 4, 2020. Members of a state security group, the Kaduna South Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), arrived at the market a few hours after it opened “to disperse the buyers and sellers. They were resisted by the youth in the community,” according to the Premium Times.

The CJTF left the market in the face of the resistance but returned about one hour later accompanied by police officers from the local Kakuri Police Station.

“The assault started, shortly after midday, with the police shooting tear gas into the makeshift market but resistance from traders and residents did not work this time. The defiance was met with maximum force by the police officers who not only shot to disperse but hunted some residents down to their houses,” the newspaper alleged.

At least 11 people were wounded in the ensuing violence, according to the report. One injured person “died instantly, three survived for a few hours but died eventually. Six were critically injured with gunshot wounds, among them a 9-year-old boy.”

Kaduna police issued a statement shortly after the incident confirming that at least five people died during the crackdown on the illegal marketplace.

A Kaduna State police spokesman, Mohammed Jalige, told Nigeria’s Channels TV news site that “the traders, rather than return to their various homes after they were initially dispersed by the police, moved to Trikania to continue their business,” causing the police to respond with force.

Clashes sparked between traders and the CJTF after a local vigilante group joined in efforts to disperse the traders, who had “converged at a temporary market located at Trikania following the closure of [a] Monday market in [neighboring] Kakuri by police personnel,” according to Jalige. The spokesman added that Kaduna police had arrested seven people in connection with the incident.",0.4337559359430455
"Nigerian officials have denied widespread reports this weekend the 317 schoolgirls abducted in the northwest of the country had been set free by their captors and were returning home.

Yusuf Idris, spokesman for Zamfara State governor Bello Matawalle, has refuted local newspaper reports that the girls had been released, stating that the schoolgirls kidnapped from the Government Girls Secondary School in Jangebe are still in the custody of their captors.

News reports emanating from Nigeria Sunday declared that the girls were safe and had been taken to the palace of the Emir of Anka to await transport to Gusau, the state capital.

Vatican News reported that a Nigerian government official had confirmed reports of the girls’ release on national television following information furnished by Naija News, while other news services — including the BBC — denied the reports.

The Zamfara governor met over the weekend with traditional rulers in the state in an effort to move towards ensuring the safe return of the students.

“The state government is committed for safe return of the students sooner or later, we should please exercise patience,” said his spokesman.

“I want to call the attention of the good people of Zamfara State, they should disregard any fake news regarding the release of the abducted students of GGSS Jangebe by one national daily. It’s not true,” said Abutu Yaro, the state commissioner of police.

On Sunday, Pope Francis condemned the “vile abduction” of the schoolgirls, promising prayers and closeness to them and their families.

“I join my voice with that of the Bishops of Nigeria to condemn the vile abduction of 317 girls, taken away from their school, to Jangebe, in the northwest of the country,” the pope said after his weekly Angelus prayer in Saint Peter’s Square.

“I pray for these girls, that they may return home soon,” the pontiff said. “I am close to their families and to the girls themselves.”

The pope concluded by entrusting the safekeeping of the kidnapped girls to the Virgin Mary, inviting the pilgrims present in the square to join him in praying a Hail Mary for their safe return.

Follow @tdwilliamsrome",-1.0333994994094222
"A woman appeared to use her thong as a mask while standing in line recently at a Pick n Pay supermarket in South Africa.

In the viral video, a security guard wearing a mask asked the woman to put one on, but she allegedly told the guard she did not have a mask, the South African reported Wednesday.

“After security asks her again saying she will be escorted out if she does not wear a mask, the woman is seen reaching under her dress, pulling down her thong and putting it on as a mask,” the outlet said:

“What’s… what’s going on?” a person nearby asked as the woman removed her underwear and placed it on her face. She then appeared to give the security guard a thumbs up.

“It is a mask,” a woman wearing a white shirt tells the other woman, adding, “And quite frankly, I think the bacteria on your knickers is less than on the mask.”

Twitter user Yusuf Abramjee shared additional video footage of the shopper in the white blouse appearing to tell the staff member she knew her legal rights:

Employees at a supermarket told not to wear masks. pic.twitter.com/PvUwm31Jep — Yusuf Abramjee (@Abramjee) February 18, 2021

The woman then took a piece of paper out of her bag and held it up, saying, “You are not obliged to wear a mask. Please check the paper.”

“This is against our constitutional rights, and to make you people wear masks all day long, it’s criminal. It’s criminal,” she said before walking out of the frame.

Officials in South Africa have reportedly deemed not wearing a mask a criminal offense.

“In December 2020, President Cyril Ramaphosa stressed that not wearing a mask in public is inconsiderate and will not be tolerated,” the South African article read.

Meanwhile, Ramaphosa said in August his left-wing African National Congress (ANC) party was “deeply implicated” in corruption as evidence emerged of widespread “looting” of the country’s $26 billion rescue package, according to Breitbart News.

“The allegations of corruption in the procurement of goods and services for our country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has caused outrage among South Africans and among us in the executive,” he stated.

“It is disgraceful that at this time of national crisis, there are companies and individuals who seek to criminally benefit from our efforts to protect people’s health and save lives,” Ramaphosa concluded.",0.7783799577936114
"A militia of some one hundred armed men stormed into a girls boarding school in northwest Nigeria on Thursday night and abducted over 300 of the schoolgirls. It was the second such kidnapping in less than a week.

The attack took place at the Jangebe secondary school in Zamfara state, a region where mass kidnappings are on the rise. Riding motorcycles and off-road vehicles, the men entered the school grounds around midnight.

“The armed men came into the school with vehicles, then they forced some of the girls to walk with them,” said Sulaiman Tunau Anka, a local government spokesperson.

One of the teachers said that 600 teenage girls had been in the dormitories during the attack, and that only “about 50” have since been accounted for, adding that the missing girls may have been kidnapped or escaped.

“The Zamfara State Police Command in collaboration with the military have commenced a joint search and rescue operation with a view to rescuing the 317 students kidnapped by the armed bandits in Government Girls Science Secondary School Jangebe,” police said in a statement.

Thursday’s kidnapping is the latest in a string of abductions of adolescents in central and northwestern Nigeria perpetrated by criminal groups, known locally as “bandits,” who terrorize the population, steal livestock, and loot villages.

Radical Islamists raided a town in northeast Nigeria near Lake Chad this week, killing three soldiers and taking hundreds of villagers as hostages. https://t.co/H79pZjcYf2 — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) August 23, 2020

This latest mass kidnapping took place just nine days after another similar attack on February 16 in a secondary school in Kagara, Niger state, where at least 27 students, a teacher and six members of his family were kidnapped by armed men.

In a further sign of a widespread breakdown in security across Nigeria, at least 16 people died on February 23 in a mortar and rocket-propelled grenade attack in the suburbs of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state in the northeast of the country.

The assault was claimed in a video by a branch of the Boko Haram Islamic terror group led by Abubakar Shekau.

Last December, a group of bandits, acting on behalf of Boko Haram, kidnapped 344 students in a boarding school in the town of Kankara, in the neighboring state of Katsina.

The bandits released the teenagers after a week of captivity following negotiations with authorities. On February 9, the leader of the kidnappers, Awwalun Daudawa, turned himself in to the authorities in exchange for an amnesty agreement.

The recent abductions are symptomatic of a generalized fragmentation of the country, as ethnic groups demand not only greater autonomy, but also the definitive renunciation of a nation in which they have lost all trust and sense of belonging.

“Demands for ethnic secession should not be ignored or taken lightly,” said Archbishop Augustine Obiora Akubeze of Benin City, President of the Nigerian Bishops’ Conference (CBCN) in a recent statement cosigned by the general secretary of the CBCN.

“Nigeria is on the verge of collapse,” the statement said.

Follow @tdwilliamsrome",0.8731057964729593
"At least ten people were killed and 60 injured Tuesday after Boko Haram terrorists launched rocket-propelled grenades at Maiduguri, the capital city of Nigeria’s northeastern Borno State, Nigeria’s Premium Times reported.

“We have been informed that about 10 persons were killed and 60 were injured,” Borno State Governor Babagana Zulumon confirmed to the press on February 24.

“This is a new form of attack, totally different from the usual suicide bombing. It is worrisome and there is an urgent need to strategize to forestall further occurrence,” Zulumon said, referring to Boko Haram’s use of rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) on Tuesday to target densely-populated neighborhoods in the regional capital.

RPG-based attacks have traditionally been rare in Maiduguri. Militants last used RPGs in an assault on the city in July 2020, when three rockets killed four Maiduguri residents and wounded three others. Zulumon and other Borno State government officials on Wednesday suggested the use of RPGs to attack Maiduguri from beyond its exterior defenses may be a “new trend.”

Nine of the ten people killed Tuesday “were young boys hit by a bomb while playing football at Gwange ward,” a neighborhood in Maiduguri. Zulumon told reporters Wednesday that he was saddened after learning of the children’s deaths and “sympathized with those affected.”

Eyewitness Sama’ila Ibrahim told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that Boko Haram militants descended upon Maiduguri on Tuesday evening via the neighboring village of Boboshe. The village is a known enclave of the jihadi group, which was founded in Maiduguri in 2002 and has based its regional Islamic insurgency in Borno State for over a decade.

After reaching Maiduguri, Boko Haram members then crossed a ditch fortification surrounding most of the capital “and started shooting sporadically which sent people scrambling for safety,” Ibrahim told AFP.

Explosions were heard in Maiduguri starting around 5:45 p.m. local time Tuesday “and continued intermittently for about an hour,” the Premium Times reported.

“Airborne explosives began to rain down near the University of Maiduguri in the city’s east around 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday,” Reuters reported, citing an eyewitness, a local resident, and security officials.

“Blasts soon rocked other parts of eastern and northeastern Maiduguri,” the news agency added.

“An explosion killed four people near my house,” a local resident named Ali Ciroma said. A policeman and two security officials in Maiduguri later confirmed the four deaths.

Three government security officials told Reuters that the death toll from Tuesday’s attack could be higher than ten, with one official claiming that as many as 17 people were killed.

Last December, Boko Haram murdered 70 farmers in a village in northeast Nigeria in retaliation for an arrest of a Boko Haram militant.

Earlier this month, a Chibok schoolgirl escaped Boko Haram after seven years in captivity.",-0.5775184147379118
"Pope Francis sent a telegram to the Italian president Tuesday expressing his sorrow over the assassination Monday of the country’s ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“It was with sorrow that I learned of the tragic attack in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in which the young Italian ambassador Luca Attanasio, the 30-year-old carabiniere Vittorio Iacovacci, and their Congolese driver Mustapha Milambo lost their lives,” the pope said in the telegram to Italian President Sergio Mattarella.

Italian media have suggested the ambush that took the lives of the 43-year-old ambassador and part of his entourage resulted from a failed kidnapping attempt targeting the two-car convoy because they were “white.”

The incident reportedly took place while representatives from the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) were traveling north from Goma to Rutshuru, in eastern Congo, where the Italian diplomat was supposed to visit a WFP food distribution program.

“I express my heartfelt condolences to their families, to the diplomatic corps and to the carabinieri branch for the death of these servants of peace and law,” the pontiff continued in his missive. “We recall the exemplary witness of the Ambassador, a person of noteworthy human and Christian qualities, always generous in weaving fraternal and cordial relations, for the restoration of serene and united relations within that African country; as well as that of the carabiniere officer, experienced and generous in his service and about to form a new family.”

Reports described the assault as the work of six or seven armed men who captured the ambassador and his contingent and begin marching them away, when they were suddenly interrupted by soldiers and government rangers. A firefight followed, killing a number of people.

According to a statement from the Congolese presidency, the kidnappers shot the ambassador and the officer of the military police (carabinieri) at point-blank range.

“As I pray for the eternal rest of these noble sons of the Italian nation, I urge you to trust in God’s providence, in whose hands nothing is lost of the good accomplished, all the more so when it is confirmed by suffering and sacrifice,” the pope concluded in his telegram. “To you, Mr. President, to the relatives and colleagues of the victims and to all those who weep in this mourning, I send my heartfelt blessing.”

The Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported Tuesday that Congolese President Felix Antoine Tshisekedi had visited the widow of the Italian ambassador accompanied by his wife to express their condolences in person.

The murdered ambassador leaves behind a wife and three young daughters.

Follow @tdwilliamsrome",0.3729342181167688
"Italy’s ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was shot and killed on Monday after armed assailants ambushed his U.N. convoy as he traveled in eastern DRC, the Italian foreign ministry confirmed in a statement.

Luca Attanasio, 43, suffered “gunshot wounds to the abdomen” and was taken to a hospital in Goma in critical condition, where he later succumbed to his injuries, a diplomat in Kinshasa told Radio France Internationale (RFI). An Italian police officer who accompanied Attanasio in the convoy, Vittorio Iacovacci, and an unidentified Congolese driver also died from wounds sustained in the attack.

The assailants kidnapped four other members of the convoy, one of whom was later found, DRC’s interior ministry said on Tuesday.

The ambush occurred as the convoy traveled from DRC’s eastern regional capital, Goma, to the town of Rutshuru to visit a World Food Program (WFP) school project there. Rutshuru is located in Nyiaragongo Territory, considered one of the most dangerous regions of DRC.

“The attack … occurred on a road that had previously been cleared for travel without security escorts,” the WFP, a U.N. agency, said in a statement on Monday. The DRC interior ministry said that state security services and provincial authorities had not received advance warning of the convoy’s trip and thus were unable to provide security for the U.N. official.

DRC’s interior ministry blamed the incident on “members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR),” a Hutu rebel group from neighboring Rwanda that has carried out attacks in the DRC’s Nyiaragongo Territory for over 25 years. DRC President Félix Tshisekedi described the ambush as a “terrorist attack” and also claimed the Rwandan Hutu rebel group was behind the killings and kidnappings.

Hutu rebels denied the DRC government’s allegations on Tuesday, accusing the armies of the DRC and neighboring Rwanda of responsibility for the attack. The rebel group claimed in a statement that the Italian ambassador’s convoy was ambushed near DRC’s border with Rwanda, “not far from a position of the FARDC (DR Congo armed forces) and Rwandan soldiers.”

“The responsibility for this despicable killing is to be found in the ranks of these two armies and their sponsors who have forged an unnatural alliance to perpetuate the pillaging of eastern DRC,” the statement further read.

Various armed militias plague DRC’s mineral-rich eastern provinces, regularly targeting civilians and government security forces in their efforts to exert regional control. At least 122 armed groups were active in DRC’s four eastern provinces last year, according to Kivu Security Tracker, a U.S. security monitor. The militias killed more than 2,000 civilians in attacks in 2020, according to U.N. figures released last week.",0.9138176263065816
"President Joe Biden’s easy-migration strategy has converted a “national triumph into a national disaster,” former President Donald Trump said in a March 21 statement:

We proudly handed the Biden Administration the most secure border in history. All they had to do was keep this smooth-running system on autopilot. Instead, in the span of a just few weeks, the Biden Administration has turned a national triumph into a national disaster. They are in way over their heads and taking on water fast. The pathetic, clueless performance of Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas on the Sunday Shows today was a national disgrace. His self-satisfied presentation—in the middle of the massive crisis he helped engineer—is yet more proof he is incapable of leading DHS. Even someone of Mayorkas’ limited abilities should understand that if you provide Catch-and-Release to the world’s illegal aliens then the whole world will come. Furthermore, the Mayorkas Gag Order on our Nation’s heroic border agents and ICE officers should be the subject of an immediate congressional investigation. But it’s clear they are engaged in a huge cover-up to hide just how bad things truly are. The only way to end the Biden Border Crisis is for them to admit their total failure and adopt the profoundly effective, proven Trump policies. They must immediately complete the wall, which can be done in a matter of weeks—they should never have stopped it. They are causing death and human tragedy. In addition to the obvious, drugs are pouring into our country at record levels from the Southern Border, not to mention human and sex trafficking. This Administration’s reckless policies are enabling and encouraging crimes against humanity. Our Country is being destroyed!

From 2017 onwards, Trump gradually built up a layer of legal, physical, and diplomatic barriers to migration, including the border wall, multiple treaties with CentreAmerican countries, deals with Mexico, and numerous legal changes that allow his border deputies to quickly deploy migrants before they could get jobs they needed to repay their smuggling debts.

Trump’s policies were so effective that the cross-border inflow dropped to record low levels — both the migrants who sought asylum and the migrants who tried to sneak across the border. That shut-off of migrant labor forced U.S. companies to gradually offer higher pay to working Americans, including to both blue-collar and white-collar workers.

The success of Trump’s lower-migration, higher-wage policies enraged progressives.

Now, with Biden’s approval, the progressives have restarted the pre-Trump economic policy of extracting migrants from Mexico and Central Ameican for use in the United States’ economy.

The migrants act as low-wage workers to reduce average pay for Americans. They also serve as consumers to boost retail sales and welfare payments. They also add to the number of renters to fill high-cost, high-occupancy housing in coastal cities.

The progressives’ extraction migration policy boosts Wall Street, but it strip-mines young people from the small, vulnerable Central American countries, helps local despots suppress political reform, and fuels cartel-dominated crime throughout the region.

The resulting economic and political damage pressures the next generation of young men and women to undertake the expensive and dangerous trek into Americans’ jobs, where progressives are ready to welcome the victims of their own migration policies and to declare their own moral virtue. “We are a nation of laws, and we treat vulnerable children humanely,” Mayorkas told Fox News on May 21.

“The best thing for both of us is to keep our people here and to provide for our people right here in our country, and that’s what people here want,” El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele said March 16.",-0.6384354616776843
"Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas blamed former President Donald Trump on Sunday’s “State of the Union” on CNN for the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Anchor Dana Bash asked, “The Biden administration, though, is, as you mentioned, now allowing unaccompanied children into the U.S., different from the Trump administration. Clearly, you don’t have the infrastructure to handle this many children right now. As I mentioned, more than 600 children have been in Border Protection custody for more than ten days, far longer than is acceptable and allowed by law. That’s three days. So, did you change the policy too quickly without having the infrastructure in place to take care of these children?”

Mayorkas said, “We will not abandon our values and our principles. We will not abandon the needs of young children. That’s what this is all about. We are executing on our plan. It does take time. It is difficult. Our plan includes the deployment of the Federal Emergency Management Administration, FEMA, to assist HHS in building its capacity more rapidly to shelter the children. But it is taking time, and it is difficult because the entire system was dismantled by the prior administration. There was a system in place in the Republican and Democratic administrations that was torn down during the Trump administration. That is why the challenge is more acute than it ever has been before.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN",0.2408981911225407
"Former President Donald Trump strongly criticized President Joe Biden in an interview Monday for reopening the border by rolling back tough immigration policies and creating a new migrant crisis.

“They’ll be coming up by the millions,” Trump said about the flood of migrants crossing the border into the United States. The former president discussed the border crisis with Fox News host Lisa Boothe in a podcast interview released Monday.

Trump warned Americans the crisis would get far worse during the Biden administration, even though record numbers were already crossing the border.

“It’s nothing compared to what’s going to be in a couple of months,” he said.

Trump noted Latin American countries like El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala were “not sending up their finest” to the United States and even warned that even people from the Middle East were again crossing the border.

“As I said before, you have some very bad hombres coming up and we’re taking them into our country and it’s insane,” Trump said.

He emphasized that, once migrants were released into the country, they would disappear.

“They go into our country. We never find them again; they never come back, a very tiny percentage comes back,” he said.

The former president told Americans Biden made a big mistake by ending effective policies like “Remain in Mexico” which could have prevented the crisis on the border.

“We had it down to an absolute science; it was a beautiful thing to see,” Trump said.

He also urged Biden to finish the wall on the Southern border.

“It’s just crazy that they’re not finishing the wall.”",0.1004358370519226
"Most GOP senators are dodging the Democrats’ efforts to seduce them into joining very unpopular amnesty bills by citing President Joe Biden’s border meltdown, according to Politico.

“Many of us support giving a path to citizenship,” to younger illegal migrants, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), told Politico. “But now the border is such a disaster that I don’t see how you can do just a bill to deal with [that],” she said March 18.

Politico accepts the border rationale for the GOP evasiveness — and ignores the huge unpopularity of wage-cutting amnesty bills even if the border is under control. In 2014, GOP Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) made that mistake and lost his seat in a surprise primary defeat.

The March 19 Politico report cited other GOP senators’ claim that Biden’s border problem precludes amnesty deals:

“There’s no scenario I would support even what we called the SUCCEED Act, which was a path to citizenship for the [Dreamers], without it being paired with border security,” [Sen. Thom] Tillis said, referring to the conservative alternative to the DREAM Act that he had endorsed. … “I’m in the bipartisan group, but we haven’t touched it,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). “There’s a problem that needs to be fixed, but I don’t think we’re anywhere near stepping up to it right now.” … “The concern is, as soon as you bring something up to even start discussing it [an amnesty], you’re going to get a surge,” [Sen. James] Lankford said. “So if you’re not ready to really do it, you shouldn’t play with that. I don’t hear us ready to do it.”

Establishment GOP senators have an incentive to hide behind Biden’s mismanagement at the border — it allows them to dodge incompatible and competing demands by voters and business donors, either to block or approve amnesties and migration expansion bills. By talking about the border, the reporters and GOP senators can also jointly ignore the central question — whether migration and amnesty are good for working Americans’ pocketbooks.

Democrat senators need ten GOP senators to overcome the 60-vote threshold for scheduling votes in the Senate. So far, only two GOP senators have attached their names to bills that would amnesty illegal aliens and import even more workers for the jobs needed by Americans.

The zig-zag strategy is also useful because the GOP senators know that immigrant voters cost them their Senate majority in the January 2021 Senate races in Georgia. Any further amnesties will likely push the GOP — and their careers — into long-term political irrelevance and also push the smaller Red states into political oblivion.

The main GOP supporter for amnesty, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), says deals are off the table until Biden recovers control of the border. “We find ourselves in a situation where there is no way forward until you control the border,” Graham told a pro-amnesty March 17 press conference on Capitol Hill. He continued:

The Biden administration has created chaos where there was order [under former President Donald Trump]. And the only way we’ll ever be able to sit down with our Democratic colleagues is for us to regain control of the border, and I want to say without any hesitation, Biden has lost control of the U.S. Mexican border. Until he regains control by implementing policies that work, it’s going to be very hard to do the [DACA young illegal aliens] “dreamers” or anybody else. Why? Because … legalizing anybody under these circumstances will lead to even more illegal immigration.

To Democrats, he said:

So if you’re serious about solving the immigration problem, you will be serious about changing our laws on asylum, you will finish building the wall where it makes sense. You will restore the Remain in Mexico policy, you will go back into the treaties with the [Northern] Triangle countries because that will lead to the calmness at the border we need to find a solution here in Washington.

The evasive, zig-zag strategy adopted by many GOP senators shows the intense pressure they are under from voters and business donors.

The donors gain greatly each time the government OKs another huge inflow of migrants who serve as cheap workers, taxpayer-aided consumers, and high-occupancy renters. But while business groups offer valuable donations — the populist groups can expand or shrink the politicians’ vital vote totals.

The populist groups include Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, NumbersUSA, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform. They have to compete with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the tech companies advocacy groups, such as FWD.us.

A few GOP senators are standing up for amnesty talks:

Sen Rick Scott (R-FL) has drafted an amnesty for at least one million illegal aliens, which his staffers are quietly trying to sell an amnesty bill to staffers who work for other GOP senators. But his office is suggesting that Biden’s policy makes a deal less likely.

“Senator Scott does not support amnesty,” a staffer told Breitbart. “Look at what Biden’s open borders and amnesty plan is doing to our Southern border. Senator Scott has long said reforms to the immigration system become much more simple once the border is secure, and that’s his focus.”

Scott is in charge of fundraising for the Senate GOP’s 2022 campaigns, so he is under intense pressure to import for business donors a new round of cheap labor, taxpayer-aided consumers, and high-occupancy renters.

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) has announced he will propose an amnesty for a million illegal farmworkers and combine it with a plan to import very cheap H-23A visa workers to fill up all the jobs — and more — that will be opened up when the amnesty’s migrants move to non-agriculture jobs in towns and cities.

“House passage of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act is an important step toward bringing certainty to our country’s agriculture industry and the hard-working producers and farmworkers,” said a statement from Crapo and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO). “We will work together to introduce companion legislation in the U.S. Senate that appropriately addresses the needs of both the industry and the farmworkers that uphold it.”

But that bipartisan swap — cheap workers for the industry in exchange for amnestied farmworkers for Democrats — leaves many ordinary Idahoans and their rural communities in the dust. The H-2A workers would be so cheap that they will be used for additional jobs now held by Americans, and they will also take most of their meager payroll — and their possible tax payments — back home with them every year.

Retiring Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) is also talking up hopes for a deal, Politico reported:

He opposed the sweeping bill in 2013 but wants to put something together before he leaves the chamber and is the GOP’s rare optimist when it comes to seeing the potential for a deal: “I do. But no one else does.”

Portman is one of five retiring GOP senators, along with Roy Blunt (R-MO), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Richard Burr (R-NC) and Richard Shelby (R-AL). The pro-amnesty groups will target them for votes, in part, because they do not have to fear the voters’ response.

In July 2019, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) complained about the voters’ objecting to his pro-amnesty, business-first perspective, saying, “The problem is, Republicans, fear that no matter what you do, someone is going to start screaming amnesty … And if you don’t know, in a Republican primary that [can be] devastating. I know that. I’ve been accused of that.”

On March 18, Simpson denied that his vote for the 2021 farmworker amnesty is a vote for amnesty, saying:

This bill is not about what’s happening at the southern border … this bill is not amnesty. It does not grant anybody amnesty. It allows individuals to get right with the law and to become a legal workforce in the United States. It’s about providing a stable, legal workforce for the people who put food on our tables.

For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to legal migration, labor migration, and to the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.

The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.

The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves wealth from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from agriculture-heavy and central states to the coastal states.",0.17486016881371805
"ROME — Pope Francis said Monday all children enjoy the same right to life regardless of their situation, in commemoration of World Down Syndrome Day.

“Every child who a woman expects in her womb is a gift that changes a family’s history: the life of fathers and mothers, grandparents and of brothers and sisters,” the pope declared in a tweet in support of babies with Down Syndrome.

“That child needs to be welcomed, loved and nurtured. Always!” he said, adding the hashtag “#WorldDownSyndromeDay”.

The pontiff sent out a similar message on this date in 2019, urging all persons with Down syndrome “be welcomed, appreciated, and never discarded, right from their mother’s womb.”

Pope Francis has also condemned what he called the “eugenic tendency” behind eliminating unborn babies with handicaps, which reveals a “narcissistic and utilitarian vision.”

This selfish mentality leads many to consider people with disabilities as marginal, without perceiving their human and spiritual wealth, the pope said in October 2017, as he addressed participants in a conference titled “Catechesis and Persons with Disabilities: A Necessary Engagement in the Daily Pastoral Life of the Church.”

Too many people still reject this condition, Francis said, “as if it prevented them from being happy and fulfilled.”

“Proof of it is the eugenic tendency to suppress the unborn who have some form of imperfection,” he said.

Pope Francis has repeatedly spoken out against the “scourge of abortion,” comparing it to the brutal tactics of the Mafia.

Pope Francis has advanced the cause for the canonization of Jérôme Lejeune, a French pro-life scientist best known for his groundbreaking work on Down syndrome. https://t.co/tfCDGjM9aD — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) January 25, 2021

“I was thinking about the custom of doing away with babies before they’re born, this horrendous crime,” Francis said. “They do away with them because it’s easier like that, because it’s more comfortable. It’s a great responsibility — a very grave sin.”

“We are called to defend and safeguard human life, especially in the mother’s womb, in infancy, old age and physical or mental disability,” he said in a post on Twitter.

Studies indicate that some 67 percent of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome in the United States are aborted, while in many other countries, the percentage is higher still, and the abortion industry has fought tenaciously to allow women to selectively abort children thought to have the condition.

World Down Syndrome Day is celebrated every March 21 (3/21), an allusion to an extra (3rd) 21st chromosome possessed by people with the condition.

Follow @tdwilliamsrome",-1.8154391496423379
"ROME — Over 200 German-speaking Catholic theologians issued a statement Sunday rejecting the Vatican’s recent declaration prohibiting the blessing of same-sex unions.

The Vatican text “is characterized by a paternalistic gesture of superiority and discriminates against homosexual people and their lifestyle,” state the 212 theologians, who hail from universities around Germany and Austria.

The theologians accuse the Vatican text of lacking “theological depth, interpretive understanding, and argumentative rigor.” By ignoring relevant “scientific findings,” they declare, “the Magisterium undermines its own authority.”

As Breitbart News reported, on March 15 the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) issued a declaration that the Church has no power to bless homosexual unions, noting that God Himself “does not and cannot bless sin.”

Blessings require both “the right intention of those who participate” and “that what is blessed be objectively and positively ordered to receive and express grace, according to the designs of God inscribed in creation,” stated the CDF text, issued with the express approval of Pope Francis.

“Therefore, only those realities which are in themselves ordered to serve those ends are congruent with the essence of the blessing imparted by the Church,” it noted.

“For this reason, it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage,” it said, “as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex” because such unions are “not ordered to the Creator’s plan.”

There are “absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family,” it stated, citing Pope Francis.

Blessing an illicit sexual union would be “to approve and encourage a choice and a way of life that cannot be recognized as objectively ordered to the revealed plans of God,” it noted.

In their response to the text, the German-speaking theologians reject the underlying teaching it contains, insisting that “the lives and loves of same-sex couples before God are worth no less than the lives and loves of any other couple.”

The Catholic Church, along with many other Christian churches, has consistently taught that homosexual relations are immoral.

“Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,” states the Catechism of the Catholic Church, adding that such acts are “contrary to the natural law” and “close the sexual act to the gift of life.”

The homosexual inclination is “objectively disordered,” the Catechism continues, but those who experience same-sex attraction “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity” and every “sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”

Follow @tdwilliamsrome",-0.3771500892667882
"BERLIN (AP) – German authorities are expected to extend lockdown measures again on Monday and possibly tighten some restrictions as they face a steady rise in new coronavirus infections.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and the country’s 16 state governors, who in highly decentralized Germany are responsible for imposing and lifting restrictions, are holding a videoconference nearly three weeks after they agreed a several-step plan paving the way to relax some rules.

Since then, infections have increased steadily as the more contagious variant first detected in Britain has become dominant. Most lockdown restrictions are currently set to run through March 28. The chancellery is proposing an extension to April 18th.

Politician from Merkel's Party Resigns over Profiting from Mask Contracts https://t.co/63Woc16k6d — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 7, 2021

Rather than new moves toward a more normal life, one focus now is pressing regional officials to use consistently an “emergency brake” mechanism under which relaxations granted in recent weeks — such as the partial reopening of nonessential shops — are supposed to be reimposed if new weekly infections in an area exceed 100 per 100,000 residents on three consecutive days.

“Unfortunately, we will have to make use of this emergency brake,” Merkel said Friday.

The weekly infection rate per 100,000 people stood at 107 nationwide on Monday, up from the mid-60s three weeks ago.

Merkel Party Suffers Worst Regional Defeats Since Second World War https://t.co/e0lZC0E6Ab — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 15, 2021",0.9443230472158137
"The pause on construction of the border wall costs taxpayers about six million dollars per day while construction sites sit idle, Breitbart Texas learned from a senior Department of Homeland Security official. On Sunday, March 21, the 60-day pause in construction of the border wall is scheduled to end.

According to the source, the expenditures are required for materials orders placed before the pause and expenses for the cost of equipment sitting idle. When the issuance of a stop work order causes a contractor to idle equipment, they are entitled to be compensated for rental expenses or costs of ownership.

Shortly after taking office, President Biden signed an executive order temporarily halting any further progress on the border wall so individual contracts could be evaluated. With the exception of “make-safe” activities at the worksites, construction projects immediately came to a standstill, Breitbart Texas reported. The end of the 60-day pause does not, however, signal an automatic restart of construction.

Early in the pause, a spokesperson for the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) informed Breitbart Texas that contractors would be informed of a final decision sometime after the 60-day pause concludes. The time was to be used for evaluating each contract to reach a decision to terminate-for-cause or continue.

The Biden administration has not indicated which direction they will take regarding the end of the pause. Little information concerning the immigration crisis on the border has come from the leadership team within DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Senior officials within DHS reported being instructed not to speak to national media on the issues facing DHS at the border. Information from other agencies within the new administration is equally elusive. USACE did not respond to a request for information concerning the end of the pause and the border wall contracts currently being evaluated.

As the deadline looms for a decision to be reached, equipment still sits idle. In Eagle Pass, Texas, a 51.9-million-dollar fence contract hangs in the balance. The equipment gathers dust and the contractor still awaits a decision. Other problems appearing along the border may be taking precedent over the status of the border wall contracts.

In recent days, the Secretary of DHS, Alejandro Mayorkas has said “We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years,”. In addition to the surge of migrants that are being apprehended along the border, a significant amount of illegal migrant traffic is also avoiding arrest. The administration was also not prepared for the onslaught of unaccompanied children crossing the border as policy changes were being made.

In addition to the daily expenses related to the pause of border wall construction, additional costs to taxpayers are likely on the horizon if the administration does decide to close out the contracts permanently.

Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.",-0.11573720893269673
"Six new alleged victims have emerged in a case involving a former employee of a Stockholm LGBT group who has been charged with sexually assaulting and raping asylum seekers.

Last week a former employee of the Stockholm branch of the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Rights (RFSL) was charged with multiple counts of sexual assault and rape against four male LGBT asylum seekers, with the assaults allegedly taking place at the group’s office in Södermalm in 2019.

According to a report from Swedish broadcaster Sveriges Radio, another six alleged victims of the same man have come forward, and a new investigation has been launched.

The broadcaster states that all of the new accusers are over the age of 18. The assaults related to the new accusations took place either before or during the timeframe of the existing cases in 2019 and occurred at the same office in Södermalm.

Former Stockholm LGBT Group Employee Charged with Raping Male Asylum Seekers https://t.co/Albu0G9KwA — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 11, 2021

Prosecutor Reena Sarwar, however, would not confirm details of the new investigation, saying: “I cannot comment on whether or not there is anything else going on. I can neither confirm nor deny whether there are any more plaintiffs.”

Prosecutor Paulina Pilati of the City Prosecutor’s Office in Stockholm had remarked on the first set of charges last week, alleging the man preyed on vulnerable asylum seekers who came to him for advice.

“They have sought him out for help and advice in their asylum process or in their right to stay in Sweden. The key question in the court’s review is whether the men have been in a particularly vulnerable situation, which I think they have been,” Ms Pilati said.

The case is not the first time a member of an LGBT organisation in Sweden has been accused of sex crimes in recent years. In 2017, a member of the Stockholm Pride organisation, which runs the city’s pride parades, was revealed to have been convicted of raping a 13-year-old boy in 2011.",-0.9599041712894227
"PARIS (AP) — Residents of Paris and several other regions of France spent their first weekend under a limited monthlong lockdown. While the French government insisted the rules would be less strict than in the past, the measures have been criticized as messy.

A travel authorization certificate posted online was so ridiculed by French media for its unnecessary complexity that the Interior Ministry scrapped it within hours. For now, simple proof of residence is required to stroll within a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) radius.

The form the French government still obliges citizens to fill out to travel greater distances – up to 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) also was not accessible online because of a technical glitch. A website Sunday simply said, “Available soon.”

Under the new restrictions, nonessential shops were closed but people are not required to spend most of the day confined at home. The government announced the measures on Thursday as the coronavirus picked up speed again in some parts of France.

The country reported 35,327 new confirmed cases on Saturday, when the number of COVID-19 patients in French intensive care units rose to 4,353, the most so far this year, the Health Ministry reported.

“When you look at the numbers, they’re unsustainable, and it is going to become ever-harder as the virus continues to circulate,” Anaelle Aeschliman, a nurse at the Ambroise Pare clinic in the western Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, told The Associated Press. “I admit I was a bit disappointed that we aren’t being locked down nationwide.”

The French government has tried hard to avoid imposing a third nationwide lockdown. President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that “lockdown” was not the appropriate term to describe the new regional restrictions.",0.3033031853101854
"The Biden administration drew fire from the governor of Texas after opening yet another facility in the state to address the number of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border. In the latest move, the department has opened an existing oil worker man camp in Pecos, Texas.

The facility, previously known as the Pecos Lodge North, will serve as the latest site to accommodate the massively growing numbers of unaccompanied migrant children illegally crossing the border. In a statement released on Saturday, HHS relayed the following information.

It is anticipated the Target Lodge Pecos North ICF will initially accommodate approximately 500 children in hard-sided structures with the potential to expand to 2000. Additional semi-permanent (soft-sided) capacity may be added if necessary, though ORR will always prioritize placing children in hard-sided structures over semi-permanent structures. ORR is committed to holding ICFs to the same or higher standards as state-licensed facilities. The Target Lodge Pecos North ICF will be used when the site is ready to safely receive children. Using ICFs will help ensure children are moved into ORR shelters, where children receive educational, medical, mental health, and recreational services until they can be unified with families or sponsors without undue delay.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott responded quickly, saying the “Biden Administration continues to show that it is dangerously unprepared to handle the surge in illegal border crossings as they rush to open yet another facility for unaccompanied minors in Texas.”

The governor directed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to ensure the facility has safe drinking water.

HHS recently opened facilities in Carrizo Springs and Midland, Texas to address the overcrowding in Border Patrol facilities designed only for the temporary detention of adult migrants. HHS is also temporarily sheltering UACs at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center in Dallas, Texas. The moves come as the Biden administration struggles to deal with seemingly uncontrollable levels of illegal entries at the southern border with Mexico

In a written statement released late Saturday, Governor Abbott said:

As this humanitarian crisis grows along our southern border, the Biden Administration continues to dodge questions that Texans are demanding answers for: Is the federal government tracking what countries these children are coming from and what COVID-19 variants they might have been exposed to? How long will these children be held in Texas? The Biden Administration’s refusal to secure our border, investigate the origins and potential trafficking of unaccompanied minors, and protect these vulnerable children will only worsen the situation and put innocent lives at risk. President Biden must act now to end this crisis.”

According to law enforcement sources, the latest effort by HHS to shelter more UACs may still not be enough. Sources in the Rio Grande Valley report over two thousand migrants per day were apprehended on three separate days last week. The same source, not authorized to speak on the matter, indicated 400-600 of those apprehensions per day were unaccompanied minors.

This latest announcement comes as the Biden administration received harsh criticism from Texas Governor Greg Abbott concerning the inhumane conditions at some of the other shelters recently opened in his state.

Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.",0.38952002766173444
"The number of migrant children now held in U.S. custody surged past 15,000 on Saturday, with some 5,000 unaccompanied minors alone being held in a tent holding facility run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other stations along the U.S.-Mexico Border.

According to a CBS News report, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) confirmed HHS is housing nearly 10,500 unaccompanied minors in emergency housing facilities and shelters licensed by states.

The detention of these minors shatters the 2,600 children held at the peak of the 2019 migrant surge.

The news outlet reported unaccompanied migrant children are spending 136 hours on average in CBP custody, passing the legal time limit of 72 hours in a trend that first started last month, as Breitbart News reported.

The mainstream media is being silent as the Biden administration holds unaccompanied migrant children in Border Patrol custody longer than legally allowed, the head of the Border Patrol union stated. https://t.co/3WqfTn2Yyd — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) February 24, 2021

CBS further reported border officials have encountered over 500 unaccompanied minors per day over the past 21 days. The number of encounters are expected to top the 9,400 minors that entered custody in February.

Such is the pressure on CBP officials they are considering a plan to release migrants apprehended in South Texas who claim asylum without issuing a Notice to Appear (NTA). Breitbart Texas confirmed with a senior CBP official the plan is being discussed.

AP reports since Joe Biden’s inauguration, the U.S. has seen a dramatic spike in the number of people encountered by border officials.

There were 18,945 family members and 9,297 unaccompanied children encountered in February — an increase of 168 percent and 63 percent, respectively, from the month before, according to the Pew Research Center.

The president and other administration officials in recent days have stepped up efforts to urge migrants not to come while at the same time denying any crisis exists.

Nothing to see here…everyone move along…China Joe has it under control! https://t.co/9OK8HO79fM — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) March 4, 2021

Critics have pointed to public comments from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who earlier this month advised the administration’s message to migrants was “don’t come now” and a slip by Roberta Jacobson, the White House’s lead adviser on the border, who said in Spanish during a recent briefing the “border is not closed,” before correcting herself.",0.8764978946320124
"Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has accused the Greek coastguard of handcuffing seven asylum seekers and throwing them into the Aegean Sea.

The minister made the accusations after the Turkish coastguard claims it rescued migrants in the Aegean who were found with their hands bound with plastic handcuffs. One migrant was found dead, while two others were found alive, and the remaining four are said to be missing, newspaper Kronen Zeitung reports.

Minister Soylu made the accusations on Twitter which included footage of the alleged rescue operation of the two migrants, writing: “Greek coast guard units battered seven migrants tonight, took their belongings, tied their hands in plastic handcuffs, and threw them to their deaths in the sea without lifejackets or boats.”

A later report from Turkish newspaper Hurriyet claimed that the bodies of at least three migrants had been found so far, citing a statement from the İzmir Governor Office.

The newspaper also claimed that a group of migrants who had crossed the land border illegally into Bulgaria had complained that Bulgarian authorities had beaten and robbed them before they were forced back to Turkey.

The Turkish interior minister’s accusation comes nearly a year after he announced that the Turkish government would allow migrants to travel to the Greek border when the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic ends.

UN Calls on EU to Stop Migrant Pushbacks at Its Borders https://t.co/9oBEcOGBHH — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 30, 2021

George Koumoutsakos, the Greek Alternate Minister for Migration and Asylum Policy, reacted to Soylu’s statement last year, saying the “statements by Soyilu respond to those who still had the slightest doubt that the events in Evros were an aggressive plan to brutally blackmail Greece and Europe with a ‘weapon’ of migrant exploitation”.

The Turkish claims also come after the European Union has accused Greece of engaging in so-called “pushbacks” against migrants in the Aegean Sea.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) called on the European Union to investigate allegations of pushbacks earlier this year after citing information provided by pro-migration non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

An EU inquiry into the role of the EU’s border agency Frontex found that the agency had not been directly involved in any of the pushback incidents reported.",-0.022730105363874903
"Migrants who apply for asylum in the UK via legal routes and are granted refugee status will automatically be given indefinite leave to remain, effectively settled status.

Home Secretary Priti Patel will announce, according to media reports on Sunday, that asylum seekers deemed to have fled conflict or persecution who apply for refugee status via the “safe and legal resettlement route” will be given indefinite leave to remain (ILR).

Before these changes, refugees were granted five years to live in the UK before applying for ILR.

Current British government guidance on ILR states that for those with the immigration status, there is “no longer any time limit on your ability to stay in the UK” and that residents are “regarded as settled in the UK”.

Those with IRL are free to work, study, and access NHS services, with reports saying the plans are aimed at refugees having the stability to build long-term lives in the UK.

The government is also proposing making family reunification of refugees, i.e., chain migration, easier.

Asylum seekers will be asked to make refugee applications overseas first before arriving in the UK, according to The Telegraph.

Priority will be given to asylum seekers in conflict zones, rather than those “already in safe European countries”.

Boris Remarks Backing Amnesty for Illegals Branded ’Deeply Irresponsible’ https://t.co/NVqyxvIqwb — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 21, 2021

Home Secretary Patel said, according to Sky News: “Our New Plan For Immigration will make big changes, building a new system that is fair but firm. We will continue to encourage asylum via safe and legal routes whilst at the same time toughening our stance towards illegal entry and the criminals that endanger life by enabling it.

“Not all of these reforms will happen overnight, so in order to save lives we will need to stick to the course and see this New Plan For Immigration through.”

The government has not stated whether refugee status could be removed under the new rules if the situation in a home country changed. The indefinite leave to remain documents, which have not been updated since 2019, state that ILR can be “revoked” if a holder “were granted leave as a refugee and cease to be a refugee”.

The UK’s oldest conservative think tank warned that if the government plans to accept large numbers of asylum seekers, it needs to make other immigration cuts.

Bow Group chairman, Ben Harris-Quinney, told Breitbart London on Sunday: “Geniune asylum is one of the strongest reasons to accept immigrants into the UK, but if the government want to take in large numbers of refugees, they need to make massive cuts to overall immigration elsewhere.”

Delingpole: BoJo’s Britain Is a Haven for Refugees – But Increasingly Hellish for Natives https://t.co/aZo2ziZKyJ — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 19, 2021

Mr Harris-Quinney also challenged government plans for automatic indefinite leave to remain, saying that “other Western nations offer asylum until such time as the situation refugees are fleeing has resolved; there is no reason from Britain to extend asylum beyond this.”

Denmark earlier this month stripped 94 Syrian refugees of their residency status and ordered them to return after deeming the capital Damascus and other parts of the Middle Eastern country to be “safe”.

Danish Immigration Minister Mattias Tesfaye had said: “We have made it clear to the Syrian refugees that their residence permit is temporary. It can be withdrawn if protection is no longer needed.”

Mr Tesfaye had added: “We must give people protection for as long as it is needed. But when conditions in the home country improve, a former refugee should return home and re-establish a life there.”

The Scandinavian country is believed to be the first European nation to do so. Around 1,250 other Syrians in Denmark could have their refugee status reassessed.

The UK government, meanwhile, in October 2020, had bragged that Britain “resettles more refugees than any other country in Europe”, announcing this month it had taken in 20,000 Syrians since 2015.

More than five million migrants from the European Union have applied to live permanently in Britain under the EU settlement scheme, with applications still open until June 2021. https://t.co/rwoc5nEaIS — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) February 13, 2021

Mr Harris-Quinney continued to tell this publication: “Once again, we see tough talk from the government on reducing immigration, whilst they quietly change the rules to facilitate a continued increase to immigration.

“The Conservatives have been in power for ten years. There is no one else to blame for the millions and millions of record-breaking numbers of people that have entered our country in that time. They make the Blair government look like amateurs on mass immigration.”

The government is also proposing other measures to combat illegal migration, including increasing the penalties for people smugglers. Failed asylum seekers and criminal migrants will be prevented from lodging endless last-minute appeals in order to prolong their stay in the UK. Judges will also be ordered to give “minimal weight” to evidence provided later in the asylum application process.

The announcement comes after reports that the Home Office was considering following Australia’s lead and processing migrants in offshore territories, with Gibraltar and the Isle of Man being considered, amongst others as well as third countries.

However, the Manx and Gibraltarian leaders said they had not been contacted by Downing Street, and such plans were ultimately unlikely.

Mr Johnson had defended the plans in a recent press conference at which he also reiterated his long-held support for amnesty for illegals who had been in the country for some time, and had otherwise not committed any crimes.",-2.4790979905956947
"The boss of Australian airline QANTAS warned Sunday “governments are going to insist” on coronavirus vaccines for all international fliers, with the global imposition coming sooner rather than later.

Chief executive Alan Joyce told the BBC governments were talking about vaccination as “a condition of entry,” reaffirming a warning he delivered last November, as Breitbart News reported.

Even if governments weren’t immediately examining the possibility, Joyce thought carriers should enforce its own policy.

“We have a duty of care to our passengers and to our crew, to say that everybody in that aircraft needs to be safe,” Joyce said.

He believes that would justify changing the terms and conditions on which tickets are booked.

Joyce thinks passengers would be willing to accept the change. “The vast majority of our customers think this is a great idea – 90 percent of people that we’ve surveyed think it should be a requirement for people to be vaccinated to travel internationally.”

Last year joyce outlined his plans for QANTAS when he warned that global air travel will never be the same again once the coronavirus pandemic is done, as Breitbart News reported.

#BREAKING: QANTAS CEO confirms that proof that you've been vaccinated for COVID-19 will be compulsory for international air travel onboard his aircraft. #9ACA pic.twitter.com/dhk3Hsnxn9 — A Current Affair (@ACurrentAffair9) November 23, 2020

Joyce hinted then other airlines could follow QANTAS with requiring the vaccination for passengers traveling abroad.

“I’ve been talking with my colleagues at other airlines around the globe, and I think that’s going to be a common theme across the board,” he said.

Australia’s government closed its borders to almost all foreigners last February and has also periodically closed internal borders even as other countries like the U.S. allow travel but with masks and strict isolation policies.

A slight majority of U.S. air travelers say they are not comfortable flying in the era of the Chinese coronavirus. https://t.co/cJpkIRNp8N — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) August 10, 2020

Even with vaccines, Joyce thinks “once we open up our international borders, we’re going to have the virus circulating.”

“And that’s going to be a big change for a lot of Australia, to find that acceptable,” he said. “We need people to understand they can’t have zero risk with this virus. We manage risk in so many different other ways for other parts of life.”",-2.2418452666607305
"ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey withdrew early Saturday from a landmark European treaty protecting women from violence that it was the first country to sign 10 years ago and which bears the name of its largest city.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s overnight decree annulling Turkey’s ratification of the Istanbul Convention is a blow to women’s rights advocates, who say the agreement is crucial to combating domestic violence. Hundreds of women gathered at demonstrations across Turkey on Saturday to protest the move.

The Council of Europe’s Secretary General, Marija Pejčinović Burić, called the decision “devastating.”

“This move is a huge setback to these efforts and all the more deplorable because it compromises the protection of women in Turkey, across Europe and beyond,” she said.

The Istanbul Convention states that men and women have equal rights and obliges state authorities to take steps to prevent gender-based violence against women, protect victims and prosecute perpetrators.

Some officials from Erdogan’s Islam-oriented party had advocated for a review of the agreement, arguing it is inconsistent with Turkey’s conservative values by encouraging divorce and undermining the traditional family unit.

Critics also claim the treaty promotes homosexuality through the use of categories like gender, sexual orientation and gender identity. They see that as a threat to Turkish families. Hate speech has been on the rise in Turkey, and the country’s interior minister described LGBT people as “perverts” in a tweet. Erdogan has rejected their existence altogether.

Women’s groups and their allies who have been protesting to keep the convention intact immediately called for demonstrations across the country Saturday under the slogan “Withdraw the decision, implement the treaty.” They said their years-long struggle would not be erased in one night.

“We were struggling every day so the Istanbul Convention would be implemented and women would live. We now hear that the Istanbul Convention has been completely repealed,” Dilan Akyuz, 30, who joined other women demonstrating in Istanbul. “We are very angry today. We can no longer bear even one death of a woman. We do not have any tolerance for this.”

Rights groups say violence against and the killing of women is on the rise in Turkey, an assertion the interior minister called a “complete lie” on Saturday.

A total of 77 women have been killed since the start of the year, according to the We Will Stop Femicide Platform. Some 409 women were killed in 2020, with dozens found dead under suspicious circumstances, according to the group.

Numerous women’s rights groups slammed the decision, saying laws protecting women are inadequately enforced. Advocacy group Women’s Coalition Turkey said the withdrawal from a human rights agreement was a first in Turkey. “It is clear that this decision will further encourage the murderers of women, harassers, rapists,” their statement said.

Turkey’s justice minister said the government was committed to combating violence against women.

“We continue to protect our people’s honor, the family and our social fabric with determination,” Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul tweeted.

Erdogan has repeatedly stressed the “holiness” of the family and called on women to have three children. His communications director, Fahrettin Altun, said the government’s motto was ’Powerful Families, Powerful Society.”

Many women suffer physical or sexual violence at the hands of their husbands or partners, but up-to-date official statistics are unavailable. The Istanbul Convention requires states to collect data.

More than a thousand women and allies gathered in Istanbul, wearing masks and holding banners. There was a heavy police presence in the area, and the demonstration ended without serious skirmishes.

They shouted pro-LGBT slogans and called for Erdogan’s resignation. They cheered as a woman speaking through a megaphone said, “You cannot close up millions of women in their homes. You cannot erase them from the streets and the squares.”

“As women, we now think that the withdrawal is a direct attack on women’s rights and a direct attack on the rights of modern young women, in particular,” Ebru Batur, 21-year-old demonstrator, said. “This of course makes us feel insecure and like our rights are appropriated.”

Turkey was the first country to sign the Council of Europe’s “Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence” at a committee of ministers meeting in Istanbul in 2011. The law came into force in 2014, and Turkey’s Constitution says international agreements have the force of law.

Some lawyers claimed Saturday that the treaty is still active, arguing the president cannot withdraw from it without the approval of parliament, which unanimously ratified the Istanbul Convention in 2012.

But Erdogan gained sweeping powers with his re-election in 2018, setting in motion Turkey changing from a parliamentary system of government to an executive presidency.

The justice minister wrote on Twitter that while parliament approves treaties which the executive branch puts into effect, the executive also has the authority to withdraw from them.

Women lawmakers from Turkey’s main opposition party said they would not recognize the decree and called it another “coup” on parliament and an usurpation of the rights of 42 million women.

Germany’s Foreign Ministry joined the criticism, saying “withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention is a wrong signal for Europe, but especially for the women of Turkey.”

“Only a few weeks ago, President Erdogan introduced an action plan for human rights which also includes the fight against domestic violence and violence against women,” the German ministry said in a statement. “Quitting an important convention of the Council of Europe questions how serious Turkey is when it comes to the goals mentioned in that action plan.”

“It is clear that neither cultural, nor religious or other national traditions can serve as a disguise in order to ignore violence against women,” Germany said.",0.058772186485630186
"Shamima Begum, one of three British schoolgirls who ran away to Syria to marry Islamic State militants, said she joined the terror group because she did not feel loved by her mother and begged for a “second chance” and to be allowed to return to the UK.

Begum, who left the United Kingdom in 2015 aged 15 and married a Dutch jihadist, is one of several Islamic State brides from the West barred from returning home who featured in the documentary The Return: Life After ISIS, which premiered at the South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday night.

Describing herself as the “black sheep of the family”, she said she had a difficult relationship with her mother growing up, suggesting she joined Islamic State because she “didn’t feel loved as a child'”, according to BirminghamLive.

Ms Begum said: “I always wanted to be part of a Muslim community because when I was young, I felt like I was an outsider in my community.

“So I just wanted to be a part of something. My friends started practising [Islam], and they helped me come into the religion as well, and it just started with, like, learning my religion.

“And then it turned into wanting to come into Syria, wanting to help the Syrians.”

Shamima Bae! ‘Conservative’ Newspaper Publishes Bizarre Celebrity-Style Photo Shoot of Jihadi Bride https://t.co/YjUMnveH01 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 15, 2021

Last month, the UK’s Supreme Court denied Ms Begum’s appeal to return to the UK to challenge the removal of her British citizenship. Then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid removed her citizenship in February 2019 on the grounds of national security; the government maintained that she would not be rendered stateless as she could apply for a Bangladeshi passport by heritage links through her parents.

Currently residing at a Kurdish-run Roj camp for jihadi wives and families in Syria, Begum claimed that she had defended Islamic State in her earlier interviews with the British media because she “lived in fear” of the ISIS fanatics at the camp “coming into my tent and killing me and my baby”.

Begum had three children with Muslim convert Yago Riedijk, all of whom have since died. Riedijk, 29, is still alive and believed to be in a Kurdish-run prison in Syria.

She also accused the British government of “making up” stories that she was a member of the ISIS morality police, hisba. Media reports from 2019 claimed that Begum carried a Kalashnikov rifle and “earned a reputation as a strict ‘enforcer’ of [the Islamic State’s] laws, such as dress codes for women”, and that she had “literally stitch[ed] the vests” of suicide bombers.

She had also remarked in 2019 that when she saw her first severed head, belonging to a captured opposition fighter, “it didn’t faze me at all”. She was unbothered by the brutal death, she explained, because the head had belonged to an enemy of Islam.",0.023506679414072293
"Police will begin recording offences believed to be motivated by misogyny as hate crimes in the wake of Sarah Everard’s apparent murder, Boris Johnson’s government has confirmed.

Speaking for the Johnson administration in the House of Lords, Home Office junior minister the Baroness Williams of Trafford said that from the autumn of 2021, “we will ask police forces to record and identify any crimes of violence against the person, including stalking and harassment and sexual offences, where the victim perceives it to have been motivated by a hostility based on their sex, which, as I have said, can then inform longer-term decisions.”

Prime Minister Johnson, who describes himself as a feminist, according to his new White House style press secretary, former Guardian and BBC journalist Allegra Stratton, told the House of Commons that “We have to address the fundamental issue of the casual everyday sexism and apathy that fails to address the concerns of women – that is the underlying issue.”

Yet another hate crime, this time misogyny. Knife crime can soar but mother-in-law jokes are out. — Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) March 17, 2021

The move was not greeted with enthusiasm by everyone, however, with former UKIP, Brexit Party, and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage observing: “Yes another hate crime, this time misogyny. Knife crime can soar but mother-in-law jokes are out.”

Indeed, the practical effect of the new laws is in some question, as existing laws against genuine harassment and even sex crimes are not enforced with any great rigour by British judges.

For example, takeaway worker Javed Miah, 23, was recently allowed to walk out of court a free man with a suspended sentence — of just six months, so he would have been out in a matter of weeks even if a term of immediate custody had been imposed — after stalking a woman through the street at night and sexually assaulting her in Oldham.

The judge may have been swayed by the defence’s bizarre suggestions that the attack was “quite opportunistic” and warning that the predator “would lose his job [if sent to prison] and he is the sole earner for his family, so this would have a significant impact.”

No Prison for Trans 'Woman' Who Attacked Underage Girls in Public Toilets https://t.co/ijHakEPan9 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 17, 2019

Follow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBM ontgomery",-0.5977294557588048
"Denmark has proposed countering the formation of parallel societies by limiting the number of non-Western residents in neighbourhoods to no more than 30 per cent.

The proposal aims to have no residential area in the country have a population of more than 30 per cent non-Western migrants within the next decade, with Interior and Housing Minister Kaare Dybvad Bek stating the move is to counter ghettoisation.

“We have the next ten years to strike a balance in our integration policy and the way we live and live together,” Dybvad said and added, according to Danish broadcaster TV2: “Otherwise, I think we will end up with a two-tier society where people are withdrawing from each other.”

The government is also looking to abolish the term “ghetto” in legislation, with Minister Dybvad stating: “The ghetto designation is misleading. I do not use it myself, and I believe it obscures the important work that needs to be done in residential areas.

“All this effort is about combating parallel societies and creating a positive development in residential areas, so as to make them attractive to a wide cross-section of the population.”

Ghetto areas are defined under Danish law as areas of at least 1,000 people where the proportion of migrants and non-Western migrant backgrounds exceeds 50 per cent.

Danish Prime Minister Sets Target of Zero Asylum Seekers to Protect Social Cohesion https://t.co/5Pf8l8ZDTw — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 23, 2021

There are several other criteria for the designation, including high unemployment, low education levels among adults, low incomes, and criminal convictions for narcotics or firearms violations.

There are 15 areas currently on the government’s official list of ghettos, and all are said to have non-Western populations above 30 per cent.

Curt Liliegreen, Director of the Housing Economics Knowledge Centre, criticised the proposal saying that it was not a realistic goal. “There are simply too few public housing for families,” he said and added: “There are too few private housing rentals, and the demand is too great, so the only way to achieve the goal is to get that group out of the municipality.”

The proposal comes just months after the government of Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen vowed to crack down on crimes committed by young non-Western men, after noting that 20 per cent of non-Western men born in 1997 had breached the penal code before the age of 21.

Danish PM to Crack Down on ‘Non-Western’ Young Men Harassing Native Danes https://t.co/odSLmsL3NX — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 9, 2020

“It’s nothing new, and that’s the problem: it’s been going on for too many years. Girls are called derogatory things because they are Danish. Or girls are subjected to social control because they have become too Danish. A sausage cart in Brønshøj is attacked with firecrackers because it sells pork,” she said.

Earlier this year, the Danish government leader set a target of receiving zero new asylum seekers, saying: “We must be careful that there are not too many coming to our country. Otherwise, our cohesion cannot exist. It’s already challenged.”",-0.5253161365146485
"A new child sexual exploitation unit in Manchester, England, has been launched after years of failure on so-called “grooming” rape gangs.

The Greater Machester Police (GMP) Force Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) Unit, according to an official statement released on March 18th to mark National CSE Awareness Day, will be comprised of of 54 police officers and staff with “dedicated specialist skills and resources [for] investigating large scale and complex CSE investigations.”

“It is not a gimmick. This has been in the planning since last year,” insisted Deputy Chief Constable Mabs Hussain, in comments reported by the Manchester Evening News.

“If you want to make a difference you have got to have people who are passionate and care. If it means knocking someone’s door for something they did 20 years ago we are going to do it,” Hussain promised.

“What I don’t want is a repeat of the past. I am not saying we will never make mistakes, we will because we are human. But when we make a mistake, we will apologise and do all we can to put it right.

“What I want to make sure of is that we are not intentionally because of our lack of focus making mistakes.”

The senior officer was referring to the many failures of police forces, social services, and other authorities over decades with respect to so-called “grooming gangs”, comprised predominantly of Muslims of South Asian heritage who targeted mostly non-Muslim and often white working-class victims.

Successive probes and investigations have found that police were terrified of being branded racist if they tackled the abuse, with officers saying their superiors told them to “try and get other ethnicities” and dismissing victims as making “lifestyle choices” to “prostitute” themselves, or as participants in consensual sexual relations — a legal nonsense, given minors cannot give informed consent under British law, still less consent to being pimped out to dozens of men.

Police Told Mother of Rape Gang Victim, 12, That She Was ‘Prostituting Herself’ https://t.co/y4uf6DMIe7 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 17, 2021

According to the Manchester Evening News, the number of victims discovered across 70 investigations by Greater Manchester Police now stands at some 468, 332 of whom have been identified, with the number of predators standing at an astonishing 809, 540 of whom “are known”.

The force area, in which grooming gangs once operated in “plain sight”, according to a report into the death of 15-year-old victim Victoria Agoglia, who died after being injected with heroin by a 50-year-old man while in the care of Manchester City Council, does not only cover Manchester proper, but also the infamous rape gang epicentre of Rochdale, where the new CSE unit is overseeing three units involving victims as young as nine.

Asylum Seeker Child Rape Grooming Gang Kept Secret by Scottish Police https://t.co/7RPUwf6oja — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 28, 2020

Mainstream media, despite the huge focus it is currently putting on the issue of “male violence” against women in the wake of Sarah Everard’s apparent murder in London, has published very few reports on the grooming gang developments as of the time of this article’s publication.

One of the few outlets to run the story somewhat prominently is the Metro — despite having previously published an article complaining that “bleating” about grooming gangs was “being used to shut down important discussions about islamophobia [sic]”.

Media: ‘Bleating’ About Muslim Rape Gangs Takes Focus Away from ‘Islamophobia’ https://t.co/bWYrY5rgsW — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 3, 2020

Follow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBM ontgomery",-1.4144952096287402
"After setting up a fingerprint database in cooperation with North African countries, the Paris police prefecture positively identified 229 “minor” migrants, of which 216 were revealed to be adults.

The Directorate of Security of the Paris Metropolitan Area (DSPAP) implemented the system 15 months ago in cooperation with authorities in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia and have requested identification for 939 migrants over that period.

Of the 229 ‘underage’ migrants positively identified, 94 per cent were actually adults. Those whose identities were confirmed were 156 Algerians, 71 Moroccans, and two Tunisians. The remaining migrants were classified as of “unknown origin”, according to a report from the newspaper Le Figaro.

Crime perpetrated by alleged unaccompanied minor migrants (MNAs) has become an increasing trend in Paris and other cities across France. According to statistics from the DSPAP, unaccompanied minors from North Africa were implicated in various crimes 7,988 times in 2020, increasing 20 per cent from 2019.

In 2019 and 2020, following the easing of lockdown restrictions, asylum seekers from three North African countries made up 75% of the minor migrants arrested in Paris. https://t.co/2ydsPJT0TQ — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) March 14, 2021

An estimated 1,000 minor migrants reside in Paris and accounted for 28 per cent of all the minor offenders in the city in 2020, up from 17 per cent in 2018.

The Paris prosecutor’s office notes that many also lie about their identities and how old they really are in order to be treated as juvenile offenders because it is easier for them to escape custody.

The DSPAP data comes just days after French politicians Jean-François Eliaou and Antoine Savignat presented a report that revealed up to 75 per cent of underage migrant crime in Paris involves suspects from just three north African countries.

“Mostly young men from Maghreb countries distinguish themselves from other MNAs by chaotic migration routes that are particularly traumatic, and then by a life of wandering once they arrive in France. Often the victims of trafficking networks, they are delinquents and drug addicts,” the French Directorate of Judicial Protection of Youth (DPJJ) stated.

Underage Migrants Cost France Two Billion Euros Per Year https://t.co/OWzoxMDRpk — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) September 8, 2019

Valérie Martineau, director of local security in the Paris metropolitan area, told Le Figaro that many of the migrants commit basic thefts, such as jewellery or mobile phones, to support their drug addictions as well as a “taste for designer clothing”.

Algerian, Moroccan, and Tunisian migrants were arrested 1,633 times in cases of burglary in Paris in 2020 alone, with many selling their goods just 15 minutes later on the streets of the Barbès area of northern Paris.

Minor migrants also represent nearly a third of defendants in violent robberies, and many are said to carry knives and even firearms. “When victims resist, they pull out a knife quite easily,” Ms Martineau said.

'Ultraviolent' Underage Migrants Causing Havoc in French Prisons https://t.co/R34FV9d25U — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 7, 2021",-0.2175784574101856
"Boris Johnson has again raised his support for amnesty for illegals in remarks branded “deeply irresponsible” by Migration Watch UK.

This week, the prime minister did not deny reports that the Home Office was considering sending asylum seekers offshore while their claims are processed in order to deter illegal migration.

However, Prime Minister Johnson added that he was behind granting amnesty to migrants who illegally entered the county some time ago and if they are, otherwise, law-abiding.

Mr Johnson said, according to The Sun: “I think when people have been here for a very long time, and haven’t fallen foul of the law, then it makes sense to try to regularise their status which actually is pretty much what really happens under the existing rules.”

Alp Mehmet, chairman of the mass migration-sceptic think tank Migration Watch UK, said of the remarks in comments seen by Breitbart London: “The Home Office itself has said that recurrent amnesties only encourage more illegal migrants to try and come.

“Wherever amnesties have been tried they have failed. Boris Johnson wanted one when Mayor of London. He was wrong then and is still wrong.

“It would send out the wrong message and, not surprisingly, the majority of the public are against.”

Flashback: ‘Amnesty Boris’ on Illegals, Open Borders to Turkey, Migration Caps https://t.co/J3fr111BRH — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) July 23, 2019

Boris Johnson had, on at least two occasions, called for an “earned amnesty” of some 400,000 illegals living in London during his time as mayor of the capital.

Even on the campaign trail for Vote Leave in 2016 ahead of the EU referendum, Johnson had said — in the same breath that Britons should vote to leave the bloc to “take back of control of our borders” — that “I am in favour of an amnesty for illegal immigrants who have been here more than 12 years”.

Two years later, as foreign secretary, Johnson called for a “broader” amnesty of illegals from Commonwealth countries such as Pakistan and Kenya.

Even as candidate for Conservative Party leader and prime minister in 2019, he backed amnesty for aliens who had been in the country illegally for 15 years.

Migration Watch UK added in its condemnation of the prime minister’s stance: “Granting an illegal immigration amnesty would be a grave insult to the huge number of legal migrants who play by the rules, fill in forms, pay exorbitant fees and wait patiently in line as well to tens of millions of law-abiding citizens in the UK.

“An amnesty would also be hugely divisive and very expensive. Proposing an amnesty for illegal immigration is deeply irresponsible. The Prime Minister should reconsider.”

Majority of Britons Reject Amnesty for Illegal Aliens https://t.co/AaSlYm0EZ2 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 13, 2020

Speaking to Breitbart London on Saturday, chairman of the Bow Group, the UK’s oldest conservative think tank, Ben Harris-Quinney said that in the past decade that the Conservatives have been in power, the UK has seen “record immigration” which “no one voted for” and “there is no one left to blame but them”.

“What we have seen from the Conservative Party over the past ten years are headlines that suggest tough action on immigration, but detail that suggests continued promotion of mass immigration,” Mr Harris-Quinney told this publication.

“The government has created four million new settled status citizens over the past few years, as well as allowing 700,000 people a year to migrate to Britain, to say nothing of illegal immigration. Nothing like these numbers have ever been seen in human history, it will change our country in very extreme ways, and no one voted for it.”

Reiterating criticism of the prime minister’s post-Brexit ‘Australia-style’ immigration system — which has no cap on numbers — that has already come from Brexit leader Nigel Farage and Migration Watch UK, Harris-Quinney said: “The points-based immigration system makes it easier, not harder, for immigrants to come to Britain.”

The Bow Group chairman added: “We call on the Government to stop conning the public, to use gross figures rather than net figures when counting immigration, and to cut gross figures to under 50,000 a year.”",-0.3829272695581148
"ATHENS, Greece (AP) — The interior ministers of the five Mediterranean countries on the front line of mass migration to Europe want their EU partners to share the burden more equitably.

“We can no longer be punished for our geographical position,” Malta’s Byron Camilleri said Saturday, summing up his position and that of his colleagues from Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Spain after they met in Athens.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas joined part of the meeting, Schinas is coordinating the commission’s work to revise the European Union’s pact on migration and asylum.

Ministers from Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta and Spain created a “MED 5” group last year in an effort to present united front and influence the new EU pact.

Their demands are threefold: better cooperation with the countries in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia where most Europe-bound migrants and asylum-seekers come from; greater willingness by other EU member nations to accept newly arrived migrants; and a centralized European repatriation mechanism overseen by the EU’s executive commission.

Southern European countries with extensive coastlines have borne the brunt of arriving asylum-seekers hoping to enter the EU. Most Europe-bound migrants travel by boat on dangerous maritime smuggling routes, either from the Turkish coast to nearby Greek islands or across the Mediterranean from north Africa.

The ministers discussed whether Turkey played an active role in pushing migrants toward Europe in contravention of a 2016 migration-control between the EU and Turkey.

Cyprus’ interior minister, Nikos Nouris, said most of the migrants arriving in his country enter from the the Turkish Cypriot-controlled northern part of the island nation. He called for Turkey to accept inspections on its southern shoreline by Frontex, the European border and coast guard agency.

At one point last year, Turkey’s president said his government would no longer discourage migrants from trying to cross the border into Greece.",1.8433674644973108
"Scotland Yard has described how a shooting could have nearly turned into a murder investigation after an unknown assailant discharged a firearm several times in the direction of London Metropolitan police officers.

The Met revealed on Friday that ten plainclothes officers patrolling Grahame Park Estate in Colindale, Barnet, North London approached six men at around 7 pm on Thursday after a report of a large gathering, likely in contravention of coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

The men fled, and the officers pursued on foot, with one of the suspects firing several times at the unarmed officers, in what was described as an act of “extreme violence”.

Thankfully, no officers were injured; however, the Met said in the statement that “incidents of this type can have long-term physical and psychological effects on officers”.

Police are appealing for information from the public. Scotland Yard revealed that in the past 12 months, Met Police officers had been assaulted 7,140 times — an increase of 19.1 per cent on the same period the year before.

Black Lives Matter Protests ‘Contributed’ to a 38 Per Cent Rise in Attacks on London Police https://t.co/s9ZMM6IIdn — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 20, 2020

Investigating officer Detective Chief Inspector Gemma Alger said of the incident: “The message is clear that any levels of violence against our colleagues who serve the public and keep our communities safe will not be tolerated. We are committed to finding those involved and fully investigating the circumstances.

“The repercussions of this split-second action could have been grave – we could potentially have been dealing with a murder investigation. Nobody should go to work fearing that they may never return home.”

British police forces have faced an increasing threat of violence from members of the public, particularly during the past year whilst policing protests attended by far-left activists.

A report from August 2020 revealed that London police had seen a 38 per cent increase in attacks on officers between May and July, compared to the same period the year before. The Met said that policing protests, including Black Lives Matter demonstrations, “contributed” to the rise.",-0.3444208075245271
"A 26-year-old Afghan migrant faces up to ten years in prison after being charged with child endangerment following the drowning of his six-year-old son while trying to reach Europe by boat from Turkey.

The charges are related to a shipwreck off the Greek island of Samos in the Aegean Sea on November 8th, 2020. The case could present a major challenge to migrants attempting to make the voyage to Europe to claim asylum if the Afghan is convicted, Dimitris Choulis, the lawyer for the accused, has claimed.

According to a report from the Greek newspaper Proto Thema, the prosecution of the Afghan father is the first of its kind in Europe.

Despite accusations from the Afghan’s lawyer that the prosecution is an attack on the right to asylum, Greek Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi stressed that the case was not to be taken as a sign that the government was cracking down on migration.

Greece Appoints New Assistant Minister Who Labelled Migrants ‘Unarmed Invaders’ https://t.co/39wqT9ab1p — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 8, 2021

The accused Afghan, whose asylum application was rejected twice in Turkey, spoke to the Associated Press this week about the shipwreck, stating: “I didn’t come here for fun. I was compelled.”

“I decided to go for the future of my son, for my future, so we can go somewhere to live, and my son can study,” he added.

While the migrant faces prosecution for his son’s death, he is also preparing to sue the Greek government over the Greek response to the shipwrecked vessel, claiming that the coastguard delayed rescue operations.

The Greek coastguard said that it received the first distress calls from NGO Aegean Boat Report at 12:06 am, according to Deutsche Welle, but the NGO claims that the migrants stated they had received no help over an hour later. The coastguard said that it sent vessels to the area immediately after getting the first distress call.

“If there is the loss of human life, it must be investigated whether some people, through negligence or deliberately, acted outside the limits of the law,” Minister Mitarachi said.

Noting that the migrants’ lives are not in danger in Turkey, he added: “The people who choose to get into boats, which are unseaworthy and are driven by people who have no experience of the sea, obviously put human lives at risk.”

Since the height of the migrant crisis in 2015, there have been several shipwrecks off the coast of Greece. According to the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum, between 2014 and 2020, more than 1.2 million migrants tried to cross the Aegean to get to Greece and more than 2,000 of them died in the process.

In one incident in 2016, an estimated 41 people died in two shipwrecks in the Aegean on the same night, with 17 being children.

A Greek newspaper has blamed NGOs for a surge of arrivals of African migrants, mainly from Somalia, claiming that between 2,000 and 2,500 migrants are currently in Turkey being helped to enter Greece illegally. https://t.co/i7L6RRRu9Q — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) December 20, 2020",0.5630022717829831
"Sales of previously owned homes dropped in February, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Total existing-home sales dropped 6.6 percent from January to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 6.22 million, the National Association of Realtors said Monday. This followed two months of higher sales.

Despite the February retreat, home sales were up 9.1 percent compared with a year ago.

The supply of homes on the market fell 29.5 percent year-over-year, the largest ever annual decline. At the current sales pace it would take two months to sell available inventory, a very low level of homes for sale.

Home prices continued to climb in February. The median price of homes sold rose 15.8 percent compared with a year prior, to $313,000. That is the highest price point for February on record.

Sales of homes priced above $1 million were 81 percent higher compared with a year ago. Low end homes, priced between $100,000 and $250,0000, fell 11 percent.

Existing home sales are measured at closing, so the February figures largely reflect purchases that went under contract in January or December.

Sales were down on a monthly basis in the Northeast, the South, and the Midwest. Sales were up 4.6 percent in the West. All areas are up year-0ver-year.",0.7170568674386936
"Sales of previously owned homes dropped in February, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Total existing-home sales dropped 6.6 percent from January to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 6.22 million, the National Association of Realtors said Monday. This followed two months of higher sales.

Despite the February retreat, home sales were up 9.1 percent compared with a year ago.

The supply of homes on the market fell 29.5 percent year-over-year, the largest ever annual decline. At the current sales pace it would take two months to sell available inventory, a very low level of homes for sale.

Home prices continued to climb in February. The median price of homes sold rose 15.8 percent compared with a year prior, to $313,000. That is the highest price point for February on record.

Sales of homes priced above $1 million were 81 percent higher compared with a year ago. Low end homes, priced between $100,000 and $250,0000, fell 11 percent.

Existing home sales are measured at closing, so the February figures largely reflect purchases that went under contract in January or December.

Sales were down on a monthly basis in the Northeast, the South, and the Midwest. Sales were up 4.6 percent in the West. All areas are up year-0ver-year.",-0.10355576551880098
"As the hype around Non-Fungible Token (NFT) art continues to grow, many are ridiculing the craze including British actor and comedian John Cleese who is now selling his own drawing of the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT. Cleese commented on the blockchain-based NFT craze, saying “The world has gone terminally insane.”

Vanity Fair reports that the NFT crazy has only grown in recent months to the surprise of many. Now even some celebrities are joining in on the craze, some looking to profit from the trend and others simply to ridicule what they believe to be the ridiculous concept of NFTs.

One such celebrity is British actor and comedian John Cleese, famous for his work in Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, and A Fish Called Wanda amongst many others. Vanity Fair writes:

You have never heard of the artist known as the “Unnamed Artist” before, but by the end of the week (perhaps by the end of this article), he could end up being one of the most famous artists alive today. His work may end up selling for more than a Manet, a de Kooning, or a Picasso. “I have no idea what’s going on,” the Unnamed Artist told me in a phone interview hours before his first NFT was about to go live at auction. “But in this particular realm, no one has any idea what’s going on.” If, when you see the Unnamed Artist for the first time, he looks familiar to you, and even looks a little like John Cleese, the actor from Fawlty Towers, Monty Python, and A Fish Called Wanda, then you probably have no idea what’s going on, either. That’s because, on Friday, Cleese—also known, as of Friday, as the “Unnamed Artist”—is going to be selling an illustration of the Brooklyn Bridge he did on his iPad as an NFT. The “buy it now” price for this digital work is being set at $69,346,250.50. The crazy thing is, he actually might get it. Just a couple of weeks ago, most people had never heard of an NFT, or a “non-fungible token.” A couple of months before that, even people in the tech trenches had no idea what an NFT was. NFT employs technology similar to that behind cryptocurrencies and exists only on the blockchain. The best way to understand how NFTs differ from traditional cryptocurrencies is to put your mind in the physical world for a minute. Imagine if you and I were standing across from each other and we both had 10 one-dollar bills. If I swapped one of my dollar bills for one of your dollar bills, we’d both still have $10 in our hands. Bitcoin and other crypto work in the same way. Regardless of which Bitcoin you have, you have one Bitcoin (and whatever monetary value that is worth). NFTs, on the other hand, are all different. They are more akin to standing in front of someone with a stack of trading cards, where each card is unique. So while they all sit on the blockchain, NFTs are one of a kind, verifiable assets that are easy to trade, but can’t ever be forged or copied. But what they are actually used for is a whole different quandary, and the world seems to have gone mad trying to make, buy, and sell them.

Breitbart News recently reported that a Brooklyn-based film director named Alex Ramírez-Mallis is both mocking and attempting to profit from the recent cryptocurrency craze for NFTs by selling a year’s worth of fart audio clips recorded in quarantine.

Ramírez-Mallis told the New York Post: “If people are selling digital art and GIFs, why not sell farts?” His NFT, titled “One Calendar Year of Recorded Farts,” began development in March 2020 when he and his four friends began sharing recordings of their farts to a group chat on WhatsApp.

Ramírez-Mallis discussed the concept of NFTs referencing screenshots of screenshots and the concept of colors which are currently being sold, stating: “The NFT craze is absurd — this idea of putting a value on something inherently intangible. These NFTs aren’t even farts, they’re just digital alphanumeric strings that represent ownership.”

“I’m hoping these NFT farts can at once critique [the absurdity], make people laugh and make me rich,” he said. He did note that there is a historical precedent for the concept of NFTs, stating: “In many ways, this is a bubble, but it’s also been around forever. Buying and selling art purely as a commodity to store value in has been around for centuries, and NFTs are just a digital way of representing that transactional nature of art.”

Read more about John Cleese’s foray into NFTs at Vanity Fair here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com",-0.4868995920204823
"As the hype around Non-Fungible Token (NFT) art continues to grow, many are ridiculing the craze including British actor and comedian John Cleese who is now selling his own drawing of the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT. Cleese commented on the blockchain-based NFT craze, saying “The world has gone terminally insane.”

Vanity Fair reports that the NFT crazy has only grown in recent months to the surprise of many. Now even some celebrities are joining in on the craze, some looking to profit from the trend and others simply to ridicule what they believe to be the ridiculous concept of NFTs.

One such celebrity is British actor and comedian John Cleese, famous for his work in Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, and A Fish Called Wanda amongst many others. Vanity Fair writes:

You have never heard of the artist known as the “Unnamed Artist” before, but by the end of the week (perhaps by the end of this article), he could end up being one of the most famous artists alive today. His work may end up selling for more than a Manet, a de Kooning, or a Picasso. “I have no idea what’s going on,” the Unnamed Artist told me in a phone interview hours before his first NFT was about to go live at auction. “But in this particular realm, no one has any idea what’s going on.” If, when you see the Unnamed Artist for the first time, he looks familiar to you, and even looks a little like John Cleese, the actor from Fawlty Towers, Monty Python, and A Fish Called Wanda, then you probably have no idea what’s going on, either. That’s because, on Friday, Cleese—also known, as of Friday, as the “Unnamed Artist”—is going to be selling an illustration of the Brooklyn Bridge he did on his iPad as an NFT. The “buy it now” price for this digital work is being set at $69,346,250.50. The crazy thing is, he actually might get it. Just a couple of weeks ago, most people had never heard of an NFT, or a “non-fungible token.” A couple of months before that, even people in the tech trenches had no idea what an NFT was. NFT employs technology similar to that behind cryptocurrencies and exists only on the blockchain. The best way to understand how NFTs differ from traditional cryptocurrencies is to put your mind in the physical world for a minute. Imagine if you and I were standing across from each other and we both had 10 one-dollar bills. If I swapped one of my dollar bills for one of your dollar bills, we’d both still have $10 in our hands. Bitcoin and other crypto work in the same way. Regardless of which Bitcoin you have, you have one Bitcoin (and whatever monetary value that is worth). NFTs, on the other hand, are all different. They are more akin to standing in front of someone with a stack of trading cards, where each card is unique. So while they all sit on the blockchain, NFTs are one of a kind, verifiable assets that are easy to trade, but can’t ever be forged or copied. But what they are actually used for is a whole different quandary, and the world seems to have gone mad trying to make, buy, and sell them.

Breitbart News recently reported that a Brooklyn-based film director named Alex Ramírez-Mallis is both mocking and attempting to profit from the recent cryptocurrency craze for NFTs by selling a year’s worth of fart audio clips recorded in quarantine.

Ramírez-Mallis told the New York Post: “If people are selling digital art and GIFs, why not sell farts?” His NFT, titled “One Calendar Year of Recorded Farts,” began development in March 2020 when he and his four friends began sharing recordings of their farts to a group chat on WhatsApp.

Ramírez-Mallis discussed the concept of NFTs referencing screenshots of screenshots and the concept of colors which are currently being sold, stating: “The NFT craze is absurd — this idea of putting a value on something inherently intangible. These NFTs aren’t even farts, they’re just digital alphanumeric strings that represent ownership.”

“I’m hoping these NFT farts can at once critique [the absurdity], make people laugh and make me rich,” he said. He did note that there is a historical precedent for the concept of NFTs, stating: “In many ways, this is a bubble, but it’s also been around forever. Buying and selling art purely as a commodity to store value in has been around for centuries, and NFTs are just a digital way of representing that transactional nature of art.”

Read more about John Cleese’s foray into NFTs at Vanity Fair here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com",0.08356037890453444
"Most GOP senators are dodging the Democrats’ efforts to seduce them into joining very unpopular amnesty bills by citing President Joe Biden’s border meltdown, according to Politico.

“Many of us support giving a path to citizenship,” to younger illegal migrants, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), told Politico. “But now the border is such a disaster that I don’t see how you can do just a bill to deal with [that],” she said March 18.

Politico accepts the border rationale for the GOP evasiveness — and ignores the huge unpopularity of wage-cutting amnesty bills even if the border is under control. In 2014, GOP Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) made that mistake and lost his seat in a surprise primary defeat.

The March 19 Politico report cited other GOP senators’ claim that Biden’s border problem precludes amnesty deals:

“There’s no scenario I would support even what we called the SUCCEED Act, which was a path to citizenship for the [Dreamers], without it being paired with border security,” [Sen. Thom] Tillis said, referring to the conservative alternative to the DREAM Act that he had endorsed. … “I’m in the bipartisan group, but we haven’t touched it,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). “There’s a problem that needs to be fixed, but I don’t think we’re anywhere near stepping up to it right now.” … “The concern is, as soon as you bring something up to even start discussing it [an amnesty], you’re going to get a surge,” [Sen. James] Lankford said. “So if you’re not ready to really do it, you shouldn’t play with that. I don’t hear us ready to do it.”

Establishment GOP senators have an incentive to hide behind Biden’s mismanagement at the border — it allows them to dodge incompatible and competing demands by voters and business donors, either to block or approve amnesties and migration expansion bills. By talking about the border, the reporters and GOP senators can also jointly ignore the central question — whether migration and amnesty are good for working Americans’ pocketbooks.

Democrat senators need ten GOP senators to overcome the 60-vote threshold for scheduling votes in the Senate. So far, only two GOP senators have attached their names to bills that would amnesty illegal aliens and import even more workers for the jobs needed by Americans.

The zig-zag strategy is also useful because the GOP senators know that immigrant voters cost them their Senate majority in the January 2021 Senate races in Georgia. Any further amnesties will likely push the GOP — and their careers — into long-term political irrelevance and also push the smaller Red states into political oblivion.

The main GOP supporter for amnesty, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), says deals are off the table until Biden recovers control of the border. “We find ourselves in a situation where there is no way forward until you control the border,” Graham told a pro-amnesty March 17 press conference on Capitol Hill. He continued:

The Biden administration has created chaos where there was order [under former President Donald Trump]. And the only way we’ll ever be able to sit down with our Democratic colleagues is for us to regain control of the border, and I want to say without any hesitation, Biden has lost control of the U.S. Mexican border. Until he regains control by implementing policies that work, it’s going to be very hard to do the [DACA young illegal aliens] “dreamers” or anybody else. Why? Because … legalizing anybody under these circumstances will lead to even more illegal immigration.

To Democrats, he said:

So if you’re serious about solving the immigration problem, you will be serious about changing our laws on asylum, you will finish building the wall where it makes sense. You will restore the Remain in Mexico policy, you will go back into the treaties with the [Northern] Triangle countries because that will lead to the calmness at the border we need to find a solution here in Washington.

The evasive, zig-zag strategy adopted by many GOP senators shows the intense pressure they are under from voters and business donors.

The donors gain greatly each time the government OKs another huge inflow of migrants who serve as cheap workers, taxpayer-aided consumers, and high-occupancy renters. But while business groups offer valuable donations — the populist groups can expand or shrink the politicians’ vital vote totals.

The populist groups include Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, NumbersUSA, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform. They have to compete with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the tech companies advocacy groups, such as FWD.us.

A few GOP senators are standing up for amnesty talks:

Sen Rick Scott (R-FL) has drafted an amnesty for at least one million illegal aliens, which his staffers are quietly trying to sell an amnesty bill to staffers who work for other GOP senators. But his office is suggesting that Biden’s policy makes a deal less likely.

“Senator Scott does not support amnesty,” a staffer told Breitbart. “Look at what Biden’s open borders and amnesty plan is doing to our Southern border. Senator Scott has long said reforms to the immigration system become much more simple once the border is secure, and that’s his focus.”

Scott is in charge of fundraising for the Senate GOP’s 2022 campaigns, so he is under intense pressure to import for business donors a new round of cheap labor, taxpayer-aided consumers, and high-occupancy renters.

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) has announced he will propose an amnesty for a million illegal farmworkers and combine it with a plan to import very cheap H-23A visa workers to fill up all the jobs — and more — that will be opened up when the amnesty’s migrants move to non-agriculture jobs in towns and cities.

“House passage of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act is an important step toward bringing certainty to our country’s agriculture industry and the hard-working producers and farmworkers,” said a statement from Crapo and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO). “We will work together to introduce companion legislation in the U.S. Senate that appropriately addresses the needs of both the industry and the farmworkers that uphold it.”

But that bipartisan swap — cheap workers for the industry in exchange for amnestied farmworkers for Democrats — leaves many ordinary Idahoans and their rural communities in the dust. The H-2A workers would be so cheap that they will be used for additional jobs now held by Americans, and they will also take most of their meager payroll — and their possible tax payments — back home with them every year.

Retiring Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) is also talking up hopes for a deal, Politico reported:

He opposed the sweeping bill in 2013 but wants to put something together before he leaves the chamber and is the GOP’s rare optimist when it comes to seeing the potential for a deal: “I do. But no one else does.”

Portman is one of five retiring GOP senators, along with Roy Blunt (R-MO), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Richard Burr (R-NC) and Richard Shelby (R-AL). The pro-amnesty groups will target them for votes, in part, because they do not have to fear the voters’ response.

In July 2019, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) complained about the voters’ objecting to his pro-amnesty, business-first perspective, saying, “The problem is, Republicans, fear that no matter what you do, someone is going to start screaming amnesty … And if you don’t know, in a Republican primary that [can be] devastating. I know that. I’ve been accused of that.”

On March 18, Simpson denied that his vote for the 2021 farmworker amnesty is a vote for amnesty, saying:

This bill is not about what’s happening at the southern border … this bill is not amnesty. It does not grant anybody amnesty. It allows individuals to get right with the law and to become a legal workforce in the United States. It’s about providing a stable, legal workforce for the people who put food on our tables.

For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to legal migration, labor migration, and to the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.

The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.

The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves wealth from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from agriculture-heavy and central states to the coastal states.",-0.4949538936901712
"Multinational corporate executives, who often serve as the biggest donors for the nation’s political class, are the driving forces behind an amnesty plan passed by House Democrats and nine House Republicans.

Last week, the House passed H.R. 6, known as the “Dream and Promise Act of 2021,” to provide potentially 4.4 million illegal aliens with amnesty and put them on a track for American citizenship. All 218 House Democrats voted to support the amnesty and nine House Republicans joined them, including:

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE)

Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL)

Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA)

Rep. David Valadao (R-CA)

Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI)

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA)

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ)

Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL)

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL)

The amnesty’s biggest backers are a series of multinational corporations and their executives who often provide campaign cash to lawmakers.

In a March letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the corporations’ executives urged the Senate to pass the expansive amnesty.

“This important legislation has our strong support and we ask that you and your colleagues consider and pass it in the immediate weeks ahead,” the executives wrote.

The full letter can be read here:

Schumer McConnell Letter by John Binder

Those who signed off on the letter include tech conglomerates like Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Google, IBM, Uber, and PayPal. Also lobbying for the amnesty is the United States Chamber of Commerce, Visa, Marriott International, Verizon, Johnson & Johnson, Chobani, Starbucks, General Motors, Target, and Hilton.

A flooded U.S. labor market has been well documented for its wage-crushing side effects, so much so that economist George Borjas has called mass immigration the “largest anti-poverty program” at the expense of America’s working and lower-middle class. The biggest winners are corporations and investors who can not only keep the cost of labor low, but also have a steady stream of consumers to buy their products and services.

Other research finds current legal immigration to the U.S. results in more than $530 billion worth of lost wages for Americans.

Recent peer-reviewed research by economist Christoph Albert acknowledges that “as immigrants accept lower wages, they are preferably chosen by firms and therefore have higher job finding rates than natives, consistent with evidence found in US data.”

Albert’s research also finds immigration “raises competition” for native-born Americans in the labor market. Similarly, research from June 2020 on U.S. wages and the labor market shows that a continuous flow of mass immigration exerts “stronger labor market competition” on newly arrived immigrants than even native-born Americans, thus contributing to the wage gap.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), likewise, has repeatedly noted mass immigration cuts Americans’ wages.

In 2013, CBO analysis stated that the “Gang of Eight” amnesty plan would “slightly” push down wages for the American workers. A 2020 CBO analysis stated “immigration has exerted downward pressure on the wages of relatively low-skilled workers who are already in the country, regardless of their birthplace.”

Every year, about 1.2 million legal immigrants receive green cards to permanently resettle in the U.S. In addition, 1.4 million foreign nationals get temporary visas to fill U.S. jobs that would otherwise go to Americans.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.",0.05678029533170793
"Jeff Bezos’ pro-migration Washington Post is warning President Joe Biden his failure to control fast-growing migration through the U.S. southern border threatens the Democrats’ political power in Washington, DC.

The warning was buried in the last paragraph of a March 19 editorial by the newspaper’s editorial board:

Mr. Biden, intentionally or not, has encouraged the flow, in the name of a more humane policy. Americans would be wise to welcome a new approach while insisting on orderly management at the border, along with focused enforcement and messaging, to prevent a surge from becoming a real crisis.

The editorial was mostly supportive of Biden, but it was headlined: “The influx of migrants isn’t a crisis. But it could become one without careful management.”

The editorial is worried that Biden’s policy is threatening Democratic power:

The main risks are political — for Democrats, forced to defend the administration’s border policies as they seek to retain control of Congress next year — and humanitarian, for unaccompanied minors who have been packed into ill-equipped border stations. Officials are deploying the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the border and opened additional facilities in Texas to handle an overflow that must not be allowed to get out of hand.

But the newspaper downplays Biden’s role in starting the migration and instead blames coyotes and cartels for supposedly fooling migrants into thinking that Biden will accept migrants’ entry into the United States.

In reality, the Biden administration demolished President Donald Trump’s multi-layer diplomatic and legal barriers to the inflow of migrants eager for jobs in the United States.

Since January, the administration has tried to keep the media focused on a small number of children amid the growing inflow of job-ready “Unaccompanied Alien Child” teenagers, the rising rush of “get-aways” adult male illegals, and the expanding flow of the illegals’ wives and children who are being allowed to enter via the nation’s expanding asylum doorway.

Administration officials are eager to portray this government-backed migration as driven by “push” factors in the migrants’ home countries, such as floods, crime, corruption. They are eager to downplay the “pull” factors in U.S. policy — such as the expanded asylum welcome — that help extract the next wave of migrants and send them on the dangerous trek to U.S. jobs, apartments, and K-12 schools.

But a March 20 news article in the Washington Post shows that poor migrants are rationally accepting Biden’s offer of easy migration into Americans’ jobs, apartments, schools, and society:

In the meantime, one clear message has resonated with migrants. The week after Rice’s border visit, [Rep. Henry] Cuellar [D-TX] visited a detention facility for migrant children in Carrizo Springs, Tex. Cuellar said he asked 16- and 17-year-olds whether they had heard Biden when he said not to come to the United States. The teenagers looked at each other and said no, he recalled. Okay, Cuellar pressed, what about the messages from friends, neighbors and family saying now is the time to come — were they hearing those? “They all raised their hands and said yes,” Cuellar recalled. “They said, ‘We see this on TV. We see images of people coming across. . . . We see people coming across, so we’re going to do the same thing.’”

“This,” the migrants told him, “is our opportunity to do this.” For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to legal migration, labor migration, and to the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates. The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim. The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from the central states to the coastal states.",0.7302449395403018
"For the first time in over 85 years, Monopoly’s 16 Community Chest Cards are about to get a “long overdue” refresh, Hasbro announced Thursday.

“True to its longstanding history of inviting its fans to help make changes to the game, and during a time when community means more than ever before, Monopoly is asking consumers worldwide to determine the new cards by voting at MonopolyCommunityChest.com,” the company said in a press release.

The release continued:

Covering topics like beauty contests, holiday funds, and life insurance, there is no denying the Monopoly game’s Community Chest Cards are long overdue for a refresh. And, coming out of the tumultuous year of 2020, the term “community” has taken on a whole new meaning. Hasbro is counting on their fans to help reflect what community means in their real lives, into the Monopoly game, by voting for new cards like “Shop Local,” “Rescue A Puppy,” or “Help Your Neighbors.”

Hasbro asked social media users to help make the changes by voting for their favorite cards online:

Yup, you read that right: THE MONOPOLY GAME is changing, and YOU get to be a part of it. 🙌 Help us add a little community to the Community Chest by voting for your favorite new cards now! https://t.co/CqlNVlE7C6#CommunityChest pic.twitter.com/hJ55V1w2Ai — Hasbro (@Hasbro) March 18, 2021

According to the Monopoly website where players may vote, card options include rescuing a puppy to get out of jail free or being penalized for not recycling your trash.

“The world has changed a lot since Monopoly became a household name more than 85 years ago, and clearly today community is more important than ever,” commented Eric Nyman, chief consumer officer at Hasbro.

“We felt like 2021 was the perfect time to give fans the opportunity to show the world what community means to them through voting on new Community Chest Cards. We’re really excited to see what new cards get voted in!” Nyman said.

However, some Twitter followers expressed disagreement with the decision.

“These cards don’t fit with the goal of bankrupting everyone else and they don’t carry the same recognition as some of the older cards. If someone made a joke about winning second prize in a beauty pageant I would instantly know it was about Monopoly,” one person replied.

Another called it a “terrible idea” and said Monopoly is a classic board game for a reason.

“Make a new woke version if you must but please leave the original game as it is. Hopefully you feel the pain of a massive boycott while you’re on the cancel culture bandwagon,” the user stated.

The updated game will be available this fall but it was unclear if a classic version of the game would still be sold.",-0.29083278429279885
"A majority of Americans believe they are already paying their fair share in taxes, Rasmussen Reports found. The survey comes on the heels of the Biden administration considering a significant tax hike.

The survey, fielded among 1,000 U.S. adults from March 16-17, 2021, asked respondents, “Compared to people who make more or less than you, do you pay more than your fair share of taxes?”

Fifty-one percent said “yes,” they pay more than their fair share, followed by 27 percent who said “no,” and 22 percent who remained unsure. Those opinions vary greatly on party lines, as 59 percent of Republicans believe they pay more than fair share compared to 49 percent of Democrats and 48 percent of independents who expressed the same view.

Just over 20 percent of Republicans said they do not pay more than their fair share, compared to 33 percent of Democrats and 25 percent of independents who said the same.

The survey coincides with reports of President Joe Biden considering a tax hike, which would be the “first major lift in federal taxes in almost 30 years if successful”:

Tax hikes included as part of infrastructure and job packages will likely include repealing part of former President Trump‘s 2017 tax law that benefitted corporations and wealthy individuals, the news outlet notes, citing sources close to the matter. As Breitbart News reported, Biden twice flagged his desire to raise taxes on everyone, including the middle class, during last year’s presidential debates. “That’s why I’m going to eliminate the Trump tax cuts,” Biden said during his first of two debates with President Trump. And then, to accentuate the point, he said it again, “I’m going to eliminate those tax cuts.”

Rasmussen’s survey has a margin of error of +/- 3 percent.",-1.1418852911058575
"A recent report from CNN outlines how social media platforms are now having to work harder to keep content creators and online talent exclusive to their platforms. Platforms are throwing cash at prominent content creators, for example, one pair of influencers recently received almost $30,000 for a single Snapchat video.

In an article titled “Social Media Platforms Are Going to War For Online Talent,” CNN reports that social media websites are having to fight to attract and keep online content creators on their platforms.

CNN discussed two online creators, Katerina and Yinon Horwitz, who recently received almost $30,000 from Snapchat from just one video they posted to Snapchat’s short-form video hub, Spotlight. CNN writes:

Creators are the lifeblood of any social media platform, driving trends and engagement and building a loyal community. But increasingly, social media companies seem to be waking up to the reality Horwitz described: Creators may join a platform to build an audience, but ultimately the platform has to pay up for them to stick around. In recent months, major tech companies have stepped up to try to do just that, rolling out more and more ways for creators to make money on their platforms, both from ad revenue on their content and direct handouts. Snapchat is paying out a total of $1 million a day to those users who make the most entertaining videos for its TikTok rival Spotlight. TikTok launched a $200 million creator fund last year, which promises to reach hundreds of thousands of creators with plans for it to grow to $1 billion over the next three years. Twitter recently announced it’s exploring the possibility of users becoming paid subscribers to their favorite Twitter accounts. And on Sunday, the audio-focused app Clubhouse announced an accelerator program aimed at helping aspiring creators build and monetize an audience. These announcements reflect both the value of top content creators to the platforms and the fact that there have never been more avenues for internet personalities to make money directly.

Ben Ricciardi, founder of influencer marketing agency Times10, commented to CNN: “Social media is a war right now. Twitter is trying to figure out ways to bring back larger and larger audiences. Snap is really incentivizing creators to try to come back to the platform or spend more time on the platform.”

Read more at CNN here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com",-1.155505376080949
"A Brooklyn-based film director is mocking and profiting off the recent cryptocurrency craze for Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) by selling a year’s worth of fart audio clips.

The New York Post reports that a Brooklyn-based film director named Alex Ramírez-Mallis is both mocking and attempting to profit from the recent cryptocurrency craze for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) by selling a year’s worth of fart audio clips recorded in quarantine.

Ramírez-Mallis told the Post: “If people are selling digital art and GIFs, why not sell farts?” His NFT, titled “One Calendar Year of Recorded Farts,” began development in March 2020 when he and his four friends began sharing recordings of their farts to a group chat on WhatsApp.

On the one-year anniversary of the US’s coronavirus quarantine this month, Ramírez-Mallis and his farting friends compiled the recordings into a 52-minute long “Master Collection” audio file. The top bid for the NFT is now $361.89

Individual fart recordings are also available for 0.05 Ethereum or around $85 each. “If the value increases, they could have an extremely valuable fart on their hands,” Ramírez-Mallis said.

Ramírez-Mallis discussed the concept of NFTs referencing screenshots of screenshots and the concept of colors which are currently being sold, stating: “The NFT craze is absurd — this idea of putting a value on something inherently intangible. These NFTs aren’t even farts, they’re just digital alphanumeric strings that represent ownership.”

“I’m hoping these NFT farts can at once critique [the absurdity], make people laugh and make me rich,” he said. He did note that there is a historical precedent for the concept of NFTs, stating: “In many ways, this is a bubble, but it’s also been around forever. Buying and selling art purely as a commodity to store value in has been around for centuries, and NFTs are just a digital way of representing that transactional nature of art.”

Read more at the New York Post here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com",0.35788125857200337
"Representatives from leftist groups parked a mobile digital billboard outside of the Department of Interior’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Thursday to praise newly-minted Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to head the agency in charge of some 500 million acres, or about one-fifth, of the land in the United States.

The activists who sponsored the display billed themselves as “Indigenous women, environmental advocates, and citizens concerned about climate change.”

The messages displayed on the billboard reveal what direction they want Haaland to take while leading the agency.

“Secretary Haaland will be a fierce advocate for clean air and water, for our land, and for its relatives,” Nikki Pitre, executive director at the Center for Native American Youth, said.

“This is a proud moment for Indigenous people! Secretary Haaland is the fierce leader we need. She’ll lead us like our ancestors have — from our cultural foundations and teachings rooted in Mother Earth,” Allie Young, director of Protect the Sacred, said.

“Secretary Haaland is the perfect person to lead the interior department. She brings the Indigenous understanding that the present is where our collective past connects to our collective future,” Judith LeBlanc, director of Native Organizers Alliance, said.

“Secretary Haaland, may our ancestors guide and protect your leadership. Indigenous women will continue to fight fiercely for reflective representation so you are the first of many,” Anathea Chino, co-founder and executive director of Advance Native Political Leadership, said.

“There has always been Two Spirit Warriors and Indigenous Womxn in positions of power since before first contact. Today, we are fierce, evolved versions of our ancestors they could not kill,” Candi Brings Plenty, Oglala Lakota Sioux/Indigenous justice organizer and lobbyist with the ACLU, said.

“You are the reflection of our ancestors. Lead with compassion as so many grandmothers did before you. Honor our treaties as it is the supreme law of the land and continue to fight against injustice,” Krystal Curley, executive director of Indigenous Life Ways, said.

“Native leadership and values are crucial to protecting the planet for future generations. We are proud of and support Secretary Haaland as she continues to make history!” Crystal Echo Hawk, founder and executive director of IllumiNative, said.

The other groups involved in the billboard project include UltraViolet, ACLU South Dakota, and the Center for Native American Youth at the Aspen Institute.

“We have many reasons to celebrate Interior Secretary Deb Haaland,” Elisa Batista, campaign director at UltraViolet, said in a press release announcing the billboard. “Besides her historic nomination, she is exactly the type of experienced public lands champion we need at the helm of Interior to implement the Biden-Harris conservation and climate plan, expand access to the outdoors, and put people before oil and gas profits.”

“For years, Secretary Deb Haaland has been at the forefront of crafting thoughtful solutions to combating the climate crisis through America’s public lands,” Batista said.

“After four years of the Trump administration looting our public lands and wreaking havoc on our climate and environment, Deb Haaland has the experience and drive needed to put us back on the right path,” Batista said.

Haaland has expressed support for President Joe Biden’s promise to ban all oil drilling leases on public land but has also signaled she will protect those same drilling leases on Indian land.

Indian tribes and western states with public land both benefit from oil and gas production because of royalties and other fees.

Follow Penny Starr on Twitter or send news tips to pstarr@breitbart.com",0.0020468717139372305
"Twitter locked the account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on the same day that Democrats launched an effort to expel her from the House of Representatives, in a move the company later said was an “error.”

The Silicon Valley tech giant previously suspended the congresswoman’s account in January, after she discussed allegations of fraud in the 2020 election.

This time, Twitter says the suspension was an error.

According to a Twitter spokesperson, “our automated systems took enforcement action on the account referenced in error. This action has been reversed, and access to the account has been reinstated.”

Responding to the incident, Rep. Greene called on Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to identify the employee at Twitter who made the error.

“I was just told Twitter suspended me for 12 hrs in ‘error,’ on the same day Dems introduced a resolution to expel me from Congress,” said Rep. Greene ” What a coincidence?”

“Twitter’s little error wasn’t resolved until after 12 hrs. @Jack which employee made the ‘error’? Reply to my email, Jack.”

I was just told @Twitter suspended me for 12 hrs in “error,” on the same day Dems introduced a resolution to expel me from Congress. What a coincidence? Twitter’s little error wasn’t resolved until after 12 hrs.@jack which employee made the “error?” Reply to my email, Jack — Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) March 19, 2021

The incident occurred as Democrats in Congress launched an effort to expel Rep. Greene from the House.

Democrats have repeatedly targeted Rep. Greene since she was elected in the November elections. In February, Democrats passed a resolution stripping the congresswoman of her committee assignments, a move that was also backed by 11 Republicans.

More recently, the Democrat representative of Guam in Congress, Rep. Michael F.Q. San Nicolas drew condemnation from across the political spectrum after he led members of the Guam National Guard to Rep. Greene’s office in what was widely described as a political stunt. It occurred in the same week that senior members of the military intervened in a political debate by publicly criticizing Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

I stand with Marjorie Taylor Greene! — Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) March 19, 2021

In a post on Twitter, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) expressed his support for his Republican colleague.

“I stand with Marjorie Taylor Greene!” said Rep. Gaetz.

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.",-0.49641156469339126
"Americans are not waiting for permission to travel. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still advise against travel but data from March shows Americans are springing ahead with travel plans.

Hotel bookings rose to their highest level in over a year, data released Thursday show. Hotel Occupancy reached 52.1 percent in the second week of March, according to industry data from STR.

Year over year percentage changes are now favorable because we’ve past the anniversary of the pandemic lockdowns. Compared with 2019, occupancy is running at about 70 to 75 percent, STR said.

Air travel is up as well. Yesterday, 1.4 million people passed through TSA checkpoints, the highest level of travel in over a year. Compared with 2019, air travel is down 39.13 percent. A year ago, just 779,000 passengers boarded planes.",1.1209790906526917
"Republican legislators in the Florida House of Representatives have introduced legislation to protect political candidates from censorship by big tech platforms.

The bill encapsulates many of the measures called for by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in his press conference on the tech censorship issue at the start of February.

The bill includes a measure to fine social media platforms that blacklist political candidates, $100,000 a day for statewide candidates (governors, senators, and presidential candidates) and $10,000 a day for “other candidates.”

However, the bill also notes that this will only be enforced “to the extent not inconsistent with federal law and 47 U.S.C. s. 230(e)(3),” the part of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that states “no cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section.”

The bill also includes extensive measures aimed at constraining tech companies’ ability to covertly prioritize content. It includes a definition of “shadow banning,” a practice long denied by the tech companies, as “action by a social media platform, through any means, whether the action is determined by a natural person or an algorithm, to limit or eliminate the exposure of a user or content or material posted by a user to other users of the social media platform. This term includes acts of shadow banning by a social media platform that are not readily apparent to a user.”

The bill would also mandate a period of 60 days for banned users of social media platforms to “access or retrieve all of the user’s information, content, material, and data.”

The bill can be read in full at the website of the Florida House of Representatives.

While the measures in the bill are extensive, it is facing criticism for not going far enough.

Laura Loomer, who was the Republican candidate for U.S. Congress in Florida’s 21st district in 2020 and is banned from most major tech platforms, said the fines of $100,000 a day for statewide candidates and $10,000 a day for non-statewide candidates would not be enough to deter billion-dollar companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter.

Loomer also highlighted that while the bill ostensibly penalizes tech companies for banning existing candidates, it includes no measures for re-platforming previously banned users who choose to run for office.

“President Donald Trump and I will only be able to benefit from Governor DeSantis’s proposed Big Tech legislation if it’s corrected to provide protection for people who were deplatformed prior to becoming candidates and prior to the legislation passing,” wrote Loomer in an article discussing the bill. “Donald Trump and I are both Palm Beach, FL residents and voters.”

In addition to Trump and Loomer, there are also hundreds of thousands of politically active American citizens who have also been banned from social media platforms and may wish to run for office one day.

Lack of access to social media would put them at a significant disadvantage in relation to their opponents, regardless of whether such candidates are Democrat, Republican, or third party.

The bill is still being debated in the Florida House and may be amended before passing. A companion bill in the Florida Senate will also have to be introduced before the legislation can pass.

Despite criticizing elements of the bill, Loomer has called on her supporters to call Florida representatives and ensure that a substantive bill reaches the desk of Governor DeSantis.

“If this legislation is crafted effectively… it would help put an end to Big Tech Censorship and deplatforming in Florida,” wrote Loomer.

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.",0.10228394402622229
"Thanks to the nationwide coronavirus closures and lockdowns in major movie markets from New York City to Los Angeles, the U.S. movie box office take crashed 80 percent last year, according to a new report by the Motion Picture Association.

The research found that the box office earnings fell to $2.2 billion in 2020, down 80 percent from 2019’s $11.4 billion.

The U.S. theatrical and mobile entertainment market earned $36.1 billion in 2019. But last year that take fell to $32.2 billion amid the coronavirus pandemic shutdowns. It is the lowest take since the $32 billion earned in 2017.

The final number, though, from the report also shows massive growth in streaming and video-on-demand services. Streaming earned $20 billion in 2019, but that take ballooned to $26.5 billion last year.

The report also found that China’s earnings surpassed that of North America for the first time ever. China’s entertainment market earned $3 billion to America’s $2.2 billion. Japan came in second with a take of $1.3 billion.

Per the Hollywood Reporter, The MPA report added:

“The past year was challenging for the global economy, and for virtually every aspect of our daily lives: the staggering loss of life, the toll on our frontline workers, the devastating and widespread loss of jobs and businesses, and the almost complete shutdown of many industries,” MPA chairman-CEO Charles Rivkin said in his letter introducing the 60 page-plus report. “Our workforce was not immune: Jobs were lost, productions were either curtailed or shut down, and movie theaters shuttered around the globe,” Rivkin continued. “But, during an otherwise punishing year for theatrical exhibition and our industry at large, home and curated entertainment boomed. The good news wasn’t just confined to homes, laptops, and other personal devices. As recent stories have shown, audiences never lost their appetite to enjoy the theatrical experience, and drive-in theaters enjoyed their highest returns in decades.”

During the pandemic in 2020, 55 percent of adults said their viewing habits on streaming increased, while 46 percent said their pay-TV use increased. The MPA report also found that users aged 18 to 39 were most likely to use mobile devices for daily viewing habits.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.",1.4938159949700107
"In a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Apple CEO Tim Cook boasted about his company’s social justice initiative amidst the coronavirus pandemic.

In a recent op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, Apple CEO Tim Cook reflects on the last year and the effect of the coronavirus pandemic, which he says was a year where “critical conversations about equity and systemic injustice attained both new urgency and a well-deserved central role in our national conversation.”

Cook goes on to discuss how the virus affected the world, and how “structural discrimination” resulted in some people being affected more negatively than others. Cook writes:

In simple theory, a disease should affect all of us equally. But in plain fact, the opposite is true. We have all seen, in real time, how structural discrimination and obstacles to opportunity do their work in a crisis. In our communities, every burden—from rates of infection and care outcomes, to economic adversity, to the challenges of virtual learning when schools are closed—falls heaviest on those for whom true equity has always been farthest from reach. As someone who grew up during the civil-rights movement, it has been frustrating to see how much work is still to be done but heartening to see the degree to which people of good will have set aside comfort with the status quo to march and to demand something better.

Cook stated that Apple’s approach to times of crisis is asking “how can we help?” which has resulted in investments in social justice and racial equality initiatives. Cook states:

And it’s led us to undertake major new investments through our Racial Equity and Justice Initiative. These projects include the Propel Center in Atlanta, which we’re helping to build in partnership with the country’s historically Black colleges and universities, to support the next generation of leaders of color in fields ranging from machine learning to app development, entrepreneurship to design; and our first Apple Developer Academy in the U.S., in downtown Detroit, home to more than 50,000 Black-owned businesses and no shortage of great ideas for the app economy.

Despite Cook’s dedication to social justice and racial equality, it appears that this dedication does not extend outside of America. It was reported last year that iPhone manufacturers in China were using forced labor from Uyghur Muslims held in Chinese concentration camps. Breitbart News reported at the time:

The Tech Transparency Project (TTP) is a non-profit watchdog group that has challenged claims by Western tech companies like Apple that their supply chains are completely free of forced labor. On Tuesday, TTP showed documents to the Washington Post that demonstrated thousands of Uyghurs were sent to work for Lens Technology, one of the oldest suppliers for Apple, Inc. Apple consistently claims it has “zero tolerance for forced labor” and conducts vigorous reviews to ensure no Uyghur labor is used in its products, and repeated that denial in response to the Washington Post report, but TTP said its documents prove there are indeed thousands of Uyghurs working at Lens Technology plants. “Our research shows that Apple’s use of forced labor in its supply chain goes far beyond what the company has acknowledged,” TTP director Katie Paul told the Washington Post. “Apple claims to take extraordinary measures to monitor its supply chain for such problems, but the evidence we found was openly available on the Internet,” she added.

Read more at Breitbart News here, and read Cook’s full op-ed in the Washington Post here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com",-0.2559652399834851
"China will control Laos’s electricity grid for the next quarter-century according to a concession agreement the Laotian government signed with a majority Chinese-owned power company revealed this week.

The company, Électricité du Laos Transmission Company Ltd. (EDLT), formed on September 1 after Électricité du Laos and China Southern Power Grid Company signed a shareholding agreement giving China Southern a majority of shares in the new corporate entity. Laos said at the time that handing China a majority of shares in EDLT was necessary while Électricité du Laos grappled with immense debt.

“EDLT will invest U.S. $2 billion to build, manage and control the Lao power grid for a 25-year concession period. After 25 years, the business will be transferred to the Lao government,” an official of the Lao Ministry of Energy and Mines told Radio Free Asia on March 12.

“Given the current economic downturn and the enormous debt, the Lao government does not have the ability to manage and operate a network of powerlines, so they decided to allow the Chinese, who have the finances, technological aptitude, and manpower to take over,” the official explained.

“The deal is bad. … Normally in a cooperative agreement, the foreign company transfers technology or knowledge to the host. But not the Chinese,” an energy expert at the Lao Ministry of Energy and Mines told RFA on condition of anonymity.

“When they installed a powerline system in the Lao National Convention Center in Vientiane, they did not provide us with any instructions. When the electrical system breaks down … or when we want to make improvements to the building, we have to call in Chinese technicians,” he alleged.

The signing ceremony for the EDLT agreement granting China a 25-year concession to control Laos’s power grid took place in the Laotian capital of Vientiane on March 12. Sonexay Siphandone, who serves as both Laos’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Planning and Investment, attended the signing along with Chinese Ambassador to Laos Jiang Zaidong and other representatives from both sides.

“[A]s a fundamental and pillar industry, electricity is a key element in building the China-Laos community with a shared future, which serves as a propeller for economic and social development,” Chinese Ambassador Jiang said after attending the event.

“By setting an example of China-Laos friendly cooperation, we could pay tribute to the 2021 China-Laos Friendship Year, and make contributions to building the China-Laos community with a shared future,” he told Xinhua, China’s official state-run press agency.",0.1708340647901264
"U.S. President Joe Biden has appeared to side with the EU as it launches legal action against Brexit Britain, backing its imposition of internal borders between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.

“President Biden has been unequivocal in his support for the Good Friday Agreement which was a historic achievement and as he said on the campaign trail last year we need to ensure that it does not become a casualty of Brexit,” said a senior White House official on behalf of the anti-Brexit Democrat politician, in comments reported by the Belfast News Letter.

“At the same time, the U.S. government has welcomed provisions in both the EU and UK trade and cooperation agreement as well as the Northern Ireland Protocol which we believe helps protect the aims of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement,” they added, more contentiously.

“Certainly as the UK and the EU are implementing Brexit-related provisions, the administration encourages both sides to continue prioritising political and economic stability in Northern Ireland in a way that benefits all communities.”

However, the issue with the protocol on Northern Ireland, or Ulster, in Boris Johnson’s Brexit deals is that the political leaders of Northern Ireland’s unionist (pro-British) majority — who opposed the deals in the first place — do not feel it benefits them.

This is due to the fact that it leaves them within the control of the EU Single Market for regulatory purposes and necessitates the imposition of some internal border controls between the Province and mainland Great Britain.

A “grace period” in which these controls would not be fully imposed had been agreed until the end of March but, despite Northern Ireland facing shortages and other difficulties amid the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, the EU has refused to extend it — prompting London to announce it will do so unilaterally, with Brussels launching legal action against Britain in response.

Brexit Wars Recommence as EU Launches Legal Action Against UK over Northern Ireland https://t.co/XvQDpquNM8 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 15, 2021

Reg Empey, a key negotiatior of the Belgast Agreement who now sits in the House of Lords as the Lord Empey, expressed disappointment with Biden’s stance on the EU protocol, and “astonishment” at the way politicians in the U.S., EU, and indeed London do not, in his estimation, seem to understand the agreement.

“What astonishes me consistently is that the UK government, the EU, and now the American administration all say they support the agreement, but they fail to consult with those of us who negotiated the agreement,” the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) chairman and former two-time Lord Mayor of Belfast told the News Letter.

“I know President Biden’s antecedents are Irish, I understand how he feels, but there has to be balance and the agreement is a balancing act,” he said.

Biden, although his surname appears to trace back to English settlers in North America, makes much of his Irish ancestry, and at times has appeared somewhat hostile to America’s mother country — declining to give a comment to Britain’s public broadcaster with the words “The BBC? I’m Irish,” shortly after his election, for example.

The First Minister of Northern Ireland’s devolved government, Arlene Foster of the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), launched an official petition to scrap the EU deal covering the Province in February, arguing that the restrictions on trade between Ulster and the British mainland which it imposes damage the economy and undermine the integrity of the United Kingdom as a unitary state at a fundamental level.

First Minister of Northern Ireland Launches Public Petition to Ditch EU Deal https://t.co/CbbsHvJUXT — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 5, 2021

Follow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBM ontgomery",-0.10981445759430014
"Thirty GOP legislators voted for a Democrat farmworker amnesty that would push many Americans out of jobs, push billions of dollars of payroll from rural towns to foreign countries, and slash investment in wealth-creating farm machinery.

The total of 30 yes votes is down from 34 yes votes for a similar bill in 2019, despite much-increased pressure from wealthy business groups, farm lobbies, and ethnic activists. The lobbies favor the bill because it provides Democrats with a future ocean of amnestied voters — and it provides farm companies and their investors with an endless supply of very cheap and controllable H-2A visa workers.

The 34-to-30 decline is a testament to the counter-pressure from pro-American grassroots groups, including ALIPAC and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). But it also reflects the GOP leaders’ realization that another amnesty will likely transform the U.S. electorate and sink their political careers.

The bill now goes to the Senate, where investors, Democrats, and ethnic lobbies will spend lavishly to win votes from a few GOP senators from rural states, including Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC).

Any GOP converts to the farmworker amnesty will be combined with GOP converts from other Democrat amnesty bills — such as an amnesty for “DACA” migrants or a bill offering more H-2B visa workers for Maine hotels. The combination will perhaps give Democrats the 60 votes they need to transform American politics with imported voters and so sweep the GOP out of power for many years.

Almost 85 percent of the 211 GOP legislators voted against the amnesty.

“We are nearing the end of a pandemic that has left many Americans without work,” said Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX), who was one of the 173 GOP legislators who voted no. “Congress’ priority should be finding ways to encourage American businesses to hire more American workers rather than prioritizing foreign workers. American jobs should first and foremost go to American workers,” he added.

Eight GOP legislators did not vote for or against the farm amnesty bill, which is titled H.R. 1603, the “Farm Workforce Modernization Act.”

A few senior GOP leaders who voted yes for the bill in 2019, voted no in 2021, including Reps. Tom Cole (R-OK) and Steve Stivers (D-OH). Other converts from 2019 included Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-ID).

Several 2019 yes votes did not vote in 2021. They included Reps. Don Young (R-AK) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL).

The 30 GOP votes for the amnesty and cheap-labor bill were provided by Reps:

Mark Amodei (R-NV),

Cliff Bentz (R-OR),

James Baird (R-IN),

Michael Bost (R-IL),

Rodney Davis (R-IL),

Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL),

Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA),

Andrew Garbarino (R-NY),

Carlos Giminez (R-FL),

Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH),

Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA),

Chris Jacobs (R-NY),

David Joyce R-OH),

John Katko (R-NY)

Douglas LaMalfa (R-CA),

Dan Newhouse (R-WA),

Devin Nunes, (R-CA),

Thomas Reed (R-NY),

Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA),

Michael Simpson (R-ID),

Chris Smith (R-NJ),

Lloyd Smucker (R-PA),

Elise Stefanik (R-NY),

Claudia Tenney (R-NY),

Glen Thompson (R-PA),

Fred Upton (R-MI),

Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ).

FAIR responded:

What happened today is no surprise – lawmakers have taken no initiative to address the crisis and instead are worsening it by advancing bills that incentivize migrants to come to the country illegally. The only crisis, as far as all Democrats and a handful of Republicans are concerned, is the lack of amnesty for illegal aliens already here, and these bills aim to “fix” only that problem. … Senate Republicans must hold firm and oppose both the American Dream and Promise Act and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act if they are brought to the floor in the upper chamber. The border crisis is raging, and the American people are watching – address the crisis, do not exacerbate it. … The bill title is deceptive; the legislation does nothing to actually modernize America’s agricultural workforce. That would require automating many of these jobs using advanced technology and programs designed to give farmers access to those innovations. Further, the framework for improving legal farm labor already exists – fix problems within the current H-2A program. This, and encouraging the adoption of labor- and cost-saving automated harvesting technologies, represents true modernization. Another senseless amnesty at the worst possible time does not.

In a November 2019 hearing, Democrat leader Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) described the corporatist bargain that is intended to provide endless cheap visa workers to businesses and at least two million immigrant voters to Democrats within a decade:

This bill adds wage caps to prevent wages [for H-2A visa workers] going up by more than 3.25 percent in most of the country. Considering that the AEWR rates [Adverse Effect Wage Rate for H-2As] recently went up 23 percent in certain states, this is a big concession [to business]. Those kinds of wage increases would no longer happen under this bill. … These are significant wage reforms — a recent report by the CATO institute found that the bill, if enacted, would have saved farmers $324 million in labor expenses in 2019 alone.

FWD.us, which represents a group of pro-Democrat West Coast investors, cheered the workers-for-voters swap.",-0.651627508356714
"The illegal migrants brought to the United States by their illegal migrant parents “are true and legitimate heirs … of our founders,” House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said in a Thursday speech on the House floor.

Pelosi made her claims as Democrats prepared to vote through an amnesty for at least three million migrants who are now labeled under several categories. They include the many illegals who were brought to the United States as children by their parents. Democrats refer to the child-arrivals as “dreamers,” even though Americans are also dreamers.

Pelosi said:

This legislation is protecting “dreamers,” and TPS [Temporary Protected Status] and DED [Deferred Enforced Departure] recipients, honors the truth that immigrants are the constant reinvigoration of our country. When they come here with their hopes and dreams and aspirations, these parents bringing their children, their hopes and dreams and aspirations for a better future for their children, that courage, that determination, those aspirations, are American traits, and they all make America more American, with all of that. Indeed they are true and legitimate heirs, these dreamers are, of our founders. E Pluribus Unum, from many one, we talk about that all the time.

Pelosi continued to praise illegal migrants while ignoring the dreams and aspirations of Americans, as well as the needs of the 17 million unemployed Americans:

They’re our teachers, they’re our professionals. They’re our CEOs. They’re entrepreneurs, they contribute to our community in every way … Millions of Americans have come together to organize and mobilize for dreamers: Labor leaders, business community, faith organizations, national security officials, law enforcement, more and more. … The true VIPs of the moment, are the dreamers and immigrants who have spoken out with great dignity and eloquence, refusing to be forced back into the shadow.

The praise for illegals echoes the progressive view that America is not a homeland for American citizens, but is instead only an idea, or only a “Nation of Immigrants” that is open to any foreigner, regardless of what ordinary Americans prefer. The view is increasingly pushed by wealthy Americans, in part, because it boosts their stock market wealth with additional cheap workers, consumers, and renters.

Pelosi’s pitch matches the recommendations of business-funded pro-amnesty pollsters. On March 10, Breitbart News reported the pollsters’ advice to Democrats who are worried about voting for the amnesties amid public opposition:

It is better to focus on all of the aforementioned sympathetic details of those affected [by an amnesty] than to make economic arguments, including arguments about wages or demand for labor. As we have seen in the past, talking about immigrants doing jobs Americans won’t do is not a helpful frame, and other economic arguments are less effective than what is recommended above.

Pelosi continued:

Again, dreamers, TPS, DED recipients are American in every way. They have lived and worked in our country for decades, if not their entire lives, and they are integral threads in the fabric of our nation … Dreamers power our businesses, our economy, our CEOs, and taxpayers — all of them do. They advance innovation in America’s technological edge as entrepreneurs and researchers. They protect our national security and military might and service members and civilian experts.

So many of the frontline of the pandemic [are illegals] — first responders transportation sanitation, food workers, our teachers, our teachers, our teachers. There’s so much of our country.

These [illegal] immigrant communities strengthen, enrich, and ennoble our nation, and they must be allowed to stay.

Pelosi quoted the 1987 exit speech by President Ronald Reagan, who later revealed that he learned to regret his support for the 1986 amnesty:

I always love to quote President Reagan in his last speech as President of the United States. His last speech — this is his last message as President to the American people. He said, “Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we’re a nation for every young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world into the next frontier. This quality is vital to the future, our future as a nation. If we ever close the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.” With that, I urge a bipartisan vote and yield back the balance of my time.

For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad American opposition to legal migration, labor migration, and to the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.

The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.

The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from the central states to the coastal states.",-2.179351345879396
"GOP legislators should back two pending amnesties for several million illegal migrants on Thursday because “the approach has deep support from business groups,” according to the Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post.

If the GOP does not back the wage-cutting amnesty for DACA migrants, and also for the American-displacing agricultural cheap labor bill, then, according to the Post, they will:

fall in line with a nativist minority, in thrall to former president Donald Trump, who reflexively oppose any steps toward inclusion for people who can be portrayed as “the other”? That’s not just a choice on a discrete piece of legislation. It’s a defining fork in the road for a party wrestling with its future.

The two bills exclude any reforms that would slow the inflow of illegals or to reduce the number of visa workers who push down Americans’ wages.

In fact, the farmworker bill would allow agriculture employers to replace many Americans with low-wage H-2A visa workers. The visa workers would also minimize payroll spending in rural towns so they can bring their wages back to their families in other countries.

Under President Donald Trump’s migration curbs, wages for blue-collar Americans jumped — and so did Trump’s support among the fast-growing Latino populations.

“Men at the middle and bottom of the wage distribution saw their wages rise in 2019: a 2.6% increase at the 50th percentile and a striking 5.7% increase at the 10th percentile, along with a 4.2% increase at the 20th percentile,” according to the 2019 yearly report, by the left-wing Economic Policy Institute.

“Families near the bottom of the income and wealth distributions generally continued to experience substantial gains in median and mean net worth between 2016 and 2019,” says a September 2020 report by the Federal Reserve banking system. The report, titled “Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2016 to 2019: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances.”

In 2020, Trump exceeded “expectations by inspiring higher-than-anticipated Republican turnout,” Democrat data analyst David Shor told New York magazine in March. “He exceeded them mostly through persuasion. A lot of voters changed their minds between 2016 and 2020,” he said, adding:

I think the Trump era has been very good for the Republican Party, even if they now, momentarily, have to accept this very, very, very thin Democratic trifecta. Because if these coalition changes are durable, the GOP has very rosy long-term prospects for dominating America’s federal institutions.

Democrats “have no margin for error. If we conduct ourselves the way we did after 2008, we’re definitely going to lose,” Shor added.

“Democrats are committed to a regime of open borders where any person, from anywhere in the world, has a right to enter the United States for any reason, even if migrants are assaulted or killed on their way to the border,” GOP Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) said March 18. “Democrats feel better about themselves. They assume a superior moral position by pursuing such a policy.”

But the Post insisted the amnesties are popular, saying:

In a Quinnipiac University poll released last month, 83 percent of Americans, including nearly two-thirds of Republicans, said dreamers should be allowed to stay in the United States and ultimately qualify for citizenship. With numbers like that, bipartisan support in Congress for a Dream Act should be a slam dunk.

For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to labor migration and the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.

The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950’s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.

The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from the central states to the coastal states.",-0.5200924324192524
"Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Sunday slammed the legislative process used by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to ram through the Democrats’ legislation.

Gingrich told John Catsimatidis, host of New York WABC 770 AM radio’s “The Cats Roundtable,” that members of the House are acting like “robots” in voting in-step with Pelosi. He said the “machine-like” process is “a total collapse of the legislative process.”

“I think that it really tells you how the system is evolving that they’re ramming through all of this legislation,” Gingrich said of the House. “They have a five-vote margin, and basically, they’re saying to their members, ‘You don’t have to read anything. You don’t have to know what’s in it. We don’t have to have any hearings. You can’t offer any amendments. All you need to know is show up and vote yes.’ And It is the most machine-like House I can remember going back to Joe Cannon in around 1905. And these folks don’t represent anybody except Nancy Pelosi. And so, they walk in. They’re told, ‘We’re bringing up this next bill and vote yes.’ And they go, ‘Absolutely.’ And it’s a total collapse of the legislative process.”

“[T]he Democrats are expected to automatically vote yes no matter what. I mean, it’s working, but it has nothing to do with a free society or a representative government,” he continued. “It’s just pure machine politics. And that to me has been probably the biggest surprise of what’s happened so far this year.”

Gingrich later added, “[Y]ou’re getting an automatic, robotic, you know, sort of like Pelosi’s robots are walking out there, and they’re voting yes automatically. If the Republicans offer an amendment — even if it’s a smart amendment — they vote no automatically. The same thing is happening in the Senate.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent",1.4849246851592404
"Ohio State forward E.J. Liddell shared offensive comments, including racial slurs and threats of violence, posted to his Instagram account after the Buckeye’s 75-72 loss to Oral Roberts on Friday in the first major upset of the NCAA Tournament. Charles Barkley responded immediately, calling the people responsible for the posts “losers” and “cowards,” and Ohio State sports officials announced they have called the police to report the “vile” and “dangerous” threats to their players.

Messages included one that read, “I hope somebody shoot you in ya face,” and that he wants to “kill” Liddell. Another said, “You are such a f—ing disgrace. Don’t ever show your face at Ohio State … I hope you die, I really do.”

Liddell posted screenshots of the messages to his Twitter page Friday. “Honestly, what did I do to deserve this? I’m human,” he said:

Honestly, what did I do to deserve this? I’m human. pic.twitter.com/djXzhSH0q8 — E.J. Liddell (@EasyE2432) March 20, 2021

Barkley said during the March Madness broadcast, “You guys give me a hard time because I refuse to do any type of social media, this is the reason why.”

“No. 1, he had a great game,” Barkley continued, “But for you to give this kid death threats and hurl racial slurs at him because you’re safe in your own home like a coward, behind a computer and nobody know who you are, you need to take a hard look at yourself in the mirror.”

“I am never gonna dignify these losers and interact with them ever; I don’t care how much money somebody offers me, I’ll never do social media because of this,” Barkley added:

Charles Barkley on EJ Liddell harassment from fans on Instagram “I’m never gonna dignify these losers and interact with them ever, I don’t care how much money some offers me, I’ll never do social media because of this” pic.twitter.com/fCpgC0O12f — gifdsports (@gifdsports) March 20, 2021

Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann defended Liddell on Saturday, posting to his Twitter account, “Recent social media comments to E.J. Liddell, while not from or representative of Ohio State fans, are vile, dangerous and reflect the worst of humanity.”

“E.J. is an outstanding young man who had a tremendous sophomore season and he was instrumental in our team’s success. We will take all the necessary actions to address this immediately,” Holtmann concluded:

Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith defended Liddell on Saturday, saying, “The threatening social media attack E.J. Liddell faced after the game yesterday is appalling and will not be tolerated. … If you cross the line and threaten our players, you will be hearing from the authorities. That I promise you”:

I will support our student-athletes in and out of competition! I have nothing but love and respect for E.J. He epitomizes all that we hope for in our student-athletes. pic.twitter.com/BxejMWvo1x — Gene Smith (@OSU_AD) March 20, 2021

Ohio State associate athletic director for communications Dan Wallenberg told reporters he contacted police on Saturday morning about the threats.",-0.5400446422135804
"Ohio State forward E.J. Liddell shared offensive comments, including racial slurs and threats of violence, posted to his Instagram account after the Buckeye’s 75-72 loss to Oral Roberts on Friday in the first major upset of the NCAA Tournament. Charles Barkley responded immediately, calling the people responsible for the posts “losers” and “cowards,” and Ohio State sports officials announced they have called the police to report the “vile” and “dangerous” threats to their players.

Messages included one that read, “I hope somebody shoot you in ya face,” and that he wants to “kill” Liddell. Another said, “You are such a f—ing disgrace. Don’t ever show your face at Ohio State … I hope you die, I really do.”

Liddell posted screenshots of the messages to his Twitter page Friday. “Honestly, what did I do to deserve this? I’m human,” he said:

Honestly, what did I do to deserve this? I’m human. pic.twitter.com/djXzhSH0q8 — E.J. Liddell (@EasyE2432) March 20, 2021

Barkley said during the March Madness broadcast, “You guys give me a hard time because I refuse to do any type of social media, this is the reason why.”

“No. 1, he had a great game,” Barkley continued, “But for you to give this kid death threats and hurl racial slurs at him because you’re safe in your own home like a coward, behind a computer and nobody know who you are, you need to take a hard look at yourself in the mirror.”

“I am never gonna dignify these losers and interact with them ever; I don’t care how much money somebody offers me, I’ll never do social media because of this,” Barkley added:

Charles Barkley on EJ Liddell harassment from fans on Instagram “I’m never gonna dignify these losers and interact with them ever, I don’t care how much money some offers me, I’ll never do social media because of this” pic.twitter.com/fCpgC0O12f — gifdsports (@gifdsports) March 20, 2021

Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann defended Liddell on Saturday, posting to his Twitter account, “Recent social media comments to E.J. Liddell, while not from or representative of Ohio State fans, are vile, dangerous and reflect the worst of humanity.”

“E.J. is an outstanding young man who had a tremendous sophomore season and he was instrumental in our team’s success. We will take all the necessary actions to address this immediately,” Holtmann concluded:

Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith defended Liddell on Saturday, saying, “The threatening social media attack E.J. Liddell faced after the game yesterday is appalling and will not be tolerated. … If you cross the line and threaten our players, you will be hearing from the authorities. That I promise you”:

I will support our student-athletes in and out of competition! I have nothing but love and respect for E.J. He epitomizes all that we hope for in our student-athletes. pic.twitter.com/BxejMWvo1x — Gene Smith (@OSU_AD) March 20, 2021

Ohio State associate athletic director for communications Dan Wallenberg told reporters he contacted police on Saturday morning about the threats.",-0.5841060539676842
"The University of Florida suspended several conservative student groups on campus, claiming that they hosted an event at which attendees did not wear masks. One chapter president, however, told Breitbart News that attendees were required — and did — wear masks at the event.

The University of Florida suspended at least three conservative student groups on campus — Turning Point USA (TPUSA), Young Americans for Freedom, and the Network for Enlightened Women — claiming that their members violated the university’s coronavirus-related rules at an event.

Dean of Students Heather White sent a letter to the school’s TPUSA club, informing the students that their club has been “immediately placed on interim suspension” after administrators were told that they were “allegedly involved in endangering the health, safety, and welfare of the University Community.”

“Event attendees were observed not complying with the Student Behavioral Expectations in Response to COVID-19 and the Campus Events and Guidelines in Response to COVID-19 policies by failing to wear appropriate face coverings and/or maintain appropriate physical distance,” read the letter, obtained by Breitbart News.

The letter added that it is also “alleged” that the TPUSA club did not properly reserve space in the outdoor field on the public university grounds ahead of the event.

Being placed on interim suspension means that the groups will lose “all privileges and access to all campus resources and services, for a period of time, including, but not limited, to the use of University space, participation in University programs, activities, events and services, and registration of gatherings and events.”

“This measure is issued to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the University community,” the letter reads.

The school’s Young Americans for Freedom and Network for Enlightened Women received similar letters.

University of Florida TPUSA chapter president, Carter Mermer told Breitbart News that event attendees were told by all club presidents that they were required to wear masks.

“Event attendees did wear masks,” said Mermer. “And as the president — and the other club presidents — we told the students that masks were required. There was food at the event. We catered barbecue, so they pulled down their masks while eating.”

Mermer also mentioned that the event was held outdoors, in a field on campus that many people use.

“People go there all the time on a whim,” said Mermer. “I see people on the field all the time not wearing masks.”

“We were in a field, there was a cookout, and we had the four biggest conservative clubs gathered,” the student added, noting that the College Republicans were also present at the event.

The College Republicans, however, did not receive a letter from the school, as the group is not currently officially recognized by the university.

BREAKING:

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

-Turning Point USA

-College Republicans

-The Network of Enlightened Women

-Young Americans for Freedom Were all just SUSPENDED at the University of Florida. Leftist at universities have always wanted to silence young conservatives. STAND STRONG! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 — Madison Cawthorn (@CawthornforNC) March 19, 2021

Mermer also brought up the other reason the university gave for suspending the club, which was not properly reserving space in the field.

“There was an issue in the proper filing of reserving the space,” said Mermer. “We didn’t properly reserve the space, and because of that, they say we violated their ‘use of space’ policy.”

“This really is an extreme move by the university for not reserving the space properly in an open, public field,” the student continued. “As far as I know, the university has not banned any other clubs for this.”

“On top of that, they said it was alleged,” Mermer added. “They used the word ‘alleged.’ They never provided any evidence.”

“I’m not saying that the University of Florida is attacking us for political reasons,” Mermer clarified. “But I am saying that they somehow managed to suspend all the major conservative clubs in one fell swoop.”

“We have hundreds of members who love coming to our events, and now a lot of events we were going to have on campus can’t happen,” the student added.

In responding to Breitbart News’ request for clarification on how the school determined that the students had been in violation of the school’s mask mandate, a university spokesperson said that “the investigation is still in process, therefore we cannot comment.”

“However, the student organizations were placed on interim suspension, which includes the loss of all privileges and access to all campus resources and services, for a period of time, including, but not limited, to the use of university space, participation in university programs, activities, events and services, and registration of gatherings and events. This measure was issued to protect the health, safety and welfare of the university community,” the spokesperson added.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.",-1.2222696711819596
"Judge Laurence Silberman accused the New York Times and Washington Post of being “Democratic Party broadsheets” in a dissenting opinion on Friday.

Washington, DC, federal appellate judge Laurence Silberman accused the New York Times and Washington Post, and to some extent the Wall Street Journal, of being mouthpieces for “rather shocking” bias against the Republican Party in a written opinion on Friday.

“The orientation of these three papers is followed by The Associated Press and most large papers across the country (such as the Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, and Boston Globe),” he said in the opinion. “Nearly all television—network and cable—is a Democratic Party trumpet. Even the government-supported National Public Radio follows along.”

Further, Judge Silberman wrote that Silicon Valley “also has an enormous influence over the distribution of news,” which “similarly filters news delivery in ways favorable to the Democratic Party.” He called Fox News, The New York Post, and the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial page “notable exceptions to Democratic Party ideological control,” though he admitted “a number of Fox’s commentators lean as far to the right as the commentators and reporters of the mainstream outlets lean to the left.”

“It is well-accepted that viewpoint discrimination ‘raises the specter that the Government may effectively drive certain ideas or viewpoints from the marketplace,'” Silberman said. “But ideological homogeneity in the media—or in the channels of information distribution—risks repressing certain ideas from the public consciousness just as surely as if access were restricted by the government.”

“It should be borne in mind that the first step taken by any potential authoritarian or dictatorial regime is to gain control of communications, particularly the delivery of news,” Silberman added, saying “it is fair to conclude, therefore, that one-party control of the press and media is a threat to a viable democracy. It may even give rise to countervailing extremism.”

The judge said the Supreme Court should overturn New York Times v. Sullivan, the 1964 case holding that when the media discusses public figures, the outlet should be liable under state defamation laws only if the plaintiffs can prove “actual malice,” which the Court defined as the speaker either knowing the statement was false or making it in “reckless disregard for the truth.”

“The First Amendment guarantees a free press to foster a vibrant trade in ideas. But a biased press can distort the marketplace,” Silberman concluded. “And when the media has proven its willingness—if not eagerness—to so distort, it is a profound mistake to stand by unjustified legal rules that serve only to enhance the press’ power.”

The case is Tah v. Global Witness Publishing, Inc., No. 19-7132 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.",-0.779699168490616
"Elon Musk responded to concerns that Tesla cars might be used for espionage at the China Development Forum Saturday.

The world’s wealthiest man denied his company was a conduit for international espionage during remarks made at the China Development Forum Saturday. Hours before, Chinese social media spread a screenshot of what appeared to be an order banning Tesla vehicles from a military accommodation complex. An unnamed source “familiar” with the matter said officials were “very concerned” prior to Musk’s visit.

Musk’s response was blunt, pointing out the risks. “If Tesla used cars to carry out espionage activities in China or anywhere, we will get shut down,” he said. “There’s a strong incentive for us to be confidential.”

Musk used the controversial Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok as an example. “Many people were concerned over TikTok but I think this was an unnecessary concern. We should learn lessons from this,” he said.

Musk is historically popular in China, having called it “the future,” effusing about the “smart” and “hard-working” citizens of the PRC, while complaining that Americans are “entitled” and “complacent.” In January, Musk suggested China might be “more responsible” than the U.S. in regard to the safety of their people.

“It seems ironic, but even though you have sort of a single-party system, they really actually seem to care a lot about the well-being of the people,” Musk said during the Business Insider interview. “In fact, they’re maybe even more sensitive to public opinion than what I see in the U.S.”

The multi-billionaire has good reason to make nice. As the world’s largest electric vehicle consumer base, China is an important market for electric vehicles like those produced by Tesla. According to statistics from the China Passenger Car Association, 30% of the company’s global sales come from China. The CPCA reported Tesla produced 23,600 vehicles, and delivered 18,300 to China last month.",0.8267553086386187
"The Young Conservatives of Texas at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, say that their anti-socialism display on campus was stolen overnight. The university claims to have no information about the memorial of 1,000 flags the students say they set up in memory of the more than 94 million victims of international socialism.

The group planted 1,000 red flags on a lawn on campus near the school’s student center to represent the more than 94 million lives lost to socialism, according to a report by Campus Reform. The display was allegedly “gone” the next morning.

“The whole entire memorial was gone, like no trace of it,” Sam Houston State student DianaLee Enriquez told Campus Reform.

The university’s Young Conservatives of Texas chapter chairman Johnny Uribe told the outlet that he initially thought “there was some kind of miscommunication between us and the school,” but that an administrator “reassured” him that the university was aware of the memorial, and did not remove it.

“I was in the office and I saw [the administrator] making calls to different departments such as the landscapers, groundskeepers, and janitorial crew, and they denied removing our memorial,” Uribe said.

The student added that the school administrator also called the campus police “to look at the cameras and investigate.”

“As part of a university internal investigation, officials checked with the Grounds Department to see if they had removed the flags, which they had not,” said the university’s public information officer Stephanie Knific.

“Additionally, staff checked dumpsters and trash receptacles to see if the flags had been discarded. None were found,” continued Knific, who added that the police said the conservative student group could file a police report if they want to pursue a criminal investigation.

On Friday, Uribe filed a police report with the University Police Department. Now there is an open and active investigation into the matter.

Uribe says that he believes the memorial was “stolen,” because a member of the school’s Young Democratic Socialists of America told him that another member of the pro-socialist club had posted a photo of the memorial in a group chat, calling it “utter bullshit.”

“As a public institution, Sam Houston State University values and protects First Amendment rights to express differing ideas, experiences and perspectives, which are essential to building and maintaining a learning environment of inquiry and pursuit of truth,” said Knific.

“SHSU encourages students to exercise their rights and help to build an environment of diverse thought, dialogue, and debate,” Knific added. “University officials work with all groups and organizations throughout the year to promote expressive activity and freedom of expression.”

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.",1.0310994959468551
"Astroscale will launch its first magnetic space junk cleaner in a demonstration set for early Saturday morning at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

According to data the European Space Agency released in January, over 6,000 successful rocket launches have occurred since the beginning of the Space Age in 1957. As of 2021, those launches have set well over 10,000 satellites to orbit our planet. Of those, more than half continue their endless journey — but only about 3,800 are still operational. The rest, along with debris shed by each launch, make up over 9,200 tons of orbital garbage.

In the wee hours of March 20, Astroscale will launch the first major test of a satellite that could become the first in a new line of orbital janitors. A Soyuz 2 rocket will launch the 175-kilogram cleaner to snatch a defunct satellite from orbit, and pull it back through the atmosphere until it burns away. Astroscale’s craft will continue this delicate game of search and destroy until sometime in September or October 2021.

One of its first and most dramatic challenges will be the satellite’s ability to dock with a derelict device travelling as much as 17,500 miles per hour. For reference, rifle bullets top out at around 2,100 mile per hour. It will accomplish this feat by way of a special magnetic docking plate, which Astroscale hopes to standardize for easy cleanup of future launches.

But while the relatively diminutive experimental spacecraft may prove useful in preventing further pollution of the near-Earth environment, the aforementioned thousands of tons continue to be responsible for over 560 destructive collisions, and counting. Several companies and organizations around the world — including the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the European Space Agency, and Airbus — continue their search for solutions to remove those ongoing hazards.",1.6602133869979863
"Twitter temporarily restricted the account of Josh Mandel, the former treasurer of Ohio, state representative, and a primary candidate to succeed Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) as a U.S. Senator. Twitter said the restriction was due to a violation of its “hateful conduct” policy.

According to the Cincinnati Inquirer, Mandel was prevented from tweeting, retweeting, liking tweets, or following new accounts for a period of 12 hours over a tweet criticizing President Biden’s immigration policies.

In the tweet, Mandel asked his followers which type of illegal immigrants currently flooding across the border due to the Biden administration’s border crisis will commit more crimes, “Mexican gangbangers” or “Muslim terrorists.”

Twitter informed the Republican candidate that he had violated the platform’s hateful conduct policy, which prohibits posts that “promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.”

In a statement, Mandel condemned Twitter for silencing his account.

“Conservatives everywhere should be frightened by the ongoing censorship by Twitter, Facebook, Google and the liberal media,” said the Republican primary candidate in a statement. “Big tech should never have the power to decide what speech is allowed in America and I won’t ever shy away from holding politicians accountable for their terrible policies.”

Just like President Trump, I was canceled by @twitter @jack yesterday. I wear this as a badge of honor as Big Tech thugs & elites target those who they are most afraid of. Our movement of steel-spined Constitutional Conservatives & Trump Warriors will not be silenced: pic.twitter.com/SxHlgmq2xf — Josh Mandel (@JoshMandelOhio) March 19, 2021

Following his suspension, Mandel returned to Twitter, posting a video of a journalist challenging him on his statements.

“I just say it how it is,” said Mandel in the interview.

On Twitter’s action against his account, Mandel said “I wear this as a badge of honor as Big Tech thugs & elites target those who they are most afraid of. Our movement of steel-spined Constitutional Conservatives & Trump Warriors will not be silenced.”

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.",0.5257248534940094
"Zack Snyder’s Justice League (aka The Snyder Cut), which premiered this week on HBO Max, is literally four-hours and two minutes long — 242 minutes to be precise, which makes it 15 minutes longer than Lawrence of Arabia, 21 minutes longer than Gone with the Wind, and 122 minutes longer than 2017’s original Justice League.

In case I’m being too subtle, The Snyder Cut is really, reeeeeally long, and it’s a problem.

So why are there two Justice Leagues movies, both directed by Zack Snyder? Good question. Well, back in 2017, Snyder had shot and edited most of his version of Justice League but the studio was pretty unhappy with it. Then Snyder’s family was hit with a terrible tragedy, so he walked away and in stepped Avengers 1 & 2 director Joss Whedon, who reportedly re-shot two-thirds of the movie and released it without taking credit as director, or even as co-director.

The result was a critical flop, a commercial bomb, and fan failure. And so the call went out on the Internet for the studio to release “The Snyder Cut.” Snyder (who had saved his cut on a laptop) joined the call and Warner Bros., a studio desperate to fill its new HBO Max streaming service with sexy content, agreed. Snyder was given $70 million to finish his opus and it’s 242 minutes long.

Which is looong.

There’s no intermission.

Watch below:

It’s broken into six chapters followed by a reeeeeally long epilogue, and there’s no natural place where you can stop, go on with your day, and return to it tomorrow. This is one movie. One sit. And it’s a reeeeeally long movie.

Granted, I’m glad I saw it and was only bored in a few parts. The 30-minute epilogue, however, is pretty excruciating and promises a sequel. Nevertheless, I will never watch it again. Ever.

Did it need to be four hours long? No. Countless scenes go on too long and repeat the same information. Between that and the epilogue, this sucker could have been trimmed to 160 minutes easy.

It is, though, an entirely different movie from Whedon’s Justice League, which felt abrupt and like it just wanted to get itself over with.

The Snyder Cut wants to be seen as an epic filled with mythology, as something that slows down and revels in the character and plot details fans love so much. Each character — Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman Flash, and Cyborg — is given plenty of time (and a slo-mo music montage) to establish who they are and what they are about as Batman/Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) goes about the business of recruiting them. He knows a threat is on its way and the only way to stop it is by uniting earth’s greatest heroes.

We get tons of backstory, two extended flashbacks (one on Wonder Woman’s all-woman island where a sense of humor and cleavage have been outlawed), at least an hour of slow motion scenes, and a number of big action sequences. Some of it works. Some of it doesn’t. All of it looks fake, looks like it was created in a computer, and the overall aura of the movie is so grey and oppressive, by chapter four you want to take a Xanax.

The Snyder Cut is never much fun. It takes itself seriously, too seriously, and wants you to take it seriously. The only attempt at comic relief is Ezra Miller’s young Flash, but his nebbish, gee whiz act gets pretty old pretty quick. Other than that, there’s a sense of self-importance that’s never earned because the stakes never feel real. Not for a moment did I believe the earth or a single one of our heroes was in any sort of danger.

Of course the movie truly comes alive every time Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman appears on screen, but that might only be due to the fact I’m a red-blooded, heterosexual American male.

I will say this… The Snyder Cut is a helluva lot better than DC’s most recent entry, the dreadful Wonder Woman 1984 and even Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, which I finally saw last week and did not understand a single second of. But…

Is it better than Whedon’s original Justice League? Well, let’s just say Whedon’s version felt like no one gave a damn and Snyder’s version feels like someone gave too much of a damn. And it’s long.

Holy moly, is it long.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.",-0.3764751425053935
"Thursday, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the House Judiciary Committee ranking member, recounted some of the aspects of a hearing and Big Tech, where he questioned how the First Amendment applied in certain circumstances.

Jordan explained much of what Democrats were doing in the beginning stages of this Congress had bypassed the committee process.

“They’ve been taking bills around the Judiciary Committee straight to the floor, almost every piece of legislation that’s passed in the last three weeks, we had jurisdiction over but the full committee is yet to have a hearing,” he said. “We’ve said why not have a hearing about this crisis on the border. Instead, they go around the committee, and they passed just 40 minutes ago, Maria, they pass a bill that gives amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants. So, amnesty while there’s this chaos on the border, that I mean, this is so out of touch with where the American people are, but this is how radical left the Democrats are.”

“And then, of course, the canceled culture issue, this idea that, you know, I always asked it this way, do you have a functioning First Amendment when only one side is allowed to talk?” Jordan continued. “Do you have free speech when only the left can define what can be said? So that’s the situation Maria in the Judiciary Committee should be focused on those two issues. Instead, they pass radical things like defund the police, federal control of elections, and now an amnesty bill without having the kind of hearings you’re supposed to have on Capitol Hill in the United States Congress.”

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor",0.5161173329507842
"A Canadian father has been arrested for “misgendering” his own 14-year-old child by calling her his “daughter,” and referring to her with the pronouns “she” and “her.”

Robert Hoogland — the father of a 14-year-old biological female who identifies as transgender and prefers male pronouns — was found in contempt of court and jailed on Tuesday after repeatedly calling his child his “daughter,” despite the court forbidding it, according to a report by the Post Millennial.

The Attorney General of British Columbia reportedly issued a warrant for his arrest for contempt.

Rob Hoogland was just taken to jail. His crime? Trying to protect his little girl from medical harm. I stand with Robert Hoogland. pic.twitter.com/hC5nrvnUPn — ❤️ (@christophelston) March 16, 2021

Hoogland is opposed to his teenage daughter going through transgender-related medical procedures, and has repeatedly expressed his opposition in the hopes of saving his child from irreversible damage.

The Canadian medical system, the legal system, and the child’s mother, however, have gone forward with the “social and medical transition” of Hoogland’s daughter, the report adds.

In December of last year, Hoogland was mandated by British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Francesca Marzari to cooperate in the “transitioning” of his daughter’s sex, and was told not to refer to her as female again.

“This could never happen, said those who called my stance against Bill C16 alarmist,” reacted Canadian psychology professor Jordan Peterson. “I read the law and saw that it was, to the contrary, inevitable.”

This could never happen, said those who called my stance against Bill C16 alarmist. I read the law and saw that it was, to the contrary, inevitable https://t.co/zi8vB5x4x0 — Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) March 18, 2021

Hoogland had previously discovered that his daughter’s school had been showing her sexual and gender identity education materials known as “SOGI 123,” which the report referred to as transgender “propaganda videos.”

By the 7th grade, the school had changed his daughter’s name in the yearbook without telling her parents, and “socially transitioned” her with the input of gender ideologue psychologist Wallace Wong, who advised the pubescent child to take testosterone.

The report adds that Wong referred Hoogland’s daughter to the endocrinology unit at the local hospital, and that a “treatment” plan was put into action on her first visit.

“Here I am, sitting there as a parent, watching a perfectly healthy child be destroyed, and there’s nothing I can do but sit on the sideline — and according to Justice Boden at the time, cheer it on,” Hoogland said in an interview last year. “I can only affirm, or get thrown in jail.”

Watch Below:

Justice Boden of the British Columbia Supreme Court had reportedly declared that Hoogland and his wife had to affirm their daughter’s new gender identity. Hoogland was told that if he tried to dissuade his daughter or refer to her as a female, then he would be considered guilty of “family violence.”

After the ruling, Hoogland gave an interview to the Federalist, in which he lamented the situation, and pointed out that his daughter is biologically female.

""Justice Mazari then summarily convicted Hoogland of family violence on the basis that he had declined to use his child's preferred masculine pronouns."" https://t.co/src7YolVz6 — Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) March 18, 2021

After that, Justice Marzari reportedly signed a “protection order” authorizing the police to arrest Hoogland if he were to again be caught referring to his daughter as female, or with female pronouns.

Hoogland said that the Marzari ruling even stated that he was allowed to “think thoughts” that were contrary to the Boden ruling.

“The court was gracious enough to say that they could not police my thoughts,” Hoogland said.

In January of last year, the highest court in British Columbia reportedly declared that the child should continue taking testosterone, and imposed a “conduct order” on Hoogland, mandating that he continue referring to his daughter by male pronouns.

""Hoogland gave interviews to several Canadian commentators. The broadcasts were suppressed by digital platforms, and he was threatened with contempt of court proceedings."" https://t.co/0eElV7iMji — Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) March 18, 2021

“They’ve now created a delusion, and they’re forcing parents, like myself, to live in this delusion,” Hoogland said last year. “And then what happens when the bubble explodes, and the delusion ends?”

“She can never go back to being a girl,” he added. “I mean, she’ll always be a girl, but she’ll never go back to being a girl in a healthy body that she should have had — she won’t be able to have children, she won’t have a family. These kids don’t understand what this stuff means.”

An estimation of more than 80 percent of children with gender dysphoria will end up desisting from their belief that they are the opposite sex once puberty is over.

“What kid who’s 13 is thinking about a family and having children? Not many,” Hoogland continued. “What kind of father would I be if, let’s say in five, ten years, my daughter is de-transitioning, and she turns to me and says — ‘Why did none of you do anything to stop this? I was a child. None of you stuck your neck out for me back then.'”

“When my daughter asks me that question, I’ll say, ‘I did everything that I possibly could,” he added.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.",-0.17021446086438427
"Facebook announced this week that it is changing the way it recommends groups and will limit the reach of those that break its rules.

NBC News reports that Facebook announced on Wednesday that it will be changing the way it recommends groups and will limit those that break its rules as the platform attempts to crack down on what it considers extremism and misinformation.

Tom Alison, Facebook’s vice president of engineering, said in a blog post: “We know we have a greater responsibility when we are amplifying or recommending content. As behaviors evolve on our platform, though, we recognize we need to do more.”

Under Facebook’s new rules, the site will show rule-breaking groups lower in the recommendations bar which will make them less discoverable to other users. The more rules a group breaks, the more it will increase restrictions on the group eventually resulting in the group being removed entirely.

Facebook also plans to inform possible new members of rule-violating groups that the group has “allowed posts that violate our Community Standards,” when they attempt to join the group. For existing group members, Facebook will reduce the reach of rule-breaking groups by giving it lower priority in a user’s news feed.

Facebook will also require users in charge of rule-breaking groups to more strictly police their communities, approving all posts before publishing when members continue to violate policies. If an admin or moderator repeatedly approves content that violates Facebooks rules, the entire group could be removed.

“We don’t believe in taking an all-or-nothing approach to reduce bad behavior on our platform,” Alison said in the statement. “Instead, we believe that groups and members that break our rules should have their privileges and reach reduced, and we make these consequences more severe if their behavior continues – until we remove them completely. We also remove groups and people without these steps in between when necessary in cases of severe harm.”

Read more at Facebook here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com",-0.12972738838803904
"App developer Kosta Eleftheriou, who previously called attention to the problem of scam apps on Apple’s iOS app store, has filed a lawsuit against Apple in California accusing the company of exploiting its monopoly power over apps made available for iPhone users.

The iOS app developer Kosta Eleftheriou, who has previously called out Apple for its failure to properly police its app store and the prevalence of scam app across the platform, has filed a lawsuit against the hardware giant in California. Eleftheriou is accusing the company of exploiting its monopoly power over iOS apps “to make billions of dollars in profits at the expense of small application developers and consumers.”

A complaint was filed in Santa Clara County court on Wednesday by Eleftheriou’s company KPAW LLC, which he co-owns with his partner Ashley Eleftheriou. The complaint details the development and release timeline of Eleftheriou’s popular Apple Watch keyboard app FlickType.

Eleftheriou began highlighting the growing issue of scam apps available in the Apple App Store in February. Each of the scam apps Eleftheriou found appeared to use the same method including boosting their apparent legitimacy in the app store by purchasing fake reviews.

Eleftheriou is also of the developers of the Flesky keyboard app which was acquired by Pinterest, and Blind Type which was acquired by Google.

Eleftheriou alleges that after he reported that his FlickType app had been targeted by a scam clone, Apple failed to fix the issue while the scam app took away potential sales and negatively affected his App Store ranking.

The App Store has a big problem👇 You: an honest developer, working hard to improve your IAP conversions.

Your competitor: a $2M/year scam running rampant. 1/ — Kosta Eleftheriou (@keleftheriou) January 31, 2021

Breitbart News spoke to Eleftheriou directly who said in a statement:

Apple has been abusing their position to the detriment of consumers and developers for years. They like to portray the App Store as “a place you can trust” and their practices as fair, but in reality they bully developers and fail to police their store, making it impossible for developers to compete fairly.

In his complaint, Eleftheriou claims that the company is “flexing its monopoly muscle against potential competition” by removing his FlickType keyboard app from the iOS app store after he reported issues relating to scam apps on the app store.

The complaint states:

Apple entices software application developers like Plaintiff to develop innovative applications with the promise of a fair and secure App Store in which to sell them. In truth, Apple systematically flexes its monopoly muscle against potential competition through the App Store and profits from rampant fraudulent practices. If Apple cannot buy a desired application from a developer on the cheap, Apple attempts to crush that developer through exploitive fees and selective application of opaque and unreasonable constraints against the developer. At the same time, Apple permits other developers that Apple does not view as real competition, including scam competitors, to peddle similar, inferior products because Apple profits from their sales. Scammers oftentimes use screenshots and videos taken from legitimate developer’s applications and manipulate their ratings. Apple does little to police these practices because it profits from them. Apple then lies to its regulators by asserting that it must maintain its monopoly power over the sale of Apple-related applications to protect consumers, when, in fact, Apple lets them get ripped off and exploits the developers trying to deliver innovation to consumers.

The complaint goes on to add: “Despite possessing massive resources and technological savvy, Apple intentionally fails to police these fraudsters, costing honest developers millions, and perhaps billions, while Apple continues to amass huge profits for itself.”

It continues: “Apple holds both its device users and developers hostage. Yet each time it faces antitrust claims, Apple justifies its monopoly by claiming it is necessary to protect its users and developers from unscrupulous conduct and ensure a fair competitive marketplace for the benefit of both. In truth, Apple turns a blind eye to rampant fraud and exploitation to make an easy profit.”

Read the full complaint below:



Kpaw, LLC v. Apple, Inc by Lucas Nolan

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com",-0.23849013827741886
"Famed drag queen maven RuPaul is set to debut a new video game based on the long-running VH1 TV series RuPaul’s Drag Race. The game, to be released by game company World of Wonder, will allow players to design their drag persona, compete in drag queen challenges, and sashay down the catwalk on i0S and Android devices.

'RuPaul's #DragRace' and its iconic queens will star in a new video game! https://t.co/V5ejA5HXGA — Entertainment Weekly (@EW) March 18, 2021

“The team at World of Wonder is always looking for new ways to bring the Drag Race experience even closer to the fans, and what better way than through a mobile game?” said Drag Race co-creators Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey, according to Entertainment Weekly. “We are thrilled to partner with East Side Games on this charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent-filled mobile game experience!”

The company also announced that the game would be made in several versions, including a Canadian version, one for the UK, another for Australia, and one in Spanish.

No date has been announced for the release of the game.

RuPaul’s Drag Race debuted in 2009 on the Logo cable network before migrating to VH1 in 2017. The series has won nine Emmy Awards, three Reality Television Awards, and three NewNowNext Awards.

The show has not been without controversy among its own constituencies. For instance, the show was knocked for not including transgender contestants in its early seasons. RuPaul was subsequently chided for starting each race, saying, “Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the best woman win,” because it wasn’t inclusive enough. The host now says, “Racers, start your engines, and may the best drag queen win,” as a response to critics.

The series also dipped into politics by inviting New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to serve as a guest judge last year. RuPaul also raised funds for abortion mill operator Planned Parenthood.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.",-0.009132205968478585
"According to a recent report, Google’s plan to block the web activity trackers called “cookies” has become a major source of concern for DOJ investigators who have been asking ad industry executives whether the move will impact smaller Google rivals.

Reuters reports that Google’s plan to block the web tracking tool called “cookies” has become a major source of concern for DOJ investigators who have been speaking with advertising industry executives, asking whether the move by the search giant will have a negative impact on its smaller rivals.

A year ago, Google announced that it would ban some cookies in its Chrome browser claiming the move would improve user privacy. Over the last two months, Google has released more details leading many online ad rivals to complain about losing the data-gathering tool.

Justice Department investigators have reportedly been looking into how Chrome policies affect the ad and news industries, according to four sources. Investigators have reportedly begun asking whether Google is using the Chrome browser to reduce competition by preventing rival ad firms from tracking users via cookies while leaving loopholes for Google to gather data with cookies, analytics, and other tools.

Executives from more than a dozen companies across a number of sectors have reportedly spoken with DOJ investigators, according to sources. The U.S. government has been investigating Google’s search and advertising business since mid-2019 and last October it sued Google for allegedly using anticompetitive tactics to maintain the dominance of the Google Search engine

Google defended its ad business, stating that it was helping companies grow and protecting users’ privacy from exploitative practices, stating: “The enormous competition in ad tools has made online ads more affordable, reduced fees, and expanded options for publishers and advertisers.”

Read more at Reuters here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com",-1.3308116151226166
"Students at the University of Florida would support a boycott of restaurant Panda Express due to the “cultural appropriation” of its “Americanized” Chinese food, and panda logo. The students were interviewed outside of a Panda Express by a Campus Reform reporter, with some students adding that they had eaten at the establishment the same day.

Campus Reform reporter Ophelie Jacobson conducted a social experiment at the University of Florida, where she asked students if they would sign a petition boycotting Panda Express due to its “cultural appropriation.”

“Because it’s not really representative of their actual culture,” Jacobson explained, playing up the SJW position. “The food is very Americanized, and just the way they present it, even the logo — the panda, it’s kind of cultural appropriation.”

“And so, in an effort to protect our Asianx community members here at the university, we’re asking if students would be willing to sign this pledge, maybe even try to remove it from campus,” Jacobson added.

All but one student asked signed the petition to boycott or ban Panda Express.

Two of the students who signed admitted to having just eaten from Panda Express earlier that day, while a third student who signed had actually just ordered from the restaurant in question, and set her food aside in order to provide her signature.

“Yeah, absolutely, I mean, I feel bad – I just got Panda Express. If I would have known I wouldn’t have purchased from them,” one student said0 after being asked to sign the petition to ban or boycott Panda Express for cultural appropriation.

“We had Panda Express for lunch,” laughed another student who was with a friend, before signing the petition.

“Boy, do I feel like a dog for signing it after I had Panda Express for lunch,” the other student added.

“I’ve never eaten at Panda Express, but the — I mean, it seems legit. The panda thing really sparked it,” said a fourth student who signed the petition.

The student also shared with Jacobson why they ultimately decided to sign the petition.

“Like, I feel like it’s a moral thing to do,” said one student.

“When you’re a white person, your culture is not usually appropriated. Usually you are the appropriator. So it’s just kind of, like, recognizing when you’re in the wrong, and then correcting it,” added a second student.

“I think equal representation for anyone is extremely important, you know, no matter who you are, where you live, you know, ‘America, land of the free,’ but I think there’s a big disconnect in what that actually means,” added one of the students who admitted to eating at Panda Express.

In response to whether she will continue to buy food from Panda Express, the student said, “No, I feel so horrible now.”

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.",-2.216343699691047
"A Tesla car left on autopilot struck a state trooper’s patrol car early in Lansing, Michigan, Wednesday morning.

At 1:12 AM in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, Michigan State Police were investigating a deer-related crash on I-96 in Eaton County when a Tesla allegedly piloted itself directly into the left rear side of a squad car. Fortunately, neither the officer on the scene, nor the 22-year-old driver were reported injured.

The Michigan State Police First District tweeted a brief report, along with photos of the crash:

No injuries to troopers or anyone involved. Driver of the Tesla, a 22 year old man from Lansing was issued citations for failure to move over and DWLS. pic.twitter.com/zTSJOhuJMP — MSP First District (@MSPFirstDist) March 17, 2021

The unnamed driver was issued citations for failure to move over, as well as driving with a suspended license. But they are far from the first person to be involved in an autopilot-related accident. Elon “Technoking” Musk’s cars have been allegedly responsible for numerous crashes, many of which cited the autopilot as a major contributing factor.

In February 2019, an analysis by Safety Research & Strategies Inc. reported — contrary to statements made by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — Tesla’s vaunted self-driving feature was responsible for a sharp 60% rise in airbag deployments. Even so, Musk continues to rake in money, recently becoming the richest man in the world.",-0.24065199740919468
"The auction for global telecommunications companies to bid on building Brazil’s 5G Internet will allow Huawei, a Chinese company with close ties to the communist regime, to bid despite global national security concerns, the New York Times noted Monday. Allowing Huawei to participate may come as a snub to President Joe Biden after anti-Bolsonaro remarks during the 2020 election cycle.

Speaking to the nation’s Communications Minister Fábio Faria, the newspaper confirmed the minister traveled to Beijing in February and met with Huawei executives. In the process of discussing issues related to Huawei’s business, Faria confirmed to the Times he had asked the Chinese company for help procuring Chinese-made coronavirus vaccines which Huawei does not produce. Faria insisted “no quid pro quo” occurred, though the newspaper described the timeframe in which both events happened as “striking.”

Faria told Brazilian media outlets last week, given national security concerns, Huawei did not meet the National Telecommunications Agency’s (Anatel) prerequisites for building the federal government a secure, private 5G network. The New York Times did not clarify if Huawei being allowed to participate in the auction meant Brasilia was overlooking this shortcoming or simply that Huawei was highly unlikely to win the bidding as it is coming into the contest with a clear disadvantage compared to companies not tied to the Chinese Communist Party.

Conservative President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration came to power in part on campaign promises to curb national security risks to the country stemming from the Chinese Communist Party. Prior to Bolsonaro, subsequent socialist administrations had deeply-entrenched Chinese interests in the Brazilian economy and China remains Brazil’s largest trading partner.

As president, however, Bolsonaro has embraced Chinese business profits, traveling to Beijing in 2019 and signing eight bilateral agreements with the Communist Party – while at the same time employing fiery anti-communist rhetoric towards China-allied regimes in Latin America. Bolsonaro recently claimed he would personally block the importing of Chinese-made coronavirus vaccines claiming Brazilians did not deserve to be “guinea pigs,” but ultimately relented and thanked the Communist Party for shipments of its questionably-effective vaccine candidates.

Brazil has one of the largest rates of Chinese coronavirus infections in the world, documenting over 11 million cases as of Tuesday since the pandemic began. Brazil is second only to America in the number of documented coronavirus cases, not taking into consideration extensive evidence rogue regimes such as China, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela have significantly undercounted coronavirus cases and deaths.

The New York Times, citing a Brazilian political expert, noted another potential reason the Bolsonaro administration may have opened bidding to Huawei: President Joe Biden’s bizarre attacks against the country while he was a presidential candidate, particularly a threat to destroy the Brazilian economy issued during a debate against his predecessor Donald Trump.

“The election of President Biden, who has harshly criticized Brazil’s environmental record, made the Brazilian government unenthusiastic about being in lock step with Washington,” the New York Times reported citing political risk consultant Thiago de Aragão.

De Aragão appeared to be referencing Biden’s comments during a debate with Trump in September in which he threatened the unilateral destruction of Brazil’s economy in response to a question on climate change policy. The debate featured no foreign policy questions and the moderator had not mentioned Brazil.

“Brazil, the rainforests of Brazil are being torn down, are being ripped down. More carbon is absorbed in that rainforest than every bit of carbon that’s emitted in the United States,” Biden asserted abruptly. “Instead of doing something about that, I would be gathering up and making sure we had the countries of the world coming up with $20 billion, and say, ‘Here’s $20 billion. Stop, stop tearing down the forest. And if you don’t, then you’re going to have significant economic consequences.'”

Biden appeared to be referencing a global left-wing campaign blaming Bolsonaro for allegedly out-of-control fires in the Amazon Rainforest propelled in part by a false post from French President Emmanuel Macron on Twitter using a photo from at least 2003. Bolsonaro has been president of Brazil since 2018.

Bolsonaro replied to Biden in a letter referring to him as a “coward” and saying his threats were “unnecessary” and “difficult to understand.” Bolsonaro subsequently threatened to declare war on the United States, asserting that, in light of Biden’s comments, “diplomacy alone is not enough.”

Upon his inauguration, Bolsonaro congratulated Biden and urged him to negotiate a free trade agreement with Brazil.

Brazil is planning to build one of the world’s largest 5G networks, making its bidding process among the most lucrative. Anatel, the telecommunications agency, announced the official rules for bidding in February. The auction is scheduled to begin in July and the winner will have to guarantee a functional 5G system in Brazil’s largest cities by July 31, 2022. The winner must guarantee they can also build 4G networks in every Brazilian municipality with over 600 people, 48,000 kilometers (about 30,000 miles) of high-speed internet wiring, and a private 5G communications network for federal government use only. The latter is the prerequisite Faria recently insisted Huawei could not meet, though none of the rules for bidding explicitly exclude Huawei – the overture the New York Times linked to the vaccine deals.

“Today, Huawei is not apt to participate in [the building of] the government’s private network,” Faria said on March 9, leaving the door open for Huawei to modify itself by the time bidding starts. “There are already several countries making private networks and Huawei has not entered any nation until now.”",-0.2330746259630714
"El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele declared Monday that soaring migration levels at the southern border are bad for the U.S. and even worse for Latin America because it extracts the people vital to building the solid financial conditions that would keep them in their home country.

In an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson that aired Tuesday night, Bukele attributed the surge at the U.S.-Mexico border to three reasons: a lack of economic opportunities, the absence of security in Latin America, as well as incentives provided in the United States.

The Salvadoran president took responsibility for his country’s contribution to two of the main drivers of the emigration of his compatriots to the U.S. — a lack of economic opportunities and security.

President Bukele told Fox News:

If you don’t provide for your people — economic opportunities — if your economy is doing bad, if your security is doing bad, people are going leave, and you’re going to go and try to find a rich country, right? They’re not going to leave for Guatemala. They want to go to the United States. So, that makes this country dependent on immigration because you become a net exporter of people. You’re not exporting products or services; you’re exporting people.” So, that makes [Latin America’s] economy dependent on that because those people send money back to their home countries, which is not a good economic formula. That makes the economies dependent on that. … It’s bad for the United States because immigration will go up, and it’s bad for our country because [of] people leaving the country … so it’s bad for both of us.

“For a country, it’s not profitable to get the people out. First, it’s immoral. I mean, you need to provide for your people,” the Salvadoran president added.

He noted that U.S. promises of benefits for migrants are incentivizing the exodus of people from El Salvador and other Latin American countries.

President Bukele suggested that current U.S. border policies and enforcement of immigration laws, or the lack thereof, are contributing to the ongoing crisis at America’s southern international boundary.

Seemingly referring to some of the promises made by the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress, Carlson asked, “So, but if the richest country in the world says if you cross over the border, we will give you free health care, free education, all these benefits, I mean that’s a draw, isn’t it?”

“Of course, it’s an incentive,” Bukele replied, adding that migrants are willing to risk the dangerous journey north and arrive at a country where they do not speak the primary language over the prospect that “they will receive a lot of things.”

“It’s an incentive game here. And if, for example, if here in El Salvador we have better jobs and better security, it’s less, it’s less of an incentive,” he added.

Bukele stressed that U.S. incentives for immigrants are gutting El Salvador of people who could contribute to the economy in their home without leaving.

“The best thing for both of us is to keep our people here and to provide for our people right here in our country, and that’s what people here want,” he said.",-0.6119113553644541
"El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele declared Monday that soaring migration levels at the southern border are bad for the U.S. and even worse for Latin America because it extracts the people vital to building the solid financial conditions that would keep them in their home country.

In an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson that aired Tuesday night, Bukele attributed the surge at the U.S.-Mexico border to three reasons: a lack of economic opportunities, the absence of security in Latin America, as well as incentives provided in the United States.

The Salvadoran president took responsibility for his country’s contribution to two of the main drivers of the emigration of his compatriots to the U.S. — a lack of economic opportunities and security.

President Bukele told Fox News:

If you don’t provide for your people — economic opportunities — if your economy is doing bad, if your security is doing bad, people are going leave, and you’re going to go and try to find a rich country, right? They’re not going to leave for Guatemala. They want to go to the United States. So, that makes this country dependent on immigration because you become a net exporter of people. You’re not exporting products or services; you’re exporting people.” So, that makes [Latin America’s] economy dependent on that because those people send money back to their home countries, which is not a good economic formula. That makes the economies dependent on that. … It’s bad for the United States because immigration will go up, and it’s bad for our country because [of] people leaving the country … so it’s bad for both of us.

“For a country, it’s not profitable to get the people out. First, it’s immoral. I mean, you need to provide for your people,” the Salvadoran president added.

He noted that U.S. promises of benefits for migrants are incentivizing the exodus of people from El Salvador and other Latin American countries.

President Bukele suggested that current U.S. border policies and enforcement of immigration laws, or the lack thereof, are contributing to the ongoing crisis at America’s southern international boundary.

Seemingly referring to some of the promises made by the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress, Carlson asked, “So, but if the richest country in the world says if you cross over the border, we will give you free health care, free education, all these benefits, I mean that’s a draw, isn’t it?”

“Of course, it’s an incentive,” Bukele replied, adding that migrants are willing to risk the dangerous journey north and arrive at a country where they do not speak the primary language over the prospect that “they will receive a lot of things.”

“It’s an incentive game here. And if, for example, if here in El Salvador we have better jobs and better security, it’s less, it’s less of an incentive,” he added.

Bukele stressed that U.S. incentives for immigrants are gutting El Salvador of people who could contribute to the economy in their home without leaving.

“The best thing for both of us is to keep our people here and to provide for our people right here in our country, and that’s what people here want,” he said.",-0.9267484617818949
"ROME — Pope Francis called for peace in Paraguay on Wednesday as protests over surging coronavirus cases and political corruption have met with violence.

Following his weekly General Audience, the pope said he has been “concerned about the news from Paraguay,” with demonstrators demanding the impeachment of President Mario Abdo Benítez over his perceived mishandling of the health crisis.

“Through the intercession of Our Lady of Miracles of Caacupé, I ask the Lord Jesus, Prince of Peace, that a path of sincere dialogue may be found to find adequate solutions to the present difficulties, and thus build together the longed-for peace,” the pontiff told viewers following his streamed address from the library of the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.

“Let us remember that violence is always self-destructive,” Francis declared. “Nothing is gained through it, but much is lost, sometimes everything.”

Political corruption and unrest are a way of life in Paraguay, with the ruling Colorado party in power almost exclusively over the last 70 years, which included a military coup in 1989 and a failed coup attempt in 1996.

A recent surge in coronavirus cases in the land-locked country combined with a glacially slow vaccine rollout has sparked anti-Abdo protests that have at times turned violent. For their part, police have responded with water cannons and rubber bullets.

Pope Francis traveled to Paraguay in July 2015 and during his visit he acknowledged Paraguay’s troubled and often violent history.

“From the first days of the country’s independence to recent times, Paraguay has known the terrible sufferings brought on by war, fratricidal conflict, lack of freedom and contempt for human rights,” the pope said at the time. “How much suffering and death!”

Francis commended the Paraguayan people for their “admirable spirit of perseverance in surmounting adversities and in working to build a prosperous and peaceful nation” while urging citizens to learn from their past so as not to repeat its errors.

“A people which forgets its own past, its history and its roots, has no future, it is a dull people,” he said. “Memory, if it is firmly based on justice and rejects hatred and all desire for revenge, makes the past a source of inspiration for the building of a future of serene coexistence.”

“It also makes us realize the tragedy and pointlessness of war,” he said. “Let there be an end to wars between brothers!”

“Let us always build peace!” he urged. “A peace which grows stronger day by day, a peace which makes itself felt in everyday life, a peace to which each person contributes by seeking to avoid signs of arrogance, hurtful words, contemptuousness, and instead by working to foster understanding, dialogue and cooperation.”

Follow @tdwilliamsrome",0.06710770020817466
"Bolivian police arrested former President Jeanine Áñez this weekend – and ordered her to serve four months in prison on Sunday – following accusations by the ruling socialist government of unspecified charges of “terrorism” following the resignation of socialist President Evo Morales.

Morales voluntarily left the presidency in November 2019 after nearly 14 years in power. He ran in the country’s October presidential elections despite being constitutionally term-limited after winning a lawsuit in which he claimed term limits violated his human rights. Morales “won” the election after several technical irregularities resulted in a dramatic shift of votes away from centrist candidate Carlos Mesa and for Morales.

The Organization of American States (OAS) published a preliminary study finding significant evidence of fraud in that presidential election, prompting Morales to resign.

Morales and most senior members of his government – members of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party – fled the country following his resignation. Using the Bolivian constitution’s designated line of succession, authorities determined the Áñez, a conservative senator, was the highest-ranked person left in the country to become interim president.

As president, Áñez’s mandate was to organize free and fair elections as soon as possible. Áñez organized successful elections for October 2020 in which she did not participate. MAS candidate Luis Arce won the election, paving the way for Morales to return from self-imposed exile in Argentina. Arce’s administration dropped charges of terrorism, crimes against humanity, and pedophilia imposed on Morales during Áñez’s administration stemming from Morales’ threats to organize violent attacks on her administration and the discovery of a birth certificate of a child born to Morales and a minor.

Añez is facing charges of terrorism, sedition, and conspiracy, the court processing her case revealed this weekend, in response to her accepting the title of interim president following Morales’s voluntary departure. The judge presiding over the case ruled Áñez is enough of a flight risk to merit four months of pre-trial imprisonment. The charges appear to be a downgrade from initial threats of charges of “genocide” against her by socialist leaders.

Bolivia’s Minister of Justice and Transparency Iván Lima announced the state is seeking to imprison Áñez for 30 years if found guilty.

“What we are seeking is not four months of detention, what we are seeking is a 30-year sentence, because there have been bloody massacres, mothers who have been left without children,” Lima asserted.

Violent incidents did occur in the aftermath of Morales’ resignation, organized and prompted by MAS forces. Socialist groups flooded cities chanting calls for civil war and attacking local facilities. Bolivian authorities obtained audio police claimed to be of Morales himself orchestrating violence from abroad by asking supporters to blockade roads and not “let food into the cities” to starve urban populations into demanding his return to power. Morales also publicly called for the creation of “people’s armed militias” to attack the Áñez government.

Pro-MAS prosecutors are accusing Áñez of being the face of a “coup” with military and police support to depose Morales, citing comments by Williams Kalimán, the head of the Bolivian Armed Forces, suggesting Morales resign given the evidence that he tampered with the results of the presidential election. As Áñez also supported Morales’ resignation, the prosecutors are accusing her of participating in the alleged “coup.”

Local media reported that prosecutors are calling Luis Fernando Camacho – a conservative presidential candidate who ran in the 2020 election – of being the “mastermind” of Áñez’s ascent to the presidency. Prosecutors reportedly do not have evidence of any collusion between Camacho and the MAS leaders who fled the country and left Áñez at the front of the line of succession.

In letters posted to her Twitter account, Áñez is calling for the international community to intervene, specifically requesting the OAS and the European Union send observers to Bolivia to monitor her trial. Áñez referred to her trial as “aberrant political persecution” and urged independent observers to “evaluate in an objective and impartial manner the illegal apprehension that we have been victims of.”

Jeanine Añez pide a la @OEA_oficial y a la @UEenBolivia que envíen observadores, frente al plan del gobierno del MAS para instalar una dictadura en Bolivia. pic.twitter.com/EWwO1qkXwM — Jeanine Añez Chavez (@JeanineAnez) March 13, 2021

In a personal message posted to her account, Áñez urged Bolivians to “have faith and hope” in the coming months.

“As we have denounced, MAS decides and the judicial system obeys: they are sending me to four months in detention to wait on a trial for a ‘coup’ that never happened,” Áñez wrote. “From here I call on Bolivia to have faith and hope. One day, between us all, we will lift up a better Bolivia.”

Como hemos denunciado, el MAS decide y el sistema judicial obedece: me envían 4 meses detenida para esperar el juicio por un ""golpe"" que nunca ocurrió. Desde aquí llamo a Bolivia a tener fe y esperanza. Un día, entre todos, levantaremos una Bolivia mejor. — Jeanine Añez Chavez (@JeanineAnez) March 15, 2021

Alaín de Canedo, Áñez’s attorney, further commented to the press that prosecutors’ focus on statements from military leaders omits the pronounced presence of several major institutions in the transition process after Morales’ voluntary resignation, including the Catholic Church and the United Nations. These entities participated in the transition in peacekeeper capacities, as well as the OAS, and as of now have not made any prominent appearances in the prosecution’s case.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.",-0.9788384596022389
"Washington really is the last nakedly racist place in America. And the very face of this city’s institutional racism is President Biden himself.

Welcome to the White Privilege Presidency.

Mr. Biden is living proof that no matter how dumb you are or how wrong you have always been or how many things you have screwed up, if you are just White enough and willing to wait around long enough accomplishing nothing, the kingship will eventually be yours.

This is a guy who had been rejected by voters — often in his own party — in his endless quest for the presidency many times during his five decades running his mouth in Washington. It was only when a gifted political outsider needed an old White guy for a running mate that Mr. Biden’s ticket to the White House finally got punched.

Literally, Mr. Biden’s only contribution was to be White. And old. And a barnacled deadweight from Washington.

This is why it is so astonishing — though not entirely surprising — to watch Mr. Biden so monumentally screw up everything he touches now that he is supposedly in charge. Nowhere is his reckless incompetence more obvious than on the border with Mexico.

Whatever you might think of former President Trump, he earned credit for finally bringing sanity to the border. Mr. Biden is hellbent to undo all of it — entirely out of political spite.

Or, perhaps, something even worse: Fanatical partisan ideology. In other words, he wants to actually destroy America in order to keep power.

Mr. Trump was “America First.” Mr. Biden is “Mexico First.” Or “Central America First.” Anything, really, except “America First.”

His administration has spent weeks dictating all sorts of words other than “crisis” that can be used to describe the border — even as record numbers of new migrants swarm the border. It is kind of like how Democrats wanted to spend all their time arguing about what to call the China Virus instead of actually doing something to stop it.

The latest wacko diplo-speak word peddled by the administration is “irregular.”

As in: “Do not come in an irregular fashion,” admonished Roberta Jacobson, Mr. Biden’s point person on the border. During an extraordinary press conference this week, Mrs. Jacobson showed a fierce determination to prove she can be every bit as stupid as Mr. Biden has been for the past 45 years.

Parroting Mr. Biden’s campaign promise to “build back better,” Mrs. Jacobson openly admitted that “build back better” does not actually refer to “building back” America.

“President Biden has made clear from Day One that he wants to change our immigration system,” she explained. “Doing so means truly building back better because we can’t just undo four years of the previous administration’s actions overnight.”

By “actions,” Mrs. Jacobson means Mr. Trump’s success at curbing illegal immigration by effectively enforcing U.S. laws and partnering with Mexico and other governments to help end the humanitarian crisis at the border.

Included in Mr. Biden’s “build back better” program, she said, is spending $4 billion of U.S. tax money to “address the root causes of migration, including corruption, violence and economic devastation exacerbated by climate change.”

Oh, I see.

So “build back better” is not about making your life better or spending money in your neighborhood or allowing you to keep more of your money. It’s about giving massive amounts of money to violent, corrupt, and economically devastated countries in Central America.

No longer is America that shining city on a hill for people who want to obey laws and enjoy “Equal Justice Under Law.”

In addition to being the world’s police department, we are also now the world’s welfare office and housing department. Lucky law-abiding American taxpayers (also known as “suckers”).

Speaking of taxpayers, Mrs. Jacobson spent a great deal of time talking about the importance of involving various “business” interests in decisions about illegal immigration into our country.

“I don’t want to leave out the business community as a participant,” she said. Of course, this is the same “business community” desperate for cheap labor — legal or illegal. Whatever.

No concern, however, for the innocent taxpayer — except when the bill comes for the $4 billion to be spent of corrupt, violent, economically devastated countries.

Mrs. Jacobson literally never uttered the word “citizen,” except of course to express the urgent need to grant “citizenship” to the millions of illegals pouring across our border.

Her contempt for Americans was surpassed only by her arrogance.

In an effort to flaunt her prowess as an anti-American internationalist, Mrs. Jacobson repeatedly broke into fevered Spanish, like a woman speaking in tongues at a religious revival.

There was only one problem. Even her Spanish is a lie, too.

Trying to warn migrants against illegally crossing our border, she instead advised them that — indeed — our borders are open. (Apparently, she learned to speak Spanish from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.)

White House press secretary Jen Psaki was later asked about Mrs. Jacobson’s poor Spanish and whether her inability to speak Spanish correctly might contribute to the “non-crisis” on the border.

“We certainly hope not,” Ms. Psaki said, among mostly friends desperate to prop up the Biden administration. “We have the power of the media here to make sure you’re communicating effectively with the messages.”

Oh my. Finally, somebody in the Biden administration tells the truth.

• Charles Hurt is opinion editor. He may be reached at churt@washingtontimes.com.",-0.4647379969561087
"The Islamic dictatorship of Iran celebrated the arrival Thursday of 100,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine candidates made in Cuba, which claims to have four such products in development.

Iran and Cuba are close diplomatic partners and both claim to be developing vaccines against the Chinese coronavirus. Cuba has registered four experimental coronavirus vaccine products with the World Health Organization (W.H.O.)’s tracking database of products. The most advanced of the four, “Soberana 02,” reportedly began Phase III clinical trials this month.

Tehran has divulged little about its alleged coronavirus vaccine candidate, other than the fact Cuba will host human trials. The Iranian regime has also made several other dubious scientific claims, like alleging the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, was working on its own vaccine product and had developed a “magnetic” device that detects coronavirus in patients.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency did not specify which of Cuba’s vaccine candidates had arrived in the country this week.

“The aircraft carrying the first shipment, including 100,000 doses of the vaccine, landed at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport this afternoon,” Tasnim reported. “Earlier, Iran had taken delivery of four consignments of the Russian-made Sputnik-V and one shipment of the Chinese-made Sinopharm COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] vaccines.”

The outlet did not provide any information on when those vaccine doses would be available to Iranian patients or if doctors would administer them to the general public or select groups. It did note the Cuban products would join increasingly large numbers of doses of “Sputnik V,” the vaccine candidate developed in Russia, after Tehran and Moscow agreed on a deal allowing domestic production of the vaccine in Iran.

No country’s health authority, including Cuba’s, has approved any vaccine candidate created by the nation’s Communist Party. Cuba appeared to begin shopping its four vaccine candidates — Soberanas 01 and 02, Abdala, and Mambisa — this month to neighboring developing countries that may not have the resources to purchase doses of widely-approved vaccines, such as those manufactured by American firms Pfizer and Moderna. Cuban diplomats reportedly opened a discussion on selling coronavirus vaccine candidates with counterparts in Suriname at the beginning of the month.

The vaccine that the Cuban government is developing with the aid of Iran appears to be “Soberana 02.” According to a report published in January by Granma, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, the two countries signed a “historic” agreement that month that would allow clinical trials of that vaccine candidate in Iran. In addition to claiming that the deal would accelerate the development of anti-coronavirus technology, Granma asserted that their cooperation would make a statement against “the cruelest and most inhuman sanctions of the government of the United States” against both rogue regimes.

That month, Granma also claimed Cuba would host Phase II clinical trials of a separate vaccine candidate developed by both Iran and Cuba jointly. The vaccine candidate is allegedly the product of the Pasteur Institute of Iran; Granma did not identify it by any particular name.

“The second phase of the human trial is being conducted under the supervision of the Pasteur Institute of Iran in Cuba. Provided that the second phase is successful, the third phase will be implemented in Iran,” Kianoush Jahanpour, a spokesman for Iran’s Food and Drug Administration (IFDA) announced in January.

“Soberana 02” formally began Phase III clinical trials in Cuba in early March.

Cuba and Iran have both received scrutiny for their lackluster responses to the pandemic spreading within their borders. Iran has documented 1.7 million coronavirus cases since the pandemic began and 61,069 deaths. The Castro regime has documented 59,919 cases of coronavirus and only 365 deaths, a significantly lower number than many of its neighbors, raising concerns regarding the honesty of the Cuban government in tracking cases.

The Castro regime has a long history of falsifying medical statistics, most prominently documenting infant deaths as “abortions” to boast an extremely low infant mortality rate. Cuban slave doctors who have defected from international missions have repeatedly testified to being forced to fabricate data on treating patients, in some cases destroying medicine to later claim to have prescribed it to patients who did not exist, to make the missions appear more efficient.

Last month, defecting Cuban slave doctors testified to falsifying medical data about coronavirus patients specifically, writing that they had treated patients who did not exist, in many cases making up false names to fill up government notebooks.

Criticisms of Iran’s coronavirus response focus largely on the regime’s lack of action in preventing mass gatherings at the height of the pandemic — and, in some cases, organizing “super spreader” events for the regime’s political benefit. Iran held a sham parliamentary election in February 2020, exposing those who voted to crowds at polling stations when evidence of viral spread already existed. Iran attempted to shut down some Islamic shrines in March 2020 but met with fierce opposition by hardline Muslims, who stormed and physically reopened some of the sites in mob attacks.

In July, Health Minister Saeed Namaki complained that Iran’s coronavirus response was “embarrassing” and that his ministry had not addressed the economic damage of lockdowns appropriately, making it impossible for the Health Ministry to advise social distancing measures without also jeopardizing the public’s livelihood” and triggering an “insurrection.”

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.",0.0013200436068739239
"Mexico’s Congress voted in favor of legalizing marijuana–a move some politicians claim will help curb the raging cartel violence.

This week, Mexico’s congressmen held a series of heated debates about legalizing marijuana for medical, recreational, and industrial use. The bill decriminalizes possession of up to 28 grams and sets up regulations for production and distribution.

The proposed law passed largely along party lines with 316-129 and 23 abstentions. The opposition consisted of the National Action Party (PAN) and Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI). Supporting the bill were largely from the ruling party, MORENA.

The bill was previously approved by Mexico’s Senate, bringing legalization one step closer to fruition. After some revisions between the versions passed by the different chambers, the bill would become a law once it is published in the Official Federation Ledger.

Legalization has been one of the main issues pushed by Mexico’s Morena Party with controversial Senator Jesusa Rodriguez being one of the most outspoken supporters. Rodriguez made headlines in the past for comparing marijuana to a clitoris and for bringing a plant into the senate chambers.

Soy una planta compuesta de CBD y THC, y tengo más propiedades que Duarte y sus familiares. Escúchala completa: https://t.co/w0A6TJJdT1#MarihuanaLegal @Mx_Diputados. pic.twitter.com/nKDpcS3CXx — Jesusa Rodríguez (@jesusardgz) December 7, 2020

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.

Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.",0.6045693996927344
"A justice on Brazil’s Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF), the nation’s top court, overturned the multiple convictions on charges of corruption against former socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Monday.

Multiple courts have found Lula guilty of receiving a bribe while president in the form of a million-dollar luxury beachfront property and renovations to it since 2017; while the courts repeatedly modified each other’s sentences, the shortest sentence he received was for eight years in prison. The convictions triggered Brazil’s “Clean Slate” law, which bans politicians from running for public office with a conviction on charges of corruption on their record.

As of Monday, the “Clean Slate” law no longer applies, allowing Lula to potentially run for president against incumbent conservative President Jair Bolsonaro in 2022.

The STF’s exoneration of Lula follows the court taking on an increasingly prominent role in arresting conservative and right-leaning critics of the Brazilian left. In May 2020, the STF ordered raids against the homes of 29 YouTube celebrities, comedians, and journalists who had spoken favorably of Bolsonaro in public on alleged charges of “fake news.” Last month, the STF ordered the arrest of a Congressman, Daniel Silveira, over the publication of a YouTube video in which he criticized the STF.

Under Lula, the country experienced one of the most expansive corruption scandals on record, now known by the nickname of the investigation into it, “Operation Car Wash.” Dozens of politicians of multiple parties, not just Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT), have been arrested on charges of accepting kickbacks from private contractors, most notoriously the Brazilian firm Odebrecht, in exchange for lucrative government infrastructure contracts.

STF Justice Edson Fachin — appointed to the court by Lula’s successor and protege, the impeached former president Dilma Rousseff — ruled Monday that the court that initially found Lula guilty did not have the authority to try the case. Fachin did not comment on the evidence that had resulted in a guilty verdict but rather remanded the case to what he considered the appropriate court in the capital, Brasilia. The Brasilia court may find Lula guilty again, resulting in another ban on running for office.

“Operation Car Wash” began as a much smaller investigation in Curitiba, a southern city and regional capital of Paraná state. Investigators, with the support of local judge Sergio Moro, began finding mounting evidence that the apparently local money laundering cases they were probing were tied to a much large conspiracy ensnaring much of the Brazilian Congress and, ultimately, Lula.

The investigation resulted in at least 160 arrests — many of them of prominently lawmakers and other political figures — and police recovered as much as $1 billion as of 2019. Moro became a national hero and was promoted to Minister of Justice under Bolsonaro. He ultimately resigned claiming Bolsonaro did not sufficiently empower him to fight corruption. Bolsonaro denied the allegations.

The Brazilian left has expressed concern with the fact that Fachin’s ruling did not address the investigation Moro led at all, nor did it weigh in on Lula’s innocence. Instead, it simply asserted that Moro did not have jurisdiction to rule on the case because his court was located in Curitiba. Lula’s attorneys had requested the court overrule his conviction on the grounds that Moro was allegedly compromised in his judgment by political opposition to Lula, a claim Moro has denied.

As Lula now has no convictions to his name, the socialist former leader has catapulted to the top of the list of contenders against Bolsonaro in 2022. Prior to his convictions before the 2018 election, some polls found that Lula had more support as a candidate than Bolsonaro. The polling offered conflicting conclusions, however. One poll published in February 2018 by the firm Datafolha, following Lula’s conviction, found that between 34 and 37 percent of respondents would vote for Lula, far more than the 16-18 percent supporting Bolsonaro. Over half of Brazilians said, however, that they wanted the government to Lula from running for president and 53 percent said they wanted to see him in prison.

Lula expressed his intent to run for president again years before the 2018 election, comparing himself to Jesus Christ. He attempted to run against Bolsonaro from prison in 2018, campaigning on the unpopular claim that “Operation Car Wash” was a far-right conspiracy. He refused to give up his nomination as the PT candidate — despite being legally barred from the ballot — until the month before the election, dooming the replacement candidate Fernando Haddad.

Lula is currently 75 years old, raising questions regarding his ability to engage in a rigorous presidential campaign next year. Despite this, O Globo cited a poll on Tuesday show that half of Brazilians would still vote for Lula. Almost the same number, 44 percent, said they would absolutely not vote for him for any reason, making him an extremely polarizing figure. The poll, by the first Ipec, found Bolsonaro fairing poorly against Lula, but significantly better against other potential rivals like Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria.

Bolsonaro reacted to the news on Monday by highlighting the STF’s left-wing bias.

“Anything decision from the 11 justices, you can guess what they think or what they write on paper. Justice Fachin has strong ties to the PT, this decision doesn’t surprise us in that sense,” the president said. Bolsonaro then described Lula’s first tenure, noting the collapse of the economy and widespread government corruption, as “catastrophic.”

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"Eyewitnesses say the Cuban Communist Party is forcing suspected coronavirus patients into unsanitary, poorly stocked, and densely populated “camps” and making them take an unproven antiviral treatment, a report revealed this weekend.

The Global Liberty Alliance (GLA), a human rights advocacy group that focuses on legal aid to dissidents, verified ongoing reports of Cuban citizens ending up in “isolation centers” if suspected of carrying Chinese coronavirus. The camp whose existence and dire medical status the organization confirmed is located in central Santa Clara.

“A government ‘survey taker’ (encuestadora), allegedly connected to the Ministry of Public Health, knocks on citizens’ doors daily, asking how many people live in each home and whether they are experiencing respiratory or fever-like symptoms,” the GLA confirmed. “Suspected COVID [Chinese coronavirus]-positive cases are being transported to an ‘isolation center,’ which is a minimally converted school. They are isolated for 5 days, given the PCR COVID-19 test, and if tested positive, are sent to the Military Hospital. If they test negative, they must remain 5 more days before being PCR tested again.”

The report corroborated prior revelations from Cuban independent media that the “isolation centers” were poorly run camps where potential coronavirus patients were kept close enough together that the virus may have been spreading within the facility. Authorities also provided nearly inedible food to those forced to stay there, many reports emphasized. Cubanet, a dissident online outlet, published photographs of one of the “meals” at a camp in Havana that appeared to feature two boiled eggs, a piece of boiled unidentified root vegetable, and rice.

ὄ Un ejemplo de la comida que dan el centro de aislamiento de la UCI (Universidad de Ciencias Informáticas), en La Habana. pic.twitter.com/U82P3ERxC5 — Cubanet 🇺 (@CubanetNoticias) March 5, 2021

Among the most alarming revelations in the GLA report is the fact that the Cuban government is using unproven interferon treatments on people who test positive for coronavirus and are thus moved from the converted school facility to the military hospital camp.

“In some cases, a COVID-negative person can accompany patients in the hospital. The COVID-negative companions are given drops of Nasalferon … twice daily to prevent contagion, while the COVID-positive patients are given interferon shots,” the GLA report detailed.

The confirmation echoes reports in Cuban state media boasting that nasal interferon treatments (nasalferon) would be available for at-home use to individuals who test positive for Chinese coronavirus but do not require hospitalization.

Interferons are antivirals that can generate extreme side effects in individuals. Some preliminary studies have shown that one interferon, Interferon-beta, may have some positive effects in fighting infections of Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a disease caused by a different coronavirus. No studies suggest a similar possibility of positive effects against the Chinese coronavirus. Cuba has spent the past year promoting the use of a different interferon, Interferon-alpha 2b, against Chinese coronavirus, despite the lack of scientific evidence for the treatment.

“When the Government of Cuba assures that the Interferon developed in Cuba cures the coronavirus, it is committing a serious crime against world public health, since this drug not only lacks any scientific proof, but also where it has been tested has already given null results of encouragement,” a group of doctors denounced in April 2020 in response to the campaign, in a statement via the human rights organization Cuban Prisoners Defenders.

The interferon treatment could “kill, rather than cure patients,” the doctors warned.

Cuba has received minimal international support from the scientific community in its pursuit of interferon treatment. Socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela initially promoted in early 2020, but even this reliable ally has pivoted to domestically produced false cures, such as the administration of toxic ozone gas to coronavirus patients.

At least one nation – South Africa – has bought into the interferon theory. South African officials recently revealed that the nation’s military bought doses of Interferon-alpha-2b from Havana in the last year. It remains unclear how the military managed to purchase the unproven treatment, where the 260 million rand ($16.8 million) came from to buy the antivirals, or who would have access to them. The South African Defense Force set up an ad-hoc task team this week to investigate the purchase.

The GLA report on Cuba’s coronavirus camps also raised concerns about the competence of Cuba’s medical staffers.

“According to reports, however, the medical professionals are not documenting people’s health conditions and status accurately,” the report noted. “They have tried to give interferon to COVID-negative companions instead of the COVID patient, and have tried to give excessive doses of Interferon to patients, allegedly due to poor documentation.”

Staffers also reportedly do nothing to maintain a sanitary environment in the camps, meaning patients are forced to do their own cleaning.

“The cleanliness in the center is ‘awful,’ with patients having to clean most spaces themselves, which further contributes to contamination,” the report detailed. “The only space cleaned by staff is the common walkway between beds; everything else is left dirty. No bleach is available unless patients befriend cleaning staff.”",0.7665732469464337
"A poll released Thursday by the Venezuelan firm Meganálisis found the vast majority of people living under the repressive socialist regime there do not believe any meaningful difference exists between the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and formally incorporated opposition parties.

Venezuela’s opposition is currently led by the nation’s legal president, Juan Guaidó, a former member of the nation’s Popular Will Party. Popular Will is a full member of the Socialist International; Guaidó’s signature policy proposal, the Country Plan (Plan País), proposes mass nationalization of the few industries still private under dictator Nicolás Maduro and heavy government subsidizing of social welfare programs.

While Guaidó is legally the president of the country, he has failed to exercise any power within its borders. Maduro, who has not legally been head of state since January 2019, retains the loyalty of the Venezuelan Armed Forces, which he has used to remain in the presidential palace, Miraflores. He recently took over the National Assembly, the federal legislature and last democratically elected institution in the country, in an election largely boycotted by opposition parties.

The rejection of opposition leaders by the Venezuelan people generally echoes results in past Meganálisis polls that found overwhelming numbers of Venezuelans believed Guaidó to be incompetent and unsuccessful in combatting Maduro. Most expressed displeasure at the government of the United States continuing to support Guaidó.

President Donald Trump recognized Guaidó as the legal president of Venezuela and invited him as a guest to his final State of the Union address in 2020. President Joe Biden has vowed that Trump’s Venezuela policy, despite being apparently unpopular in Venezuela, will be one of the few policies he does not expect to change in any significant way from the Trump era. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to Guaidó via phone this week, offering “unwavering support.”

The Meganálisis survey published this week, taken starting on February 26, asked Venezuelans, “Judging from their behavior in front of citizens, do you believe that the opposition political parties and the PSUV are very different or the same?”

An overwhelming 71.4 percent of citizens answered “the same,” while nearly one-fifth said they were “different.” About nine percent said they did not know.

Past polling about Guaidó, specifically, has shown immense disillusion and lack of trust in him from the Venezuelan public. In May, Meganálisis asked Venezuelans if they believed Guaidó was “capable of governing Venezuela.” Nearly 90 percent said “no.” Another 86 percent said that he had led the opposition “very poorly” and the same amount said they believed Guaidó had administered resources offered by President Trump poorly.

By August, 82.4 percent of respondents said they believed Guaidó had “deceived” Trump.

“Based on our history of opinion studies … we can say today that Juan Guaidó’s image is superlatively worn, reaching such low levels that without a doubt we could qualify it as irreparable in the short- or medium-term,” Rubén Chirino Leañez, vice president and CEO, told Breitbart News in September, “and this is an overwheming reality that the United States government should address as soon as possible to reconstruct its policy towards Venezuela and generate successes truly recognized as such by the majority of Venezuelans in the country.”

At press time, the Biden administration has not broken in any way with Trump’s Venezuela policy, save for easing some sanctions against Maduro, and has not publicly addressed Guaidó’s credibility issues.

Elsewhere in the February survey, asked about their specific ideologies, 58.1 percent of Venezuelans said they preferred “capitalism” to be the model governing Venezuela, a drop from a peak of 72.3 percent supporting capitalism when Meganálisis asked this question in September. “Socialism” came second to capitalism at 11.9 percent, but was not an option in the September poll, which may have skewed support for capitalism, as well. This week’s poll found only 9.6 percent of respondents supported a “social democrat” model, a form of light socialism prominently represented by Guaidó.

Venezuelans rejected socialism more aggressively when asked exclusively about it. In response to the question, “Do you think that socialism produces misery, ignorance, and backwardness in countries?” 77.4 percent of people said “yes.”

February’s Meganálisis poll also asked Venezuelans about their perception of American attitudes towards their country, finding that most believe American political leaders are uninterested in their current crisis. The survey asked, “How much do you believe that the new U.S. President Joe Biden cares about the problems and crisis lived in Venezuela?” Of total respondents, 74.1 percent answered, “not at all.”

Few appeared more confident that Trump was interested in helping them. Asked to choose who has “shown more interest in Venezuela” between Trump and Biden, 56.8 percent said “neither.” Almost 20 percent of respondents chose Trump, while only 2.2 percent said Biden.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.",2.0339501504241393
"Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro revealed via Twitter on Wednesday that he had concluded an “excellent videoconference” that day with United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, who previously accused him of “grave human rights abuses.”

Maduro’s regime enjoys a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council and Maduro himself addressed the Council last month, using the opportunity largely to promote dubious coronavirus “cures” and complain about sanctions against his regime imposed by the United States. The U.N. Council and independent investigators working for the global institution — and Bachelet’s office itself — has for years affirmed that an extensive body of credible evidence exists that Maduro ordered the Venezuelan military to engage in gross human rights violations for years, particularly the use of rape, torture, and extrajudicial killing to silence anti-socialist dissidents.

“Essential institutions and the rule of law in Venezuela have been eroded,” Bachelet, formerly the socialist president of Chile, wrote in a 2019 report following a working visit to Venezuela. “Many could constitute extrajudicial killings, and should be fully investigated with accountability of perpetrators, and guarantees of non-recurrence.”

Despite personally testifying to Maduro’s role in human rights atrocities in the country, photos published by Maduro showing Bachelet on his computer appear to indicate that she engaged the dictator in a friendly chat on Wednesday. Bachelet appears to smile warmly at Maduro and the other senior regime officials on the call.

“I had an excellent videoconference with the High Commissioner of the U.N. for [human rights], [Michelle Bachelet],” Maduro wrote. “We discussed the negative effects of sanctions against Venezuela, we also expanded upon material elements of our policy regarding the Covid-19 [Chinese coronavirus] pandemic.”

Sostuve una excelente videoconferencia con la Alta Comisionada de la ONU para los DDHH, @mbachelet. Conversamos sobre los efectos negativos de las sanciones contra Venezuela, también ampliamos elementos en materia de nuestra política de atención a la Pandemia del Covid-19. pic.twitter.com/3EiegswS2E — Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) March 3, 2021

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry issued an expanded statement noting that Maduro was accompanied in his discussion by the regime’s top diplomat, Jorge Arreaza, and providing some more detail on the conversation. The two sides reportedly discussed “advances obtained through cooperation and the work in strengthening mechanisms for the protection of human rights in the country.” Like Maduro’s short statement, the Ministry emphasized that the main point of discussion for the regime was the fight against sanctions placed on it “unilaterally,” meaning by the United States, and claims that the sanctions themselves are a human rights violation.

Most American sanctions on the Maduro regime relate to its extensive record of violating the human rights of Venezuelan citizens. The sanctions target the state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) as well as personal assets belonging to Maduro and some of his top officials. Maduro has not been legally president of Venezuela since January 2019, when his last legal term expired, so American authorities have also prohibited his regime from accessing government funds, giving that option to the legitimate president of the country, Juan Guaidó. Despite his status as the constitutional president of Venezuela, Guaidó has failed to exercise his powers in any meaningful way as Maduro retains control of the nation’s military.

The U.N. recognizes Maduro, not Guaidó, as the head of state of Venezuela.

Multiple U.N. reports have found Maduro guilty of extreme human rights abuses. A special mission to the country published a report in September accusing Maduro of “the systematic use of torture” against political dissidents.

“The Mission found reasonable grounds to believe that Venezuelan authorities and security forces have since 2014 planned and executed serious human rights violations, some of which — including arbitrary killings and the systematic use of torture — amount to crimes against humanity,” chief investigator Marta Valinas said at the time. “Far from being isolated acts, these crimes were coordinated and committed pursuant to State policies, with the knowledge or direct support of commanding officers and senior government officials.”

Prior to the 2020 report, Bachelet herself visited Venezuela on a mission to assess the human rights situation there, finding evidence of “grave human rights violations” committed on Maduro’s orders.

“During my visit to Venezuela, I was able to hear first-hand the accounts of victims of State violence and their demands for justice,” Bachelet said in a statement. “I have faithfully conveyed their voices, and those of civil society, as well as the human rights violations documented in this report, to the relevant authorities.”

Among the human rights violations Maduro has ordered his officers to commit are extensive executions of children, the systematic rape of political dissidents, attacks on churches, and rampant use of torture in political prisons.

These violations did not stop the U.N. Human Rights Council from welcoming Maduro alongside other grave human rights violators like China, Cuba, and Pakistan, as a member government. Maduro told the Human Rights Council last month that he would no longer accept any more investigations into his nation’s dire human rights situation.

“I reiterate that the Venezuelan state will decidedly work with the actors of this Human Rights Council, just as I ratify that we will not accept the intervention of any inquisitor mechanism against our nation, Venezuela, that seeks to use the just cause of human rights as a political tool for a government, or a regime, change in our country,” Maduro said.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.",-0.45028317427406594
"People in Buenos Aires and other cities in Argentina banged pots and pans on Monday night to stage a noisy protest after a nationally televised speech by President Alberto Fernández, recently linked to a vaccine scandal in which some Argentine government ministers received priority access to coronavirus vaccines before the general public.

Argentina’s Secretariat of Media and Public Communication, Hernán Lombardi, called for Argentinians to stage a “cacerolazo” – a form of protest in Argentina in which people bang pots and pans to call attention to a cause – on March 1 if Fernández failed to address the vaccine scandal during his speech in a manner deemed acceptable by his critics.

Residents of Buenos Aires and other Argentine cities heeded the call on Monday, stepping outside of their homes and onto their balconies with pots in hand to protest the government’s preferential treatment of its ministers and allies.

Se desarrolla un #cacerolazo en Buenos Aires- #Argentina, luego de que el pdte #socialista Alberto Fernández diera un discurso sobre su gestión en el Congreso Nacional. El cacerolazo también es un rechazo a las #VacunasVIP.#DanielRios pic.twitter.com/46UgYCy6Pq — Daniel Rios (@Daniel_RiosVE) March 2, 2021

This form of protest, known as a cacerolazo, is common throughout Latin America as a peaceful and socially distant way to express displeasure with the government.

Argentina’s government on February 22 released a list of 70 people who received a coronavirus vaccine before the official launch of Argentina’s national campaign. The list included members of Argentina’s current presidential administration, such as Economic Minister Martín Guzmán, as well as former Argentine President Eduardo Duhalde, his wife, and their children. Many of those on the list are young and do not suffer from health conditions that would make their vaccination a priority under the legal vaccine distribution system.

Argentina’s former health minister, Ginés González García, resigned from his post on February 19 after news of the scandal first broke. President Fernández requested García’s resignation after an Argentine journalist said he had received a coronavirus vaccination early after personally asking the then-health minister for VIP access.

The cacerolazo protest on March 1 was the second major demonstration by Argentines denouncing the vaccine scandal. A number of protesters gathered outside the Argentine federal government’s headquarters in Buenos Aires on February 28 to stage a macabre anti-government demonstration.

“On the railings in front of the Casa Rosada, the seat of the government and the president’s office, protesters hung mock black body bags with the names of pro-government leaders vaccinated,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

“They started by vaccinating friends of the government. It is not appropriate. They are stealing someone else’s life,” a protester named Irene Marcet told AFP.

President Fernández condemned the body bag demonstration in a Twitter statement.

“The way to demonstrate in a democracy cannot be to display mortuary bags with names of political leaders in front of the Casa Rosada,” he wrote.

“This regrettable action only shows how many opponents see the Republic. Let us not be silent before such an act of barbarism,” the president added.",-1.9188308308342061
"The Communist Party of Cuba is shopping around its four Chinese coronavirus vaccine candidates to impoverished neighbors, potentially selling its most developed one, “Soberana 02,” to Suriname, Diario de Cuba reported on Tuesday.

Cuba boasts one of the world’s worst healthcare systems but invests heavily in foreign propaganda boasting of its allegedly superior medical schools and research institutions. It is the only Latin American country formally working on a vaccine against Chinese coronavirus. Soberana (“sovereign”) 02 entered late-stage clinical trials this week.

Prior to its promotion of the vaccine candidates, the Cuban government attempted to attract the world’s attention claiming that interferons, a form of antiviral, could be used to fight coronavirus infections. Cuba remains the only nation to promote the use of interferons in this manner; doctors abroad condemned Havana for promoting a dangerous and possibly lethal unproven treatment.

“When the Government of Cuba assures that the Interferon developed in Cuba cures the coronavirus, it is committing a serious crime against world public health, since this drug not only lacks any scientific proof, but also where it has been tested has already given null results of encouragement,” a group of doctors wrote in an article shared with the NGO Cuban Prisoners Defenders.

Diario de Cuba cited the Castro regime’s ambassador to Paramaribo, Suriname, as the source for the promise on behalf of the regime to grant Suriname access to its vaccine candidates. The ambassador, Igor Azcuy, met with the head of the nation’s parliament, Gregory Rusland, this week. According to a readout of that meeting published by Cuba’s Ministry of External Relations (Minrex), the two discussed “the situation of Cuba before the pandemic and the manufacture on the island of four vaccine projects.”

The statement did not elaborate further on what, exactly, the two discussed regarding the vaccines, and continued noting that the two also discussed Cuba’s hostile relationship with the United States and its “eventual improvement … under the new government of the U.S.”

President Joe Biden served as vice president during the tenure of President Barack Obama, who granted the Castro regime unprecedented concessions, like the legalization of tourist cruises to the island, that generated millions in revenue for the regime. President Donald Trump largely revoked those concessions, leaving the Communist Party with minimal resources to repress its people.

Diario de Cuba reported discussions with Suriname may result in the country receiving doses of one of the four vaccine candidates by the second half of 2021, citing Prensa Latina, a Cuban regime outlet. The newspaper also noted Cuban officials have hinted to Cuba’s desire to sell its vaccine candidates to “friendly countries,” claiming it will be able to manufacture enough doses for the entire island without having to worry about selling abroad.

Granma, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, announced Phase III clinical trials for Soberana 02 to begin this week. Another vaccine candidate, “Abdala,” has reportedly already begun “industrial-scale production,” despite not finishing clinical trials. Cuban doctors will inject 44,000 people with Soberana 02 as part of its Phase III, and over 300,000 doses of the vaccine are ready.

Cuba’s candidate will compete with an array of international contenders, the most successful of which so far appears to be the coronavirus vaccine developed by the American company Pfizer, which boasts 95-percent effectiveness. The Communist Party of China has approved two vaccines, by firms Sinovac and Sinopharm, respectively, that are significantly less effective. China is planning to import at least 100 million doses of the Pfizer product through its European partner, BioNTech.

Cuban officials have claimed that, unlike most currently available vaccines, the Cuban products show significant success rates against new variants of the original Chinese coronavirus found in South Africa and Brazil.

“Cuba will be one of the first nations to immunize its entire population,” Eduardo Martinez, president of the government-run BioCubaFarma, said in early February.

Cuban officials have not revealed any specific plans for distributing its own vaccine candidates – or any other vaccines – to its people. Cuba has a poor record with routine vaccinations, as its healthcare system has been on the brink of collapse for decades. In a notable recent incident, Cuban doctors killed a one-year-old, Paloma Dominguez Caballero, with a routine Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine. After demanding an explanation for her death for weeks, Dominguez’s parents were forced to flee the country due to government intimidation. They never received an explanation for their daughter’s death, though some suggested either the vaccine dose was faulty or it was poorly refrigerated.

Cuban officials have hinted, without a plan for vaccinating citizens, wealthy tourists may be eligible to receive approved coronavirus vaccine candidates.

Cuba documented more Chinese coronavirus cases in February than any other month prior, according to Granma. Doctors confirmed 22,998 cases of infection that month, compared to 15,536 in January. At the beginning of the pandemic, the Communist Party initially attempted to profit by advertising itself as open to tourism, prompting nationwide protests. Havana reversed course after documenting its first cases, all Italian tourists, in March 2020.

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"The socialist government of Argentina imposed a one-time wealth tax on its citizens this week, allegedly to offset the country’s crippling debt, which has worsened during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

Argentine citizens with assets of more than 200 million pesos ($2.3 million) must pay about three percent in taxes on assets declared within Argentina and over five percent on assets held abroad. The one-time special levy will apply to around 12,000 people in the South American country. Argentine senators passed the so-called “millionaires’ tax” by 42 votes to 26 in December.

Argentina, which has long struggled with immense debt, found its economy in dire straits last year due, in part, to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The country’s gross domestic product plummeted 11.8 percent in 2020, while Argentina’s poverty rate jumped from “35.4 percent in the first half of 2019 to 40.9 percent during the same period in 2020,” according to a recent report by the Washington Post.

The Argentine federal government responded to the spike in poverty levels by increasing expenditures on social programs and cash handouts to the poor during the pandemic. Argentina’s socialist President Alberto Fernández proposed the wealth tax bill last year as a means for the government to offset this increased spending. The levy’s supporters say it could generate up to $3.5 billion from the estimated 12,000 people in Argentina it would apply to.

“We’re talking about 0.02 percent of the population,” Carlos Heller, a member of the Chamber of Deputies from Buenos Aires who co-sponsored the wealth tax bill, told the Washington Post last week. “It’s a small contribution we’re asking from the richest Argentines.”

Opponents of the wealth tax have criticized it as “confiscatory.” The Argentine Rural Society has warned that the tax, which the government advertised as a “one-time special levy,” could become permanent in the future.

Argentina’s revenue service (AFIP) announced on February 26 that it plans to criminally prosecute a select number of the 12,000 people affected by the wealth tax for alleged tax evasion. The AFIP warned that it will “initiate criminal complaints” against an estimated 2,500 of the wealth tax’s payers for “aggravated [tax] evasion” and will file the cases on March 30.

Wealth taxes often have negative side effects that undermine their stated intent, such as driving holders of wealth out of a nation. A long-standing wealth tax in France forced an estimated 42,000 of the nation’s richest citizens to flee the country between 2000 and 2012. French President Emmanuel Macron repealed the wealth tax in 2018 after it was blamed for not only the wealth exodus, but also an increase in alleged incidents of tax evasion.

The wealth exodus caused by France’s “solidarity” tax cost the French government “twice as much revenue as the total ultimately yielded by the tax,” according to an analysis of the measure by French economist Eric Pichet.",-0.5984769090326738
"The number of inmates killed in prison riots in Ecuador this week rose to 79 Wednesday, government officials confirmed.

Ecuador’s national prison agency (SNAI) reported 37 inmates were killed in two prison riots in the city of Guayaquil, 34 were killed in a prison riot in Cuenca, and 8 were killed in a prison riot in Latacunga. All four prison riots were connected to an intra-prison power struggle between rival gangs, according to Ecuadorian government officials.

Ecuador’s federal government deployed hundreds of police officers and military personnel to four prisons on February 23 after riots sparked within the facilities’ maximum security wings on the night of February 22. The maximum-security wings of Ecuadorian prisons primarily house inmates linked to serious crimes such as killings, drug trafficking, and extortion.

“Thanks to the actions carried out between this institution and the National Police, the situation … is under control,” SNAI said in a statement on February 24.

Inmates in two prisons in Guayaquil threatened to continue rioting Wednesday, forcing authorities to deploy about 400 police and army personnel to the facilities to reinforce security.

The Ecuadorian newspaper El Comercio reported:

Elite units of the National Police and … Special Forces Brigade erected a fence around the entire perimeter of the Cotopaxi Rehabilitation Center [in Latacunga]. The objective was to prevent a possible escape of the inmates this Thursday, February 25, 2021, after the new violent incidents inside the jail.

“What happened yesterday was no coincidence. It was organized from outside the prison, orchestrated by those who are in dispute over leadership and drug trafficking across our national territory,” Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno said Wednesday.

Moreno also pointed to overpopulation within Ecuador’s prison system and insufficient personnel and resources as factors that enabled Tuesday’s deadly riots, which took place across four facilities that account for 70 percent of Ecuador’s prison population.

President Moreno declared a state of emergency in Ecuador’s prison system in 2019 after at least 24 people were killed during a wave of violent incidents at detention facilities that year. At least 103 inmates were killed in prison violence in 2020, according to the office of Ecuador’s human rights ombudsman.

The Ecuadorian federal government commuted the sentences of prison inmates convicted of minor offenses last year to reduce overcrowding in the country’s prison system during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. The action brought prison overcrowding down from 42 percent to 30 percent. Despite the efforts to reduce its inmate population, Ecuador’s prison system still houses about 38,000 people, over 10,000 more than it was designed to hold.",0.5543599656003716
"United Nations agencies have begun efforts to return asylum seekers currently residing in Mexico under the Trump Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) back to U.S. soil. An estimated 25,000 asylum seekers are eligible for transfer under President Joe Biden’s cancellation of the MPP. The UN received 12,000 applications over a three-day period beginning February 19.

According a United Nations press release, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), are conducting in-person registration and are performing COVID-19 tests.

Other platforms to assist the asylum seekers in their return to the United States will include email, in-person, social media, and telephone hotlines.

Many of the asylum seekers in the MPP program moved away from the immediate border area to other parts of Mexico. Others simply returned to their home country. The IOM will coordinate and provide transportation for those asylum seekers to the United States border as well.

At the border, UN agencies reported an in-person effort to register approximately 750 in Matamoros at a makeshift camp. The population of the informal camp across the border from Brownsville, Texas, once offered refuge to thousands.

Law enforcement sources confirmed that Border Patrol personnel are being re-directed from patrol routes to process the re-entry of former MPP seekers. The program has yet to meet the original goal of 300 asylum applicant returns per day, according to sources.

The effort to accommodate the asylum seekers threatens to further stretch community resources along the border.

Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas Sector.",-2.1251446442769906
"Miami’s Cuban-American community held a commemoration event Wednesday to honor the lives of Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre, Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales, four Americans killed by the Communist Party of Cuba while flying over international waters in 1996.

The four men were members of a group known as Brothers to the Rescue that organized humanitarian missions over the Caribbean, seeking to find wayward Cuban refugees adrift at sea attempting to reach Florida. The Cuban military shot their planes down without any provocation and has never justified the murders, killing all four. Only one person — Gerardo Hernandez, a spy convicted of sharing pivotal information with the Castro regime that allowed it to target the victims — ever went to prison for the crime. President Barack Obama freed Hernandez and returned him to Cuba in exchange for hostage Alan Gross; prior to his release, the Obama administration arranged to ship Hernandez’s sperm to Cuba to allow him to become a father.

The 25th anniversary of the killings following repeated calls from Cuban-American leaders for the administration of President Joe Biden to continue the pressure on the Castro regime currently in place as a result of policies taken on by his predecessor Donald Trump. Trump’s administration restored Cuba to the State Department list of State Sponsors of Terrorism — in part in recognition of acts like the shooting down of the Brothers to the Rescue planes — and cut critical revenue to the regime from the easing of travel restrictions and remittance limits set under Obama. Biden has yet to take any significant steps to alter the current U.S. policy towards Cuba.

The Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, a coalition of exile community groups, in tandem with local officials, organized a memorial Wednesday for the four men and urged the current administration to seek justice for their families.

Acto de recordacion y reclamo de justicia en el 25to aniversario del asesinato de los cuatro Hermanos al Rescate en… Posted by Jose Sanchez-Gronlier on Wednesday, February 24, 2021

“We cannot forget the tragedy of the murder of these young men that happened in international waters, without provocation, on a humanitarian mission,” Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said at the event, addressing those assembled in Spanish. “The Castro regime was obviously trying to stop the world from understanding that communism was pushing people to the sea, to risk their lives.”

Suarez said his government, alongside exile community leaders, are “asking the federal government to analyze its politics towards Cuba, to understand the repercussions of their actions. We’re not turning back. We have to keep the pressure on the Castro regime which has its people enslaved.”

Organizers also read a letter at the event signed by multiple Cuban-American members of Congress — Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Reps. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL), Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL), and Carlos Giménez (R-FL) — decrying the killing of the four Americans as “a cowardly and barbaric act of terrorism.”

“The Castro regime should face consequences for its criminal acts. Especially the murderer Raúl Castro, who ordered this atrocity, as well as the three individuals already identified in a U.S. federal court: Gen. Rubén Martínez Puente and combat pilots Alberto Pérez-Pérez and Francisco Pérez-Perez,” the lawmakers asserted.

Raúl Castro remains the dictator and most powerful person in Cuba, as head of the Cuban Communist Party and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. A third title, “president,” exists constitutionally, but Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel is subordinate to Castro.

In honor of the anniversary, the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance also published advertisements in Washington, DC, publications featuring letter from the coalition to the Biden administration urging Biden not to return to Obama-era policies, which did not give Cuban-Americans and victims of communism in the United States a say.

“On February 24, 1996, Castro MIG fighters ambushed and slaughtered three American citizens and one U.S. permanent resident in international air space. The four young men were volunteer pilots and spotters trying to save the lives of desperate refugees at sea who were trying to escape from communism in Cuba,” the letter read. “To this date, Raúl Castro and the other perpetrators in this brutal act remain unpunished.”

“The above-mentioned massacre of February 24, 1996, is only one of the many terrorist acts committed by the totalitarian regime in Cuba. The regime has institutionalized terror in both its domestic and international practices,” it continued. “Internationally, the regime continues a close alliance with states and non-states actors that sponsor terrorism, such as Venezuela, Syria, North Korea, Iran as well as FARC, ELN, Hezbollah and Mexican cartels.”

Biden was vice president when the Obama administration freed Hernandez, the communist spy — one of the more harrowing incidents in eight years of policies that undermined the cause of freedom on the island. The Castro regime regularly parades Hernandez as a hero and has elevated him to a senior position in the Communist Party.

“The only person that we had responsible for what happened, to be let go, it’s a slap in the face to my dad,” Marelene Alejandre Triana, daughter of Brothers to the Rescue pilot Armando Alejandre, said in 2014, when Obama freed Hernandez.

Many of the Cuban-American leaders convening to honor the victims of the Brothers to the Rescue massacre Wednesday urged Biden in a press conference in January to increase sanctions on key players in the Castro regime in response to escalating violence against peaceful protesters. The organizers especially urged sanctions on Cuban Culture Minister Alpidio Alonso, caught on camera that week personally beating a journalist in broad daylight. Biden has yet to publicly respond to the appeal.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.",0.7297710506084911
"A senior member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), handed a seat in Colombia’s Congress as part of a peace deal, threatened to kill President Iván Duque in a video surfacing Monday.

“Jesús Santrich,” whose real name is Seuxis Pausias Hernández, abandoned his congressional seat in 2019 and took up arms against the government of Colombia alongside several other senior FARC officials who would have otherwise benefited from the peace deal. FARC, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization heavily involved in narcotics trafficking, is believed to be responsible for over a quarter of a million known deaths in over half a century of failed attempts to overthrow the Colombian government.

Santrich’s whereabouts remain unknown, though Colombian intelligence officials believe him to be hiding in Venezuela, a longtime FARC ally. The video in which he threatens Duque, a conservative who ran against the peace deal legacy of predecessor Juan Manuel Santos, was published on Monday by Colombian news outlet NTN24.

“Memento mori,” Santrich said in the video, a Latin phrase meaning “remember that you will die.” “Every fat pig gets his December.”

In Hispanic culture, a full roast pig is a traditional Christmas Eve dinner.

#PRIMICIA @LaNocheNTN24 #ReapareceSantrich desde Venezuela para amenazar al presidente de Colombia Iván Duque. Según fuentes de inteligencia, las imágenes fueron grabadas el 13 de febrero de este año en territorio venezolano 👇🏼 Todos los detalles en minutos a las 6 pm por @NTN24 pic.twitter.com/HPWXCOXLB0 — La Noche NTN24 (@LaNocheNTN24) February 22, 2021

Santrich urges communists and other leftist supporters “keep struggling for true peace with social justice” and, elsewhere in the video, complains that Twitter had censored the terrorist group’s Twitter account, blaming the “censorship” on Duque personally.

NTN24 dated the video to have been filmed nine days before it was published, or on February 13.

Duque responded to the video by vowing to continue to fight Marxist terrorism.

“I am not afraid of threats from delinquents,” Duque said in a statement. “We will keep fighting them ceaselessly in defense of the Colombian people.”

Santrich was one of the top leaders tasked with negotiating a peace deal with the Santos government, which came to fruition in 2016. The deal, initially signed in Cuba, was constitutionally required to be passed via popular referendum. The Colombian people voted against it, rejecting the reintroduction of the FARC into society with minimal penal consequences for members. In response, Santos implemented the deal through Congress despite the unconstitutional nature of the move. The deal won Santos the Nobel Peace Prize.

The peace agreement, brokered with the help of the communist government of Cuba, granted senior members of the terrorist organization uncontested seats in both chambers of the Colombian Congress. It also created a legal process that invited FARC terrorists to surrender their weapons and be reintegrated into civilian society; the FARC has kidnapped thousands of children in its over 50 years of existence and forced them to become soldiers. Those children, if guilty only of a poorly defined category of “political” crime, could potentially achieve reintegration into society without having to go to prison.

The peace deal did not require the FARC to specify its finances or prove that it had abandoned drug trafficking. Cocaine growing and trafficking was for decades one of the FARC’s major sources of revenue; the terrorists forced farmers in remote areas to work for them or face death. Among the FARC’s other crimes include child abduction, use of child soldiers, sexual crimes against children, forced abortions on children FARC terrorists had raped, the use of land mines, kidnappings for ransom, and other acts of violence. Under its leader, “Timochenko,” the FARC rebranded in 2017 as a political party and ran candidates nationwide, most of whom lost. Senior FARC leaders like Santrich received congressional seats without having to campaign for them.

Shortly before taking his seat in Congress, Santrich was arrested at the behest of the United States on charges of smuggling ten tons of cocaine into the United States in 2017, the year after the peace deal went into effect. Due to his status as a lawmaker-to-be, Colombia’s Supreme Court ruled that he enjoyed special immunity from prosecution and freed him in May 2019, without ruling on the legitimacy of the charges. Santrich was sworn into the Colombian Congress in June 2019.

Este es el momento en el que Jesús Santrich tomó posesión de su curul en la Cámara de Representantes, este martes. Más detalles acá ► https://t.co/l0Ml9uNQ9v pic.twitter.com/KSqtEaJd7O — EL TIEMPO (@ELTIEMPO) June 11, 2019

A month later, Santrich disappeared, along with Márquez, and Interpol issued an alert for his arrest. The Supreme Court, which had ruled itself the only court with jurisdiction to imprison Santrich, issued an arrest warrant. In September, Santrich appeared alongside Márquez in a video announcing that the FARC had returned to terrorism. While Santrich and Márquez are senior leaders of the group and narco-terrorism is the group’s core activity, mainstream publications refer to them as FARC “dissidents.”

In the video, the group reads a statement demanding Duque’s immediate resignation and accused him of violating the provisions of the Santos peace deal.

“Duque must leave the presidency of the republic early because he is an illegitimate president because the highest office in the nation was too large for him,” the statement read in part. “He wants to generalize chaos by destroying the balance of powers by incurring public contempt and questioning decisions of the Supreme Court of Justice, because it wants to wipe out the social mobilizations that are shaking the country today, and because Colombia does not want the dictatorship.”

Duque had won a presidential election decisively against socialist candidate Gustavo Petro shortly before the statement was broadcast.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.",-0.32323309724200766
"The regime of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro staged a mega-concert in Caracas this weekend to call for the release of Alex Saab, a Colombian national arrested in Cape Verde last summer for alleged money laundering connected to his business dealings with the Venezuelan government.

The concert calling for Saab’s release was held in the Venezuelan national capital on February 20 in Diego Ibarra square. Video footage of the event shows hundreds of people squeezed into an open-air space in front of a stage where musical artists performed songs. Photos of the concert show nearly all attendees wearing T-shirts printed with Saab’s face on them and bearing the hashtag “#FreeAlexSaab.”

“It should be noted that, at the end of the concert, citizens lined up around the square to collect a bag of food,” the Colombian news site NTN24 reported on February 21. Most of the people roped into attending the concert gathered shoulder-to-shoulder both inside Diego Ibarra square and in food lines afterward “without complying with the basic biosecurity measures to avoid coronavirus infections,” NTN24 further noted.

The event’s failure to observe coronavirus prevention measures contradicts the public statements of Maduro’s regime, which last month urged Venezuelans to adhere to “seven days of radical quarantine” from January 4-10 as part of a “necessary” effort to curb the spread of the Chinese coronavirus in the country. The “7 +7” plan includes a week-long quarantine requiring Venezuelans to live in self-imposed lockdown for seven days, followed by seven days of relaxed restrictions allowing people to resume normal activities with some limitations. Observers have criticized the jarring scheme, as it forces Venezuelans in and out of strict quarantine life; the Venezuelan government has yet to provide any proof of the “7+7” plan’s efficacy in reducing coronavirus transmission.

Maduro’s regime has officially reported 136,545 cases and 1,320 deaths from the Chinese coronavirus so far, although the Venezuelan government has been accused of lying about the nation’s true coronavirus caseload throughout the pandemic.

An alleged financier to the Maduro regime, Alex Saab, was arrested on the West African island of Cape Verde on June 12, 2020, while making a fuel stop on a private plane following a request by the U.S. government via Interpol. A U.S. federal court later indicted Saab in Florida on federal money-laundering charges. The U.S. government accuses Saab of “bribing Venezuelan government officials and funneling more than $350 million to overseas accounts. In 2019 Saab was sanctioned by the U.S. for corruptly helping Maduro’s regime and others make hundreds of millions of dollars from a food-distribution network intended to serve the hungry, charges his lawyers deny,” Bloomberg recalled last month.

Graffiti of Saab’s face and messages demanding his freedom were mysteriously spraypainted on several buildings along Caracas’s main avenues earlier this month ahead of a key hearing on Saab’s alleged role in bribing Venezuelan government officials on February 5 in Cape Verde.

“The people are with Alex Saab” and “Freedom for Venezuela’s diplomat, fighter and compatriot,” read some of the graffitied statements.

Saab has been detained in Cape Verde since last summer pending an extradition request from the U.S. A lawyer for Saab argued his client holds “diplomatic immunity” while appealing the U.S.’s extradition request during the February 5 hearing in the West African country.

The Maduro regime “admitted Saab was a ‘Venezuelan agent’ and said the U.S. was trying to interfere with the nation’s business after his arrest” in June 2020, according to Bloomberg. “Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza warned him of his duty to maintain confidentiality of his dealings on behalf of the country if he were to be extradited to the U.S. in a letter filed in court.”

Amid a dire shortage of foreign exchange in Venezuela in 2018, Saab collaborated with members of Maduro’s regime to sell Venezuelan gold to Turkey, the U.S. government has alleged.

Maduro’s regime seemingly convinced hundreds of Venezuelans to squeeze into the February 20 concert calling for Saab’s release in Caracas.",0.2621465987515514
"CARACAS, Venezuela – Socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro has spent months promoting Carvativir, his “miraculous” droplets that, according to him, neutralize the Chinese Coronavirus in its entirety.

Maduro’s is a bogus claim seemingly exempt from any repercussions on behalf of Twitter, a radical contrast from the treatment received by conservative figures in the past over their endorsement of proven treatments.

The socialist regime of Venezuela is quite adept at creating media narratives within these borders — an easily achievable feat for them due to the fact that they control most of the nation’s media and have forced what few remaining private outlets exist into self-censorship for the sake of preservation. When it comes to spreading their “truth,” the Socialist Party of Venezuela has latched itself onto every social media, and the narrative crafted for their miracle droplets is no exception.

Maduro has claimed to be a victim of Big Tech censorship that seeks to “prevent” the spread of news of his miraculous cure on Facebook, YouTube, and even the Chinese-owned Tik Tok. He has directly accused Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg of “abuse” against him. Despite this seeming consensus among media companies, Twitter remains an outlier.

None of the tweets that Maduro has made regarding his miraculous droplets have been removed by Twitter, now has any warning or disclaimer tag been imposed upon them. The behavior extends to tweets made by the Socialist Party of Venezuela at the time of the publication of this article.

El Carvativir, las gotitas milagrosas de José Gregorio Hernández, neutralizan los síntomas del Coronavirus. ¡De Venezuela para el mundo! A partir de esta semana comienza la producción masiva, para que todo el Sistema Público Nacional de Salud cuente con este poderoso antiviral. pic.twitter.com/lNcl3BxIJF — Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) January 25, 2021

“Ten drops under the tongue every four hours and the miracle is done,” Maduro said in one of his accustomed lengthy televised broadcasts. That is, according to him, how his miracle cure should be administered to patients.

The Venezuelan people know little about the droplets themselves but despite the socialist regime’s attempts to build a worldwide narrative that portrays Carvativir as an innovative and new discovery, the Venezuelan Academy of Medicine has noted that the droplet’s active ingredient is Isotimol, an oil that is naturally found on thyme and oregano. No other country in the world is using a similar product to fight coronavirus on any large scale, nor has any drug regulation body, including the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), expressed support for the product despite Maduro’s mass media campaign.

Maduro has branded them the “droplets of Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez,” using the name of a Venezuelan physician raised to the title of Venerable by the Vatican in 1985 and who is slated for beatification in the near future. Hernandez died in 1919 and has no personal relationship to any existing treatment for any coronavirus, but using his name is an example of how the Socialist Party of Venezuela latches itself onto the nation’s Catholic faith to further its agenda whenever it suits it.

Venezuelan doctors have expressed their concern over the lack of scientific evidence that backs Maduro’s allegations. In a radio interview, Dr. Enrique Montbrum, a specialist in Health Contingency at the Vargas Hospital in Caracas, stated that the droplets themselves aren’t new, as Japan and Russia have used a similar extract to treat cases of influenza.

“All these drugs have to go through the rigor of what is called the scientific method. This drug is a long way from being widely recommended because it does not have that rigor,” said the doctor.

The Venezuelan investigative journalism website armando.info published a report revealing that the individuals behind the droplets appear to have a long criminal past. Venezuelans can’t legally read the report to judge its merits themselves because the aforementioned news website has been blocked by the Maduro regime and cannot be freely accessed within Venezuela without the aid of censorship-bypassing tools.

Even if the droplets worked, like almost all other medical supplies in the world, Venezuelans cannot buy them in any pharmacy or store, not even in the Iranian-ran mobile pharmacies that have begun to do business in the country. Beyond Maduro’s vague announcement of its production and mass distribution, there is no known timetable for when the droplets will reach the patients’ hands. The droplets have the “endorsement” of Socialist Party strongman and suspected drug lord Diosdado Cabello, who claims to have used the droplets to be cured of coronavirus. There is no evidence a single other person has received any doses of the product.

Maduro has deflected all criticism of his miracle drops by branding all skepticism of it as being part of a “campaign of hatred, revenge and lies.”

These droplets are the latest in a series of wild and unproven treatments against Coronavirus that include “rectal ozone therapy” (ozone is a toxic gas that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns could kill a person before killing an existing coronavirus infection).

While not taking action against what by all appearances seems to be a medical scam, Twitter has censored videos from Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, regarding the use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Coronavirus. Hydroxychloroquine is a drug used to treat malaria, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis. The FDA has revoked the emergency use authorization (EUA) to use hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus. Unlike Maduro, Bolsonaro tested positive for coronavirus and claimed to have taken regular doses of his preferred drug regularly while ill.

The socialist regime spends a considerable amount of resources and manpower to manipulate Twitter’s trending tags on a daily basis. The regime uses the Patria platform, a system heavily inspired on China’s social cred score system, to pay citizens an amount that ranges between $0.21 and $0.22 per week for the boosting and promotion of his daily hashtags and narratives.

While taking advantage of free media, Maduro’s regime has closed over 600 media outlets in the past two decades of the Bolivarian Revolution, including TV channels, radio stations, newspapers, and websites. Many foreign websites have been banned altogether, and access to social media is surgically restricted whenever the Venezuelan opposition engages in a major activity. An “anti-hate speech law” that brutally penalizes dissent keeps citizens living in a state of constant fear.

Eleven months after the country was placed under lockdown, life in Venezuela continues to be dictated by Maduro’s “7×7” regime. We go one week of “radical” lockdowns where only the essential businesses are able to operate, followed by a week of “flexibilization,” where other sectors of the economy are allowed to open their doors. No other country in the world does this and there is no evidence that it works. Even Venezuela doesn’t do it quite right – Maduro extends “flexibilization” at his leisure, most recently for the beginning of Lent and corresponding Carnaval holiday. Maduro’s promotion of this unscientific measure has also failed to raise “misinformation” alarms on most social media platforms he uses.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.",0.4396997675261009
"The United Nations Human Rights Council welcomed Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro to deliver remarks at its annual regular session on Monday, despite the fact U.N. human rights experts have accused Maduro of committing crimes against humanity.

“Crimes against humanity” is an elaborately defined crime that includes most human rights abuses committed outside of the context of war, including murder, rape, torture, and slavery. A top investigator at the U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published a report late last year that “found reasonable grounds” to accuse Maduro and his socialist regime of crimes against humanity.

The report did not stop the United Nations from allowing Venezuela to remain on the Human Rights Council. While Maduro has not been Venezuela’s legitimate, constitutional head of state since January 2019, the United Nations has refused to recognize the country’s true president, Juan Guaidó, as wielding power.

The Human Rights Council also hosts several other rogue states credibly accused of human rights atrocities, including China, Russia, Cuba, Libya, and Pakistan.

Maduro used his time to address the Council – about ten minutes – to condemn the United States and urge the world to “change the system of economic, capitalist, predator organizations” in light of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. He also claimed that he had managed to bring Venezuela’s coronavirus cases under control through several dubious, uncorroborated methods he would “humbly” share with the world.

#EnVivo 📹 | Sesión del Consejo de los Derechos Humanos de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas. https://t.co/v2NxgSPOfY — Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) February 22, 2021

“The grave and unexpected circumstances of Covid-19 [Chinese coronavirus] that humanity faces demands of world leaders a greater commitment to the work for a better future, common and shared,” Maduro told the Council. “An emergency of such a magnitude has put in evidence the need to accept health as a fundamental human right. Multilateralism is showing it is the only path available to overcome global difficulties and to construct better living conditions for peoples.”

Maduro applauded the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) – a U.N. body widely decried for hiding the true threat of the pandemic and allowing the Chinese Communist Party to spread unchecked misinformation – for its role in the pandemic, and applauded himself for allegedly controlling the pandemic in Venezuela.

The Maduro regime claims to have documented only 136,068 cases and 1,316 deaths attributable to coronavirus since the pandemic began, compared to millions of cases in neighboring Colombia and Brazil. While Maduro has claimed that his use of “rectal ozone therapy” – which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned against – and other “miracle” cures are responsible for those statistics, polling within Venezuela shows that as many as 87 percent of people told by their doctors they have Chinese coronavirus do not receive PCR tests – and thus do not show up in official statistics.

Maduro also used his time before the Human Rights Council to reject any investigation into Venezuela’s dire human rights situation.

“I reiterate that the Venezuelan state will decidedly work with the actors of this Human Rights Council, just as I ratify that we will not accept the intervention of any inquisitor mechanism against our nation, Venezuela, that seeks to use the just cause of human rights as a political tool for a government, or a regime, change in our country,” Maduro asserted. “Those who think that Venezuela will diminish the cooperation achieved with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights as a consequence of these ideological provocations of a small group of governments are wrong.”

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights found “reasonable grounds” to believe Maduro guilty of crimes against humanity in a report published in September.

“The Mission found reasonable grounds to believe that Venezuelan authorities and security forces have since 2014 planned and executed serious human rights violations,” chief investigator Marta Valinas said at the time, “some of which — including arbitrary killings and the systematic use of torture — amount to crimes against humanity.”

“Far from being isolated acts, these crimes were coordinated and committed pursuant to State policies, with the knowledge or direct support of commanding officers and senior government officials,” Valinas said. “Security forces used lethal force against the victim when it was not strictly unavoidable to protect lives. Security forces also used less-lethal weapons in a lethal manner, which resulted in the death of the demonstrators.”

The high commissioner herself, former Chilean socialist president Michelle Bachelet, has also accused Maduro of “grave human rights violations.”

The International Criminal Court at the Hague (ICC), the top world court to process human rights crimes, also issued a statement in December finding Maduro similarly suspect of committing human rights atrocities. The ICC stated that “a reasonable basis to believe” Maduro is guilty of crimes against humanity existed, opening the door to Maduro being prosecuted by the court. The ICC has jurisdiction against individuals accused of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.

The official legal definition of “crimes against humanity” requires a finding of “a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack” featuring at least one of a long list of crimes, including murder, “extermination,” rape, torture, slavery, or “other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.”

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.",1.674703263629258
"Doctors forced to work for Cuba’s slave doctor program revealed in remarks Thursday they fabricated data on Chinese coronavirus investigations, making up names of “patients” they had treated who did not exist to make the Communist Party appear more productive.

Similarly, doctors lied about the kind of treatment they were offering, sometimes listing an individual who visited a clinic with a question as someone who had just received an advanced surgery. Officials in Havana actively encouraged this, according to the anonymous doctors who spoke to Diario de Cuba on Thursday. The doctors are participating in a case organized by the non-governmental organization (NGO) Cuban Prisoners Defenders against the Communist Party before the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC can only process cases in which defendants stand accused of genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity, of which slavery is the latter.

Hundreds of doctors have defected from Cuba’s medical slavery, denouncing the Communist Party for stealing their salaries and forcing them to work in some of the most dangerous places in the world. The doctors say they have no input into the trajectory of their careers and their families face potential punishment at home if the doctors disobey the state. Doctors who abandon the medical slavery program are banned from entering the country for eight years, often blocking them from seeing family, including elderly parents and young children.

Despite the involuntary and abusive nature of the program, leftists around the world have praised Cuba for its alleged philanthropy. A far-left British politician nominated the Cuban state for a Nobel Peace Prize this year, arguing the slave doctor program is especially important in light of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

Cuba is estimated to make $11 billion a year selling medical slaves.

The doctors speaking to Diario de Cuba revealed that much of the work they were forced to do was fabricating medical records listing people who did not exist.

“When the pandemic began, they told us that we had to run tests every day. They gave us a mask today and we had to remind them to give us a new one every ten days,” one of the doctors, who requested to remain anonymous fearing for his family still in Cuba, told the newspaper. “We had to go to dangerous areas; many times I had to go alone.”

That doctor, who labored in Venezuela, said that program managers insisted on a quota of 150 tests a day, “but that was impossible.”

“I tested a couple of houses and then made up names and identification numbers. I even put names of people that I knew in Cuba. They never noticed, they didn’t even check, because the important thing was the numbers,” the doctor recalled.

Similarly, the doctor said the Castro regime mandated 15 to 16 surgeries a day. “We operated on, at most, five or six. There were patients who showed up to ask us something and we jotted them down as surgical patients,” he said.

The doctor told Diario de Cuba that to properly hide the fraud, he would have to destroy the medications that would have been necessary to treat the fake patients; for example, any surgical supplies that would have gone to an operation that never happened.

The latter is particularly egregious in light of the dire healthcare situation in Venezuela. After two decades of socialist policies, over 95 percent of the medications on the World Health Organization (W.H.O.)’s list of basic products to run a functional medical system are nowhere to be found in the country. Doctors are forced to routinely amputate limbs on individuals with infections easily treatable by antibiotics that are not available. Treatable cancers and other diseases have become lethal.

Another doctor speaking to Diario de Cuba emphasized the outrageous limitations on Cuban doctors completing medical missions abroad, such as a law that bans them from associating with individuals who have ideological differences with the doctor, who is presumably communist.

“You have to give from 75 to 90 percent of your salary [to the state] and work 64 hours a week. We worked 48 hours and were on guard for another 16. With the money left, you had to pay the rent, water, electricity, transportation, and food,” the second doctor detailed. “They were giving me the equivalent of almost $10 a month when a pound of meat costs about that much.”

The stories published this week are consistent with past testimonies from defecting doctors. During a press conference at the State Department Foreign Press Center in New York in 2019, multiple Cuban doctors testified to being forced to destroy medicine on missions in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Brazil.

“On a daily basis, you had to write on a piece of paper fake names, fake dates of birth, fake medical conditions, for patients we never saw,” Dr. Ramona Matos revealed at the event. “These were statistics the agents following and controlling us forced us to write. If we didn’t write that down, we had to go back to Cuba without our salary and we’d lose the money frozen in our accounts.”

“Since we weren’t seeing any real patients, medication wise, we had to correlate the medication prescriptions to these patients who didn’t exist, so we had to destroy medicine to keep up,” she added.

Cuban Prisoners Defenders published its 400-page report to the ICC in September, the result of interviews with over 600 defecting doctors participating in the global complaint against the Cuban Communist Party.

“I was forced to falsify patient histories and population statistics which, in order to comply with instructions, exceeded the real population of the place,” an anonymous doctor quoted in the report stated. “Medicines were discarded and thrown [away] for that: they were not used and expired because the population did not go to the doctor’s office given the remote location where it was located.”

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.",-0.1758386115345177
"ROME — Pope Francis condemned racism Sunday, comparing it to a mutating virus that hides beneath the surface where it always threatens to reappear.

“Racism is a virus that quickly mutates and, instead of disappearing, goes into hiding, and lurks in waiting,” the pope tweeted on the day designated by the United Nations as International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

“Instances of racism continue to shame us, for they show that our supposed social progress is not as real or definitive as we think,” he said, adding the hashtag “#FightRacism.”

Last summer while the United States was in the throes of Black Lives Matters protests, the pope denounced the sin of racism while also insisting that responding with violence and rioting is “self-destructive and self-defeating.”

“I have witnessed with great concern the disturbing social unrest in your nation in these past days, following the tragic death of Mr. George Floyd,” Francis said to his “dear brothers and sisters in the United States” in a brief greeting last June.

“My friends, we cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of every human life,” the pope said. “At the same time, we have to recognize that the violence of recent nights is self-destructive and self-defeating. Nothing is gained by violence and so much is lost.”

“Today I join the Church in Saint Paul and Minneapolis, and in the entire United States, in praying for the repose of the soul of George Floyd and of all those others who have lost their lives as a result of the sin of racism,” he continued. “Let us pray for the consolation of their grieving families and friends and let us implore the national reconciliation and peace for which we yearn.”

Again last December, Francis asserted that the year 2020 had been marked a worrisome a surge in “nationalism, racism, and xenophobia.”

“Sad to say,” alongside all testimonies of love and solidarity during the coronavirus pandemic, “we have also seen a surge in various forms of nationalism, racism and xenophobia, and wars and conflicts that bring only death and destruction in their wake,” he said in his message for the 2021 World Day of Peace.

Follow @tdwilliamsrome",-1.9590656162439524
"WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider reinstating the death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, presenting President Joe Biden with an early test of his opposition to capital punishment.

The justices agreed to hear an appeal filed by the Trump administration, which carried out executions of 13 federal inmates in its final six months in office.

The case won’t be heard until the fall, and it’s unclear how the new administration will approach Tsarnaev’s case. The initial prosecution and decision to seek a death sentence was made by the Obama administration, in which Biden served as vice president.

But Biden has pledged to seek an end to the federal death penalty.

In late July, the federal appeals court in Boston threw out Tsarnaev’s sentence because it said the judge at his trial did not do enough to ensure the jury would not be biased against him.

The Justice Department had moved quickly to appeal, asking the justices to hear and decide the case by the end of the court’s current term, in early summer. Then-Attorney General William Barr said last year, “We will do whatever’s necessary.”

Tsarnaev’s lawyers acknowledged at the beginning of his trial that he and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, set off the two bombs at the marathon finish line in 2013. But they argued that Dzhokar Tsarnaev is less culpable than his brother, who they said was the mastermind behind the attack.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died following a gunfight with police and being run over by his brother as he fled. Police captured a bloodied and wounded Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hours later in the Boston suburb of Watertown, where he was hiding in a boat parked in a backyard.

Tsarnaev, now 27, was convicted of all 30 charges against him, including conspiracy and use of a weapon of mass destruction and the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer during the Tsarnaev brothers’ getaway attempt. The appeals court upheld all but a few of his convictions.",0.5014209842899411
"President Joe Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced plans to propose new regulations that will override the Trump administration’s rule barring Title X family planning funds from Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.

A press release from the HHS Office of Population Affairs (OPA) Thursday stated a memorandum from President Joe Biden issued January 28 directed HHS to “ensure that undue restrictions are not put on the use of federal funds or on women’s access to medical information.”

OPA said its revision of the Trump Title X regulations would be “substantively similar to those issued in 2000.”

The pro-life Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) observation that the announcement the Trump administration’s Title X family planning rule would be overhauled came on the same day Xavier Becerra, known to have close ties to the abortion industry, was confirmed to head up the Biden HHS:

BREAKING: Day 1 of Xavier Becerra's new job as Secretary of HHS, and the agency has already announced their intention to rewrite the Title X rule, forcing taxpayers to send even more tax dollars to Planned Parenthood & the abortion industry Our statement: https://t.co/nexR4HBWcS pic.twitter.com/ConGEP7uoM — Susan B. Anthony List (@SBAList) March 18, 2021

Marjorie Dannenfelser, SBA List president, said in a statement:

From day one the Biden-Harris administration has pushed a radical and deeply unpopular agenda on abortion. On the very same day Xavier Becerra – a notoriously eager pro-abortion advocate – is confirmed to lead HHS, the agency announces plans to rewrite Title X and force taxpayers to fund the abortion industry. President Trump’s Protect Life Rule sought to honor both the plain statutory language and the will of Americans of all stripes who oppose using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion on demand.

Planned Parenthood celebrated the announcement of the Trump rule rewrite:

🙌YES! This is a key step towards what we’ve been fighting for — it’s time we #FixTitleX and restore access to essential reproductive health care. https://t.co/HrsYP7NeYd — Planned Parenthood Action (@PPact) March 18, 2021

The proposed rule is expected to be released by April 15, with a final rule in place “by early fall and effective in time for the Fiscal Year 2022 funding announcement,” OPA said.

HHS released the announcement in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last month to hear a challenge to the Trump rule brought by Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the American Medical Association.

However, on March 12, Biden’s Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the case.

In 2019, the Trump administration issued the final rule, which drew a firm boundary between abortion and family planning.

The rule barred Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from receiving Title X federal family planning funds if they continued to “perform, promote, refer for, or support abortion as a method of family planning.”

The Trump administration rule reinstated President Ronald Reagan’s “Protect Life Rule,” which prohibits the “co-location” of federally funded family planning clinics with abortion clinics.

As a result of the Trump HHS rule, Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses were blocked from approximately $60 million in federal Title X grant money.

Subsequently, Planned Parenthood decided to withdraw from the Title X grant program, rather than give up referring women and girls for abortions.",0.09641673553585961
"New Mexico Republican Elisa Martinez is vying for the recently vacated U.S. House seat in her state, telling host Matthew Boyle on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Saturday she intends to fight for the working class and combat the Biden administration’s energy and immigration plans should she be elected.

Martinez, a native New Mexican who is Hispanic and Native American, is one of nine Republicans the state’s central committee members will consider as their candidate to replace former Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM), who was confirmed last week as President Joe Biden’s Department of Interior secretary.

The committee will vote March 27 on the candidate and a special election will take place June 1. Boyle observed the election is “fast approaching” and that although the seat is winnable for Republicans, it will be “a little bit of an uphill climb.”

“Despite the fact that this district is an uphill climb, a D plus seven, we know that New Mexicans are fed up. They’re tired,” Martinez replied. “There is a lot of pressure on our middle class, on New Mexicans and Americans right now. And the bottom line, you know the pressure that they’re seeing at the gas tank, the rising food prices that we’re seeing as a result, the rising prices for pharmaceuticals, insulin prices, these are all attacks on the middle class. … All of this is as a result of unilateral action by the Biden administration and congressional Democrats that really is alarming.”

LISTEN:

Martinez also railed against Biden’s ban on new oil and gas leases on federal lands. “New Mexico is kind of almost ground zero for this oil and gas crisis that we’re seeing and the moratorium on the new leases because New Mexico, 40 percent of our budget depends on oil and gas revenues.”

Martinez vowed to “immediately introduce” legislation to prohibit the Biden administration from blocking new leases without congressional approval, as well as sign on to new legislation exempting New Mexico in the meantime. “We need someone that’s obviously going to push back against these government mandates to transition — and effectively what this moratorium has done is it didn’t even allow for a transition. The American people had the rug pull out from under them.”

The New Mexican Republican, who is campaigning as a “different kind of Republican” — being working class, “not part of the establishment,” and “not a career politician” — also lambasted Biden’s immigration policies given her state’s geographic position makes it one of the most vulnerable to the negative impacts of them. Martinez called the recent massive influx of migrants, including unaccompanied children, at the southern border a “humanitarian crisis” and demanded an end to catch and release, a reinstatement of the Remain in Mexico policy, and the continuation of the southern border wall construction.

“We need to take care of American citizens first,” Martinez said. “Right now, we cannot even address the rampant homelessness, the poverty, single mothers that are struggling, Native Americans without running water and electricity, unemployment is on the rise here in New Mexico. We have the fourth highest unemployment rate in the country and business owners who have lost everything. So before we can allocate resources, healthcare services, welfare services, free schooling, to noncitizens that are trying to get in through our southern border, we need an economic recovery for our own citizens right now.”

Steve Pearce, New Mexico GOP chair, also spoke with Breitbart News Saturday this past weekend and called the open congressional seat in his state’s first district a “pickup opportunity” for Republicans. Pearce said, “People are asking significant questions between Biden and Michelle Lujan Grisham, our governor, that just believe this is a pickup opportunity for the Republicans. Nationwide, it would set the Democrats’ House upside-down when we win this race, and so we’re all in for it.”

Breitbart News Saturday broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot 125 Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.

Write to Ashley Oliver at aoliver@breitbart.com.",1.4307994384918523
"During this week’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show,” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) acknowledged the Biden border plan, which has led to what some are describing as a crisis, much to be desired.

She said, however, there was a plan in place the Biden administration had shared with members of Congress.

“[N]ow Jonathan, we have a situation that is a humanitarian concern,” she said. “We do have issues with any number of children. The numbers are coming up, but I will say that the Biden administration has met with members of Congress. They have a plan. The plan does not look like it’s working at this time, but you have to get it implemented.”

Jackson Lee walked through what the plan was, which she said included measures for preventing the spread of COVID-19.

“[W]e need to put in more resources so that our asylum protocols can go quickly and those that do not meet the standards — they have to be returned safely and securely,” Lee continued. “But what the administration is saying that they’re not going to cage children. They’re not going to turn children back to their deaths. They’re not going to have young girls, 13 years old, subject to rape and pilage. And so it does look a little unseemly. But these are human beings. And so, they’re not coming to endanger our lives. They’re coming basically to save their lives.”

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor",0.835687936884912
"Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” Department of Justice prosecutor Michael Sherwin discussed his ongoing investigation into the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot.

During the interview, CBS’s Scott Pelley asked if former President Donald Trump has been a part of the investigation for his role in the riot.

Sherwin would only say investigators are “looking at everything,” but acknowledged it is “unequivocal that Trump was the magnet that brought the people to D.C.” that day.

“It’s unequivocal that Trump was the magnet that brought the people to D.C. on [Jan. 6],” Sherwin outlined. “Now, the question is, is he criminally culpable for everything that happened during the siege, during the breach? What I could tell you is this — based upon, again, what we see in the public record and public statements in court — we have plenty of people — we have soccer moms from Ohio that were arrested saying, ‘Well, I did this because my president said I had to take back our house.’ That moves the needle towards that direction. Maybe the president is culpable for those actions. But also, you see in the public record, too, militia members saying, ‘You know what? We did this because Trump just talks a big game. He’s just all talk. We did what he wouldn’t do.'”

Pelley asked, “In short, you have investigators looking into the president’s role?”

“We have people looking at everything, correct,” Sherwin replied. “Everything’s being looked at.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent",-0.840445531578742
"In an interview with Steve Malzberg on his weekly Sunday commentary show Eat the Press, progressive feminist author and former Democrat adviser Dr. Naomi Wolf expressed alarm regarding President Joe Biden’s current state of health and its implications for U.S. national security.

Addressing Biden’s health, Wolf stated that “as Americans, we would be remiss not to notice that this is a man who is struggling physically, and our national security kind of depends on our being grown-ups.” She said, “when a very elderly president is struggling physically, it’s an important national security concern” that all should be able to discuss “without partisanship.”

Wolf also discussed her regret voting for Biden, noting the serious “erosion” of First and Fourth Amendment rights under his administration.

“I was so eager to have to see the end of the Trump era that I hoped for better decisions,” she said. “What I have seen is a complete erosion of First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights.”

In what she terms “bio-fascism,” Wolf expressed concerns regarding the far-reaching implications of curbing freedoms during the current pandemic.

“The President of the United States has no right whatsoever under the Constitution of the United States of America to tell anyone where they can go or whom they can see or to say anything about what you do in your private home,” she said.

“I’m incredibly concerned that we’re at kind of step ten of the ten steps to fascism that I identified in my book The End of America and that it’s under the guise of what I call bio-fascism that this pandemic has been used as an excuse to suppress everyone’s liberties and to really usher in a totalitarian state,” she stated.

Describing former President Donald Trump as a “racist” who “minimized” sexual assault, Wolf explains that she could never have voted for him, though, she adds, voting for Biden was equally the wrong option.

“You know there was no right answer for this election,” she said.

In November, Wolf expressed regret voting for Biden due to his support for lockdowns in his efforts to combat COVID-19.

“If I’d known Biden was open to ‘lockdowns’ as he now states, which is something historically unprecedented in any pandemic, and a terrifying practice, one that won’t ever end because elites love it, I would never have voted for him,” she wrote.

If I’d known Biden was open to ‘lockdowns’ as he now states, which is something historically unprecedented in any pandemic, and a terrifying practice, one that won’t ever end because elites love it, I would never have voted for him. — Dr Naomi Wolf (@naomirwolf) November 9, 2020

The current president’s questionable health has been a subject of ongoing concern for many.

On Friday, a video showed President Biden stumbling several times while boarding Air Force One.

Many have noted the media’s double standard in disregarding instances that call President Biden’s health into question after having sought endlessly to exaggerate instances in order to question former President Trump’s health.

Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.",0.344267701053393
"NBC host Chuck Todd during Sunday’s “Meet the Press” on NBC called the surge of unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S.-Mexico border is a political crisis “with no easy way out.”

Todd said, “It’s fair to call the deteriorating situation at the U.S.-Mexico border a crisis — even if the Biden administration refuses to use that word. But it’s more than that: It’s a political crisis for the new president, with no easy way out.

He added, “Republicans are quick to blame Mr. Biden for the growing number of migrants crossing the border, saying it’s his rhetoric and policy shifts that caused the surge in migrants. The Democratic administration says it was left with an unworkable immigration system left by President Trump. Conservatives want a big wall. Progressives want nothing less than humane treatment from migrants fleeing violence wherever it is, and a path to citizenship for those already here.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN",0.17378991711710576
"Anchor Martha Raddatz said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that the Biden administration was falling short on their promises of transparency at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Raddatz said, “We join you this morning from El Paso, Texas. Mexico just beyond that fence you see right behind me. So many on the other side desperate to cross the border, and so many here on U.S. soil calling for change, pressuring the Biden administration is loathe to label this a crisis even as the tide of migrants surges.”

“The number of unaccompanied children and teenagers in border patrol custody reaching record numbers,” she continued. “Children forced to stay longer in overcrowded facilities. The media not allowed inside. The administration restricting access despite promising transparency, citing COVID and privacy concerns. The issue that at times plagued the previous administration now presenting a challenge to the Biden administration, one that shows no sign of abating any time soon.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN",1.364081661437757
"Viewers are reportedly switching off CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time as host Chris Cuomo’s brother, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), faces multiple scandals and calls to resign.

“‘Cuomo Prime Time’ averaged 2.2 million viewers from March 20 to June 24, 2020 when the now-embattled governor regularly appeared on his kid brother’s program, often for light-hearted interviews,” Fox News reported Friday.

The show wrapped up 2020 boasting a yearly average of 1.8 million viewers, which made it the network’s most popular program.

“But 2021 has seen Gov. Cuomo’s political standing shaken over multiple scandals, and ‘Cuomo Prime Time’ viewership decline coincided with the governor’s woes,” the report continued:

“Cuomo Prime Time” has averaged only 1.6 million viewers since CNN said Gov. Cuomo wouldn’t be covered anymore on the program, a 28-percent drop from the three-month period in 2020 when he was a regular guest. Since CNN banned Chris from covering his brother, “Cuomo Prime Time” is also down 20 percent compared to its 2020 total viewership.

In addition, CNN has reportedly been losing viewers since former President Donald Trump left office, dropping about half of its audience in key metrics since January.

On Friday, one of Gov. Cuomo’s aides publicly accused him of sexual harassment, the first allegation brought forward by a current member of his staff, according to Breitbart News.

Meanwhile, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is reportedly investigating whether aides to the governor offered false data regarding the number of deaths in New York’s nursing homes amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Breitbart News reported:

As the nursing home probe continues to advance, Cuomo faces growing calls to resign due to multiple allegations of sexual harassment and unwanted touches brought forth by multiple former female aides. Top Democrats, such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA), have said Cuomo should step aside as New York Attorney General Letitia James’ independent investigation looks into the allegations.

In regard to viewership, Cuomo Prime Time is reportedly in the midst of its worst week of 2021, averaging 1.2 million viewers and 323,000 among the key demographics from March 15 to 17, the Fox article read.

Data cited in the report is courtesy of Nielson Media research.",0.5829952289802711
"Americans’ awareness of global hostility toward Christians made a leap forward in 2021, according to a survey released this week.

Most significantly, the poll revealed that 57 percent of U.S. Catholics believe the persecution of Christians around the world is “very severe,” up from just 41 percent a year ago, a jump of 16 percent.

Moreover, nearly 50 percent of U.S. Catholics recognize that half or more of religiously based attacks around the world are directed at Christians, and 67 percent say they are “very concerned” about the issue.

The fourth annual nationwide poll, conducted in February 2021 by McLaughlin & Associates for the Christian watchdog group Aid to the Church in Need-USA (ACNUSA), sought to assess — among other things — the extent to which American Catholics are aware of Christian persecution around the world, the countries and regions where they believe Christians are most severely persecuted, and specific measures and policies they want the U.S. and other Western governments to pursue.

For years, anti-persecution groups have lamented the widespread ignorance in the West of the extent and vehemence of global Christian persecution.

Apart from reports by Christian persecution watchdog groups, the abuse of Christians receives virtually no coverage from mainstream media, and most people are not privy to information concerning how Christians are hounded, incarcerated, assaulted, and killed across the world.

The pervasive ignorance is aggravated by outright denial of Christian persecution as if it does not exist. Despite the undeniable evidence of ongoing persecution of Christians on a massive scale, some insist that reports of such persecution are nothing more than whiny Christians looking for attention or, worse still, evidence of a “Christian persecution complex.”

The online Wikipedia resource has an entire entry devoted to “Christian persecution complex,” defining it as “a belief, attitude or world view that Christian values and Christians are being oppressed by social groups and governments.”

The article never asks if this oppression is actually occurring but starts from the presupposition that such a belief must represent an irrational “complex.”

This week’s survey suggests that the situation may be changing.

“It is heartening that, compared to a year ago, significantly more US Catholics say that Christian persecution around the world is very grave and that the issue has become a matter of concern to more faithful,” George Marlin, ACNUSA chairman, said. “They also want both their Church and their government to step up efforts to do more to combat the issue.”

Still, there is a long way to go in educating the public regarding the extent and nature of Christian persecution around the world.

A major 2019 report titled “Persecuted and Forgotten?” revealed that “Christians are the victims of at least 75 percent of all religiously-motivated violence and oppression” around the world, asserting that the persecution of Christians today is worse than any time in history in terms of the number of people involved, the gravity of the crimes committed, and the impact of the hostility.

Global Christian persecution reached a record high in 2020, with over 340 million Christians facing “high levels of persecution,” according to the World Watch List 2021, published by Open Doors, a group monitoring the persecution of Christians worldwide.

One in eight Christians around the world experiences high levels of persecution and discrimination — far more than members of any other religion, the Watch List reported, while also providing an in-depth look at the 50 countries where it is most difficult and dangerous to be a Christian.

Follow @tdwilliamsrome",-0.9410253623584026
"Another witch has been publicly burned at the stake in the town square.

The crazed, lusty mob is satisfied. For now.

An Internet “journalist” named Alexi McCammond is this week’s burnt offering. She had just been hired as editor of Teen Vogue magazine.

Triggered by her success, the mob went after her for being “racist” and “homophobic.” Her crime? Twitter messages she wrote as a college freshman over a decade ago. Now she is out of her big, new job.

No word on whether Ms. McCammond will return to her old job covering President Biden for a Washington website called “Axios,” which is a tip sheet developed to help political hacks “sound smart” while talking to other political hacks at dull parties in Washington.

On second thought, perhaps being burned at the stake was a step up for Ms. McCammond.

Anyway, “burned at the stake” is an imprecise description as it suggests Ms. McCammond is, in fact, some kind of racist witch. In truth, there is no evidence she is an actual witch, rather than merely a former idiot young person in college who typed stupid, idiotic messages on social media.

In other words, there is not a human alive in America today who won’t eventually be next. Once the Woke torch mob runs out of other “witches,” they will be coming for you.

Ms. McCammond is particularly unlucky because her visit to the town square happened to coincide with a major campaign by the deranged mob to pit the world against “Asian-Americans.” (You see, the mob likes their hyphens because otherwise, everyone would just be “Americans” and then the mob would have nothing to talk about and no way to advance their segregationist worldview.)

Talking about “Asian-Americans” these days is all the rage with the mob because — for some strange reason — they are desperate to conjure up a war between non-Asian-Americans and Asian-Americans over the fact that the COVID-19 plague, which has killed millions around the world, originated in China.

These people are so profoundly racist that they are unable to distinguish between the lying, corrupt, and evil Chinese Communist Party and “Asian-Americans,” who are our neighbors and fellow countrymen and have absolutely nothing to do with China’s Communist government.

But there is, literally, no travesty on Earth these twisted maggots won’t exploit to push their rotten political agenda.

Their latest feast is the horrific murders of eight people at three different massage parlors around Atlanta this week. Since the crimes took place at massage parlors, their demented thinking goes, it all fits neatly into their preconceived fever dreams about some kind of war on “Asian-Americans.”

Talk about wanton prejudice.

At a press conference after the suspect was heroically apprehended by Georgia State Police, law enforcement officers fielded crazy conspiracy theories from the media. Reporters kept insisting that the suspect had killed the victims because they are of Asian descent — even though the victims weren’t even all of Asian descent.

Gingerly — and with great respect — the law enforcement officials explained that, in fact, there is no evidence whatsoever to support their racist conspiracy theories. Instead, they patiently explained, the suspect claimed he was motivated by a “sexual addiction.” He told authorities he had targeted massage parlors that his inner demons found otherwise impossible to resist.

This fact did little to dampen the mob’s enthusiasm for their imagined war on Asian-Americans. But it does feed another one of their favorite conspiracy theories: Crazed gunmen inspired to violence by Christianity.

As you read this, they are digging through his social media history.

• Charles Hurt is opinion editor. He may be reached at churt@washingtontimes.com.",0.8241738613267958
"After a recent video showed President Joe Biden stumbling several times while boarding Air Force One Friday, conservative pundits and Twitter users noted the media hypocrisy as it sought to exaggerate any instance to question former President Donald Trump’s health status, while disregarding instances that call Biden’s health into question.

In the video, President Biden stumbles several times while running up the steps of Air Force One on his way to visit Atlanta, Georgia, to meet with Asian-American community leaders.

The 78-year-old Biden is seen with one hand on the railing when he tripped twice before falling over as he climbed up the stairs of the idling aircraft at Joint Base Andrews.

Many were quick to note the stunning double standard applied to the current and former presidents.

“I remember the press bashing Trump for touching the rail once,” wrote Donald Trump, Jr.

“Biden falls repeatedly but I’m sure he’s the picture of health,” he added. “No wonder all our enemies are pouncing simultaneously and mocking him publicly.”

I remember the press bashing Trump for touching the rail once. Biden falls repeatedly but I’m sure he’s the picture of health. No wonder all our enemies are pouncing simultaneously and mocking him publicly. pic.twitter.com/R1qN9DDHFW — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) March 19, 2021

“FLASHBACK: CNN’s Jim @Acosta reveled in Joe Biden questioning President Trump’s physical stamina: ‘Mr. Trump’s slow dissent down a ramp at a West Point commencement earlier this year,’” recalled journalist Curtis Houck.

FLASHBACK: CNN's Jim @Acosta reveled in Joe Biden questioning President Trump's physical stamina: ""Mr. Trump's slow dissent down a ramp at a West Point commencement earlier this year."" pic.twitter.com/RA6Rl904hQ — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) March 19, 2021

“Biden previously bragged about his ability to climb stairs,” wrote Republican strategist Arthur Schwartz. “So it’s fair game.”

“Someone should ask him about this at his press conference,” he added.

Biden previously bragged about his ability to climb stairs. So it’s fair game. Someone should ask him about this at his press conference. pic.twitter.com/HdGt7NzcIV — Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) March 19, 2021

“Biden keeps falling up the stairs as he boards Air Force One,” wrote Kellyanne Conway, former senior counselor to President Trump. “It matters.”

“It may matter less if not for the five-alarm fires every time his energetic predecessor touched a handrail or a bottle of water with two hands,” she added.

Biden keeps falling up the stairs as he boards Air Force One https://t.co/p47e5RTFfq — Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) March 19, 2021

“Where is the health analysis?” asked former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, tagging major journalists in his post.

“You certainly dished it out on Trump,” he added.

“Don’t worry Ric, I’m sure the media is on it!” quipped libertarian podcast host Dave Rubin.

“Apropos of nothing, here’s a Joe Biden delegate suggesting in June 2020 that perhaps Trump had Parkinson’s for walking down a ramp slowly,” wrote public affairs consultant Drew Holden.

Apropos of nothing, here's a Joe Biden delegate suggesting in June 2020 that perhaps Trump had Parkinson's for walking down a ramp slowly. https://t.co/oRuFkg87VN — Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 19, 2021

“I expect the NYT to have a whole story speculating on Biden’s health after he fell three times walking up the steps,” wrote columnist Eddie Zipperer.

I expect the NYT to have a whole story speculating on Biden’s health after he fell three times walking up the steps. pic.twitter.com/8pYjOtBgjI — Eddie Zipperer (@EddieZipperer) March 19, 2021

“Going to be an interesting test of the media that ran ‘Trump grabs handrail’ headlines to see how they handle Biden falling down on the stairs,” wrote Dylan Byers, senior media reporter at NBC News and MSNBC.

“Every news organization is entitled to its own editorial judgment, but if you set the precedent…” he added.

Or rather, lack of handrail… pic.twitter.com/8IR7H6wZR1 — Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) March 19, 2021

“If this had happened in the previous administration, it would get blanket coverage on CNN and would be part of every late night TV host’s monologue,” wrote reporter Mike Glenn.

If this had happened in the previous administration, it would get blanket coverage on CNN and would be part of every late night TV host's monologue. https://t.co/lNCfPkhXUV — Mike Glenn (@mrglenn) March 19, 2021

“Just gonna leave these here,” wrote political correspondent Jack Posobiec, as he shared images of the media attacking former President Trump for a supposed fear of stairs.

Just gonna leave these here pic.twitter.com/rKXoKQXzOL — Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) March 19, 2021

“Perhaps this is connected to why Joe Biden has held zero press conferences,” wrote former CIA Officer Bryan Dean Wright.

Perhaps this is connected to why Joe Biden has held zero press conferences. https://t.co/bDN5c8xcSn — BDW (@BryanDeanWright) March 19, 2021

“Watching Biden climb the stairs feels like elder abuse,” wrote political commentator Ian Miles Cheong.

“Remember when the media mocked Trump for not walking down a steep ramp fast enough?”

“Biden doesn’t even actually trip on anything. His leg appears to have given out,” he added.

Biden doesn't even actually trip on anything. His leg appears to have given out. — Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) March 19, 2021

“Trump would frequently, privately give Obama tons of credit for how he negotiated AF1 stairs (which can be daunting),” wrote Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL). “‘He always popped down so fast and cool.’”

“‘You fall once and it’s all they remember,’ 45 would say,” he added.

Trump would frequently, privately give Obama tons of credit for how he negotiated AF1 stairs (which can be daunting). “He always popped down so fast and cool.” “You fall once and it’s all they remember,” 45 would say. https://t.co/qR4AWVxpro — Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) March 19, 2021

“This is both sad and disturbing,” wrote conservative political commentator Eric Bolling. “We should all be concerned with this.”

This is both sad and disturbing.

We should all be concerned with this.

-*Is this man capable of leading the country through very unsettled geopolitical waters for 4 years?

-*Will VP Harris have to assume the Presidency? *Legitimate questions BOTH political sides should ponder. https://t.co/1yZ7RzVC02 — 🇺🇸ERIC BOLLING🇺🇸 (@ericbolling) March 19, 2021

On Friday, White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said President Biden did not require medical attention after falling twice while climbing the stairs of Air Force One.

“I know folks have seen that President Biden slipped on his way up the stairs to AF1, but I’m happy to report that he is just fine and did not even require any attention from the medical team who travels with him,” Bedingfield wrote on social media.

“Nothing more than a misstep on the stairs,” she added.

Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.",0.2917643786160884
"ROME — The far-left National Catholic Reporter laid into Pope Francis on Friday for approving a Vatican ban on blessings for homosexual unions, calling the pontiff a “hypocrite.”

We “come to the point of absurdity — and hypocrisy — when a pope says he wants to welcome LGBT people into the church but then simply cannot countenance that they might want to pursue loving relationships, just like the rest of humanity,” states a March 19 op-ed by the paper’s editors.

As Breitbart News reported, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) reaffirmed Monday that the Church cannot grant blessings to homosexual unions, since they are not in accord with God’s plan for human beings.

Asked whether the Church has the power to give a blessing to same-sex unions, the CDF responded: “Negative.”

Blessings require both “the right intention of those who participate” and “that what is blessed be objectively and positively ordered to receive and express grace, according to the designs of God inscribed in creation,” the CDF stated, with the express approval of Pope Francis.

“Therefore, only those realities which are in themselves ordered to serve those ends are congruent with the essence of the blessing imparted by the Church,” it declares.

It is not licit “to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage,” the document said, “as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex.”

God Himself never ceases to bless each of his children in this world, it notes. “But He does not and cannot bless sin.”

In conclusion, the CDF declares that “the Church does not have, and cannot have, the power to bless unions of persons of the same sex in the sense intended above.”

To the National Catholic Reporter, the pope’s willingness to sign off on the text is incomprehensible.

“Where has that Pope Francis gone?” the paper asks, in reference to past outreach to homosexuals. “Surely, as the world stumbles to emerge from the greatest health and economic crisis in a century, there are more urgent issues for the Vatican to focus on rather than how God does or doesn’t view gay unions.”

“For Catholic LGBT couples and their families, the timing is especially unfortunate,” the editorial declares. “The forced distancing imposed by the pandemic has cut many off from their usual support structures, including their parishes.”

“And now the pope of ‘building bridges and not walls’ has erected another barrier,” it concludes.

Commenting on the Reporter’s op-ed, Catholic League president Bill Donohue noted Friday that many left-wing Catholics had confused the pope’s respect for the dignity of every person, regardless of their sexual proclivities, with approval for homosexual activity itself.

“For several years, these renegade Catholics have hyped every welcoming move by Pope Francis to homosexuals, hoping to push him to recognize gay unions and same-sex marriage,” Dr. Donohue wrote.

“However, the decree issued by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on this subject, done with the approval of the Holy Father, slammed the door shut when it reaffirmed the Church’s teachings on sexuality,” Donohue observed, and now the editors at the Reporter say that the Vatican decree gave them “whiplash.”

Follow @tdwilliamsrome",-0.2611570065550556
"Just days after Beijing announced a blackout of the Academy Awards, Chinese state media are once again thumbing their nose at Hollywood, spotlighting recent box-office flops and lecturing the U.S. entertainment industry on its failure to attract local audiences.

The Chinese Communist Party-controlled Global Times declared in an article Thursday that Hollywood no longer knows how to market its films to Chinese moviegoers, saying the industry is relying on tired promotional techniques like celebrity appearances and media puff pieces.

The outlet issued marching orders to U.S. studios, telling them to pay more attention to “trending topics in China” and to highlight emotional elements from their movies that will “resonate with Chinese audiences.”

The article comes as China has officially overtaken the U.S. as the largest movie market in the world, a feet made possible in large part by the coronavirus pandemic. Chinese-made movies are also outperforming Hollywood blockbusters at the local box office, with eight of the top ten grossing movies of 2020 being domestically produced.

Hollywood studios are more eager than ever to please Chinese officials in the hopes of grabbing the coveted few spots reserved each year for foreign releases.

Despite these efforts, more Hollywood movies are flopping at the Chinese box office. This year, Warner Bros.’ Tom and Jerry and Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon failed to spark much audience interest while last year’s box-office disasters included Tenet, Wonder Woman 1984, and Mulan — the last of which Disney conceived to appeal to Chinese moviegoers.

“Hollywood studios have not realized that their traditional marketing plans in China can no longer stir up interest in their films and that it is time to make an adjustment by localizing their marketing,” the Global Times said.

Hollywood tends to focus its promotions prior to the release of a movie, when it should continue to promote the title for weeks after release, according to the outlet.

The newspaper also said Chinese moviegoers are growing tired of “typical Hollywood stories, uncreative special effects, and a shortage of cultural empathy.” The outlet didn’t elaborate on what it meant by “cultural empathy.”

As Breitbart News reported, Chinese officials recently issued a media blackout of the upcoming Academy Awards telecast due to the nomination of a short documentary movie about pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong.

Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at dng@breitbart.com",1.7817610301247009
"The NFL lost millions due to the pandemic in 2020, but they’ll make billions over the next decade with a slew of TV rights deals announced on Thursday.

The deal amounts to a $113 billion agreement that will last 11 years. The agreement will keep NFL games on ESPN/ABC, Fox, CBS, NBC, Amazon, and NFL Network through the 2033 season.

For the fans, much of the new deal will look like the old deal.

According to Pro Football Talk:

NBC will continue to show Sunday Night Football. ESPN will continue to show Monday Night Football. FOX will continue to show the NFC on Sunday afternoons. CBS will continue to show the AFC on Sunday afternoons. Amazon, which previously had the rights only to simulcast Thursday Night Football on Prime Video, will now have the NFL’s first all-digital TV package with Thursday night games exclusively available through Amazon. The Amazon exclusive will begin with the 2023 season; FOX still has Thursday Night Football for the next two years.

The deal enhances ESPN’s NFL presence as well.

“ESPN’s package adds six games to the network during the season,” ESPN reported. “There will be three Monday night doubleheaders — with games on ESPN, followed by a game on ABC. There will also be a Saturday doubleheader during the season’s final weekend and one Sunday morning game streaming nationally on ESPN+.

“ESPN, which has previously aired a wild-card playoff game, will add one game in the divisional round as well.”

Super Bowl broadcasting assignments were made public as well.

“NBC will show the Super Bowl after the 2021, 2025, 2029 and 2033 seasons,” Pro Football Talk reported. “CBS will show the Super Bowl after the 2023, 2027 and 2031 seasons. FOX will show the Super Bowl after the 2022, 2024, 2028 and 2032 seasons. ESPN/ABC will show the Super Bowl after the 2026 and 2030 seasons.”

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell hailed the deal as bringing “an unprecedented era of stability to the League.”

“These new media deals will provide our fans even greater access to the games they love,” Goodell said in a statement. “We’re proud to grow our partnerships with the most innovative media companies in the market. Along with our recently completed labor agreement with the NFLPA, these distribution agreements bring an unprecedented era of stability to the League and will permit us to continue to grow and improve our game.”

The deal essentially doubles the NFL’s annual media revenues. Last year, the league earned $5.9 billion through broadcasting deals. The new agreement will pay the league over $10 billion in television rights, annually.",-1.2968889150084772
"MSNBC’s Jason Johnson said Thursday on “Deadline” that the Republican Party only wanted “straight white male Christians” to vote.

On voting legislation be forwarded in several states by Republicans, anchor Nicolle Wallace said, “Jason, this is, I think, the frame that is urgently needed. There was no fraud, so this is not about election security. This is about the preservation of democracy. This isn’t about right-left. It is not about who won in 2020 or who will win in 2022. This is about what kind of country do you want to live in?”

Johnson said, “Yeah. Nicolle, I think historic context is important here. We have really only had free elections in this country for about 50 years anyway. This was actually the norm. Until you go to the activism of the 1960s, it was routine for large swaths of Americans to be absolutely locked out of voting. Black people were locked out of voting. Women were locked out of voting. Asian people were locked out of voting. What we’re seeing the Republican Party do now is go back to the norm of American voting behavior, the norm of American voter suppression.”

He added, “We are fighting for that future that we have really only had for 40 or 50 years, so when Senator Warnock is talking about this is for democracy, for our future, he is not just speaking pie in the sky. He is literally saying I live in a state where this was the history of the state. I’m in the state where the blood of John Lewis is in the ground for people who fought to make sure that everybody has the right to vote. That is what people have to remember. This is not a new thing. We have a history of this in our country, and if we are not vigilant, if we don’t hold the people accountable and don’t listen to the crazy conspiracies, we don’t allow people to get on television and say there’s voter fraud. We can’t let Ted Cruz and others go on television and say I don’t know if Joe Biden is actually president of the United States. We have to stop these people at every single turn. Because they will take America back to the 1930s, 1940s, and ‘20s and make sure that nobody who is not a straight white male Christians able to actually vote and exercise their right in this country.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN",0.6779328283795704
"The NAACP has called on the NFL to “rethink” its relationship with Fox due to the “racism” supposedly promoted by the Fox News Channel.

The activist civil rights group insisted that Fox News is a “uniquely destructive force” that “foments racism, undermines public health recovery from the pandemic, and repeatedly attacks the legitimacy of last year’s Presidential election,” USA Today reported.

Derrick Johnson, the president and chief executive officer of the NAACP, sent the letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on March 9 insisting that “the NFL’s programming should not be used as a bargaining tool for Rupert Murdoch to help fund Fox News’ hatred, bigotry, lies and racism.”

“It is immensely perturbing that the NFL would consider extending its relationship with Fox,” Johnson told the paper, “especially after the January 6th insurrection on our Capitol. The NFL should not be used as a bargaining tool to help fund Fox News’ racist and dangerous programming.

“Fox News has gone far and beyond to disinform its viewers, inciting hate, bigotry, and ultimately threatening American democracy,” the civil rights group head added. “We have grave concerns with the NFL’s contract renewal with Fox, and we look forward to having a serious conversation.”

The NFL has been involved in deep negotiations with ESPN, CBS, Fox, and NBC to sell the next broadcast packages to air the NFL’s games, and the deals are expected to bring in billions of dollars into the NFL’s coffers. The NFL is reportedly asking $2.25 billion from Fox.

But Johnson said that he fears the money Fox will earn from football will be channeled to Fox News which will unleash more of its “hate” and “divisiveness.”

According to the paper, the letter attacks Fox News head-on:

“Dear Mr. Goodell,” Johnson begins, “as our nation continues to perfect its promise of democracy, the NAACP applauds the NFL’s indications of support for social justice. Affirmative statements from League leadership, sizable contributions to benefit marginalized communities, and even stadium signage denouncing bigotry are all helpful gestures toward addressing harsh and disproportionate realities suffered by too many in our society. “Unfortunately, not all public influencers are willing to dedicate resources to achieving social equity. Notably, Fox News continues to inflame racial division and propagate an unstable political climate. … “The NFL’s programming should not be used as a bargaining tool for Rupert Murdoch to help fund Fox News’ hatred, bigotry, lies and racism.”

Johnson added that he fears that Fox will somehow “exert unfair leverage to extort increased carriage fees for Fox News” and the NFL’s money will help them do that.

“We are all familiar with the depths of manipulation and polarizing tone Fox News is willing to espouse. It remains to be seen whether the NFL will act to safeguard its players and fans from further exploitation, by prohibiting the media conglomerate from unduly capitalizing on the largesse of its corporate affiliations, and utilizing the enrichment to destabilize our democracy,” Johnson exclaimed.

“We hope to begin an immediate dialogue with you and any other NFL leadership to elaborate our concerns and your response. We look forward to hearing from you in the coming days as we move forward on this critical issue,” the NAACP leader’s letter concluded.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.",-0.7084730752724323
"CNN averaged 1.7 million viewers from Nov. 4 through Jan. 20, but it dropped to 1.1 million since Biden took office for a 34% fall. During the same period, CNN shed 44% of its total day viewers among the key demo, dropping from an average of 483,000 to only 272,000.

The data cited in the report came from Nielson Media research.

The violence at the United States Capitol building in January brought more viewers to CNN than any other single day in its 40-year history, the Associated Press (AP) reported January 12.

“CNN averaged 5.2 million viewers last Wednesday, eclipsing its previous high of 5.1 million on Election Day 2016, the Nielsen company said. The network had 4.47 million viewers on Sept. 11, 2001, Nielsen said,” the article continued.

More recently, social media users criticized CNN anchor Chris Cuomo for his hypocrisy after telling viewers he could not report on his brother, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D-NY) sexual harassment allegations even though the governor appeared on his show in 2020 during the height of the pandemic.

“Chris Cuomo’s statement comes as three women over the past week alleged that the Democrat New York governor made unsolicited sexual moves toward them,” Breitbart News reported March 2.

“It also comes during an unrelated investigation into the governor’s handling of New York nursing deaths during the coronavirus pandemic,” the article concluded.",-0.11467251248842356
"Wednesday, Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson speculated on the motivations of President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, which included a pledge to aid asylum-seekers if they hold off as the current border surge crisis wanes.

Transcript as follows:

CARLSON: We just got back from El Salvador a little over an hour ago. Before we left Central America this afternoon, we took a COVID test, the one where the nurse rams the Q-Tip up your nose and roots around trying to find your frontal lobe until your eyes water, you probably experienced it.

It’s pretty unpleasant. Trying to be responsible, though, so you endure it. And of course, like everyone entering the United States by plane, we had no choice anyway. The airline demanded it. We couldn’t come home until we took the test.

And that’s because as they often tell us, our authorities are totally committed to keeping us safe from this deadly virus.

So that’s the protocol. If you’re coming from El Salvador to the United States, legally. You take the test.

But what if you’re coming illegally? What if you rode the top of a freight train from El Salvador up through Mexico and just jumped the border when you got here? Well, as it happens, this morning, we interviewed an active MS-13 member, a convicted murderer who said that he did exactly that.

So the question is: do people like him, the ones who break our laws to get here have to submit to mandatory COVID testing once they’ve been apprehended by American authorities? And the answer is actually, no, they don’t.

Under this administration, they don’t have to and they don’t. Illegal aliens are now exempt from the public health measures that have been imposed by force on the rest of us by the U.S. government.

Illegal aliens come and go as they please. No one seems to care if they spread deadly viruses to the rest of the American population.

It’s hard to believe that’s actually happening, but it is happening. We verified it today. The new DHS Secretary admitted in congressional testimony that the Biden administration is releasing foreign nationals into American neighborhoods without even bothering to check if they’ve been infected with COVID.

Now, given the authoritarian lockdowns the rest of us have lived under for the last year, the ones that have crushed the country, it is hard to understand this policy is anything but an act of violence and hostility toward our country. It is an utter betrayal. They don’t care about you and they’re saying that as clearly as they possibly can.

Joe Biden is saying it, too. A reporter asked Biden if he planned to visit the border to see for himself the disaster that’s unfolding there.

“Not at the moment,” he replied dismissively, as if he had better things to do. We’d love to know what those things are.

Later that day, a reporter asked Kamala Harris what she knew about the current immigration crisis, the one that her administration caused. More than a hundred thousand foreign nationals are flooding in every month, like the border doesn’t even exist.

Some of them are gang members. Others appear to be on FBI terror watch lists. More than 13,000 of them are children or unaccompanied minors now in U.S. custody. It all adds up to an enormous, maybe unprecedented wave of humanity coming into America right now.

But Kamala Harris didn’t seem to have any idea it was happening. Quote: “I haven’t been briefed on anything today about it,” she said. She was too busy promoting Critical Race Theory and making sure there are boys on your daughter’s track team.

Has there ever been in administration this reckless and destructive? What’s happening on the border tonight will change this country forever. A lot of things won’t, this will and you should know that.

Unlike other disasters, mass illegal immigration is permanent. No one ever really gets sent home. Over the past 30 years, the population of the United States has exploded by nearly 100 million people, mostly due to immigration.

Were you even aware that that happened? You’re not supposed to say a word about it. As every year, the United States gets steadily more jammed with people and at the same time, more chaotic and less cohesive. As the open spaces shrink, as nature itself recedes in the face of yet another strip mall or apartment complex or fast food outlet to serve the new people.

This is becoming a crowded country and crowded countries are ugly, unhappy countries. Why are we letting that happen?

Well, that’s a rhetorical question, of course. No one asked us what we wanted. They just did it. And by the way, no one asked the countries these immigrants are coming from either. That’s something that had never even occurred to us until yesterday when we talked to the President of El Salvador.

He has lost a third of his population over the years to immigration to the United States. El Salvador is a charming country in a lot of ways, but it’s still a very poor place.

So when American politicians offer free education and free healthcare and free all kinds of things to anyone who can just make it across the border, millions of Salvadorans accept their offer, and why wouldn’t they accept it?

So they migrate in huge groups and that hurts this country, but it also weakens El Salvador. Listen to that country’s President’s perspective.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAYIB BUKELE, PRESIDENT OF EL SALVADOR: If you don’t provide for your people economic opportunities, if your economy is doing bad, if your security is doing bad, people are going to — people are going to leave and they’re going to go and try to find a rich country, right?

They’re not going to leave for Guatemala, right? They’re not going to go and live — they want to go to the United States. So that makes these countries dependent on immigration because you become an exporter of people.

You’re not exporting products or a service, you’re exporting people.

So that makes your economy dependent on that, because then those people send money back to their home countries, which is not a good economic formula.

So it’s bad for the United States, because immigration will go up. And it’s bad for our country because people leaving the country will go up as well, so it’s bad for both of us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: “It’s bad for both of us,” the U.S. and El Salvador, and he is absolutely right. No one says it. But imagine if a third of the boldest most ambitious people in your country just left. What would that mean for your future?

The overfunded NGOs and self-satisfied compassion mongers who promote open borders haven’t thought a moment about that because they don’t care. They even know who the President El Salvador is.

How many SoulCycle moms with “No human is illegal” signs on their front lawns could even name him? We’re guessing right around none.

But if you’re looking for conclusive evidence of how little they actually care about the Latin American servants who walk their dogs and wash their sheets, consider the almost complete silence from fashionable American liberals as the Biden administration’s holding pens for immigrant children fill beyond capacity.

They’re choosing to ignore this as it happens. Here’s what it looks like.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tonight, more than 4,000 children are in custody at overcrowded processing facilities, a 30 percent surge in the last week.

“Someone stole all her money along the way.” Many discover that getting here is just the beginning. Some migrants describe crowded immigration processing centers.

He says, it was packed with people —

Without showering facilities.

They like to shower.

And some say they slept under a bridge overnight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): Attorneys for some of the children told us kids as young as one, sometimes go days without bathing, rarely see the sun, and the sound of crying is constant.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: So it’s bad, and it’s about to get much worse. There’s been a 300 percent increase in the number of families apprehended by Customs and Border Protection since October. That number is rising.

Keep in mind that it takes about three weeks for migrants to make their way from Central America to the Mexican border with the U.S. So the border gets more porous by the day, that’s intentional, and the Biden administration has made it that way.

Early indications suggest that this month, March, will see the largest surge of illegal entries to this country in a generation. So who are all these people coming? Well, we don’t really know who they are and we don’t really have a good way to find out and that’s the scariest part.

In the last day, we have learned that at least four people arrested recently at the southern border were identified by law enforcement as quote “known to be or reasonably suspected of being involved in terrorist activities.”

Well, that seems like a front-page story, but it’s not. Democrats know perfectly well how unpopular open borders are with Americans, Americans of all races, so they are doing their best hysterically, in fact, to suppress news about what is actually happening.

Here is Veronica Escobar, who somehow got elected to Congress from Texas, letting you know that if you say a single word about what’s happening on the border right now, you’re racist.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. VERONICA ESCOBAR (D-TX): They can either join us in being part of the solution, or my fear is what they are going to continue to do is seek ways to divide our country, fuel xenophobia and racism.

And I want to warn them that their words and the fueling of that xenophobia, that racism, that hatred of the border, that that fear of the border, there are consequences to that language in that rhetoric.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: “Divide the country,” say the people who are letting in millions of foreign nationals who have no right to be here against the will of the population — divide the country.

It’s interesting to watch a demagogue like that yap into a camera, and then compare her to a leader who actually cares about the people he represents.

In our conversation yesterday, it was striking that the President of El Salvador took responsibility for the fact that millions have left his country. El Salvador, he said needs better security and more opportunity, and he seemed to mean it as he said it.

So compare that response to the response from an incompetent like Gavin Newsom in California or an open race-baiter like Veronica Escobar of Texas. Those kinds of people blame white supremacy and QAnon for their failures and then they keep going, they never look back. It’s pathetic.

Joe Biden isn’t much better than this. Biden knows the American public doesn’t want a million new poor people showing up illegally this year. Our country can’t handle that, obviously, especially not right now.

Again, open borders are not popular with anyone. They’re not popular with Hispanics, by the way. All the guilty white liberals assume Hispanics love illegal immigration. They don’t. They’re Americans. Why would they love it?

Now, Biden is now trying to blame the whole thing on Trump, of course. Apparently, the promise of a border wall was a massive lure to Central Americans hoping to sneak in. It’s pretty funny.

But at the same time, and not so subtly, Biden is telling more illegal aliens to come here. Here was Biden on “Good Morning America” this morning letting the world know that America’s top priority is making foreign nationals feel comfortable in the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS HOST: Do you have to say quite clearly don’t come?

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yes, I can say quite clearly don’t come over and the process is getting set up and it’s not going to take a whole long time, is to be able to apply for asylum in place. So don’t leave your town, or city, or community.

We’re going to make sure we have facilities in those cities and towns, run by DHS and also access with HHS, the Health and Human Services to say you can apply for asylum from where you are right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Oh, got it. So just don’t come yet. We’re not quite ready. And by the way, don’t trouble yourself. We’ll come to you.

We’re going to spend whatever it takes to make the whole process easier for you so that more people from your country can move to our country entirely at our expense. That’s our promise to the world and we hate ourselves enough that you know, we mean it.

Has any country ever promised something like this to the world? Can any country survive once it has? Joe Biden hasn’t thought about that? He doesn’t care, none of them care. All they know is that the Democratic Party will never lose again once they pull this off and that’s all that matters to them.",0.091254924885609
"Thursday on CNN’s “New Day,” network host Lisa Ling reacted to the Atlanta-area massage parlor shootings that left eight dead, six of which were Asian women. Law enforcement in Georgia is saying the attack was not racially-motivated.

Ling noted there is a “pattern of attacks on Asians” recently. She asked “how many people have to die” for hate crimes against Asians “to be taken seriously.”

“[A]fter this attack on the massage parlor, I saw people posting messages about solidarity and about standing up for Asian people, but how many people have to die for this to really be taken seriously, for there to be more than lip service?” Ling wondered. “I mean, there is real fear among Asian people about going outside of their own homes right now. Asian people are being scapegoated like they have for a century in this country. And this has to stop. This has to stop. We cannot be continued to be scapegoated, and this is frankly a pattern of scapegoating that happens in this country.”

“Yesterday, it was Muslim and Southeast Asian people after 9/11,” she continued. “When there’s an economic downturn, it’s the Latin population, you know? It’s always the black community being scapegoated for so many things. And during the Cold War, it was gay people. This scapegoating of entire populations has to stop in this country.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent",0.8358810073900216
"Former 1992 Clinton’s campaign staffer James Carville said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “The Beat” he was not concerned about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) threat to implement a “scorched Earth” response if Senate Democrats change the filibuster rule.

Carville said, “If you listen to what he said, ‘If you dare do this, we’re going to get in and do five highly unpopular things.’ Look at the things that he laid out. I don’t think a single one of them polled 30 percent. So, the country is going to be held hostage at a time of maximum need, at a time where we need to get relief, where we really need to do things to help ordinary people to say, ‘If you are going to do this, we are going to blow ourselves up in front of ’em!’ Well, good. Go ahead and blow yourself up. But the thing that he listed, I was looking, I just started chuckling.”

He added, “Well, okay, take it out on us. We’ll take your five issues to the polls, and we’ll go toe to toe, head to head with you. But it was really significant what he said after that. And I don’t — you know, I don’t think the country wants to be held hostage by Mitch McConnell. We saw what he did to President Obama, to Merrick Garland. I don’t think the Democrats should be afraid of this in the least. I think they should embrace this argument. They should go around and talk about all the things that Mitch McConnell wants to do. He doesn’t want to get COVID relief to people. He doesn’t want to tax the rich. He doesn’t want to do anything about climate. All he wants to do is do this. I think if you do that, you will end up with a much better result than that. I think it was smart to put that on TV and see exactly what he’s talking about he’s gonna do if you don’t give me what I want. So, bring it on. Bring it on, dude. We ready to go. Hook it up.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN",1.2861004656277495
"Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), expressed displeasure Tuesday after Google promoted a Democrat National Committee (DNC) blog post as news.

The ranking of non-news does not follow typical search results set by Google’s algorithms, which is to “promote original journalism.” Further, Google has not ranked the RNC or National Republican Senatorial Committee’s (NRSC) blog posts as news.

.@Google suppresses conservatives but prominently features propaganda from the DNC as “News.” Big Tech needs to held accountable for its blatant bias. pic.twitter.com/SmWwDvhNk0 — Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) March 16, 2021

According to Google, the company displays and ranks news by the following framework:

Google News aims to promote original journalism and expose users to diverse perspectives. It doesn’t accept payments to expedite or improve a site’s search appearance or ranking. Ranking in Google News is determined algorithmically by these factors:

Relevance of content

Prominence

Authoritativeness

Freshness

Location

Language

Though Google’s parameters seem broad, Google has a history of preferring information which often opposes right-leaning organizations. Breitbart News reported in the summer of 2020 that Google greatly reduced Breitbart News’ search results by 99.7 percent.

Additionally, a video recorded by Google, which was leaked in 2018, revealed “an atmosphere of panic and dismay amongst the tech giant’s leadership, coupled with a determination to thwart both the Trump agenda and the broader populist movement emerging around the globe,” according to Allum Bokhari at Breitbart News.",-0.15933621629655734
"Chuck Todd, the far-left moderator of Meet the Press, is desperately looking to prove his fealty to His Fraudulency Joe Biden by making a total fool of himself.

As we all know, prior to Biden being sworn in as president, the crises at our southern border were mostly solved. Among other things, between The Wall, a firm message of “don’t come here illegally,” a focus on deportations, and the notably brilliant “Remain in Mexico” policy, former President Donald Trump, without any help from Democrats, pretty much put an end to the ongoing southern border crises.

Then Joe Biden was sworn in and it all went to hell, and why wouldn’t it? In a cynical effort to change the demographics in Texas and Arizona, in a brazen effort to invite more Democrats into the country and offer up cheap, exploitable labor for his corporate cronies, Biden told every illegal alien, sex trafficker, and drug smuggler that the American border was now wide open. Come on in! We’ve stopped deporting! Claim asylum and you’ll be released into the American interior to do what you want until we overturn the filibuster and grant you citizenship and the right to vote!

Joe Biden and Joe Biden alone is why there is a disaster on the border right now, and this fact is not in dispute by anyone who takes pride in their intellectual honesty. This means Biden desperately needs gaslighting, left-wing, extremist liars to deflect on his behalf.

Well, lucky for Biden he has Chuck Todd, a broadcaster who is not at all interested in informing his viewers, but very interested in misleading them as a means to signal to the Biden White House that he will always be here to grab his ankles on their behalf.

Read the following and tell me I’m wrong [emphasis added by Newsbusters]:

Wanting to “dive into politics of this current moment,” Todd wailed: “…Republicans try to keep focus on a border emergency. In some ways they’ve sabotaged our immigration policy and this is why we’re here…” Despite Biden actually being in the White House, Todd singled out a top Trump aide for blame instead: “…look, this is an impossible situation in some ways, because in many ways, the asylum process was essentially destroyed by Stephen Miller, they sort of blew it up, and so it is an extra mess.” Todd lamented that “it’s hard to look at Republicans in Congress and see that they’re willing to – that they want to solve this problem.” After briefly acknowledging that he has “watched both parties at times, duck a potential compromise because they think the politics will help them,” Todd targeted the GOP once again: “This is what it looks like now with Republicans, that they’re almost rooting for a problem so they can walk away from it.”

Republicans are not walking away from the problem. Until Biden’s election, Republicans had pretty much solved this problem and had Trump won a second term, it would have been solved entirely.

But, you see, Todd’s idea of solving the illegal immigration problem is not stopping illegal immigration. His idea of solving the illegal immigration problem is legalizing illegal immigration so Democrats win the state of Texas and capture the presidency forever after and then we’re all paying for abortions and men are in our daughter’s locker rooms and Dr. Seuss is made an Enemy of the State and the Christian Church is forced to perform same sex marriages and home schooling is outlawed and septic tanks are outlawed and we’re all forced to move into urban apartments the size of a cracker box to cheer the nightly riots staged by Black Lives Matter.

Oh, and Todd’s ludicrous comments about the border comes just a few days after he warned, without any evidence, that Climate Change (which is a hoax) would cause more pandemics like the China Flu.

The media are so broken.",-0.9451782122841131
"Pro-migration advocates are slashing at CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria for his criticism of President Joe Biden’s decision to let many blue collar Latinos surge across the southern border.

The criticism spotlights the fragility of the Democrats’ unstable pro-amnesty coalition, which includes corporate investors, Latino farmworkers, Indian visa workers, subcontractors for Fortune 500 companies, DACA migrants, university groups, and many other groups who have distinct and often rival priorities.

The India-born Zakaria said March 14:

The tragedy is that this border crisis, and Trump’s demagoguery around it, could hinder Biden’s efforts to achieve comprehensive reform of the whole system … [Already] some of the world’s best and brightest are now choosing to go to more hospitable countries, from Canada to Britain to Australia.

“Every couple of years @FareedZakaria writes a really, really bad and factually inaccurate OpEd,” responded Todd Schulte, the president of Mark Zuckerberg’s pro-amnesty FWD.us group of wealthy investors. Schulte added, “In this one: @FareedZakaria supports a policy that intentionally trapped tens of thousands of children and their moms in inhumane conditions for a year and a half.”

“I’ve learned never to take Zakaria seriously as a foreign policy thinker,” responded immigration advocate Cris Ramos. “‘Relying on other states is never a long-term solution to managing migration.” Ramon is also an advocate for a greater inflow of foreign graduates into Americans’ white-collar jobs.

Zakaria’s comment sparked a hostile reaction because it threatens the unstable alliance among the Democrats’ varied pro-migration groups, said Jessica Vaughan, policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies.

The disparate groups need each other to push their amnesties through Congress, she said. “In the past, they’ve always been able to [gain] by teaming up … But as soon as one side feels that the other is endangering its agenda, then that coalition is going to fracture,” she said.

“Many of [advocates] on the more-skilled migration side of the left may feel that this crisis at the border is threatening their ability to get something done in Congress,” she said, adding Schulte “wants Zakaria to shut up and not threaten their alliance.”

Zakaria’s focus on the claimed “best and brightest” suggests he has gone to bat for India’s very large population of mid-skilled visa workers in the United States, many of whom are waiting for green cards after taking U.S. white-collar jobs via the H-1B program. The Indian population in the United States is growing rapidly, partly because the Indian visa workers who get citizenship often bring over additional Indian via chain migration. The legal community also attracts a stream of low-wage illegals who find jobs in Indian retail outlets, restaurants, and other supporting business sectors.

The surge is now threatening the Biden immigration bill that includes hard-to-understand language that would dramatically increase the inflow of Indian college graduates and visa workers into the white collar jobs needed by American graduates.

The pro-amnesty alliance is already shaky because many opinion polls show the public is opposed to legal immigration and strongly opposed to labor migration — especially during the recession, especially if Biden’s deputies are not trying to control the border migration.

The GOP can blame Biden for every tragedy on the migrants' Hunger Games trek to his semi-open border.

The Democrats & media did ruthlessly pump the ""kids in cages"" & ""family separation"" mini-dramas in Trump's term. So, seven stories from Biden's border:https://t.co/bE4cgouD0p — Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) March 17, 2021

Some Democrats are cloaking their election worries in calls for bipartisanship.

“We have to have bipartisan cooperation if we’re going to tackle these items,” Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC) told the Washington Post for a March 13 article. He added:

Immigration has been lingering since I first came to Congress, and that was 16 years ago. . . . We don’t want to pass these with Democratic votes alone. And I’m not talking about one or two Republicans; I’m talking about a significant number of votes from the opposing party.

Politico reported March 4:

Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), a swing-district Democrat, has been making the case to Biden’s Hill team that an e-verify provision should be part of the bill, just as it was in the bipartisan immigration bill in 2013 that fell just short of passage. “Yes, I support what’s in the bill. I think we would be in a stronger position to get it enacted if we eventually ended up where, I think, the middle ground is,” Malinowski said. “I think for both solid political, practical reasons and moral reasons, those two things should go together.”

Zakaria’s various pro-migration, pro-amnesty critics were more direct.

“Pure crap,” said a tweet from a pro-migration manager at the American Friends Service Committee. “This short-sided & ill-informed opinion piece is pure crap that praises white supremacist policies that disregard international obligations on asylum,” said the tweet from Pedro Rios, manager of the group’s U.S.-Mexico Border Program.

“I was aghast to read this noxious, ignorant ‘opinion’ piece by @FareedZakaria,” tweeted immigration lawyer Amy Maldonado. “The Trump/Miller policy of sending asylum seekers to ‘apply for asylum’ in Northern Triangle countries as or more dangerous than the ones they fled is an unmitigated human rights disaster.”

The asylum system needs to be expanded, not reduced as Zakaria suggested, tweeted asylum advocate Yael Schacher. “There are also asylum seekers at the border from Mexico and from Africa, Asia, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Cuba, and Haiti … all need to be addressed head on.”

“As if you can enforce your way out of a #migration crisis,” a former Mexican ambassador to the United States responded to Zakaria. “You can’t. Disagree on this occasion with @FareedZakaria’s take on #immigration policy and the reprehensible “Remain in #Mexico”[program].”

“Disturbing gaps, spin in this piece,” tweeted Eleanor Acer, a pro-refugee director at the pro-migration Human Rights First group. “Illegal policies that turn asylum seekers back to rampant kidnappings & attacks are not ‘practical policy’ no knowledge Trump Title 42 ban is expelling to danger, blocking African, Haitian, many other asylum seekers.”

On March 14, Zakaria said:

The truth is the asylum system is out of control. The concept of asylum dates to the years after World War Two, when the United States created a separate path to legal status for those who feared religious, ethnic or political persecution, a noble idea born in the shadow of America’s refusal to take in Jews in the 1930s. It was used sparingly for decades, mostly applying to cases of extreme discrimination. But the vast majority of people entering the southern border are really traditional migrants fleeing poverty and violence. This is a sad situation, but it does not justify giving them special consideration above others around the world who seek to come to the United States for similar reasons, but go through the normal process.

The decision to allow the border chaos will undermine more important immigration reforms pending in Congress, Zakaria said:

The tragedy is that this border crisis, and Trump’s demagoguery around it, could hinder Biden’s efforts to achieve comprehensive reform of the whole system. Asylum seekers make up a small minority of immigrants. There is a much larger group that includes those who have skills, the United States needs, as well as those entering to reunite with their families. Thanks to Trump’s policies, these immigrants and would be immigrants, now face a more hostile environment than at any point since the United States ended quotas in 1965. You can see it in the numbers with pandemic restrictions on top of everything else, immigration to the United States has plunged to levels not seen in four decades. Some of the world’s best and brightest are now choosing to go to more hospitable countries, from Canada to Britain to Australia. Census data show that without immigration, the United States faces a dire demographic future. It would mean fewer people and especially fewer young people, which would mean less growth, less dynamism, and less opportunity for everyone. That is the real immigration crisis, not the one at the southern border.

For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to labor migration and to the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.

The multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.

The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from the central states to the coastal states.",0.8409623246567814
"Uniformed members of the Guam National Guard marched on the Capitol office of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) Monday in response to her having erroneously claimed last month the U.S. territory was a foreign country. A fierce backlash erupted online over the use of the military for a political stunt which is a violation of Defense Department regulations.

During an unannounced visit led by Guam’s only congressional delegate Rep. Michael San Nicolas (D), more than 20 Guam National Guard troops briefly met with one of Greene’s aides who stated the congresswoman was not presently in her office.

A three-minute clip documenting the event was posted later that day showing San Nicolas delivering a basket of Chamorro Chip Cookies, a staple dessert enjoyed by Guamanians, along with a book about the island’s history.

Shortly thereafter, prominent figures as well as a flurry of appalled Twitter users took to the social media platform to voice their dismay.

“We are witnessing the unabashed politicization of our military — in violation of law and DoD regulations,” wrote former CIA officer Bryan Dean Wright.

“We stop this or America is done,” he added. “No free nation lasts when this stuff becomes the norm.”

We are witnessing the unabashed politicization of our military — in violation of law and DoD regulations. We stop this or America is done. No free nation lasts when this stuff becomes the norm. https://t.co/Ohh8SlUe8V — BDW (@BryanDeanWright) March 15, 2021

“@DeptofDefense is being politicized,” wrote House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. “Uniformed service members recently criticized a private citizen for his First Amendment rights, & today a Dem lawmaker used soldiers in a political stunt against a GOP member.”

“@SecDef Austin—This sets a dangerous precedent,” he added. “It must stop now.”

.@DeptofDefense is being politicized. Uniformed service members recently criticized a private citizen for his First Amendment rights, & today a Dem lawmaker used soldiers in a political stunt against a GOP member.@SecDef Austin—This sets a dangerous precedent. It must stop now. — Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) March 16, 2021

“A week of partisan political displays by uniformed military,” wrote columnist Jon Gabriel. “More than a little disturbing.”

“What uniformed military leader thought this use of their forces as political props was a good idea?” asked retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Rob Maness.

“What in the hell is going on with our military?! Who’s in charge of these troops and why are they being used as political props?” asked Republican congressional candidate Buzz Patterson.

“I never thought I’d see this,” he added.

What in the hell is going on with our military?! Who’s in charge of these troops and why are they being used as political props?

I never thought I’d see this. https://t.co/Auex86OVBk — Buzz Patterson (@BuzzPatterson) March 15, 2021

“Why is the military being used as a political prop?” asked journalist Ryan James Girdusky.

Why is the military being used as a political prop? https://t.co/drmsFZMYfJ — Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) March 15, 2021

“That looks like military intimidation,” wrote conservative commentator Ian Miles Cheong. “Very cool Banana Republic you’ve got there, America.”

That looks like military intimidation. Very cool Banana Republic you've got there, America. https://t.co/LBrRwUyiac — Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) March 15, 2021

“The military is being used by the Democratic Party to intimidate political threats,” wrote radio host JD Sharp.

“This simply can not ever happen,” he added. “If this continues we will see a conflict on Domestic soil.”

“Now the military is threatening members of Congress in person?” wrote right-wing host and commentator John Cardillo.

“This shit had better end forthwith,” he added.

Now the military is threatening members of Congress in person? This shit had better end forthwith. https://t.co/oQpFpyGR9m — John Cardillo (@johncardillo) March 15, 2021

“Our Military being used for the Left’s political stunts,” wrote the Columbia Bugle.

“Interesting timing, considering all weekend we were talking about the politicization of the military,” wrote author and security expert David Reaboi. “They don’t give a damn how it looks.”

“Employing military members in uniform like this to send an overt political message is so wrong at so many levels…I don’t even know what to say anymore,” wrote former National Security Agency intelligence analyst John Schindler.

Employing military members in uniform like this to send an overt political message is so wrong at so many levels…I don't even know what to say anymore. https://t.co/MPqJ1QZ1xb — John Schindler (@20committee) March 15, 2021

“This is disgusting,” wrote conservative columnist Gavin Wax.

“More partisan posturing from uniformed military members,” wrote commentator Matt Walsh. “The military under Biden has managed to disgrace itself in unprecedented ways, and it’s only been two months.”

“What will the next four years look like?” he asked.

More partisan posturing from uniformed military members. The military under Biden has managed to disgrace itself in unprecedented ways, and it’s only been two months. What will the next four years look like? https://t.co/feqlMAfZtM — Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) March 16, 2021

“The military is absolutely not authorized to intimidate any member of Congress,” wrote conservative commentator Jack Posobiec.

“Another massive failure to honor the separation of the military from politics,” wrote President of the Security Studies Group Jim Hanson.

“Heads should roll,” he added.

Another massive failure to honor the separation of the military from politics Heads should roll https://t.co/BC7u7fJKwD — Jim Hanson 🇺🇸 (@JimHansonDC) March 15, 2021

“In most parts of the world, a bunch of men in military uniform descending uninvited upon the office of a democratically elected representative is not a very good optic,” wrote Twitter user Mark Elliott. “And in the US Capitol, of all places.”

“It’s stunning that the Biden administration is using the armed services to make political statements,” wrote one Twitter user. “This is literally the definition of fascism. Brought to you courtesy of the Biden administration.”

“The military is now officially a Super PAC for the Democrats,” wrote another Twitter user.

Many on Twitter also noted the incident’s similarity with recent takes by military figures as well as official military social media accounts in response to a segment on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight criticizing President Joe Biden’s military priorities.

“Last week they attacked Tucker,” wrote one Twitter user. “Now this.”

“Guys I think we are heading toward something bad at break neck speeds,” the user added.

“Well I thought the Military screwed up when they criticized Tucker but marching the military to the opposition party congressional office is really bad,” wrote another Twitter user.

“Not the best week for our military between this and DoD Twitter accounts fighting Tucker Carlson,” noted another Twitter user.

“First the Tucker debacle and now this… Our military leaders have lost their credibility. Who thought this would be a good idea?” wrote yet another Twitter user.

Greene drew criticism last month after erroneously stating that Guam is a foreign land.

“We believe our hard-earned tax dollars should just go for America, not for what? China, Russia, the Middle East, Guam, whatever, wherever,” she reportedly said at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

On Tuesday morning, Greene herself called the visit “political theatre.”

“It’s time for our great men and women of the National Guard to go home and be with their families,” she wrote. “The Democrats need to stop using them as political theatre and drama on Capitol Hill.”

“Shame on Democrats for disrespecting our military,” she added.

It’s time for our great men and women of the National Guard to go home and be with their families. The Democrats need to stop using them as political theatre and drama on Capitol Hill. Shame on Democrats for disrespecting our military. — Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) March 16, 2021

Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.",0.3022609798758005
"The Biden administration drew fire from the governor of Texas after opening yet another facility in the state to address the number of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border. In the latest move, the department has opened an existing oil worker man camp in Pecos, Texas.

The facility, previously known as the Pecos Lodge North, will serve as the latest site to accommodate the massively growing numbers of unaccompanied migrant children illegally crossing the border. In a statement released on Saturday, HHS relayed the following information.

It is anticipated the Target Lodge Pecos North ICF will initially accommodate approximately 500 children in hard-sided structures with the potential to expand to 2000. Additional semi-permanent (soft-sided) capacity may be added if necessary, though ORR will always prioritize placing children in hard-sided structures over semi-permanent structures. ORR is committed to holding ICFs to the same or higher standards as state-licensed facilities. The Target Lodge Pecos North ICF will be used when the site is ready to safely receive children. Using ICFs will help ensure children are moved into ORR shelters, where children receive educational, medical, mental health, and recreational services until they can be unified with families or sponsors without undue delay.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott responded quickly, saying the “Biden Administration continues to show that it is dangerously unprepared to handle the surge in illegal border crossings as they rush to open yet another facility for unaccompanied minors in Texas.”

The governor directed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to ensure the facility has safe drinking water.

HHS recently opened facilities in Carrizo Springs and Midland, Texas to address the overcrowding in Border Patrol facilities designed only for the temporary detention of adult migrants. HHS is also temporarily sheltering UACs at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center in Dallas, Texas. The moves come as the Biden administration struggles to deal with seemingly uncontrollable levels of illegal entries at the southern border with Mexico

In a written statement released late Saturday, Governor Abbott said:

As this humanitarian crisis grows along our southern border, the Biden Administration continues to dodge questions that Texans are demanding answers for: Is the federal government tracking what countries these children are coming from and what COVID-19 variants they might have been exposed to? How long will these children be held in Texas? The Biden Administration’s refusal to secure our border, investigate the origins and potential trafficking of unaccompanied minors, and protect these vulnerable children will only worsen the situation and put innocent lives at risk. President Biden must act now to end this crisis.”

According to law enforcement sources, the latest effort by HHS to shelter more UACs may still not be enough. Sources in the Rio Grande Valley report over two thousand migrants per day were apprehended on three separate days last week. The same source, not authorized to speak on the matter, indicated 400-600 of those apprehensions per day were unaccompanied minors.

This latest announcement comes as the Biden administration received harsh criticism from Texas Governor Greg Abbott concerning the inhumane conditions at some of the other shelters recently opened in his state.

Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.",0.756223966517624
"LAREDO, Texas — President Joe Biden and political allies need to stop sending messages that encourage the sending of children and underage teens from Central America into the hands of cartels, which oversee smuggling operations to the U.S., said Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX) in a recent video interview.

“You ought to be sending the signal to stop sending your kids on the top of trains so the cartels and illicit organizations can abuse them,” Congressman Roy said–in what he referred to mixed messages sent by proponents of more relaxed border policies. Roy warns the trend only enriches Mexican cartels.

Roy recently visited a child detention center in Carrizo Springs and then toured the border zone in Laredo, Texas.

Roy argues that although detention facilities for underage migrants are widely vilified, the site he toured in Carrizo Springs was well-kept yet full.

“You can not like the way that process works but you are burying your head in the sand,” Roy said. “You have children now, what are you going to do with that child … how are you going to keep them safe?”

The current crisis has placed an undue burden on the U.S. Border Patrol that has removed agents from the field and turned them into caretakers at the much-vilified facilities, he said

“The facilities I’ve seen operated by Border Patrol, sometimes they are overwhelmed, they are Border Patrol, they are not supposed to be in the people management business,” Roy said.

The ongoing surge in the number of migrants entering the country has rapidly filled up detention centers, forcing FEMA to open new centers in Texas.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.

Gerald “Tony” Aranda is a contributing writer for Breitbart Texas.",1.2394762564134174
"Texas Governor Greg Abbott in Dallas on Wednesday about the growing surge of migrants at the U.S. border with Mexico. The governor directly blamed President Joe Biden’s open borders policies for the humanitarian crisis.

Governor Abbott spoke at a hotel located across the street from the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas where FEMA is housing some 3,000 teenage boys ages 15 to 17. Breitbart Texas reported the teens would stay at the convention center for up to 90 days.

“These sites are a direct result of President Biden’s reckless open border policies that are causing a surge in crossings and cartel activity,” Abbott said. “The administration has yet to provide answers that Texans deserve.”

“U.S. Health and Human Services will open the center to take some of the strain off Border Patrol, which is not supposed to hold children for more than three days but has been forced to do so for much longer,” KXAN added. “At least 3,000 children had been in custody longer than that 72-hour limit.”

The Biden administration claims that it is sending adults and families back because of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) coronavirus order but is allowing children — or mostly older teens — admission into the country.

The Austin NBC affiliate’s report continued:

According to Abbott, Biden’s administration needs to provide information on where these migrants have come from and a timeline of how long they’ll be in Texas/the U.S. The governor said that so far this year, 11,000 minors have been apprehended crossing the border into Texas, which he claims is a 60% increase between January (which was under the Trump administration) and February.

“On Monday alone, the Border Patrol took in about 280 child migrants in the Rio Grande Valley sector. America needs to know how these children — some are young children — are coming across the border and who is it that is helping these children across the border,” the Texas governor explained.

Abbott added that he asked the Biden administration to allow Texas officials to interview minors being held at the facility. The governor also said he is expanding the Operation Lonestar program to combat human trafficking.

Abbott expressed concern that individuals entering the country could be ill, including those who may be infected with the coronavirus.

“Are they being tested for COVID?” Abbott asked. “And if so, how is the administration handling those who test positive?”

“Texas is willing to step up and help out,” the governor concluded. “But this is the Biden administration’s responsibility … the Biden administration has made it clear that if you are an unaccompanied child, you will be allowed to come into the United States.”

Follow Penny Starr on Twitter or send news tips to pstarr@breitbart.com",-0.1897137372925811
"A brazen ambush by cartel gunmen in central Mexico killed 13 state police officers in a case that has sparked outrage among officials. The mass killing is the latest in a trend despite federal claims that safety is improving nationwide.

The attack took place on Thursday afternoon in Llano Grande, Mexico State, where 13 police officers were carrying out routine patrolling, said Mexico State Public Security Secretary Rodrigo Martinez Celis alongside Mexico State Attorney General Alejandro Gomez Sanchez.

El secretario de Seguridad del Edomex, Rodrigo Martínez Celis y el Fiscal General de Justicia, Alejandro Gómez Sánchez condenaron el ataque contra policías en Coatepec Harinas, donde perdieron la vida 13 efectivos; aseguraron que van por los responsables Crédito: Especial pic.twitter.com/anE6xC0ew9 — Metrópoli (@Univ_Metropoli) March 19, 2021

Details remain sketchy, however, cartel gunmen ambushed the officers before police backup could arrive. According to El Universal, authorities deployed a police helicopter to evacuate a wounded officer. Authorities have not revealed the name of the organization behind the attack, nor a motive.

In the aftermath, state, federal, and military forces have increased their presence to capture the gunmen.

“We are going after them and are going to bring them to justice,” Gomez Sanchez said during the statement.

Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “J.C. Sanchez” from Tamaulipas and Jose Luis Lara fom Michoacan.",1.3975081614267777
"The Department of Homeland Security announced an extension to the travel limitations at land crossings along the Mexican and Canadian Borders. The Trump era ban has been in place since March 2020 and applies to non-essential travel such as day tourism and shopping.

The ban has many border communities frustrated as it has directly impacted local economies. The ban was set to expire at 11:59pm on March 21, 2021 but will now exceed its one-year anniversary. Many local merchants have expressed dismay about the allowance of thousands of asylum seekers arriving daily while masked Mexican tourists and shoppers are kept across the border.

One local merchant, Pedro is feeling the financial pinch the ban has caused him, according to a recent interview.

“It’s not fair that we have lost so much of our business–but others cross illegally, and no one cares” he said as Breitbart Texas visited with him recently. In Spanish he adds, “The government may not think the travel is essential to come shopping, but to those that cross and us who sell, it is everything. We wear masks. They can too.”

Ports of entry along the border that once bustled with daily crossers frequenting the local businesses are nearly void of traffic.

In a statement released Thursday, DHS noted:

To prevent the further spread of COVID-19, and in coordination with our partners in Canada and Mexico, the United States is extending the restrictions on non-essential travel at our land borders through April 21, while ensuring continued flows of essential trade and travel. Informed by science and public health guidance, we will work with our counterparts to identify an approach to easing restrictions when conditions permit and with the protection of our citizens from COVID-19 at the forefront of our minds.

The ban on documented crossers will remain in effect for now as illegal border crossings continue to soar.

Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX",-0.13616563046031369
"Fox News reports from an unnamed senior U.S. Custom and Border Protection official that the agency is considering a plan to release migrants apprehended in South Texas who claim asylum without issuing a Notice to Appear (NTA). Breitbart Texas confirmed with a senior CBP official the plan is being discussed.

A Fox News Channel article published late Saturday night revealed that discussions are underway that could result in the near-immediate release of thousands of apprehended migrants in the Rio Grande Valley Sector who would have no date to appear before an immigration judge or asylum officer. The news outlet claims a senior CBP official revealed the unprecedented plan that would allow the migrants to be released without an NTA.

A Breitbart Texas source at the highest levels operating under the umbrella of CBP in Washington, D.C., confirmed the plan is a “serious measure being discussed.”

Fox says the plan is being discussed because the crisis along the border has “become so dire that [Border Patrol] has no choice but to release people nearly immediately” after their apprehension because “there is no space to hold people” long enough to do the NTA paperwork. The processing to issue an NTA can take up to two hours per individual or family group.

The plan would not apply to unaccompanied migrant minors who cannot legally be released.

Under the plan being discussed, migrants would be released after Border Patrol agents gather only minimal identification information, officials told Breitbart Texas. The migrant would be instructed to contact immigration officials close to their destination city after they arrive.

However, without an NTA, there will be no mechanism in place to follow up on the migrant or even to know if they really traveled to their disclosed destination, Border Patrol officials said. There would be no way for an immigration court to issue an order for removal if the migrant fails to appear because they have no way of knowing the person was coming.

The migrants would simply be released after promising to show up at some undetermined future time at an immigration office to apply for asylum, officials stated.

It is not clear how many migrants this would apply to. Under current law, unaccompanied minors cannot simply be released. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention coronavirus protection protocols under Title 42 still allow for the near-immediate expulsion of single adults and some family units.

However, in the Rio Grande Valley Sector, and select other locations, Mexico is not allowing families traveling with young children to be expelled back to their country.

Rio Grande Valley Sector Chief Patrol Agent Brian Hastings tweeted that his agents apprehended more than 2,000 migrants on Thursday, more than 10,000 in the past week, and more than 34,000 for the month of March. This is up from 27,913 apprehended during the entire month of February.

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Face book.",-0.7976671362804657
"Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) sharply criticized the Biden administration over conditions at multiple Health and Human Services detention facilities for unaccompanied migrant children recently opened across the state. Abbott specifically cited a drinking-water issue at a facility hastily opened by HHS in Midland, Texas and a COVID-19 outbreak in a facility opened last month in Carrizo Springs, Texas.

Governor Abbott said, “The Biden Administration has been an abject failure when it comes to ensuring the safety of unaccompanied minors who cross our border. The conditions unaccompanied minors face in these federally run facilities is unacceptable and inhumane.”

“From a lack of safe drinking water in one location to a COVID-19 outbreak in another, the Biden Administration has no excuse for subjecting these children to these kinds of conditions,” the Texas governor continued. “President Biden’s refusal to address the border crisis is not only enabling criminal actors like human traffickers and smugglers, but it is exposing innocent unaccompanied children to illness and potentially unsafe living conditions.”

“The administration must act now to keep these children safe, secure our border, and end this humanitarian crisis,” Abbott concluded.

This latest development regarding the surge in unaccompanied minors comes as the Biden administration finds itself woefully unprepared to handle the influx. Federal officials opened a temporary facility in Dallas, Texas at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center to accommodate the UAC’s.

Sources in the Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol Sector indicate they are still apprehending between 400 and 500 unaccompanied children per day. Agents are holding, according to the source, over 2100 unaccompanied children in Border Patrol facilities and cannot keep up with the backlog in processing and transfer to HHS.

HHS is responsible for providing suitable detention space for the children under current law.

The governor also announced the deployment Texas Department of State Health Services resources and personnel to the Carrizo Springs Facility to investigate, identify, and combat the COVID-19 outbreak. As for the Midland, Texas facility, Abbott indicated the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality notified federal officials of the need to address the serious water issues.

The Midland facility, a former oilfield mancamp, is also experiencing a COVID outbreak as nearly 11 percent of the minors tested positive, Breitbart Texas reported.

U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) spokesman Mark Weber told the Associated Press they put their plans to move more unaccompanied migrant teenagers to the Midland facility on pause after finding that 53 of the 485 migrant teens tested positive for COVID-19.

Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.",-2.2707024153562143
"LAREDO, Texas — President Joe Biden and political allies need to stop sending messages that encourage the sending of children and underage teens from Central America into the hands of cartels, which oversee smuggling operations to the U.S., said Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX) in a recent video interview.

“You ought to be sending the signal to stop sending your kids on the top of trains so the cartels and illicit organizations can abuse them,” Congressman Roy said–in what he referred to mixed messages sent by proponents of more relaxed border policies. Roy warns the trend only enriches Mexican cartels.

Roy recently visited a child detention center in Carrizo Springs and then toured the border zone in Laredo, Texas.

Roy argues that although detention facilities for underage migrants are widely vilified, the site he toured in Carrizo Springs was well-kept yet full.

“You can not like the way that process works but you are burying your head in the sand,” Roy said. “You have children now, what are you going to do with that child … how are you going to keep them safe?”

The current crisis has placed an undue burden on the U.S. Border Patrol that has removed agents from the field and turned them into caretakers at the much-vilified facilities, he said

“The facilities I’ve seen operated by Border Patrol, sometimes they are overwhelmed, they are Border Patrol, they are not supposed to be in the people management business,” Roy said.

The ongoing surge in the number of migrants entering the country has rapidly filled up detention centers, forcing FEMA to open new centers in Texas.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.

Gerald “Tony” Aranda is a contributing writer for Breitbart Texas.",-1.5352691976041
"Mexican cartels are behind the dramatic increase in activity at the U.S.-Mexico Border and are benefiting from mixed messages coming from Washington, Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX) said during a tour of South Texas this week.

Breitbart Texas interviewed Congressman Roy after his fact-finding trip that included a child detention facility in Carrizo Springs and an unannounced tour of the border in Laredo.

“The worst part of all of this is the extent to which cartels are driving the traffic, their fingerprints are all over this,” Roy said. “They move human beings for profit and when they do so, they are endangering the lives of immigrants who are taking this dangerous journey–oftentimes kids and they are being exploited for money.”

According to Roy, the sharp increase human smuggling has taken place since the start of the administration of President Joe Biden.

“These policies by the [Biden] Administration, often in the name of compassion, I think its the opposite–its in the false name of compassion, open borders are empowering the cartels allowing them to make more money moving people and we are seeing the abuses that then take place.”

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.

Gerald “Tony” Aranda is a contributing writer for Breitbart Texas.",0.5564526023344598
"Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told members of the House Judiciary Committee that releasing migrants into Texas border communities without testing them for COVID-19 was a mistake.

Mayorkas, in his first appearance before the committee since being confirmed as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said he did not know how many people had been released without being tested, the Washington Times reported.

Mayorkas avoided questions from Republican members of the committee who tried to nail down the numbers and if the mistake had been corrected.

“There have been times when we have not met our responsibility as well as we should have,” the DHS secretary told the committee. “Those instances are brought to the attention of leadership, and they are addressed and we improved based on the mistakes made.”

He said it is their policy to hope communities and charities are able to conduct the testing when Border Patrol agents release the migrants, the Times reported.

Lawmakers repeatedly pressed the secretary on whether his department is executing on its policy to have migrants tested before they are released.

After being pressed several times by multiple Republican congressmen, Mayorkas finally said they are “doing the best we can.”

The agency has also been unclear on quarantine procedures for those who test positive. Local authorities have put some into hotels for quarantine, but admit they have no authority to hold them if they want to leave.

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Face book.",2.133487534665814
"Border Patrol agents in the nation’s busiest sector for human smuggling continue to report consistent, large migrant group crossings.

Agents assigned to the McAllen Border Patrol station continue to report multiple apprehensions of migrants in large groups in one Texas border county, according to information obtained from Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol officials. The groups consist mainly of migrant family units and unaccompanied alien children.

No end in sight as large groups continue entering in the #RGV. In 48 hrs, agents arrested 369 illegal aliens mainly consisting of family members and UACs in 4 separate groups. This year, agents have encountered 19 groups of 100 or more people illegally entering the US. pic.twitter.com/GjPZ473XeK — Chief Patrol Agent Brian Hastings (@USBPChiefRGV) March 18, 2021

McAllen Station agents working the border near Mission, Texas, on Monday encountered a large group of migrants crossing the border from Mexico. The agents observed dozens of migrants crossing the Rio Grande, officials stated.

The agents apprehended 110 migrants in this single crossing. The group included 53 family members and multiple unaccompanied migrant minors.

Just as the agents finished screening this group, a second group began streaming across the border. The groups crossed in small inflatable rafts filled with adults and children, the report continues. This group of 105 migrants consisted of 35 family units and 24 unaccompanied minors.

The following morning, McAllen Station agents encountered two more large groups crossing the border near Penitas and Abram, Texas. These two groups totaled 154 migrants.

Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol officials reported their agents encountered 19 groups of 100 or more migrants illegally crossing from Mexico into Texas this year.

In February alone, this sector reported the apprehension of 16,583 family units and 11,242 unaccompanied alien children.

On Wednesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott committed more state resources to help investigate the human trafficking of these minors and families, Breitbart’s Penny Starr reported.

Governor Abbott placed the blame on the surge of migrant families and children squarely on President Joe Biden and his changes in border security and immigration policies. He also requested access to the children being held in federal facilities in Texas for the purpose of identifying and prosecuting smugglers for human trafficking and abuse of minors.

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Face book.",1.1269339549143964
"El Paso Sector Border Patrol officials received a call from the New Mexico State Police who reported a migrant missing in the desert near Chappel. The police reported that human smugglers abandoned the migrant.

Las Cruces Station Border Patrol agents began a search and rescue operation in coordination with a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations aircrew. The search led to finding the migrant in the desert south of Chappel.

Agents conducted a medical screening in the field and determined the migrant needed serious medical treatment. Due to the rough terrain, the agents had to carry the man to the roadway.

An emergency medical services crew arrived and transported the man to a local hospital, officials stated. Doctors admitted the migrant in critical condition.

“Had it not been for the life-saving efforts of our Border Patrol Agents, AMO pilots, in coordination with our local law enforcement and EMS partners, this subject may have perished,” stated El Paso Sector Chief Patrol Agent Gloria I. Chavez. “Once again, the Transnational Criminal Organizations recklessly placed another human being in harm’s way after smuggling and later abandoning him in a remote desert location.”

Human smugglers will frequently abandon migrants who become ill, fatigued, injured, or for any other reason cannot keep up with their group.

Just last week, El Centro Sector Border Patrol agents carried out a search and rescue mission for a migrant who had been lost in the desert mountains of Southern California, Breitbart Texas reported. The search for the man who had heart issues and suffered from diabetes lasted for several days.

The agents located the man on March 12 and transported him to a local hospital.",0.16107346581099263
"A group of migrants running into the streets of Laredo interrupted an interview between Breitbart Texas and U.S. Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX) who was visiting the area.

During an interview at night near the banks of the Rio Grande, Congressman Roy was in the process of sharing some of his observations when the interview was cut short as a group of migrants ran north from the river toward a shopping mall in downtown Laredo.

“Run for the ladder, run for the ladder,” a cartel-connected human smuggler yelled from the river as the migrants ran north. The area of the smuggling attempt does not have any physical barriers such as fencing or walls, making the shallow waters of the Rio Grande the only obstacle.

As U.S. Border Patrol agents rushed to intercept the group, the smuggler from the river yelled at them to run back. Some were able to return to the river and make their way back into Mexico while authorities detained two males.

Federal law enforcement sources revealed to Breitbart Texas that during that night just inside the city of Laredo, authorities detained more than 100 migrants in a matter of hours.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.

Gerald “Tony” Aranda is a contributing writer for Breitbart Texas.",0.6879447254196164
"Cartel-connected human smugglers led a group of migrants across the Rio Grande and tried to have them run into the streets of Laredo. Breitbart Texas was there when authorities were able to turn them back.

Breitbart Texas was in the border city of Laredo documenting the ongoing crisis caused by as thousands of migrants seeking entry into Texas each day. Laredo and the surrounding areas have minimal border fencing–presenting a unique challenge for authorities since they have to rely on reduced manpower to detain migrants.

While filming in the neighborhood known as Rincon Del Diablo in the city’s downtown area, a cartel-connected smuggler led a group of migrants and sent some running into the city.

U.S. Border Patrol vehicles in the area rushed to intercept. The rest stayed on the banks of the Rio Grande as the smuggler yelled at them to run back to Mexico.

Federal law enforcement sources consulted by Breitbart Texas say these types of incidents are a common for the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas as a way to divert manpower from certain areas. The tactic calls for sending a small group of migrants, primarily young men or underage teenagers, who run from agents and trigger chases. Once they are captured, some agents have to stay until they are transported to one of the facilities in the area. This ties down manpower in the field, allowing the cartel smugglers to move larger groups and narcotics in nearby areas.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.

Gerald “Tony” Aranda is a contributing writer for Breitbart Texas.",1.2555597674939294
"DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced plans to construct new migrant detention facilities in Arizona and Texas in a recent statement. Breitbart Texas has learned those facilities will be in Yuma, Arizona, and El Paso, Texas.

According to law enforcement sources, the facilities are intended to ease overcrowding at Border Patrol stations. The facilities will be constructed from the ground up and are similar in nature to the soft-sided facilities currently being constructed in Eagle Pass, Texas. These facilities will be managed and operated as processing centers by Border Patrol.

The rapid movement of materials and equipment seen recently at the construction site in Eagle Pass shows the administration is anticipating the influx to continue. Secretary Mayorkas says swift removals for some migrants under the Trump era CDC emergency COVID-19 order are still occurring in a statement released yesterday. Despite the message, the DHS plan to increase detention is likely a sign that the department recognizes the influx of unaccompanied children and migrant family units will continue–if not worsen.

Acknowledging the challenge is worsening, Mayorkas touches on the detention and transfer of unaccompanied migrant children left in Border Patrol custody for far longer than current law allows.

The Border Patrol facilities have become crowded with children and the 72-hour timeframe for the transfer of children from the Border Patrol to HHS is not always met. HHS has not had the capacity to intake the number of unaccompanied children we have been encountering. I describe below the actions we have taken and the plans we are executing to handle this difficult situation successfully.

Managing the additional detention facilities and providing humanitarian care to thousands of detainees will be present additional challenges for Border Patrol, which is already struggling to balance the humanitarian needs of thousands of unaccompanied children with actual patrol duties.

Mayorkas is looking to augment the Border Patrol and HHS from within the non-law enforcement ranks of his department. According to his statement, Mayorkas added “In two days, we recruited more than 560 DHS volunteers to support HHS in our collective efforts to address the needs of the unaccompanied children.”

One Border Patrol agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity said, “The DHS volunteers were great when they were here in 2019, it allows us to get some agents back to the field, but they can’t process for us. That’s where the major hurdle for us is, it takes hours to process each minor and family unit member,” the agent relayed. “Those are hours away from the field and the flow is worse this time around,” he added.

A request for information from CBP Office of Public Affairs has not been answered as of press time.

Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX",0.28551538735236404
"Border Patrol agents in the nation’s busiest sector continue to encounter large groups of migrants illegally crossing from Mexico into South Texas. Nearly 24,000 were apprehended in the last two weeks alone — nearly 28,000 for all of February.

Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agents continue to apprehend large groups of migrants illegally crossing the border. Chief Patrol Agent Brian Hastings tweeted last Friday that nearly 24,000 migrants had been taken into custody in his sector during the past two weeks. Hundreds more were apprehended in the days that followed.

This group adds to the nearly 24,000 individuals apprehended throughout the RGV in the last two weeks. For more info on activity in the RGV, click the link: https://t.co/s1uz7Tv6l1 https://t.co/lh2Yp1ATIM — Chief Patrol Agent Brian Hastings (@USBPChiefRGV) March 13, 2021

On Saturday morning, agents assigned to the Rio Grande City Station encountered a group of 134 migrants after they illegally crossed the border near Las Lomas, Texas. The agents identified 128 migrants as family units — mostly from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua.

A few hours later, agents from this same station encountered another large group of migrants near La Grulla, Texas. In this incident, the agents apprehended 113 migrants composed of family units and unaccompanied alien children, officials stated. Included in the 113 migrants were 17 Romanian nationals. The balance came to the U.S. from Central America, officials stated.

“Even with the spread of the COVID-19 virus, human smugglers continue to try these brazen attempts with zero regard for the lives they endanger nor to the health of the citizens of our great nation,” officials said in a written statement.

The #RGV continues to see an increase in illegal crossings despite #COVID19 concerns. Two large groups totaling 201 illegal aliens were arrested by agents in Rio Grande City and La Joya, TX.

The group consisted of 71 family members & 19 unaccompanied alien children. pic.twitter.com/MZQbDXfPhx — Chief Patrol Agent Brian Hastings (@USBPChiefRGV) March 11, 2021

Last week, Rio Grande Valley Sector agents apprehended large groups of mostly family-unit migrants from Central America near La Grulla, La Joya, and Roma. These groups totaled 339 migrants from Central America, Romania, and Cuba, officials stated.

“Despite the inherent dangers of crossing the treacherous Rio Grande, illegal aliens continue to risk their lives to enter the United States,” Border Patrol officials stated. “In recent days, Border Patrol has conducted multiple rescues of individuals, who were set adrift by smugglers. Groups are smuggled on inflatable rafts almost always exceeding the maximum capacity of the rafts, and rarely provided life vests.”",0.6557887583205241
"Four individuals previously arrested on the U.S southern border reportedly have names that match those on the FBI’s Terror Watch List, according to a news media report published Tuesday, March 16. The encounters took place since the start of Fiscal Year 2021, however, prior Breitbart Texas investigations have demonstrated how these incidents are far from unprecedented.

The four separate encounters reportedly took place since October 1, Axios reports, quoting an unnamed congressional aide. Details on the locations of the detentions, the types of terrorist activities, and the identities of those matching the watch list were not disclosed by the outlet. Axios reporting claims the four suspects hail from Yemen and Serbia.

Encounters by federal authorities with individuals matching the FBI Terror Watch List are regular in occurrence. Some take place in international airport terminals hundreds of miles beyond a border and others appear at land ports of entry. Most occur between Texas, Arizona, and California–though New York is not immune.

In 2016, Breitbart Texas reported exclusively on a series of leaked documents from the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center revealing that from July 2015 to July 2016, the FBI documented more than 7,700 encounters watch list encounters. Subsequent reports show encounters numbering in the thousands annually.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.

Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.",-0.04821000611708461
"Pop star Justin Bieber was slammed for using audio clips of speeches from the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on his new album, Justice, as social media users accused the singer of being “tone deaf.” King’s family, however, gave Bieber a message of support in the midst of the social media-fueled backlash.

One Twitter user accused the singer of “profiting off of the civil rights movement as a white man,” adding, “his album is called ‘justice’ and has an MLK interlude but speaks nowhere of social justice, and is focused on love & relationships.”

Another Twiter user echoed those sentiments, noting that a love song follows the MLK clip.

Justin Bieber has an “MLK Interlude” on his album. Then, an 80’s inspired pop song about dying for love comes on next. pic.twitter.com/11uBfJVGb3 — RacismSummitBookingAgent (@KirkWrites79) March 19, 2021

In a follow-up tweet, the social media user saidhe “still can’t get over” Justin Bieber naming his album “Justice” before transitioning into a song that isn’t about civil rights, and expressed his dismay over “no one at the label” thinking to tell Bieber that it wasn’t a good idea.

I still can’t get over Justin Bieber naming his album “Justice”

and using that MLK audio clip before transitioning into a Fame Monster leftover. Also, no one at the label thought to tell him… this ain’t it. I don’t know why I’m so annoyed. But, I’m annoyed. It’s dumb pandering. pic.twitter.com/mMiDlPSt7F — RacismSummitBookingAgent (@KirkWrites79) March 19, 2021

Another Twitter user suggested that Bieber using MLK clips in his album is evidence that he doesn’t have “real black people around him,” because they would have advised him not to do that.

you know justin bieber don’t got no real black people around him cause nobody said “nah putting MLK on this album kinda tone deaf” daniel skeezer was probably like “ya that’s a great idea” — big homie dij (@DijahSB) March 19, 2021

“Who in the hell let Justin Bieber walk out the studio with an album called Justice w two samples of MLK and every track got him having a grand ol white ass time singin bout his wife over synthesized pop beats… my blood pressure gets higher every day, on god,” commented another Twitter user.

Another social media user also wondered who told the singer it was okay to use the MLK audio clips.

Who told Justin Bieber it was okay to include MLK on his new album and why was it Hailey? #Justice — Nicholas Hautman (@nickhautman) March 19, 2021

Other Twitter users expressed that they enjoyed Bieber’s new album but made sure to caveat their comments with their opinion that the singer could have done without the MLK clips.

Justin Bieber if u see this your album is solid you did not have to drag MLK into it — Tanya Chen (@tanyachen) March 19, 2021

Justin Bieber’s new album has solid songs especially “Peaches” and “Loved By You” buuut these MLK interludes don’t make sense it’s not cohesive — Rilwan Balogun (@RilwanFox8) March 19, 2021

Another Twitter user went as far as to say that “humanity” is now “irredeemable” due to the fact that Bieber released an album featuring a King speech as an interlude.

March 19th, 2021 the day Justin Bieber released an MLK speech as an album interlude the day humanity became irredeemable — Sabby Robinson (@sabby_robinson) March 19, 2021

Another Twitter user likened people saying MLK would have supported Bieber to an incident in 2013 in which the singer sparked outrage when he wrote in a guestbook at the Anne Frank Museum, saying he hoped Frank would have been a fan.

“Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber,” Bieber had written of the Holocaust victim.

everyone's ""MLK would have supported *me*"" takes are just sorrier versions of Justin Bieber's iconic Anne Frank take — Tim Murphy (@timothypmurphy) January 21, 2020

But at least one member of King’s family did offer a message of support, as the daughter of the civil rights activist, Bernice King, took to Twitter to thank the pop star, and shared the singer’s tweet in which he expressed his support for several organizations and causes.

Each of us, including artists and entertainers, can do something. Thank you, @justinbieber, for your support, in honor of #Justice, of @TheKingCenter’s work and of our #BeLove campaign, which is a part of our global movement for justice. #MLK #EndRacism https://t.co/nTkR1XdcvW — Be A King (@BerniceKing) March 18, 2021

Bieber is being bashed by a liberal mob that he joined not long ago in calling for Fox News host Laura Ingraham to be fired from the network. In July 2019, Justin Bieber demanded President Trump to “let those kids out of cages.”

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.",-1.114057296195552
"American rapper Lil Mama announced Thursday she is starting a “heterosexual rights movement” to protest LGBTQ bullying.

“I’m about to start a heterosexual rights movement,” the 31-year-old entertainer said on Instagram.

“Y’all fight so hard to be respected and SOME of you, NOT ALL get a kick out bullying people for having an option, how they dress, how their hair and or makeup looks, how much money they have, etc.,” she wrote.

“There are so many people afraid to give their honest opion [sic] because if they do the LGBTQ+ will hear what they want to hear and take statements out of context,” she added.

The rapper hastened to note that she is not anti-gay but feels obliged to speak out.

“I don’t have to prove myself by reminding people that I have loved ones of the LGBTQ+ Community,” she concluded. “When I speak I’m not trying to hurt anyone, I’m just speaking my truth, just like you all.”

Lil Mama has been an outspoken adversary of medical interventions on children experiencing gender dysphoria. Two weeks ago, she retweeted a post insisting that children do not have the necessary maturity to undertake gender transition.

“So children are too young to smoke cigarettes, too young to drink alcohol, too young to get a driver’s license, too young to go to a club, too young to gamble, too young to rent a car, but old enough to cut off their genitals and/or ‘change’ their gender? This is insanity America,” the post declared.

Follow @tdwilliamsrome",-0.5797772373184096
"A producer for Warner Bros’ upcoming Mortal Kombat reboot says Johnny Cage, a popular character from the video game franchise, will not appear in the film — at one point reportedly suggesting that the white male character was left alone to keep the cast diverse.

According to several Wednesday reports, producer Todd Garner — of Paul Blart: Mall Cop fame — discussed the upcoming film, which will stream on HBO Max, at a recent press event, explaining the decision to cast a brand-new character and leave out Cage.

“I want to make a sequel, and I’ve now got Johnny Cage, which hasn’t been used in the first one,” Garner said, according to ComicBook.com. “So I have a big stick and carrot that maybe they’ll let me have a Johnny Cage real presence in the second one. And secondarily, when you think about Mortal Kombat, if you just think about the patina of the movie, it has a very Asian feel to it. And I early on felt uncomfortable having a white male lead kind of lead that charge in the first movie.”

Another writeup of the event from Inverse quoted Garner differently, leaving out the tease of Johnny Cage in a sequel: “I feel like if I was getting to make a movie with a diverse cast, it felt weird to have a white actor, literally Johnny Cage, be the hero of the story.” A screenshot of that quote went viral.

Garner said in an article published by Inverse on Wednesday.

The next day, Garner shared a blog post aggregating the more complete Comicbook.com quote, insisting, “I love Johnny Cage and can’t wait to do more with the character.”

I love Johnny Cage and can’t wait to do more with the character. https://t.co/T4gTbBEusk — Todd Garner (@Todd_Garner) March 18, 2021

The producer also responded to several Twitter users, saying that the “diversity” quote did not reflect any racial animus and that the sequel plans are the primary reason for the omission.

“So basically, @Todd_Garner doesn’t think MK is diverse enough and white men need to be erased despite Cage being a favorite since the conception of MK and the 90s movie. That’s very racist and him being also a white rich man makes it even more ironic,” one Twitter user wrote.

Garner responded, “Ah man that’s not what I want at all. I love JC. His story just didn’t fit into this story. If you see the movie and disagree. Hit me up.”

Ah man that’s not what I want at all. I love JC. His story just didn’t fit into this story. If you see the movie and disagree. Hit me up. — Todd Garner (@Todd_Garner) March 18, 2021

When the Twitter user asked for an explanation of the “uncomfortable having a white male lead” quote, the producer responded, “It’s more about his story. I want to focus on that story. We have a story we love that we are telling and We didn’t want to short-shrift JC in that story.”

It’s more about his story. I want to focus on that story. We have a story we love that we are telling and We didn’t want to short-shrift JC in that story. — Todd Garner (@Todd_Garner) March 18, 2021

“I don’t know, unless you’re turning him into the lead for the second movie, wouldn’t that be problematic?” the Twitter user responded. “What I mean is as part of the audience, I don’t have problems with white males being leads, despite me being mexican.”

Garner then responded saying, “No. He’s a huge character so we have somewhere totally new to go with the sequel. Think about how MCU adds characters. That’s it. We never want to rehash.”

No. He’s a huge character so we have somewhere totally new to go with the sequel. Think about how MCU adds characters. That’s it. We never want to rehash. — Todd Garner (@Todd_Garner) March 18, 2021

The Twitter user then asked the producer why he didn’t explain that in his interview with the media, to which Garner answered, “Because we did interviews for 6 hours in groups of 10 over zoom for 15 mins each. Not an excuse. Just facts. If anyone wants to get the unfiltered answers. I’m here.”

Because we did interviews for 6 hours in groups of 10 over zoom for 15 mins each. Not an excuse. Just facts. If anyone wants to get the unfiltered answers. I’m here. — Todd Garner (@Todd_Garner) March 18, 2021

In response to another Twitter user who called Garner “racist” for axing Cage, the producer reiterated that the character will be saved for a sequel, “if there is one.”

“Not true. Just want to make sure his story is the focal point in the sequel… if there is one,” Garner wrote.

Not true. Just want to make sure his story is the focal point in the sequel… if there is one. — Todd Garner (@Todd_Garner) March 18, 2021

Garner later told another Twitter user that Cage is “too important and too big a character to just jam into the story we told.”

“We have a big story for him, but felt we had so much story to start with [in] terms of the rules, lore and history of MK,” Garner added.

Yes. He is too important and too big a character to just jam into the story we told. We have a big story for him, but felt we had so much story to start with i terms of the rules, lore and history of MK. — Todd Garner (@Todd_Garner) March 18, 2021

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.",-0.3290248412982004
"Oscar nominees have been told by the show’s producers that they are not allowed to give their acceptance speeches remotely via Zoom next month during the Academy Awards, and clothing like hoodies and loungewear will be banned at the ceremony.

Producers Steven Soderbergh, Jesse Collins, and Stacey Sher told attendees in an email on Thursday that an on-site coronavirus-related safety team will be present for the event at the Los Angeles Union Station.

“We are going to great lengths to provide a safe and ENJOYABLE evening for all of you in person, as well as for all the millions of film fans around the world, and we feel the virtual thing will diminish those efforts,” the producers wrote in their email to nominees.

The producers said guests must follow a strict dress code, saying it will be a “fusion of Inspirational and aspirational, which in actual words means formal is totally cool if you want to go there, but casual is really not.”

The news comes after actor Jason Sudeikis went viral on social media after he accepted his Golden Globe and Critics Choice awards in a tie-dye hoodie last month.

I'm not sure if this is *officially true* but I'm pretty sure that Jason Sudeikis is the first person to accept a #GoldenGlobes in a hoodie https://t.co/gMrpbjjqwe pic.twitter.com/xUq890Muht — Variety (@Variety) March 1, 2021

Producers also said there will be “additional show elements live from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood,” and acknowledged that some celebrities might be hesitant to gather in person during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Of course, your first thought is CAN THAT BE DONE SAFELY? The answer is YES, IT CAN,” the producers wrote. “We are treating the event as an active movie set, with specially designed testing cadences to ensure up-to-the-minute results, including an on-site COVID safety team with PCR testing capability.”

Guests who are “unable to attend because of scheduling or continued uneasiness about travelling” were told “there will not be an option to Zoom in for the show.”

In a letter emailed to the Academy’s nearly 10,000 members, Academy president David Rubin said all in-person events that usually occur around the Oscars — including the Nominees Luncheon and the Governors Ball — were canceled, according to a report by the Hollywood Reporter.

“Though we’d hoped the pandemic would be more in our rearview mirror by the month of April, the health and safety of our members and Oscar nominees are our primary concern, so we’ve had to make some necessary decisions about some of our highly anticipated Oscar-week events,” Rubin wrote.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.",-0.5428560069351392
"Talk show co-host and reality TV star Sharon Osbourne, wife of the famed rocker Ozzy Osbourne, has hired security detail, citing death threats over fallout stemming from a controversial discussion on race, Meghan Markle, and Piers Morgan on the CBS talk show The Talk.

TMZ reported on Friday that Osbourne has hired security detail due to a flood of hateful, death-laced messages following her heated discussion with co-host Sheryl Underwood. Messages, as highlighted by TMZ, include calls for her to “die and go to hell.” Others expressed hope that she contracts the Chinese coronavirus and dies:

We’re told Sharon’s personal phone numbers have also been blowing up, wishing harm on her and her dogs.

The private security company’s been stationed outside the Osbournes’ L.A.-area home all week to keep an eye on things.

During the discussion at the center of the controversy, Osbourne defended Piers Morgan, who doubted the claims of racism lodged by Meghan Markle, who made the suggestions during her exclusive interview with Oprah Winfrey.

“What would you say to people who may feel that, while you’re standing by your friend, it appears that you gave validation or safe haven to something that he has uttered that is racist, even if you don’t agree?” Underwood asked.

“Educate me, tell me when you have heard him say racist things?” Osbourne responded. “I very much feel like I’m about to be put in the electric chair because I have a friend, who many people think is a racist, so that makes me a racist?”

“How can I be racist about anybody or anything in my life,” she said, adding, “And don’t try and cry, because if anyone should be crying, it should be me.”

Osbourne later apologized, stating that she “panicked, felt blindsided, got defensive & allowed my fear and horror of being accused of being racist take over.”

She spoke to ET this week, reiterating that she is “not a racist.”

“I am not a racist and if you can’t have a go at your friend who happens to be black, does that make me racist because I said certain things to my friend, but I said them on camera?” she asked. “I will keep on apologizing to Sheryl, even if I decide not to go back, I will still keep apologizing to Sheryl. I have nothing but respect and so much affection for Sheryl. I don’t want to hurt her.”

Osbourne added, however, that she should have “never have dismissed her feelings on national TV, ever. But I said it. I have to own it. I can’t say, you know, ‘Oh, I didn’t know why I said it.’ I know why I said it.”",1.001644444495898
"Some 25 years after the Joel Schumacher-director A Time to Kill hit theaters, Oscar-winning actor Matthew McConaughey is reportedly in talks with HBO to reprise his critically acclaimed role in a sequel to the racially charged courtroom drama.

McConaughey’s performance as defense attorney Jake Brigance made him a bonafide star and set him on the path to leading man status. Now, after the publication of author Grisham’s follow-up, entitled A Time for Mercy, the actor is in talks to reprise the role in a limited series for the cable network, Deadline reported. Insiders told the outlet the series would be between eight and ten episodes.

The sequel series would again be set in rural Clanton, Missouri, but instead of defending a black man accused of murdering a white person, the plot will bring McConaughey’s Jack Brigance to defend a troubled teen accused of killing a police officer. In the book, Brigance runs against a town that wants a swift conviction and death penalty for the accused teen. But as he delves deeper into the case, Brigance finds a broad conspiracy in the murder that drives the town into a frenzy and puts the attorney and his family in danger.

Keeping his eye on the role, McConaughey spent time on social media last year promoting Grisham’s publication.

If he signs on, the project will mark McConaughey’s first return to HBO since his 2014 role in the cabler’s standout True Detective series.

The Lincoln Lawyer star has spent much of this year promoting his book, Greenlights. He is also the main promoter and organizer for a virtual concert to raise funds to benefit victims of this year’s brutal winter storm in Texas.

Then there is talk of his possible run for governor in the Lonestar State. It is not known how a run for office might impact the coming HBO project.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.",0.7821719504818658
"The leftist narrative of “white privilege” is “disgusting,” said J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, on Friday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow, editor-in-chief of Breitbart News and author of Breaking the News: Exposing the Establishment Media’s Hidden Deals and Secret Corruption.

Vance speculated that some criticisms of the film Hillbilly Elegy — based on his book — are rooted in left-wing rejection of the existence of struggle among white “working class” Americans. He noted that the reality of struggling whites in America profiled in his book and film is incompatible with the left-wing framework of “white privilege.”

“There is a narrative in our country, right now, that if you’re white, you’re privileged,” Vance stated, “and the idea that there is a family that is white, that is working class, that is struggling in ways that are identifiable to a lot of non-white Americans — and a lot of white Americans, too — is just not something the current cultural zeitgeist is comfortable with.”

Vance added, “They don’t like to think of people who are living in communities like mine — who look like my family — as struggling. Of course, many of those folks are [struggling]. That’s not what [those] people want to hear… This moment met the identity politics, the hyper-woke white privilege moment, and the the movie suffered from that, too.”

LISTEN:

Vance warned that left-wing commodification of imaginary victimhood undermines the centrality of character in defining one’s path in life. He identified Meghan Markle’s recent interview with billionaire media mogul Oprah Winfrey as illustrative of this phenomenon. He noted how perceptions of victimization strip individuals of agency.

“This interview that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry had a few weeks ago … I was watching that and I was amazed by just how much whining and how much victimhood there was,” Vance remarked. “It is still the case that whatever circumstances you come from — even if you come from a pretty tough family like mine — traditional American values like hard work, like loyalty to family, like devotion to your country, like investment in your future, these things still do matter.”

Vance continued, “The message we send to kids when we have big celebrities going on television and whining to Oprah is, ultimately, that character doesn’t really matter, and thank God I got a different lesson for my grandparents, from the Marine Corps, from the community around me, because if I if I hadn’t gotten that message I would have had just a really tough life.”

Vance reflected on lessons from his military service as solutions to the seeds of racial, ethnic, and economic acrimony sown by left-wing politics. He highlighted the U.S. armed forces’ unification of a diverse swathe of Americans as an example of patriotism transcending race, ethnicity, and class.

“The Marine Corps was such an incredible part of my own background,” Vance shared. “I enlisted in 2003, so this is right … we invaded Iraq, and I served from from 2007, and what I often tell people is that the Marine Corps was this incredible experience in learned willfulness. There were so much helplessness in the community that I grew up in that was struggling, where the jobs had disappeared, people were struggling with drug addiction, and I had never been part of [a] powerful team where we were all oriented in the same direction. We all had the same goal, and there was this expectation that we could meet this goal together.”

He went on, “[The Marine Corps] also gave me this remarkable exposure to different parts of our country. Some of my best friends were guys from Puerto Rico. I had a good friend who grew up in a wealthy family in suburban Maryland. It was just this remarkable collection of Americans, but we were all Americans and we were all on the same team and that’s an experience.”

He concluded, “I think about [my military service] a lot, of course, in modern America, which is hyper-driven by identity politics, and I think that we could actually learn something from the way the enlisted military thinks about itself and its own identity.”

Breitbart News Daily broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.",-0.8744566973234182
"Warner Bros. is rebooting the Father of the Bride movie franchise, this time with an all-Latino cast and starring Andy Garcia in the role formerly filled by Steve Martin and Spencer Tracy.

The movie will feature Garcia as a father coming to terms with his eldest daughter preparing to get married, embarking on her life as an adult, and leaving her large, close-knit Cuban family. According to Deadline, the movie will reportedly focus more on the daughter’s budding relationship — more like the 1950 Spencer Tracy version — as opposed to the father’s manic reaction to change seen in the Steve Martin version.

“I’m very excited to join The Father of the Bride, a beloved film that has brought so much joy to so many over the years and to represent my Cuban culture and heritage in this story,” Garcia said in a press release. “I commend Warner Bros. for their foresight and celebrate this opportunity they have created. I am looking forward to my collaboration with our talented director Gaz Alazraki and producers Jeremy Kleiner and Dede Gardner from Plan B.”

Watch below:

Garcia has appeared in the TV series Ballers and Flipped and will also appear opposite Katy Sagal in the ABC drama Rebel. He is perhaps best known for his role in The Godfather Part III and Ocean’s Thirteen.

This is just the latest in a growing number of race or sex-swapped movies coming from Hollywood film and TV studios in recent years. Many have failed at the box office, including the all-female 2016 version of Ghostbusters. There was also a remake of the Michael Caine comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels which was re-titled The Hustler and starred Rebel Wilson, and the Taraji P. Henson film, What Men Want, which is a remake of the Mel Gibson film, What Women Want.

And Marvel is preparing to launch a female Thor starring Natalie Portman in the title role in an upcoming project. Actor Billy Porter is set to star as a “genderless” fairy godmother in the upcoming remake of Cinderella.

TV projects swapping roles are also either on the air, or about to debut. NBC has greenlighted a female version of Zorro, the CW is preparing to launch a season of Kung Fu updated to modern times with the David Carradine role filled by a woman instead. And CBS has already debuted a new Equalizer starring Queen Latifa in the role once filled on TV by British actor Edward Woodward and in film by Denzel Washington.

There are also other projects on deck looking to swap lead roles. Disney recently announced its intention to reboot the 1991 film, The Rocketeer starring a black female lead instead of the white male lead of the first movie and the comic book upon which it was based. There are plans for a remake of 1984’s Splash, but instead of a man meeting a mermaid, the film will give audiences a woman meeting a merman.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.",2.0023473550237347
"Showtime is developing a limited series that will dramatize the Capitol Hill riots of January 6 as well as the final days of the Trump administration, the premium cable network has announced. Billy Ray, who helmed Showtime’s The Comey Rule, is set to write and direct the series.

The untitled project will fictionalize the riots from multiple points of view and will include the subsequent FBI and Congressional investigations. No release date or casting has been announced for the series.

Last week, I said I was VERY excited about what I'd be writing/directing next. Also told you Lauren Boebert would hate it. Here's why: Showtime Series On January 6 U.S. Capitol Assault Set With ‘The Comey Rule’ Duo Billy Ray & Shane Salerno https://t.co/txrfXuUQ9e via @Deadline — Billy Ray (@BillyRay5229) March 18, 2021

Billy Ray has emerged as one of Hollywood’s most prominent anti-Trump voices, regularly using his Twitter account to attack the former president and his allies.

Last month, the Hollywood director called for the “political eradication” of the Republican senators who voted to acquit former president Donald Trump, saying that they must be voted out of office, “hounded” into retirement, or convicted.

Ray recently attacked former National Security Advisor, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (Ret)., describing him as “lazy, stupid & arrogant” as well as “a criminal, a paid foreign agent, betrayer of his oath to the Constitution.”

Flynn was pardoned by President Trump in November. At the time, the White House said that Flynn shouldn’t need to be pardoned because he was the innocent target of a partisan attack as part of the failed Russia collusion hoax.

Ray wrote and directed The Comey Rule, which was adapted from the disgraced former FBI director’s memoirs A Higher Loyalty. Prior to its release, Ray waged a pressure campaign on Showtime to debut the series prior to the November election.

The series, which starred Jeff Daniels as Comey and Irish actor Brendan Gleeson as Trump, received mixed reviews but drew a healthy viewership.

Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at dng@breitbart.com",1.5067095379862427
"Left-wing comedian and producer Chelsea Handler said during a virtual conversation with actor-comedian Amy Schumer and actor Jameela Jamil that it is necessary for everyone to “give a little bit away who has too much” in the pursuit of equality.

Chelsea Handler joined her left-wing counterparts in a virtual discussion last week, discussing “activism and allyship.” The theme prompted Handler, star of Hello, Privilege. It’s Me, Chelsea, to detail what she described as a firsthand account of white male privilege — something she encountered, ironically, while spending a day backcountry skiing in Canada.

Watch below:

“This is not just white privilege. It’s male privilege. You know it’s any privilege really, but this is a good example, I think,” Handler said, explaining how she went skiing with a “badass” female skiing guide.

“You know, I was rappelling down mountains. I was doing things I thought I was never capable of but because I was in a woman’s hands. I knew that she was looking after me in a way that sometimes men aren’t aware of,” the actress said, detailing the conversation her group, four women and a man, had as they stopped on a mountaintop, discussing privilege.

“She was talking about …. how that explains privilege and what it’s like to grow up as a person of color and that really a white person never will understand what it’s like to be different,” she said, concluding that white people while never understand just as “a man will never understand what it’s like to be a woman and walk home at night alone in the dark and worry that there’s a possibility of you getting assaulted or attacked.”

The Life Will Be the Death of Me author then said she asked the man how he felt about the conversation centering around white male privilege and the patriarchy, to which she recalled him saying, “I feel like there’s a lot of reverse discrimination.” That remark triggered Handler, who said she had to “bite her tongue” as she has “no patience for that kind of bullshit.”

The activist said she later confronted him in the car and explained to him tha t “everyone has to give a little bit away who has too much.”

“I said, reverse discrimination, I said let’s talk about — you can’t just make things equal,” Handler said. “You have to go back and make up for the past just like we have to go back and make up for the past of what we did to black people even though it was our ancestors and we weren’t around. We are s till responsible just like men are still responsible for moving over for women.”

“During this adjustment period everyone has to give a little bit away who has too much,” she assessed. “We’re not asking for people that don’t have anything to give anything away, but we’re asking for the people who have a lot to step aside and give a place to a person of color to a woman, you know, give it away.”

Handler claimed that her explanation resonated with the man, who said he had never thought about it in that light.

“He said wow, I didn’t even think about that. I thought we could just make sure everything was equal moving forward. I go, wouldn’t that be great but we can’t, so you have to acknowledge the past to move forward, so that’s how I feel you know with regard to sexism and racism,” she concluded, earning praise from Schumer.

Earlier this month, Handler took to social media to explain how life is so much better now that former President Trump, whom she identified as a “white supremacist,” is no longer in office.",0.10078389276718484
"Actor Armie Hammer is reportedly being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) after rape and sexual assault allegations were made against him. The LAPD confirmed to Page Six on Thursday that an investigation into the actor has been launched after a “community member” came forward with an attorney last month, alleging sexual assault.

The police department’s confirmation comes after a woman, Effie, came forward with attorney Gloria Allred, alleging that Hammer had “violently” raped her for more than four hours, and “repeatedly slammed” her “face against the wall.”

“He became increasingly more violent. I thought he was going to kill me,” an emotional Effie claimed, according to Page Six. It remains unclear if the LAPD’s investigation was prompted by Effie’s allegations but Allred said during a press conference that she and Hammer’s accuser turned over evidence to police.

An attorney for the Call Me By Your Name actor denied the allegations, stating that all of their interactions were “completely consensual.”

“From day one, Mr. Hammer has maintained that all of his interactions with [Effie] — and every other sexual partner of his for that matter — have been completely consensual, discussed and agreed upon in advance, and mutually participatory,” Hammer’s attorney said in a statement. “[Effie’s] attention seeking and ill-advised legal bid will only make it more difficult for real victims of sexual violence to get the justice they deserve.”

In January, Hammer stepped away from his role starring opposite of Jennifer Lopez in the film Shotgun Wedding over a social media scandal involving the actor’s alleged direct messages that appeared to show him sending graphic messages to women and discussing cannibalism.

Hammer was interviewed by the Cayman Islands police involving an incident in which he posted a video of a woman he called “Miss Cayman” on an Instagram account he apparently kept in secret.

The Social Network star was later dropped by his talent agency, WME, as well as by his publicist amid the sex scandal involving the unverified direct messages that he allegedly sent to several women.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.",-0.3938639361284738
"DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — In the Middle East, where sport and diplomacy are closely intertwined, political passions can spill over onto the playing field.

With the Palestinian cause the core issue uniting Arabs across the region for decades, Israeli players meeting Arab opponents on the field have learned the age-old conflict always looms. Spectators have thrown shoes and jeered. Egyptians, Saudis and others have refused handshakes or pulled out of matches.

But on Friday, politics played a vastly different role. Months after the United Arab Emirates normalized ties with Israel, an Israeli national rugby squad touched down in Dubai to meet the Emirati team on the field for the first time. The more experienced Israeli team swiftly beat the UAE 33-0 in the first 7-a-side friendly match, held without crowds because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The rugby players and few spectators rose as Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, blared over the grassy field and through rows of skyscrapers. The players shook hands, slapped backs and bumped fists over a thumping electronic beat.

Emirati players seemed uncomfortable only when asked about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While the UAE and Israel were never at war and for years cultivated covert ties, the federation of seven sheikhdoms formally considered Israel an enemy.

Following the establishment of formal ties last year, the public blowback in the UAE has been muted if not absent, as authorities suppress all dissent. Palestinians, for their part, have lambasted the Israel-UAE normalization as a betrayal of their cause for statehood.

“We don’t think about whether Israel is a good country or a bad country,” said Ibrahim Doree, an Emirati player, his face glistening with sweat after the game. “We just follow our leaders,” he added, declining to discuss the conflict before rushing to meet the Israelis for a barbecue dinner in the desert.

The Israelis were more emotional. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin beamed onto the field with a dramatic speech about friendship.

“This is insane, insane,” said Israeli player Ori Abutbul, shaking his head in disbelief. “I have no words when people ask me how I feel.”

Already, sport has become key to new Israeli-Emirati ties. Hamad bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi ruling family, purchased a 50% stake in Beitar Jerusalem, a club notorious for its racist fan base and refusal to have an Arab player on its roster. However, reports questioning the sheikh’s finances have since put the deal on hold.

Signs of friction have emerged in the countries’ diplomatic relations, too, with the UAE resisting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to entangle the country in his campaign for re-election.

But on the field Friday, Emirati team captain Younes al-Blooshi said he didn’t want to talk about the region’s political intrigues and rivalries. He expressed relief, however, that certain old rifts were beginning to heal. Earlier this year, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries announced the end to a yearslong boycott of Qatar.

Throughout the bitter dispute, the UAE rugby team played in Qatar, but “it was pretty difficult,” al-Blooshi acknowledged, declining to elaborate.

“Thankfully, things are all clear now,” he said, noting the team would be flying direct to Doha in May, a first since 2017 when the boycott closed borders.

Israel, meanwhile, will return to competing against European countries, with the 2021 European Rugby Championship Cup beginning next month.",1.074436959047507
"(UPI) — The Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group conducted a passing and communication exercise with the Turkish Navy in the Mediterranean Sea this week, the Navy said on Thursday.

“It is a pleasure working with our Turkish Allies and continuing to build upon a 70-year foundation of shared values and experiences,” Rear Adm. Scott Robertson, Commander, Carrier Strike Group TWO, said Wednesday in a Navy press release.

The strike group, the carrier, cruisers and destroyers, worked with the Turkish ship TCG Gemlik on Tuesday and Wednesday using NATO operational and tactical procedures, according to the release.

“Conducting operations with Turkish Naval forces demonstrates America’s commitment to our like-minded allies and supports the notion that we are far stronger and more capable to uphold free and open conditions at sea when we stand together,” Robertson said.

The Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group is a multiplatform team of ships, aircraft and more than 5,000 sailors.

At the end of February the Navy announced that the strike group was leading a large flight operations exercise near the the Canary Islands.

Earlier this week the guided missile cruiser USS Monterey conducted joint maritime security patrol with the Israeli Sa’ar 4.5 ships in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.

And at the beginning of March USS Donald Cook joined the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle in a NATO exercise in the Mediterranean Sea.",1.1320264702464484
"The top government prosecutor in Turkey submitted an indictment against the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), a pro-Kurdish opposition coalition, on Wednesday demanding the state disband the party.

The HDP rose to prominence in 2015, winning a sizable number of seats in Turkey’s parliament and eating into the ruling Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP)’s majority in the lawmaking body. HDP members have called for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to limit violent military activity in the mostly Kurdish Turkish south. They also objected to Turkish military attacks on Kurds in Syria and Iraq and demanded respect for the rights of religious minorities.

Following the failed coup against Erdogan in 2016, the government organized another round of elections to erase HDP gains and began engaging the mass arrests of the HDP’s senior leadership. Among those arrested were the two co-chairs of the party, Figen Yüksekdağ and Selahattin Demirtaş. Demirtaş ran a failed presidential campaign from prison against Erdogan in 2018 and remains behind bars. Yüksekdağ faces at least six different criminal charges since her 2016 arrest and has only had one charge, “insulting the president,” dropped this year.

Turkey’s top prosecutor Bekir Sahin argued in his 600-page indictment this week that the HDP was a front group for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Marxist group designated a terrorist organization by the United States. The PKK advocates for the creation of a sovereign Kurdistan and often engages in violent acts against the Turkish state, in response to increasingly severe crackdowns in Kurdish regions of Syria.

The indictment, according to Turkey’s state Anadolu news agency, concludes “HDP is linked with the PKK terror group … and that it is the terrorists’ offshoot in legal disguise.” Among the evidence in the indictment is the allegation that HDP congresses and meetings “were not like the ones founded in accordance with the Constitution and laws, but like they are platforms where slogans supporting the separatist PKK terror group and its ringleader are chanted.” It also claims the HDP had no true electoral success without agitation by the PKK.

Sahin concludes in his indictment the HDP is irreparably corrupt and must be forced to disband. Anadolu noted the indictment also urges the Turkish court system to confiscate all of the party’s assets and treasury grants.

The Turkish government moved to depose an HDP lawmaker on the same day it moved to disband the party. Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu is facing criminal charges of “spreading terrorism propaganda” for a social media post where he allegedly shared an article “in which the Kurdish militants [the PKK] urged the government to take a step toward peace,” according to the Agence France-Presse (AFP). Gergerlioglu is the 14th HDP lawmaker deposed by the government despite being democratically elected and imprisoned.

“I will resist the coup against the Turkish Grand National Assembly, the will of the nation cannot be trampled,” Gergerlioglu said in a statement following the decision. “Wanting peace is not a crime.”

The communications director of the Erdogan government, Fahrettin Altun, issued a separate statement of support for the indictment on Wednesday, pressuring the court system to do the government’s bidding.

“It is an indisputable fact that the HDP has organic ties to the PKK, which Turkey, the United States and the European Union consider a terrorist entity,” Altun asserted in a statement on Twitter carried by Anadolu. Altun couched his pressure on the court system by insisting, “Whether that relationship warrants the HDP’s closure or its subjecting to another punitive measure is a question that the Constitutional Court alone can answer.”

The HDP responded to the attacks with a statement describing the move to disband the party as a “heavy blow to democracy.”

“We call on all the democratic forces, the social and political opposition, and on our people to join a common fight against this political coup,” the HDP urged.

Separately, the current co-chairs of the party, Pervin Buldan and Mithat Sancar, expressed hope that Turkish voters would redeem the party in future elections by giving the HDP more power.

“It is our duty to create an environment in which we will not be unjustly detained in prisons,” Buldan said in her public statement, according to the anti-Islamist newspaper Cumhuriyet. “As long as the HDP exists, we will continue to stand by our peoples and do democratic politics.”

The HDP first made its mark on the national stage in the 2015 parliamentary elections, a historic vote where Turks sent a record number of women, Christians, Yazidis, and Kurds to the federal legislature. That year, the HDP made its debut in parliament with 78 seats, compared to 276 seats for the ruling AKP. A political party needs to receive over ten percent of votes to have representation in Parliament; the HDP received 12 percent that year.

The Erdogan government’s attitude towards the HDP changed dramatically after the failed coup of July 2016, which Erdogan blamed not on the PKK, but on rival cleric Fethullah Gülen. Gülen, who lives in Pennsylvania, has denied any association with the attempt to overthrow Erdogan, and multiple U.S. administrations have insisted that Turkey has failed to meet the threshold of evidence necessary to extradite the elderly cleric.

In November 2016, police arrested Demirtaş and Yüksekdağ, the co-chairs at the time, in a late-night raid that also targeted about a dozen HDP lawmakers. Authorities issued vague accusations of alliances with terrorists but did not process the cases for weeks. In December of that year, HDP leaders accused the Erdogan government of torturing Demirtaş with unnecessary isolation after authorities refused to place him in a cell near another imprisoned HDP member, Abdullah Zeydan.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.",0.07462035051050675
"In a video address, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba condemned Iran’s final report on the downing of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 as “just a cynical attempt to hide the true causes for the downing of our aircraft,” according to Ukrainian state media outlet Ukrinform.

In January 2020, the Ukrainian aircraft, bound for Kyiv, exploded shortly after departing the Iranian capital of Tehran. The blast killed all 176 aboard, the majority of whom were non-Ukrainian, including 82 Iranians and 63 Canadians. Eleven Ukrainians, counting the crew, died in the crash. Tehran later claimed 147 of the victims as its own citizens, likely meaning many passengers held dual citizenship.

The Iranian Civil Aviation Organization released its final report on the crash in January 2020, just weeks after the event, blaming an unidentified air defense operator for shooting down the civilian flight to Kyiv. The government’s final report came nearly a year later, with virtually no additional information. Iranian officials vehemently denied the possibility of Iranian operators shooting the plane down in the immediate aftermath of the incident.

Kuleba, as Ukrinform translated him, derided Iran for using its report to absolve itself of any responsibility for the disaster:

The document does not cover all the circumstances; it reveals neither the causes of the tragedy nor the chain of events that led to it. This is not a report, but a collection of manipulations aimed not at establishing the truth, but acquitting the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is a great despair for Ukraine and the rest of the civilized world. Iran could not find strength to take responsibility for ensuring that such tragedies do not repeat in the future.

Within hours of the crash, Tehran set to work destroying potential evidence of wrongdoing on its part. Within two days of the aerial catastrophe, reports emerged that Iran had already “scrubbed” the crash site and had gone so far as to bulldoze away virtually all of the lingering debris. Simultaneously, Tehran got into a diplomatic row with Kyiv over the former’s refusal to release the content’s of the plane’s black boxes, critical equipment for determining the cause of a flight’s failure.

Despite continuous denials from the government and its significant efforts to obstruct an investigation, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG), a branch of the Iranian military and U.S.-designated terrorist organization, admitted days later that unidentified soldiers within it ranks had shot down the airliner with a Russian Tor missile while targeting Iraqi military bases housing U.S. troops.

Iranian lawmakers applauded the IRCG for its admission of responsibility, after insisting for days before that it was “obvious” Iran had not shot down the plane. In an official statement, parliamentarians described the downing of the plane as a “mistake by a member of the family.” They further heaped praise on the military saying, “the IRGC’s admission was deeply heartwarming.”

Closing his video address, Kuleba vowed the end of Iran’s “investigation” would not mark the end of Kyiv’s efforts to uncover the truth and to hold Iran accountable for its actions: “We will not let Iran hide the truth or avoid responsibility for this crime. Justice will prevail, no matter how much effort and time it takes.”",-1.8328013276991129
"ROME — The archbishop of Aleppo lamented Wednesday the Syrian people have been forgotten on the global scale and now feel completely on their own.

In an interview with Vatican News, Aleppo Archbishop Joseph Tobji of Aleppo said his people have given up hope for political resolution to the massive destruction that has occurred in Syria.

“We no longer have hope in human beings but only in the Lord,” the Archbishop said. “Now we feel abandoned by the international community.”

International sanctions against the country have only served to throw the country into further despair, he said, and now an estimated 83 percent of the population is living below the poverty line.

“The people have nothing to do with it and they always pay,” he stated.

As Breitbart News reported, last Sunday Pope Francis offered prayers for Syria while marking the tenth anniversary of a civil war that has left untold thousands of deaths in its wake and millions displaced.

“Ten years ago the bloody conflict in Syria began, which caused one of the most serious humanitarian catastrophes of our time,” the pope said following his weekly Angelus prayer.

The war, which began on March 15, 2011, has produced “an unknown number of dead and wounded, millions of refugees, thousands of disappeared, destruction, violence of all kinds and immense suffering for all the population, especially for the most vulnerable, such as children, women and the elderly,” the pope said.

While expressing his affection and offering prayers for the Syrian people, Francis also appealed for support from the international community to help rebuild the shattered country.

“I renew my heartfelt appeal to the parties to the conflict, so that they show signs of good will, so that a glimmer of hope can open up for the exhausted population,” he said.

“I also hope for a decisive and renewed commitment, constructive and supportive, of the international community, so that, once it has laid down its arms, we can mend the social fabric and start reconstruction and economic recovery,” he added.

In his interview Wednesday, Archbishop Tobji expressed gratitude to Francis for his words, saying that the pope’s closeness is a “joy and consolation” for Syrians in their feeling of abandonment.

The archbishop went on to note that the Christian community in Syrian has shrunk to less than a quarter of the number they had prior to the conflict. Many young people and professionals are fleeing the country, he said, while the poorest and most defenseless remain.

Despite the heaviness of the ordeal, the archbishop noted a few positive signs, such as the renovation of some churches in the country and plans for renovating even more.

“This is a sign that, despite many difficulties, we are still here,” he said.

Follow @tdwilliamsrome",-1.4722760945076996
"In a major breakthrough, Israeli scientists have grown mouse embryos in artificial wombs and have said humans could be next.

In a study published in the journal Nature, stem cell biologist of the Weizmann Institute of Science Dr. Jacob Hanna described growing the embryos into fetuses until day ten – about half the gestational term for mice. About 1,000 embryos have gestated thus far.

“We have grown hundreds of mice in this way, in a method that has taken seven years to develop, and I’m still captivated every time I see it,” Hanna told The Times of Israel.



“This could be relevant to other mammals including humans, though we acknowledge that there are ethical issues related to growing humans outside the body,” he said.

According to Hanna, the development will answer fundamental questions about the earliest stages of organ formation and advance medical breakthroughs, and may allow scientists to understand why miscarriages happen.

In 2017, a team in Philadelphia created an artificial womb in 2017 successfully grew fetal lambs for over four weeks, however the lambs already had their organs at the start.",-0.540175880998001
"United Nations mediator Martin Griffiths warned the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday the civil war in Yemen is “back in full force,” with new military fronts opening, just a month after the Biden administration lifted the terrorist designation for the Iran-backed Houthi insurgency.

The Yemen civil war has its roots in the 2011 “Arab Spring” unrest across the Middle East, but it went hot in 2014 as the Houthis captured the capital of Sanaa and ejected the internationally-recognized government of Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.

Hadi was the leader who took over after the Arab Spring disruptions; the despot dislodged by the alleged flourishing of Middle Eastern democracy, Ali Abdullah Saleh, threw in with the Houthis and helped them overthrow his replacement. Saleh died of acute complications from no longer being useful to the Houthis in December 2017.

Saudi Arabia assembled a coalition to restore the civilian government of Yemen and began intervening in the civil war in 2015. The Saudi coalition has been criticized for causing excessive civilian casualties with its airstrikes.

The Trump administration formally designated the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization near the end of President Donald Trump’s term, but the Biden administration lifted the designation in February, ostensibly because classifying the Houthis as terrorists made it difficult to get humanitarian aid to Yemenis living in Houthi-controlled territory. Biden also announced the United States would no longer support the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen.

The Houthis rewarded Biden by going on a massive terrorism spree, launching a constant stream of missile and drone attacks at civilian targets in Saudi Arabia and within Yemen. The Biden administration said it was “alarmed” by these developments last week.

On Tuesday, Griffiths told the U.N. Security Council the Houthis are sustaining a major offensive against Marib, along with “military escalations in Hajjah and Taiz and Hudaydah.”

“Fighting forces on both sides have suffered heavy losses in this unnecessary battle. I see shocking reports, as I am sure we all do, of children increasingly getting drawn into the war effort and deprived of their future,” Griffiths said.

Marib is a major concern because a significant number of Yemenis displaced from their homes in other parts of the country are camped there. It is also a valuable oil and gas hub, which the Houthis desperately wish to control for its revenue and the leverage it would bring during negotiations for control of Yemen.

The Houthis appear to be using Biden’s overtures as an opportunity to seize Marib by any means necessary, launching a furious offensive with steadily mounting casualties. A source close to the United Nations told AFP on Monday that the Houthis are “holding back negotiations” because they want to “see how far they can go” in Marib.

Hudaydah is a strategic port city that has long been under siege by the Houthis. Fighting intensified around the port in December with the shelling of an industrial compound, a strike denounced by the United Nations and described by the Yemeni government as an “ugly terrorist attack.”

Taiz is the region where the Houthis murdered several children on Monday by firing a missile into a school. Yemeni government forces had hoped to distract the Houthis from their offensives against Marib and Hudaydah by pushing them out of Taiz.

Griffiths also reported the deaths of 44 African migrants at Houthi hands in the occupied capital of Sanaa last week. The migrants were reportedly protesting poor conditions and abuses at a detention facility when the Houthis fired tear gas into the crowd and started a fire. Griffiths recommended an “independent investigation into the cause of the fire.”

“The Houthi militia committed a gross and heinous violation of the right of migrants in Sanaa,” the Arab Coalition said Tuesday after working with the Yemeni government to airlift 160 African migrants out of Yemen.

“The death and violence must stop. We call on the Houthis to accept an immediate, comprehensive, nationwide ceasefire and to cease all attacks. In the meantime, we will continue to hold Houthi leadership to account,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council on the same day Griffths spoke.",-1.89310537389567
"(UPI) — The guided missile cruiser USS Monterey conducted joint maritime security patrol with the Israeli Sa’ar 4.5 ships in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea this week.

“Regional security and stability are directly linked to enhanced cooperation, understanding and collaboration with our partners,” U.S. Navy Capt. Joe Baggett, USS Monterey commanding officer, said in a Navy press release.

“Through operations and training such as this, U.S. and IDF enhance existing cooperative relationships and take great strides in safeguarding the region’s vital link to the global economy,” Baggett said.

According to the Navy, the patrols “enhanced interoperability between the maritime nations through communication and command and control scenarios between the two nations.”

Commanding officers were also able to hold a cross deck meeting while observing COVID-19 safety protocols.

Monterey, which is homeported in Norfolk, Va., departed for deployment on Feb. 18 with the rest of the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group.

Earlier this month, the Navy announced that the strike group was conducting flight operations near the Canary Islands off the West African Coast.

Last week the Marine Corps led Israeli Defense Forces on a tour of simulation centers at North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune.

According to the Marines, Camp Lejeune has several simulation centers to use prior to conducting live-fire training and scenario-based training.

The tour included the Infantry Immersion Trainer, Simulator Integration Center and Range Control Operations Complex, Gun Fighter Gym, a Marathon target system field test and a meeting with Advanced Infantry Training Battalion-East leadership.",0.24722548903141456
"(UPI) — Britain’s Royal Air Force announced a five-day bombing campaign on Monday against Islamic State forces in Iraq, in support of Iraqi ground troops.

Typhoon fighter planes conducted airstrikes, using Storm Shadow missiles and Paveway IV guided bombs, in northern Iraq last week, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

The statements itemized attacks on IS forces based in caves on Mar. 10, additional Typhoon attacks in northern Iraq on Mar. 11, and a return to attacks on caves on Mar. 12 and Mar. 14.

“The Iraqi forces recently identified a significant number of Daesh [IS] fighters using cave complexes south-west of Erbil,” the ministry statement said.

“The caves identified were assessed to be particularly difficult targets and two RAF Typhoon FGR4s were therefore tasked to conduct strikes in support of ground forces from the highly-capable Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service,” the statement said.

A RAF statement on Monday stressed that no civilians were observed in the mountainous terrain where the attacks occurred, adding that all weapons were confirmed to have struck their intended targets.

The Storm Shadow is a French-British cruise missile, with a range of 350 miles and the capability of flying at turbojet at Mach 0.8.

The Paveway IV is a laser-guided bomb in which the guidance system is attached to a standard Mk 82 general-purpose bomb modified for increased penetration performance.

The RAF has flown continuous missions against IS strongholds since 2019, most recently on Feb. 19.

The air war in Iraq is part of the Special Operations Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, a military campaign against IS in Syria and Iraq which has involved Britain, the United States, France, Turkey, Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.",0.517050976168795
"Israeli archaeologists have unearthed dozens of 2,000 year old Dead Sea biblical scrolls, in a stunning discovery in a desert cave.

The unearthed trove also includes a host of other artifacts including a huge, intact 10,500-year-old woven basket, the oldest of its kind.

“For the first time in approximately 60 years, archaeological excavations have uncovered fragments of a biblical scroll,” the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said in a statement.

The scroll parchments are Greek translations from the books of Zechariah and Nahum from the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets, with only the name of God is written in Hebrew in the texts and were discovered after archeologists rappelled down a steep cliff and dug in the so-called Cave of Horror, named for the dozens of skeletons excavated there in the 1960s.

“The desert team showed exceptional courage, dedication and devotion to purpose, rappelling down to caves located between heaven and earth, digging and sifting through them, enduring thick and suffocating dust, and returning with gifts of immeasurable worth for mankind,” said Israel Antiquities Authority’s director Israel Hasson said.

“The newly discovered scroll fragments are a wake-up call to the state. Resources must be allocated for the completion of this historically important operation. We must ensure that we recover all the data that has not yet been discovered in the caves before the robbers do. Some things are beyond value,” Hasson added.

One fragment reads: “These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to one another, render true and perfect justice in your gates.”

The IAA said it had also excavated a 6,000 year old skeleton of a child, arrowheads and coins believed to be from the Bar Kochba revolt period and the woven basket.

“As far as we know, this is the oldest basket in the world that has been found completely intact and its importance is, therefore, immense,” the IAA said.

One IAA archaeologist said returning to excavate the Cave of Horror happened by accident after she stumbled on a Roman-era sandal during a bathroom break.

“I crouched to pee and suddenly I saw something that didn’t look like sand, and I realized it was a sole of a shoe,” Oriya Amichay told the Haaretz newspaper, adding that her male colleagues would likely have missed it.",-0.026940900197079173
"March 16 (UPI) — Archaeologists have recovered fragments from a new set of Dead Sea Scrolls, the first found in 60 years.

The remnants of the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets, including verses from the books of Zechariah and Nahum, were recovered from a cave on the West Bank.

The discovery, made by Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists, was announced at a press conference on Tuesday.

“The desert team showed exceptional courage, dedication and devotion to purpose, rappelling down to caves located between heaven and earth, digging and sifting through them, enduring thick and suffocating dust, and returning with gifts of immeasurable worth for mankind,” Israel Hasson, director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said in a press release.

Hasson said it was imperative that Israel’s government fund ongoing archaeological excavations of the region’s caves.

Archaeologists suggest the caves were used to stash valuables more than 2,000 years ago at the end of the Bar Kokhba Revolt, a rebellion of Judean communities against the region’s Roman rulers.

Ever since the first Dead Sea Scrolls were found some 70 years ago, the region’s caves have been targeted by looters.

“The aim of this national initiative is to rescue these rare and important heritage assets from the robbers’ clutches,” Hasson said. “The newly discovered scroll fragments are a wake-up call to the state.”

“Resources must be allocated for the completion of this historically important operation. We must ensure that we recover all the data that has not yet been discovered in the caves, before the robbers do. Some things are beyond value,” Hasson said.

The newly recovered scroll fragments were found in what’s called the “Cave of Horror,” which was first discovered in 2017.

To reach the cave, archaeologists had to rappel more than 260 feet from the clifftop above. Researchers used drones to investigate inaccessible portions of the cave.

In addition to the historic texts, archaeologists recovered a collection of rare coins, as well as a 6,000-year-old skeleton of a child, most likely female, mummified and wrapped in a cloth.

Researchers also recovered a collection of lice combs and a 10,500-year-old basket, which IAA authorities said could be the oldest in the world.

The Dead Sea Scrolls revealed ancient Biblical verses written in Greek.

One of the verses from the Book of Nahum was translated as follows: “The mountains quake because of Him, And the hills melt. The earth heaves before Him, The world and all that dwell therein. Who can stand before His wrath? Who can resist His fury? His anger pours out like fire, and rocks are shattered because of Him.”

The translation is slightly different from other copies of the same text, offering insights into the ways Biblical verses changed over time.

“Now, in this national operation, which continues the work of previous projects, new finds and evidence have been discovered and unearthed that shed even more light on the different periods and cultures of the region,” said Hananya Hizmi, head staff officer of the Archaeology Department of the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria.

“The finds attest to a rich, diverse and complex way of life, as well as to the harsh climatic conditions that prevailed in the region hundreds and thousands of years ago,” Hizmi said.

UPI contributed to this article.",0.5277677128409616
"NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told the European Parliament on Monday he has “serious concerns” about the Turkish government’s behavior on various issues, “ranging from the eastern Mediterranean, the Turkish decision to buy the Russian air defense system S-400 or related to democratic rights in Turkey.”

“But I believe NATO at least can provide an important platform for discussing these issues, raising these issues and having serious debates and discussions about different concerns,” Stoltenberg continued, suggesting Turkey has not crossed any diplomatic lines of no return.

Stoltenberg’s concerns in the Eastern Mediterranean revolve around maritime territorial disputes with Greece, and its partners in Israel and Cyprus, that seem to be either escalating dangerously or ramping down on any given day.

The current trend is escalation, as Turkey notified Greece, Cyprus, and Israel on Tuesday they will need to seek permission from Ankara before “assuming work on a proposed undersea power cable in eastern Mediterranean waters.” The project would link the power grids of the three nations with the longest undersea cable ever built.

The conflict is superficially about offshore drilling rights, with Turkey claiming the lion’s share of the Mediterranean on the basis of its long coastline. Turkey amplified its claims in a deal with the Tripoli-based Libyan government, denounced as invalid by Greece, that gave Turkey drilling rights off the Libyan coast in exchange for military support against rival Libyan forces.

Many regional analysts believe Turkey is after much more than drilling rights in the Mediterranean. Foreign Policy argued in January that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sees his claims in the Mediterranean as a vital step toward rebuilding the Ottoman Empire, with himself as the “caliph” of a rising Islamic superpower, and restructuring the balance of power in Eastern Europe and Central Asia — an agenda clearly of interest to NATO.

The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday saw Erdogan’s near-term goal as separating Israel from Greece and Cyprus, and possibly resetting relations with a skeptical Egypt, thus isolating the Greeks and alleviating international pressure for domestic political reform in Turkey. Wooing Israel has not worked out for Erdogan, so he is shifting to “blackmail” by threatening the Israel-Greece-Cyprus power line project.

The Jerusalem Post portrayed Erdogan as a bull in the geopolitical china shop, blundering from one confrontation to another as his diplomatic outreach efforts fizzle, refusing to accept that Europe, Israel, and Middle Eastern states aligned with the West are never going to become best friends with the authoritarian Islamist ruler of a prison state:

Turkey’s new note shows its real face compared to the claims of reconciliation last year. It has also slammed Kosovo for opening relations with Israel and has tried to sabotage the new Abraham Accords with the UAE and Bahrain. Ankara is also angry that Sudan and Israel are now making peace. These are setbacks for the belligerent country that backs Hamas and has tried to isolate Israel over the last decade. Up until about 15 years ago, Turkey and Israel had good relations. Since then, however, Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to power and has become increasingly authoritarian while his country has turned into a leading opponent of the Jewish state. It even compared Israel to Nazi Germany in comments at the UN in 2019. Now, Turkey finds itself isolated in the region. Its only friends are Qatar, Hamas, and the weak Libyan government, as well as some extremists in northern Syria known more for ethnic cleansing and working as mercenaries for Ankara than accomplishing anything else.

Turkey’s dogged insistence on buying S-400 anti-aircraft missiles from Russia was Stoltenberg’s second listed concern. The Trump administration imposed sanctions against Turkey over the purchase in December 2020. Among other objections to Erdogan’s arms deal, the U.S. and NATO were very uncomfortable with Turkey having both advanced F-35 fighters and the Russian missile designed to shoot them down.

In late February, the Pentagon urged Turkey to dump the S-400 missile battery already delivered by Russia in 2019 and cancel the shipment of further missiles. The Pentagon strongly suggested Turkey will not be allowed to rejoin the F-35 program until the Russian missiles are gone.

Erdogan’s government responded by saying it might buy even more Russian missiles, in addition to working on its own indigenous air defense systems. Turkish officials claimed they have not “noticed any direct effect” from U.S. sanctions and anticipated “no clear consequences” for pursuing more arms deals with Moscow.

Democratic rights in Turkey, Stoltenberg’s third stated concern, are looking decidedly unhealthy. Human rights organizations like Freedom House and Human Rights Watch rate Turkey as “unfree” and getting worse. Erdogan was among the many world leaders to use the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to crack down on political opposition, stifle dissent, and increase surveillance over his population.

Turkey is one of the worst countries in the world for press freedom, with hundreds of journalists imprisoned since the attempted coup in 2016. “Insulting” Erdogan is a crime under Turkish law and he takes offense rather easily.

Erdogan nevertheless claims to see press freedom as a core Turkish value provided media outlets deliver nothing but “accurate and honest reporting” while avoiding “lies and disinformation.” It is difficult to see how NATO partners can use diplomacy to help Turkey solve problems that its authoritarian ruler insists Turkey does not have.

Balanced against all of Stoltenberg’s concerns is the fact that NATO clearly does not want to eject Turkey, fearful that it could drift more firmly into the orbits of Russia or China. The Europeans are also deeply nervous about Turkey’s ability to flood them with refugees, a threat Erdogan is not shy about making when he feels threatened.

NATO also values Turkish counter-terrorism assistance, a point Stoltenberg himself made last week when he described Turkey as “extremely important” to NATO, citing its proximity to the Islamic State battlegrounds in Syria and Iraq.

Turkey has noted growing sympathy from NATO for its own paramount terrorism concern, the violent Kurdish separatist group known as the PKK, which Turkey claims is indistinguishable from Kurdish militias in Syria that were key Western allies during the Syrian civil war and the battle against ISIS.",-0.6257156235548436
"Kurdish members of the Iraqi Parliament (MP) and another MP got into a physical brawl Monday night over the latter’s reported insults to the Kurdistan Regional Government and its leaders, Kurdish news outlet Rudaw reported.

Yousef al-Kalabi, an Iraqi MP and former spokesperson for the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), allegedly incensed the Kurdish MPs with “verbal abuse,” Rudaw learned from MP Mayada Muhammad, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).

Neither Muhammad nor Rudaw identified the Kurdish MPs who participated in the fight. As of press time, Kalabi has not publicly commented on the fight.

The PMF is an Iran-backed coalition of mostly Shia Muslim militias, some of which the United States officially designates as terrorist organizations. In March 2018, the Iraqi government formally recognized the PMF as a branch of the national armed forces in recognition of their efforts fighting the Islamic State.

Muhammad did not specify any of Kalabi’s comments, saying instead that “Kalabi transgressed the sanctities of the Kurdistan region and its leaders.” He did, however, assert his belief that Kalabi sought to exacerbate already tense struggles between the Kurds and federal authorities.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), headquartered in Erbil, northern Iraq, has been at odds with the government in Baghdad for years over a range of issues, including the region’s independence.

In 2017, the KRG staged a “non-binding” independence referendum in which over 90 percent of voters backed the KRG becoming an independent nation. No Middle Eastern nation, including Iraq, recognized the legitimacy of the vote and the U.S. rejected Kurdish self-sovereignty, despite viewing the Kurds as a critical ally against the Islamic State.

The KRG’s military, the Peshmerga, played critical roles in the battles to liberate Iraqi territories from ISIS, including in Mosul, a city of 2 million people prior to Islamic State occupation. The Peshmerga also prevented ISIS from conquering the oil-rich, ethnically diverse city of Kirkuk after the Iraqi military fled.

A subsequent armed conflict between the KRG and Baghdad saw the Kurds lose significant territory in the north, including Kirkuk. PMF fighters played a significant role on the side of Baghdad.

Though the Kurds retain representation in Baghdad, tensions remain high between Erbil and the federal government. Monday night’s fistfight comes amid the latest row between them over a budget dispute and looming vote on a judicial reform package, Rudaw noted.

The KRG is currently seeking additional funds from the federal government for the 2021 budget while the proposal remains unfinished. Simultaneously, the parliament remains deadlocked over the proposed addition of four Islamic members, two Shia and two Sunni, to the federal court committee who would hold veto power and an array of other legal tools to alter legislation. The Muslim members would presumably come from Arab, rather than Kurdish, communities.",-0.28735530187281394
"Hundreds of protesters spilled onto city streets across Jordan on Sunday for the second straight day to demand government reform after an oxygen shortage at a state hospital in the city of Salt killed at least six coronavirus patients Saturday.

Demonstrators also marched in defiance of a reimposed all-day curfew on Fridays in Jordan, which the country’s government ordered in response to a recent surge in new coronavirus cases nationwide.

“Down with the government. We don’t fear coronavirus,” hundreds of youth chanted in the northern city of Irbid, according to Reuters.

“I am here because of the catastrophe. We want to put on trial those responsible for this and then bring down the government,” a protester in Salt named Ahmad Hiyari said on Sunday. He gathered along with hundreds of fellow residents near the Salt state hospital where the oxygen shortage took place on March 13. Outside of Salt, protesters gathered in the southern city of Karak and in the port city of Aqaba.

Roughly 150 relatives of coronavirus patients at the Salt hospital gathered outside the facility Saturday after hearing of the oxygen shortage. The hospital was “surrounded by a large deployment of police and security officers, who prevented the families from entering,” the Times of Israel reported on March 13.

One such relative, Fares Kharabsha, told the newspaper both of his parents were being treated at the Salt hospital for coronavirus during the crisis. Kharabsha said he was inside the hospital when it ran out of oxygen and witnessed “medical and civil defense workers and people from outside the hospital” rushing into the facility “with portable oxygen devices to try to prevent more deaths.”

“They resuscitated a large number of people, including my father and mother,” Kharabsha said.

“I do not know how many, but I saw people who died,” he added.

Another relative of a Salt hospital patient, Habis Kharabsha, told the Times that the medical facility suffered from a deficit of sufficient services overall.

“At the isolation department, there was only one doctor and two nurses for 50 or 60 patients; this is mad,” he said.

The Prime Minister of Jordan, Bisher al-Khasawneh, asked Jordanian Health Minister Nathir Obeidat to resign over the scandal. Jordan’s state-owned newspaper Al-Ra’i confirmed that Obeidat resigned Saturday. Upon his resignation, Obeidat said he “bore full responsibility for the initial deaths of six coronavirus patients” as a direct result of the two-hour-long oxygen outage, according to Reuters.

Jordanian government officials said they had launched an investigation into the oxygen shortage on Saturday, detaining Salt hospital’s director and his aides later that same day in connection with the crisis. An additional three deaths at the hospital over the weekend may be linked to the oxygen outage, according to Jordanian authorities.",0.06340489848492761
"Syracuse University hosted fired CNN contributor and Temple University professor Marc Lamont Hill, who has been accused of Antisemitism. Hill gave a virtual talk on black voter “suppression.”

Hill, who has advocated for the destruction of Israel, gave a virtual talk at Syracuse that outlined “the history of voter suppression in America and the impact of black voters,” according to the university’s website.

The event was part of the university’s “Racial Equity Academic Symposium,” and was presented “by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion and the Division of Faculty Affairs in the Office of Academic Affairs.”

The announcement came days after Hill stated that the goal of the Marxist political organization Black Lives Matter is to “dismantle” the “Zionist project.”

“Black Lives Matter, very explicitly, is talking about the dismantling of a Zionist project — and very explicitly embracing BDS on those grounds,” said Hill. “So it’s analytical — there’s also a very clear political mission that I think is far more progressed and more radical than we had even twenty years ago in the mainstream.”

Temple U professor and BLM activist Marc Lamont Hill says the goal of Black Lives Matter is to ""dismantle the Zionist project"" and is ""very explicitly embracing BDS"" pic.twitter.com/V9hKAm5jby — Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) February 14, 2021

“BDS” stands for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which specifically targets the state of Israel.

In 2018, CNN fired Hill after his apparent call for the annihilation of Israel and his defense of violence by Palestinians during an appearance at the United Nations, stating that he wanted a “free Palestine from the river to the sea,” which means the destruction of the world’s only Jewish State.

Meanwhile, Temple University announced that it would not punish professor Hill for his incendiary comments on Israel.

That same year, Hill invoked the name of convicted terrorist hijacker Leila Khaled during a panel discussion hosted by the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

“To me, ‘Hands Up Don’t Shoot’ was always problematic, because this ain’t the posture I want to have against a violent state,” said Hill.

“If I’ma do this, I ain’t trying to be like this,” added Hill with his hand up. “I’m going Leila Khaled style, right? But, yeah, yeah, I know, I’m probably fired right now. But, fuck it, might as well get it done then, right? Might as well go all the way.”

Watch Below:

During the panel, Hill was also wearing a sweatshirt with large letters on it, which read, “ASSATA TAUGHT ME,” in an apparent reference to convicted cop killer Assata Shakur.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.",-0.017300121728391744
"Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday weighed in on President Joe Biden and his administration showing interest in rejoining the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Pompeo said on Fox Business Network’s “Varney & Company” the interest in rejoining the deal with Iran is “truly a head-scratcher” because it gives the “largest state sponsor of terror” and “most antisemitic nation on the planet” a “pathway to a nuclear program.”

“We created a more stable, more peaceful Middle East. And you can see the impacts on Americans all across our country, whether that’s through higher gas prices that come with the risk Iran will be ascendant to all of those things that reduce security here at home. We can do better than that. The Trump administration did. I hope this administration won’t go back, won’t give away the store for the sake of some deal that is not going to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon,” Pompeo outlined. “They are the largest state sponsor of terror. They are the most antisemitic nation on the planet, wanting to wipe Israel from the face of the earth. This is unacceptable, and the United States should maintain the policies that we did, which were pushing back against them in a serious way.”

Host Stuart Varney asked why the Biden administration would want to rejoin the deal.

“Stuart, it’s a great question,” Pompeo replied. “You know, eight years of President Obama’s policy, the deal, the same team is around — Wendy Sherman, some of all the same cast of characters. I think they’re just wedded to this deal which has clearly demonstrated it failed. The deal is dead. The Europeans have come to know this as well. I can’t explain why they would want to go back to it. It’s truly a head-scratcher. It doesn’t do the central thing it set out to do, which is to close out all pathways for Iran to have a nuclear weapon but instead gives them money, gives them resources and a clear, patient pathway to a nuclear program.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent",2.2416898415598965
"Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi insurgents, removed from the list of terrorist organizations by the Biden administration last month, fired a missile into a school on Sunday, killing three children along with 15 soldiers from the internationally-recognized government of Yemen.

The attack occurred in a district called Kadha in southwestern Yemen, controlled by the Houthi insurgents until government forces recaptured it last week. According to local residents, the Houthis occupied the school until pro-government fighters pushed them out of Kadha.

Kadha is located in a region called Taiz that has seen intense fighting between the Houthis and government troops in recent weeks. The government is attempting to regain control of the key port city of Hodeidah and appears to be making some progress, with air support from the allied coalition led by Saudi Arabia.

The Yemeni government also hopes to distract the Houthis from their own major offensive into the central province of Marib, which currently houses almost a million refugees driven from other parts of Yemen during the seven-year civil war. Yemen is already the scene of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, and the situation would become even direr if the Houthis were able to push deep into Marib.

The Biden administration complained over the weekend that the Houthis seem more interested in capturing more territory than following a peace plan.

“We now have a sound plan for a nationwide cease-fire with elements that would immediately address Yemen’s dire humanitarian situation directly. That plan has been before the Houthi leadership for a number of days,” said U.S. envoy Tim Lenderking on Friday.

The stated reason for delisting the Houthis as a terrorist organization was persuading them to stop interfering with humanitarian aid shipments. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) said on Friday that while “all the warring parties” bear some of the blame for the horrifying situation in Yemen, the “most egregious” disruptions of humanitarian aid have been perpetrated by the Houthis.

Houthi leaders on Monday applauded Secretary of State Anthony Blinken for ostensibly pledging to remove all foreign influence from Yemen.

According to State Department spokesman Ned Price on Sunday, Blinken told the U.N. special envoy for Yemen that the Biden administration “supports a unified, stable Yemen free from foreign influence and that there is no military solution to the conflict.”

The Houthis took this as a “positive” sign the U.S. will pressure Saudi Arabia into withdrawing its military support for the government of Yemen, while the Houthis would continue to enjoy economic, political, and military support from Iran.",-1.0128048377551913
"The Biden administration’s first encounter with Chinese diplomats in Alaska on Thursday was an utter debacle, as the Chinese disregarded protocols to lecture the stunned Biden team on American “human rights violations” and reject all American criticism of the tyranny in Beijing as meaningless bluster.

Diplomatic etiquette was quickly abandoned as top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi launched an 18-minute tirade against the U.S., touting Beijing’s foreign policy as superior because “we don’t believe in invading through the use of force, or to topple other regimes through various means, or to massacre the people of other countries.”

Yang insisted the U.S. is the “champion” of launching cyberattacks on other countries, said U.S. positions do not “represent international public opinion,” and said “many people within the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States” – unlike China, where unelected leaders allegedly “have the wide support of the Chinese people.”

“China has made decisive achievements and important strategic gains in fighting COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus], and we have achieved a full victory in ending absolute poverty in China,” Yang boasted.

In the most astounding passage of his tirade, Yang – speaking on behalf of a government that has perpetrated brutal religious repression, genocide, and slave labor – said China hopes the U.S. will “do better on human rights” in the future:

China has made steady progress in human rights and the fact is that there are many problems within the United States regarding human rights, which is admitted by the U.S. itself as well. The United States has also said that countries can’t rely on force in today’s world to resolve the challenges we face. And it is a failure to use various means to topple the so-called “authoritarian” states. And the challenges facing the United States in human rights are deep-seated. They did not just emerge over the past four years, such as Black Lives Matter. It did not come up only recently. So we do hope that for our two countries, it’s important that we manage our respective affairs well instead of deflecting the blame on somebody else in this world.

Yang’s was followed by a shorter but equally truculent lecture from Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who rejected “unwarranted accusations from the U.S. side” and claimed “China’s legitimate rights and interests have come under outright suppression” from the United States.

“China urges the U.S. side to fully abandon the hegemonic practice of willfully interfering in China’s internal affairs. This has been a longstanding issue and it should be changed,” Wang said, demanding the immediate reversal of sanctions imposed on March 17 against Chinese officials for their role in the oppression of Hong Kong.

“This is not supposed to be the way one should welcome his guests, and we wonder if this is a decision made by the United States to try to gain some advantage in dealing with China, but certainly this is miscalculated and only reflects the vulnerability and weakness inside the United States,” Wang said of the sanctions.

The flabbergasted Biden team was reduced to begging reporters to stay after a scheduled four-minute photo session so they could muster some sort of rebuttal to the Chinese attack. The best thing they could come up with was National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s attempt to zing China by saying “a confident country is able to look hard at its own shortcomings and constantly seek to improve” – which is just a weak sound-bite imitation of the 18-minute harangue Sullivan had just endured from his Chinese guests.

The South China Morning Post (SCMP) provided an instructive comparison of the background comments made by members of the two delegations after the encounter. The Chinese took a victory lap and said they felt bad about pummeling Biden’s team, but they were overcome by righteous indignation over the rude reception they received, while the Biden official whined that the Chinese talked for too long:

Chinese state media later quoted an unnamed Chinese official – in a background briefing after the first day of talks – that China was sincere in its dialogue with the US, but the American side had overrun its opening remarks and made groundless accusations against China. “This is not a way of hospitality, nor does it conform to diplomatic etiquette. China has responded solemnly to this,” the official said, according to state broadcaster CCTV. In another sign of tension, the two sides did not sit down for a meal together, generally customary in meetings of this kind. And a senior US official, speaking on background afterwards, countered that the US side had arrived hoping to lay out “the principles, interests, and values that animate our engagement with Beijing” but that the Chinese side “seems to have arrived intent on grandstanding, focused on public theatrics and dramatics over substance”. The official also criticized the Chinese side for “violating protocol” by speaking for far longer than the agreed-upon two minutes.

The Biden team’s failure in Alaska is profoundly disturbing for several reasons. Firstly, the entire encounter was foolishly structured in a way that could only benefit the Chinese dictatorship. As the SCMP pointed out, the Biden White House treated the meeting like a meaningless bit of diplomatic theater all week, a “one-off with little chance of going anywhere.”

That made it a perfect venue for the kind of “grandstanding” by China that Biden’s people complained about. Much of the world is bowing to Beijing’s tyranny while being fully aware of its terrible actions in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and the South China Sea; resistance is not a matter of “raising awareness” about China’s offenses. A bold, confident, aggressive, utterly amoral tyranny was not about to lose a grandstanding competition against an “America Last” White House.

The second problem flows from that America Last attitude: everything Yang and Wang threw at the visibly unnerved Blinken and Sullivan echoes the Democrat Party’s vicious critique of the American people.

The Chinese know exactly what they are doing when they invoke Black Lives Matter rhetoric to hector a Democrat administration about human rights in America. They were merely throwing the rhetoric of Blinken and Sullivan’s own party right back in their faces. What response could the Biden team have made? “No, black Americans aren’t getting slaughtered in the streets by racist cops, no matter what our party has been saying for the past year! You take that back!”

The third and most disturbing issue is that all of this was entirely predictable, but somehow the Biden team and its intelligence briefers were taken completely by surprise. The briefest perusal of Chinese state media reveals the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) constantly uses left-wing American rhetoric and media coverage to attack the United States. Everything Yang and Wang said came straight out of boilerplate editorials in the Global Times and People’s Daily.

Alaska was the most heavily-telegraphed diplomatic ambush in modern history, but somehow the Biden White House walked right into it and looked astonished to find themselves at the Red Wedding instead of a Brookings Institution roundtable discussion.",-1.3167924554984771
"North Korea announced the abrupt end of diplomatic ties with Malaysia Friday in response to Kuala Lumpur’s “unpardonable crime” of extraditing a North Korean citizen to the United States for trial.

The Malaysian government reacted initially with dismay, then pressured North Korea’s embassy officials to vacate the country as swiftly as possible.

The North Korean in question, Mun Chol Myong, is the first citizen of the country extradited to the United States. According to the FBI, Mun, a businessman, routinely violated sanctions on the rogue communist regime by laundering money and shipments of goods to North Korea. American authorities accuse Mun of specializing in laundering “prohibited luxury goods” by shipping them illicitly from Singapore to North Korea.

Malaysia has an extradition treaty with America, which it has decided to honor in Mun’s case but never has before with any North Korean citizen.

The North Korean Foreign Ministry issued a belligerent missive Friday declaring the nation would sever its diplomatic ties with Malaysia.

“On March 17, the Malaysian authority committed an unpardonable crime, in the end, of forcibly delivering the innocent citizen of the DPRK [North Korea] to the United States by having charged him with ‘criminal,'” the statement read:

This world-startling incident is an out-and-out product of anti-DPRK conspiracy created from the heinous policy of hostility by the United States aimed at isolating and suffocating our country and the pro-U.S. subservience by the Malaysian authority.

The statement defended Mun, without naming him, as a practitioner of “legitimate external trade activities.” It then referred to the government of Malaysia as “illegal and lawless riff-raff”:

It is nefarious act [sic] and unpardonably heavy crime that the Malaysian authority – a government as it is nominally called, though, – offered our citizen as a sacrifice of the U.S. hostile move in defiance of the acknowledged international laws, not content with its blind acceptance of and obedience to the U.S. unjust pressure.

The North Korean Foreign Ministry then accused Malaysian officials of enjoying a “drinking party” with American officials that resulted in a quid pro quo commitment to “sacrifice” a North Korean citizen.

“With regard to the grave situation that has prevailed, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK hereby announces total severance of the diplomatic relations with Malaysia which committed super-large hostile act against the DPRK in subservience to the U.S. pressure,” the statement concluded. “From this very moment, the Malaysian authority will bear full responsibility for all the consequences to be incurred between the two countries.”

The North Koreans also warned America would “pay a price” for the extradition, without elaborating.

Malaysia’s New Straits Times reported Friday North Korean diplomats had already begun packing to go home.

“Yes, we will be shutting down. We are now discussing the plans with our staff here and liaising with our government,” the charge d’affaires of the embassy, Kim Yu Song, told the newspaper.

Malaysia’s government issued a statement shortly thereafter rushing the North Koreans, issuing a 48-hour ultimatum for diplomats to leave the country permanently.

“Malaysia denounces the decision as unfriendly and unconstructive, disrespecting the spirit of mutual respect and good neighborly relations among members of the international community,” the country’s Foreign Ministry said in the statement.

Malaysia and North Korea enjoyed peaceful diplomatic relations for decades beginning in the 1970s, despite Malaysia’s amicable ties with the United States and the fact that North Korea and America have been technically at war since 1950.

In 2017, Malaysia expelled North Korea’s ambassador to the country, Kang Chol, in the aftermath of the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, dictator Kim Jong-un’s brother. Kim Jong-nam died in Kuala Lumpur Airport after one of his assistants, according to airport surveillance footage, grabbed his face. He suffered a seizure shortly after and Malaysian authorities confirmed he had been exposed to VX nerve agent, a chemical weapon. The North Korean regime formally rejected the autopsy performed by Malaysian professionals on Kim Jong-nam, outraging Kuala Lumpur.

After expressing outrage at North Korea’s “shocking” and “rude” diplomatic broadsides, Malaysia expelled the country’s ambassador.

The spat with Malaysia is the first sign that North Korea’s most recent campaign against the United States has begun to involve third parties. Pyongyang attacked America on several occasions this week in light of a report surfacing in Reuters that the administration of President Joe Biden had repeatedly attempted to reach out to North Korean leaders since February, but had been met with silence.

Choe Son Hui, first vice minister of Foreign Affairs, issued a statement this week confirming the report.

“The U.S. has tried to contact us since mid-February through several routes including New York,” the statement read in part. “We have already declared our stand that no DPRK [North Korea]-U.S. contact and dialogue of any kind can be possible unless the U.S. rolls back its hostile policy towards the DPRK. Therefore, we will disregard such an attempt of the U.S. in the future, too.”

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.",-0.2632619317970977
"The Foreign Ministry of Russia claimed on Thursday to have “started” working on setting up a virtual debate between the country’s leader, Vladimir Putin, and American counterpart Joe Biden – an invitation Biden has not and is unlikely to accept.

Putin personally invited Biden to a “dialogue,” broadcast live on global internet platforms, in response to Biden agreeing in an interview this week that Putin can accurately be described as a “killer.” Putin insisted this debate would have to take place either on Friday or Monday as soon as possible, as he hoped to “rest” during the weekend.

Neither Biden personally nor the White House has accepted the invitation, stating only that Biden had plans to travel on Friday. This has not stopped the Foreign Ministry from unspecified planning to make the event happen.

Russian news network TASS claimed to have reached out to the Foreign Ministry on Thursday, asking if any preliminary measures are being taken to ensure that the dialogue takes place. Unnamed sources replied, “yes, we have already started.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov added some details on Putin’s proposal on Friday, stating that Biden’s lack of an answer on it did not mean that it could not happen and that it would most likely happen on Monday since White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had noted that Biden had travel plans on Friday.

“This means that it [the discussion] cannot take place today. But as President Putin said, it’s either Friday or Monday, because on the weekend, Putin won’t be in very comfortable conditions to organize communication with the US president,” Peskov told reporters, “so Monday is still an option. Another option is [to hold the talks] at any time convenient for the US president.”

“You know, there are open and secure channels. There are secure video channels that can be opened to the public. Actually, Putin meant a public conversation that would be open to the people of the two countries,” Peskov added.

Peskov added that Russian diplomats are working to communicate with their American counterparts to make the discussion happen, so Moscow is engaging in behind-the-scenes overtures as well as Putin’s apparently spontaneous remarks.

Peskov did clarify that, while Russia is moving to make the talks happen, Moscow will consider no clear answer from Washington as decline to the invitation.

Putin’s request was for a public talk from their respective capitals offered few details. In extending the invitation to Biden, Putin exhibited impatience, stating it should happen as soon as possible.

“I wouldn’t put this off for too long. I want to go to the taiga on the weekend to get some rest, but we could do it tomorrow or, let’s say, on Monday,” Putin said on Russian station Rossiya-24 on Thursday. “Please, we are ready at any time convenient for the Americans, I will give the corresponding directive right now to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs [of Russia].”

The invitation was a response to remarks that Biden made during an interview broadcast this week with former Democrat Party operative George Stephanopoulos in which he threatened Putin with paying an unspecified “price” for international misdeeds.

“He will pay a price,” Biden said. “We had a long talk, he and I, when we — I know him relatively well. And the conversation started off, I said, ‘I know you and you know me. If I establish this occurred, then be prepared.’”

Stephanopoulos asked Biden if he thought of Putin as a “killer,” to which Biden responded, “I do.” The Biden interview followed the revelation in a report published this week by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) that evidence suggested the Russian government had intervened in the 2020 American presidential election. “We assess that Russian President Putin authorized, and a range of Russian government organizations conducted, influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party,” the report read, “supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the U.S. Unlike in 2016, we did not see persistent Russian cyber efforts to gain access to election infrastructure.” The report similarly accused other rogue states, like Iran and China, of attempting to meddle in the election. Russia has, in turn, accused the United States of attempting to discourage third party states from purchasing Sputnik V, a Chinese coronavirus vaccine candidate Putin approved last year before it cleared Phase III clinical trials. Putin’s invitation followed an initial response in which he simply told reporters, “As far as statements by my U.S. counterpart are concerned. What would I say to him in response? I would tell him: ‘Stay healthy!’ I wish him good health.”

While Putin’s response was tepid, Peskov expressed outrage in response to the interview, calling Biden’s remarks “very bad.” The Russian Foreign Ministry recalled its ambassador to Washington as well, not specifying that the interview was the reason but insisting that bilateral ties were “in a difficult state.”

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.",-1.6522426507000996
"On Saturday’s “CNN Newsroom,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) said that the U.S. needs to keep its tariffs on certain Chinese goods in place.

Krishnamoorthi said, “I think that, on the one hand, we have to be candid about our differences and figure out how do we resolve them. And we have to keep in place, for instance, tariffs on certain Chinese goods, especially where those goods are meant to drive out competition among American companies. But on the other hand, there are places where we can cooperate, whether it’s with regard to Afghanistan or manmade climate change or other issues. So, we have to walk and chew gum at the same time. I’m confident that Joe Biden can do that.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett",1.0957897671542927
"Police in the southwestern Chinese city of Guiyang raided a Christian bible study session held at a private residence this week, detaining at least ten participants, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported Thursday.

“The Ren’ai Reformed Church was raided by officials including the civil affairs bureau and the police on the morning of March 16,” Huang, a Christian resident of Guiyang – the capital of Guizhou province – told RFA on March 17.

“More than a dozen of our brothers and sisters were taken away [by police],” Huang said.

A Ren’ai leader named Zhang Chulei was also detained after visiting the local police station after the raid to inquire about his fellow church members.

“I heard that they called him in for questioning,” Huang said, adding, “Many of them [the detainees] have yet to be released, including Zhang Chunlei.”

Prior to Tuesday’s raid, Chinese state security forces had allegedly targeted Zhang with “repeated surveillance and harassment” and “barred [him] from participating in any religious activities, and from communicating with other church members,” according to the report.

RFA described the Ren’ai Reformed Church as a “Protestant house church,” which is a Christian worship service held within a private residence in China to avoid state persecution. China’s ruling Communist Party allows just five religions to operate in the country: Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, and “Christianity,” which the CCP refers to as the “Three-Self Church.” In practice, however, the officially atheist CCP creates hostile conditions for religious worshippers in China, and the Communist Party has increasingly persecuted Chinese Christians in recent years.

Another Christian resident of Guiyang surnamed Li told RFA on Thursday that while the reason behind the sudden raid on the Ren’ai Reformed Church on March 16 remains unclear, the CCP “has strict rules about what can be considered a house church” during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“As far as we can tell, the [CCP’s] United Front Work Department and the secret agencies of the Chinese government have their own definition of what can be called a house church in China,” Li said. “They think it should refer to a family gathering with only relatives present.”

“Currently, religious meetings involving more than one household are banned under pandemic restrictions,” Li added.

An official at a Chinese religious affairs bureau in Panyu – a city located near Guizhou in the province of Guangzhou – confirmed to RFA this week that house church gatherings in the region “are currently restricted to family members only.”",-1.0288218848439383
"Nearly 60 percent of couples in China’s central city of Wuhan called off their planned divorces after being forced to rethink their separations during a new, state-mandated “cooling off” period, the Chinese state-run Global Times claimed on Thursday.

China introduced a mandatory “60-day cooling-off period” in January for couples considering divorce. The law, part of China’s first-ever “civil code” legislation, requires couples to wait two months before they are allowed to proceed with their divorce filing. “With a total number of 60 days before issuing the divorce certificate, it contains a 30-day cooling-off period, and another 30-day limit that allows the couple to get their certificate from the local civil affairs bureau,” the Global Times, a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) newspaper, noted on Thursday. According to the new law, China’s divorce application process now requires couples to undergo “marriage and family counseling” during the cooling-off period.

Since the new policy was introduced, “around 58 percent of couples decided not to split up at the end of a 60-day cooling-off period,” according to a report published by Wuhan’s civil affairs bureau on March 16. Of 3,096 couples that registered for divorce in Wuhan in January, “1,309 were issued with a certificate for divorce as of March 5,” the report claimed.

The Wuhan civil affairs bureau surveyed 1,150 local residents as part of the report and found that the city’s “three killers” of marriage were “personality differences, trivial life problems and lack of communication.”

China’s divorce rate has surged over the past few decades. The country recorded 580,000 divorces in 1987 and 3.73 million in 2020. China’s marriage rate has inversely plummeted in recent years, the number of unions dropping from 13.47 million in 2013 to 8.13 million in 2020, according to a report by China’s Tsinghua University.

In response to the troubling marriage statistics, a Chinese legislator proposed this month that the Chinese state encourage couples to undergo premarital training before tying the knot to improve their chances of staying together. Chen Aizhu, a deputy of China’s National People’s Congress, the CCP’S rubber-stamp legislature, suggested that Chinese marriage and family associations organize the premarital training for young couples.

“Carrying out premarital trainings is to help to improve people’s sense of responsibility to the family, encouraging the new couples to be loyal in marriage and cherish their family,” Chen, who hails from East China’s Zhejiang Province, told state media on March 3.

“As people’s attitude toward marriage are getting more open now, some young people get married in haste without a solid base in their love relationship, and then divorce in haste over trivial disputes,” Chen said.",-0.8708875512937756
"Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) joined other Republicans in criticizing human rights violator China for denigrating America’s democratic ideals and its efforts to champion human rights during the first Beijing-Washington meeting under President Joe Biden Thursday.

“The Chinese delegation’s behavior was completely unacceptable,” Cotton, who sits on the Senate Committee on Armed Services and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote on Twitter Friday. “It’s time for the Biden administration to adopt a strategy to beat China.”

The Chinese delegation’s behavior was completely unacceptable. It’s time for the Biden administration to adopt a strategy to beat China.https://t.co/kmBbEwM2Ql — Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) March 19, 2021

In his tweet, Cotton featured his March 17 editorial published by the National Review, in which he asserted, “It’s that well past time for aggressive political and economic steps to counter the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] threat.”

Referring to Thursday’s U.S.-China meeting in Alaska. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, added on Twiter Friday that Beijing “believes it can roll the Biden administration.”

#china believes it can roll the Biden administration https://t.co/5S8wjfk3bJ — Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) March 19, 2021

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Yang Jiechi – a member of China’s Communist Party’s Politburo and the country’s top diplomat – and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi participated in the meeting.

During his opening remarks, Yang lectured his American counterparts on what they described as human rights violations on U.S. soil, adding that many people worldwide and in the United States have no faith in American democracy.

He urged the U.S. to let the world decide between America’s political system and China’s.

“We don’t believe in invading through use of force, topple other regimes, massacre people of other countries… Important for the U.S. to change own image and to stop advancing its own democracy in the rest of the world,” Yang said. “Many people in the U.S. have little confidence in U.S. democracy…”

“The challenges facing the United States in human rights are deep-seated. They did not just emerge over the past four years, such as Black Lives Matter,” he added.

Reporters were supposed to leave after the opening remarks, but Sullivan reportedly waved them to stay, given that the Chinese officials, mostly Yang, spoke for more than the two minutes agreed.

“Given your extended remarks, let me add a few of my own,” Sullivan said, according to foreign affairs correspondents’ tweets. “It’s never a good bet to bet against America.”

That was supposed to be it. Opening statement over, US media pool excused. But @SecBlinken and @JakeSullivan46 told pool to stay: ""given your extended remarks, let me add a few of my own."" @SecBlinken: ""It's never a good bet to bet against America."" — Nick Schifrin (@nickschifrin) March 18, 2021

“A confident country is able to look hard at its own shortcomings and constantly seek to improve,” Sullivan added.

Then at 625p eastern, pool is forced to leave. But Chinese diplomats complained it wasn't fair. Poolers @EenaRuffini @jakesNYT @humeyra_pamuk pick up the story: Yang criticized US for speaking condescendingly, and said the removal of the media proved US doesn't support democracy. — Nick Schifrin (@nickschifrin) March 18, 2021

Yang lambasted the U.S. officials for speaking condescendingly, adding that the media’s removal after the heated exchange proves that America does not support democracy.

“We will use the remaining hours [after the press left] to outline for Chinese delegation in private same messages delivered in public,” an unnamed Biden Administration official reportedly said. “Chinese delegation, on other hand, seems intent on grandstanding, focused on public theatrics and dramatics.”

Thursday’s meeting came soon after Blinken visited Asia to coalesce support against China, marking his first visit abroad. In Japan, the secretary of State warned that the U.S. would “push back if necessary when China uses coercion or aggression to get its way.”

“We do not seek conflict, but we welcome stiff competition, and we will always stand up for our principles, for our people, and for our friends,” Blinken said Thursday.

During his opening remarks, Blinken vowed to hold China accountable for oppression against Hong Kong residents, what the United States has described as genocide of the Muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang, and cyberattacks against the U.S., among other things.",1.4282788290056103
"Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), referring to Chinese diplomats lecturing their American counterparts on human rights and democracy during the first Washington-Beijing meeting of the current U.S. administration Thursday, indicated that Communist China believes it can steamroll U.S. President Joe Biden’s representatives.

“[China] believes it can roll the Biden administration,” Sen. Hawley, a Senate Armed Services Committee member, wrote on Twitter Friday.

#china believes it can roll the Biden administration https://t.co/5S8wjfk3bJ — Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) March 19, 2021

Hawley’s comment came in response to a tweet from Jordan Schneider, an analyst for the Rhodium Group focused on China, who wrote:

It’s crazy how Chinese officials, by and large, held their tongue when engaging with the Trump administration, but in their first interaction with Biden folks, who you think they’d want to make a decent first impression with, they decide to go full Wolf Warrior to impress [Chinese dictator] Xi [Jinping].

The meeting took place in Alaska Thursday between American Secretary of State Antony Blinken, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Yang Jiechi, a member of China’s Communist Party’s Politburo; and the country’s top diplomat and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

They opened the high-level meeting with an undiplomatic war of words.

During the first in-person meeting between the Biden administration and Chinese officials, Beijing indicated that it would do what it wants, irrespective of U.S. and its allies’ concerns.

The meeting came after Blinken visited Asia, marking his first visit abroad. In Japan, the secretary of State warned that the U.S. would “push back if necessary when China uses coercion or aggression to get its way.”

U.S. State Department officials provided a transcript of the meeting’s’s participants’ opening remarks.

Nevertheless, Yang said Thursday China does not respect “the so-called ‘rules-based international order” promoted by the U.S. and its allies after Blinken noted, “The alternative to a rules-based order is a world in which might makes right, and winners take all, and that would be a far more violent and unstable world for all of us.”

“We do not seek conflict, but we welcome stiff competition, and we will always stand up for our principles, for our people, and for our friends,” Blinken added. “We look forward to discussing all of these matters with you in the hours ahead.’

The secretary of State stressed that the Biden administration would not relent to hold Beijing accountable for its nefarious acts.

He pointed out:

We’ll also discuss our deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyber attacks on the United States, and economic coercion toward our allies. Each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability. That’s why they’re not merely internal matters and why we feel an obligation to raise these issues here today. I said that the United States’ relationship with China will be competitive where it should be, collaborative where it can be, adversarial where it must be.

China’s top diplomat, Yang, went on to attack America’s democracy, urging the United States “to stop advancing its own democracy in the rest of the world.”

“Many people within the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States, and they have various views regarding the Government of the United States,” he said.

Saying that the U.S. is mistreating blacks, he blasted human rights in America.

Yang declared:

In human rights, we hope that the United States will do better on human rights. … The challenges facing the United States in human rights are deep-seated. They did not just emerge over the past four years, such as Black Lives Matter. It did not come up only recently. So we do hope that for our two countries, it’s important that we manage our respective affairs well instead of deflecting the blame on somebody else in this world.

He also criticized America for “invading” other nations while accusing China of doing the same. Yang said:

We do not believe in invading through the use of force, or to topple other regimes through various means, or to massacre the people of other countries, because all of those would only cause turmoil and instability in this world. .. So we believe that it is important for the United States to change its own image … many people within the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States, and they have various views regarding the Government of the United States.

After the meeting, an unnamed U.S. official accused China of “grandstanding,” Politico reported.",-0.20139173822175335
"China’s state-run Global Times on Friday defended Hong Kong’s practice of forcibly restraining babies to hospital beds while in coronavirus isolation wards as an anti-epidemic policy in need of “more understanding.”

“[T]he quarantine policy in Hong Kong regarding the isolation of children is flexible and has already taken humane considerations into account,” Jin Dongyan, a professor at Hong Kong University’s School of Biomedical Sciences, told the Global Times on March 19.

Responding to reports this week that babies are restrained to their beds and children as old as five years are forced to wear diapers while in mandatory coronavirus quarantine at Hong Kong public hospitals, Jin said, “It is more likely there was some misunderstanding, and the media should not sensationalize it. More understanding is needed given the epidemic at large.”

“[A]nti-epidemic measures that threaten individual freedoms should be given more understanding,” the newspaper added, citing the opinion of unnamed “Chinese observers.”

Hong Kong government policy currently requires all people who test positive for the Chinese coronavirus to admit themselves to a public hospital for observation and treatment if necessary. The patient’s close contacts must also enter government-run quarantine facilities for up to 14 days, according to a CNN report published March 17.

Parents who test positive for the virus must check themselves into a hospital and send their children to a quarantine facility alone. If children test positive for coronavirus but their parents do not, then their parents may accompany them to the hospital, but risk infection by doing so.

A Hong Kong parent identified as Ariel by CNN told the news site Wednesday that she was recently forced to admit her two young sons to a Hong Kong government hospital after they tested positive for coronavirus despite being classified as “asymptomatic” cases.

“Ariel joined her boys about a day after their admission after spending hours on the phone trying to navigate the bureaucracy of a major health care system and allay the fears of her crying son,” CNN reported. “The brothers — age 5 and 1 and both asymptomatic — were wearing vests that were tied to their beds to restrain them. They were covered in dirt and both wearing diapers, even the five-year-old.”

Ariel said a nurse at the hospital told her that the restraints and diapers “were standard practice because hospitals do not have the labor pool to care for every child with Covid-19 [coronavirus] and want to limit the risk to staff.”",-1.2895041409068602
"After their highly contentious first meeting in Alaska Thursday, Chinese diplomats and President Joe Biden’s foreign policy team accused each other of violating protocols that were agreed upon in advance.

A senior U.S. official, speaking to reporters on background after the opening session, accused the Chinese of “violating protocol” by speaking for much longer than two minutes as previously agreed, according to the South China Morning Post. The opening exchange of statements wound up lasting for over an hour instead of the brief introduction and photo opportunity that was envisioned.

“We will use the remaining hours to outline for the Chinese delegation in private the same messages we have consistently delivered in public. The Chinese delegation, on the other hand, seems to have arrived intent on grandstanding, focused on public theatrics and dramatics over substance,” the American official said.

A Chinese official insisted the U.S. also violated the speech limits, and the American team’s “groundless accusations” against China for human rights violations and threatening the international rule of law were an abuse of diplomatic custom.

“This is not a way of hospitality, nor does it conform to diplomatic etiquette. China has responded solemnly to this,” the Chinese official said.

“It was the United States who provoked and provoked the dispute first. Therefore, the two sides were full of gunpowder and drama in the opening remarks from the beginning. This was not the original intention of the Chinese side,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said for the record.

“China attended the meeting with sincerity and constructive attitude. Alaska is the northernmost state in the United States. When the members of the Chinese delegation arrived in Alaska, they not only felt the cold weather in Alaska, but also felt the hospitality of the American host,” Zhao complained.",0.9524506403616603
"Chinese state-run media celebrated the performance of senior diplomats Wang Yi and Yang Jiechi on Thursday in which they berated American counterparts, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, on America’s alleged human rights abuses.

The Global Times and China Daily, two of the Communist Party’s loudest English-language mouthpieces, applauded the two Chinese officials for being “firm,” expressing “sincerity,” and offering “vigorous counterblows” to the Americans’ condemning China for its elimination of human rights safeguards in Hong Kong, its genocide of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang, and other human rights atrocities.

The four diplomats met in Anchorage, Alaska, on Thursday, chosen as a halfway point between Washington and Beijing. The Chinese state outlets — and the Foreign Ministry — complained that Alaska was inhospitable, “biting,” and unpleasant for the diplomats to visit.

Wang and Yang personally accused the United States of abusing them as guests at the meeting and flouting diplomatic protocol.

The Global Times, citing its usual stable of Communist Party-approved “experts,” applauded Wang, China’s State Councilor, and senior Politburo member Yang for delivering “vigorous counterblows to condescending U.S. representatives.” It assessed that the opening remarks of the talks, which will reportedly remain ongoing, were “beyond the expectations of observers” in their severity and bitter tone, blaming President Joe Biden’s diplomats for the acrimony.

“So far, the US’ aggressiveness and disregard for diplomatic protocol, and rapid and sharp counterattacks by the Chinese delegation, have made the world take notice,” the Times assessed. It complained that Washington choosing Anchorage as a diplomatic host city was uncomfortable, as it is “one of the coldest places on US soil with a freezing temperature of minus 19 degrees Celsius [-2.2ºF].”

One of the Times‘ experts, former diplomat Yang Xiyu, protested that Washington’s team entered the talks with a philosophy of “putting human rights over sovereignty,” which was unacceptable to the Chinese, who allegedly sought “peaceful coexistence and noninterference in internal affairs.”

The Global Times punctuated its coverage of U.S. foreign policy by showcasing on its frontpage on Friday a political cartoon featuring a shattered Statue of Liberty holding her head in her hands while hands decorated with the flags of several rogue states pointed menacingly at it, apparently a commentary on dictatorships at the United Nations Human Rights Council condemning alleged racism in America.

At China Daily, another state-run propaganda outfit, European bureau chief Chen Weihua shared an animated GIF of eagles and rabbits, the latter presumably representing the Chinese, throwing things at each other. “After four years of Trump’s rogue regime, no one should still think about coercing and blackmailing China,” Chen proclaimed.

This one goes viral in the Chinese social media. It’s a reminder to those in Washington that US loudspeaker diplomacy won’t work. After four years of Trump’s rogue regime, no one should still think about coercing and blackmailing China. pic.twitter.com/MufCw1QF5t — Chen Weihua （陈卫华） (@chenweihua) March 19, 2021

Chen Weihua has developed a reputation for profane and sexist posts on Twitter, including repeatedly referring to American Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) as a “bitch” for questioning China’s human rights record and international criminal behavior. While Twitter has branded Chen’s account as a state-affiliated account, it has yet to censor his bigoted remarks.

It remains illegal for Chinese citizens in China not affiliated with the Communist Party to use Twitter.

China Daily described Blinken’s and Sullivan’s opening statements as “unreasonable” and applauded the Chinese diplomats for their replies, citing an anonymous official who traveled to Anchorage with the Chinese.

“The Chinese side, in response to the US’ invitation, traveled to Anchorage in sincerity to have a strategic dialogue with the US side, and China finished preparations for the dialogue in accordance with the procedures and arrangements that were agreed to by the two sides in advance, the unnamed official said,” China Daily reported.

The “official” protested, “this is not the way to treat guests, nor is it in line with diplomatic etiquette and protocols, and the Chinese side has made a solemn response to this.”

In an opinion piece, China Daily accused the Americans of “spew[ing] vitriol at China, taking potshots at its domestic and foreign policies and dictating what it should and should not do.”

“With their grandstanding, US politicians, trampling diplomatic protocol and violating every international relations norm, used the meeting that began on Thursday not to iron out differences and put Sino-US relations back on the right track, but to brazenly interfere in China’s internal affairs,” the propaganda outlet lamented.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry echoed the displeasure of its state propaganda arms during its regular press briefing on Friday.

“The Chinese delegation went to Anchorage for the strategic dialogue with sincerity, fully prepared to engage in dialogue with the US according to the protocols and arrangements agreed on beforehand,” spokesman Zhao Lijian said. “However, as the US side first delivered opening remarks, they exceeded severely the set time limit and wantonly attacked and criticized China’s domestic and foreign policies, provoking disagreements. These are hardly good host manners or proper diplomatic etiquette. The Chinese side has made a solemn response.”

Zhao also complained Alaska was cold.

“Alaska is the northernmost US state. When the Chinese delegation arrived in Anchorage, their hearts were chilled by the biting cold as well as the reception by their American host,” Zhao claimed.

The Chinese communist regime expressed extreme displeasure with the opening statements at the meeting, which will be ongoing through at least Friday.

Blinken vowed to “discuss our deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyber attacks on the United States, and economic coercion toward our allies,” without going into individual detail on each.

“Each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability. That’s why they’re not merely internal matters and why we feel an obligation to raise these issues here today,” Blinken said.

Yang took the opportunity to urge America to stop promoting human rights and democracy on an international stage and to scold the country for its own alleged human rights abuses.

“And the United States has its style — United States-style democracy — and China has the Chinese-style democracy. It is not just up to the American people, but also the people of the world to evaluate how the United States has done in advancing its own democracy,” Yang insisted. “So we believe that it is important for the United States to change its own image and to stop advancing its own democracy in the rest of the world.”

“Many people within the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States, and they have various views regarding the Government of the United States,” Yang continued. “[T]he challenges facing the United States in human rights are deep-seated. They did not just emerge over the past four years, such as Black Lives Matter. It did not come up only recently.”

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.",1.6907250114919536
"TOKYO (AP) — Tokyo organizers and the International Olympic Committee are poised to finally make it official that most fans from abroad will be prohibited from attending the postponed Olympics when they open in four months.

The announcement is expected to come after “five-party” talks on Saturday with the IOC, local organizers, the Japanese government, the Tokyo metropolitan government and the International Paralympic Committee.

“People are waiting eagerly for an early decision so they can move to the next step,” Seiko Hashimoto, the president of the organizing committee, said Friday in a news briefing. “We need to be able to make the decision soon.”

Despite some calls to delay it, Hashimoto has promised a decision before the torch relay opens on Thursday from the northeastern prefecture of Fukushima.

Hashimoto said all five parties will have to agree on the decision. But she said two have more influence than others: the IOC and the Japanese national government.

“All decisions will be made by the IOC in the end,” Hashimoto said. “When it comes to immigration, this is a matter for the national government at the border.”

Japanese media, citing unidentified sources, have said for several weeks that the decision on the ban had already been reached. Hashimoto declined to confirm it.

About 4.5 million tickets have been sold to Japan residents. Perhaps another 1 million have been sold abroad. Before the postponement a year ago, organizers said a total of 7.8 million tickets would be be available for the Tokyo Games.

Toshiro Muto, the CEO of the Tokyo organizing committee, has said ticket holders from abroad would receive refunds. However, those decisions will be made on the ground by Authorized Ticket Resellers that are appointed by national Olympic committees and handle sales outside of the host nation.

The local organizing committee budget is sure to take a hit. Its budget projected income of $800 million from ticket sales, the third-largest source of revenue. Any shortfall will have to be made up by Japanese government entities.

John Coates, the IOC member who oversees preparations for Tokyo, said earlier this month there would probably be exemptions for some fans from abroad.

“We are looking at the other implications of accommodation, looking at implications for national Olympic committees who have sponsors who might have bought tickets. The same with international federations,” Coates said.

There is widespread skepticism in Japan about holding the Olympics, and particularly about admitting fans from abroad. Japan has attributed about 8,700 deaths to COVID-19 and has handled the virus better than most countries.

The torch relay will present a stern test with 10,000 runners crisscrossing Japan to reach the opening ceremony on July 23. Organizers are asking crowds to stay away, discouraging cheering, and are reserving the right to stop or reroute the relay.

The Olympics and Paralympics will involve 15,400 athletes from more than 200 nations, most operating inside a ’bubble” linking venues, training facilities, and the Olympic Village on Tokyo Bay.

Many may arrive with vaccinations, but the IOC is not requiring this as condition of competing.

Ten of thousands of others will also arrive and be operating outside the bubble: officials, judges, sponsors, media, VIPs and broadcasters.",-0.38773296136306346
"The Chinese Olympic Committee will provide Chinese coronavirus vaccines to athletes participating in the postponed Tokyo 2020 Summer Games, slated for July, and the Beijing 2022 Winter Games.

“International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach said on March 11 that the Chinese Olympic Committee will provide additional vaccines to participants of both Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games and Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games,” People’s Daily, an official Chinese Communist Party newspaper, reported Thursday.

Bach expressed gratitude to China for the offer, according to the newspaper, describing it as “in the true Olympic spirit of solidarity.” He added that the IOC “will pay for these additional doses” of coronavirus vaccines.

China on Monday approved another, domestically-made coronavirus vaccine candidate for emergency use in the country without releasing clinical data to demonstrate the shot’s safety or efficacy rate against the Chinese coronavirus.

Gao Fu, director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control, “led the development of a protein subunit vaccine that was approved by regulators last week for emergency use,” the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Microbiology said in a statement released March 15.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences joined forces with China’s Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical company to develop the new vaccine candidate.

“The team finished phase 1 and phase 2 clinical trials in October and is currently conducting the last phase of trials in Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and Indonesia,” according to the press release.

“There is no publicly available information in peer-reviewed scientific journals about the clinical trial data showing efficacy or safety” for the shot, the Associated Press noted of the vaccine candidate Monday.

The shot’s efficacy data cannot be shared publicly at this time, a spokesperson for Anhui Zhifei Longcom said on March 15. He added that the Chinese biopharmaceutical company has been providing information about the vaccine candidate to relevant health authorities as it becomes available.

The efficacy rate for CoronaVac — another Chinese-made coronavirus vaccine candidate recently approved for emergency use in China — is 50.38 percent, according to late-stage clinical data released in January. CoronaVac is currently not approved for use in people aged 60 and over in China due to safety concerns. Hong Kong government officials waived health requirements in the city to approve CoronaVac’s use among senior citizens earlier this year. Weeks afterward, three people died and at least two people were admitted to intensive care units in Hong Kong after receiving doses of CoronaVac through a Hong Kong government program in March.",2.0937031316965067
"The trial of a Canadian businessman accused of spying in China ended in no verdict on Friday after a court appearance that lasted just under two hours.

Michael Spavor is one of two Canadians held in detention in apparent retaliation for Canada’s arrest on a U.S. extradition warrant of Huawei finance chief Meng Wanzhou.

Meng, the eldest daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, has been out on bail and living in a mansion in Vancouver, while the accused Canadians remain in China’s opaque penal system.

The BBC has described Spavor, who was formally charged last June with spying, as “a business consultant dealing with North Korea.”

Canada has attacked the charges against its citizens as “trumped up”, and the cases have sent relations between Ottawa and Beijing to their lowest point in decades, as Breitbart News reported.

WHAT!! Documents suggest that “6-8 personnel” from China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were to participate in “winter survival training” at Canadian Forces Base Petawawa (CFB Petawawa) in Petawawa, Ontario. https://t.co/Fj5hwfX21R — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) December 9, 2020

AP reports Canada said its consular officials were refused permission to attend the proceedings against Spavor, who is defending himself against charges of stealing state secrets.

Jim Nickel, the Canadian Embassy’s deputy chief of mission, said following a meeting with Spavor’s lawyer the hearing ended at noon Friday after two hours.

Nickel declined to give other details, citing rules on protecting Spavor’s privacy.

In a statement posted on its website, the Intermediate People’s Court of Dandong in the northeastern province of Liaoning Province said it had held a closed-door hearing against Spavor on charges of spying and illegally sending state secrets abroad.

AP reports it said Spavor and his defense lawyers were present for the proceedings and the court would pronounce a sentence at a date “determined in accordance with law.”

Fellow Canadian Michael Kovrig, who is also charged with spying, is due to go before a court on Monday.

The two were detained in December 2018, days after Meng was arrested at the request of the U.S. at the airport in Vancouver.

AP contributed to this story",1.2249621872806777
"Babies are forcibly restrained to their beds while in coronavirus isolation wards in Hong Kong public hospitals for their own “safety and well-being,” Hong Kong health authorities claimed Wednesday.

“Generally speaking, the hospital will only consider the application of physical restraint on pediatric patients for the safety and well-being of the patient,” the Hong Kong Hospital Authority said in a statement March 17.

The body, which manages all Hong Kong government hospitals, issued the statement in response to mounting reports over the past week that Hong Kong public hospitals have physically restrained babies to their beds and made children up to five years old wear diapers while in mandatory quarantine in coronavirus isolation wards away from their parents.

Hong Kong’s government has mandated a strict containment protocol for residents who test positive for the Chinese coronavirus.

“Anyone testing positive for the virus is required to go to the hospital, while their close contacts must enter government-run quarantine facilities for up to 14 days,” CNN reported Wednesday. Parents who test positive for coronavirus must decide whether to enter quarantine “and send their children to the hospital alone,” or, if their children test positive, “accompany them to the hospital and risk infection themselves.”

One such parent, referred to by CNN as Ariel, told the news site she was recently forced to admit her two young sons to a Hong Kong public hospital with asymptomatic coronavirus cases.

“Ariel joined her boys about a day after their admission after spending hours on the phone trying to navigate the bureaucracy of a major health care system and allay the fears of her crying son,” according to the report. “The brothers – age 5 and 1 and both asymptomatic – were wearing vests that were tied to their beds to restrain them. They were covered in dirt and both wearing diapers, even the five-year-old.”

A nurse at the hospital told Ariel that the restraints and diapers “were standard practice because hospitals do not have the labor pool to care for every child with Covid-19 [coronavirus] and want to limit the risk to staff.”

The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported an account that directly mirrored that of Ariel on March 17.

In one message on Facebook, it was claimed two brothers, aged one and five, were restrained, left unwashed and not given a change of clothes. The boys’ mother, who had been sent to the quarantine facility at Penny’s Bay, said she was finally allowed to visit them after repeatedly pressing the Department of Health and its Centre for Health Protection, only to find them crying in the beds surrounded by cornflakes, rice and other food debris.

Hong Kong, a city of more than 7 million people, has reported roughly 11,300 cases and 200 deaths from the Chinese coronavirus to date, according to official government figures. The city’s government began imposing “ambush-style” lockdowns on several neighborhoods and housing blocs across Hong Kong in January to contain the spread of new locally-detected coronavirus cases. The short-notice orders require all residents in the affected area to undergo mandatory coronavirus testing and prohibit locals from leaving their homes unless they present a negative coronavirus test result.

At least one resident of the Sham Shui Po area of Hong Kong was reportedly trapped inside a hair salon overnight after being caught off guard by one such lockdown in February. The same lockdown temporarily trapped a ten-year-old girl inside another hair salon in the area. The girl’s mother reportedly dropped her off for a haircut and left the salon to buy food, expecting to return minutes later. Local authorities issued Sham Shui Po’s lockdown order before the mother could return, however, effectively cutting the girl off from her parent.

“After the [Hong Kong] Home Affairs Department became aware of the situation, the girl was tested and had her information registered, then she was allowed to leave with her mother at our discretion,” a city government representative said at the time.",0.9918683493922702
"China’s state-run Global Times on Wednesday dismissed sanctions against 24 Chinese officials announced by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, sneering at Blinken’s combination of “strategic aggression” and “diffidence” and jeering that the officials he threatened to punish for the oppression of Hong Kong were already sanctioned by the Trump administration anyway.

The Global Times accused Blinken of making hollow threats in a futile effort to pressure China ahead of upcoming meetings between American and Chinese diplomats in Alaska. Hong Kong is among the issues that are supposed to be discussed, along with Chinese human rights abuses in Tibet and Xinjiang and China’s threats against Taiwan.

“We are clear-eyed about Beijing’s consistent failure to uphold its commitments, and we spoke about how Beijing’s aggressive and authoritarian behavior are challenging the stability, security and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region,” Blinken said ahead of the Alaska meeting.

“There’s no room for China to compromise on issues related to sovereign security and core interests, and its determination and will to safeguard its core interests is unwavering,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian responded.

On Tuesday, the U.S. State Department announced sanctions against 24 Chinese officials for the crackdown on democracy and autonomy in Hong Kong. The sanctioned individuals included members of the Chinese Communist Politburo as well as officials of the Hong Kong government and police.

Blinken said the sanctions were a direct response to Beijing’s authoritarian “reform” of the Hong Kong political system on March 11, with the imposition of a law – bypassing Hong Kong’s ostensibly autonomous legislature – that permits only Communist Party members obedient to Beijing to run for office in Hong Kong.

“The focus of Blinken’s sanction statement is naming the vice chairmen of the NPC Standing Committee. But such sanction threats will not have any impact on Chinese officials. They have already been ‘sanctioned’ by the Trump administration, and China sanctioned a number of U.S. officials in response. If this U.S. administration carries out a new round of sanctions, China is bound to retaliate,” the Global Times warned.

The Chinese Communist paper dismissed the Biden administration’s actions as political theater meant for domestic consumption, to satiate “anti-China sentiment” and the “irrational desire of some forces to contain China.”

The propaganda outlet advised Blinken to try “courtesy” at the Alaska meetings instead of making “tough gestures” and pretending that the U.S. is dealing from a “position of strength.”

The Global Times said the Biden administration is trying to ice-skate uphill against the awesome power of the new planetary hegemon, which dominates global opinion and leaves America with little support for its moral posturing:

U.S. hyperbole over Hong Kong has turned off the appetite of most members of the international community. Hong Kong is part of China’s territory. Some Americans, in the form of public opinion, make a few comments on Hong Kong’s governance. Washington is trying to dictate how Hong Kong should be handled. If that is the case, China can only ask, who do they think they are? The more extreme their performances, the more they show that some of their old power is gone. They should remember this: China is not what it was a hundred years ago!

In reality, international criticism of China’s oppressive moves on Hong Kong is quite robust, and even the Hong Kong criticism the Global Times fulminated over was co-signed by Japan. International human rights organizations noted China’s return to the U.N. Human Rights Council last week with dismay, noting that Beijing’s general response to human rights criticism involves threatening the critics.",1.9942174696926602
"A little over a month after the head of the Tokyo Olympics organizing committee resigned over sexist remarks, the creative director for the event announced he would resign after suggesting a plus-sized female comedian should perform at the Games as a character he dubbed the “Olympig.”

The remark that brought 66-year-old Sasaki Hiroshi’s association with the Olympics to a close was made during an online chat with his staffers last year and uncovered by Japanese magazine Shukan Bunshun on Wednesday.

According to the transcript published by the magazine, Hiroshi floated the idea of inviting popular actress and comedian Naomi Watanabe to appear wearing a “cute pink costume” and pig ears.

“Ms Watanabe, 33, is one of Japan’s most famous comedians, and is known for her celebrity impersonations and body positivity advocacy work,” the BBC explained on Thursday. “In recent years she has spearheaded a body positive movement called ‘pochakawaii,’ which translates to ‘chubby and cute,’ and in 2014 she started one of Japan’s first brands to offer plus-size clothing.”

Pigs are conspicuously absent from the list of animals Watanabe’s first line of clothing invites its customers to compare themselves to when describing their body type. The choices are pigeons for buxom women, penguins for those with ample posteriors, and teddy bears for the well-rounded customer.

Japan has one of the thinnest populations on Earth, with only about 20 percent of its women considered overweight and only 3.2 percent classified as “obese,” and the Japanese are getting even thinner on average. Japan has government ordinances that require nutrition and exercise counseling for people whose waist size exceeds certain limits. The Japanese fat-acceptance movement is small but passionate.

Hiroshi had a successful career with a huge advertising company called Dentsu before he went to work as creative director for the Olympics opening and closing ceremonies.

Tokyo Olympics President Hashimoto Seiko said she was “shocked” by the Shukan Bunsun headline and quickly accepted Sasaki’s resignation.

“Gender equality and representation have been a priority since I was appointed president. These things should not and cannot be allowed to happen,” Hashimoto said.

The governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike, said Sasaki’s remarks were “extremely embarrassing.”

“The world has been changing after the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. As what message we will send from Tokyo has become important, why are we sending something negative?” Koike asked.

Sasaki said he realizes his “Olympig” suggestion was “very inappropriate” and apologized to both Naomi Watanabe and “people who have felt discomfort with such content.”

Watanabe, for her part, said she was “honestly surprised” by the Sasaki controversy.

“In fact, I am happy with my figure. So, as usual, I would like to express myself as ‘Naomi Watanabe’ without being particular about being fat,” she said in a statement released by her talent agency.

“However, as a human being, I sincerely hope that we can have a fun and prosperous world where we can respect and recognize each person’s individuality and way of thinking,” she added.

Hashimoto, herself a former Olympic competitor, was appointed to preside over the Tokyo Games after the previous president, Mori Yoshiro, stepped down over sexist remarks in February.

Mori complained women talk too much during meetings, so nothing gets done.

“If one member raises her hand to speak, all the others feel the need to speak too. Everyone ends up saying something. If we increase the number of female board members, we have to make sure their speaking time is restricted somewhat. They have difficulty finishing, which is annoying,” Mori said in a Feb. 3 meeting of the Japanese Olympic Committee.

After assuming the presidency of the Olympics, Hashimoto promised to make “gender equality” one of her top priorities and added a dozen female directors to her executive board.",1.796046151187887
"The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Wednesday published an expose on the World Health Organization’s (W.H.O.) “investigation” of the origins of the coronavirus.

According to the WSJ report, the Chinese government had near-total control over the W.H.O. visit to Wuhan, from deciding who could be on the team to dictating what the visiting scientists were allowed to see. The government also forced the W.H.O. team to watch Chinese political propaganda instead of seriously digging into the early days of the pandemic.

The WSJ said it uncovered “fresh details about the team’s formation and constraints that reveal how little power it had to conduct a thorough, impartial examination – and call into question the clarity its findings appeared to provide.”

The WSJ detailed the shocking amount of control Beijing reportedly ended up having over the belated investigation that finally occurred in January and February 2021 – right down to Chinese operatives being allowed to “review” W.H.O.’s final report and “make possible changes” before it gets published next week.

The investigation was a bit of a sideshow right from the start, since it was widely known the Chinese had already sanitized the Wuhan seafood market where the virus is widely assumed to have jumped from animals to humans, and Chinese officials were clearly lying about the issue of live animals that might have been disease vectors being sold there. The WSJ included a photo of a mob of body-suited cleaners busily destroying all of the evidence investigators really needed to see in March 2020, almost a year before the investigators finally got there.

U.S. officials told the Journal’s investigators the Chinese fought hard to delay the investigation as long as possible, quibbling over “every comma” in the W.H.O. resolution to authorize one. W.H.O. obligingly cut its 34-nation executive board out of the negotiations and worked out the details directly with China.

What they produced was a “terms of references” deal preserving China’s political fiction that the coronavirus might have come from another country, failing to demand inspections of Chinese laboratories, refusing to mention the possibility the Chinese coronavirus came from a Chinese lab, and giving China “veto power over who would join the team.”

China used that power to ensure the only American on the team was Dr. Peter Daszak, an acknowledged expert in zoonotic viruses who presides over a nonprofit organization that funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the very lab U.S. and other intelligence agencies suspect could be the true origin point of the Chinese coronavirus.

Even that level of veto power was not enough for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), because it blocked two of the W.H.O. investigators at the last minute in January with spurious accusations they tested positive for the coronavirus. The 13 investigators who finally made it to Wuhan were locked in quarantine for two weeks, and then reportedly controlled like laboratory mice by the CCP once their work finally began:

On Jan. 28, a year to the day from the WHO director-general’s meeting with President Xi, they were cleared to begin field visits and face-to-face meetings with Chinese counterparts. For the remainder of the trip, they were restricted mainly to one part of a hotel due to more quarantine rules and forced to eat separately from Chinese counterparts—preventing the kind of informal conversations team members said were often the most fruitful in such efforts. Their contact with anyone outside the team was limited. It soon became evident to foreign officials and scientists tracking the mission that the team’s itinerary was partly designed to bolster China’s official narrative that the government moved swiftly to control the virus. The team’s first visit was to a hospital where they met a doctor Beijing feted as the first to raise alarms through official channels about an outbreak of unknown pneumonia. The next day, after another hospital visit, the team went to an exhibition commemorating Chinese authorities’ early “decisive victory in the battle” against the virus, paying tribute to President Xi’s leadership.

“People think you can just waltz into a country, any country, and say ‘I want to see the books.’ I don’t think diplomacy works that way,” said Australian W.H.O. team member Dominic Dwyer.

W.H.O.’s stage-managed visit did include some valid scientific research by all accounts, but it culminated in a scandal so huge it rattled even the delicately diplomatic World Health Organization and the Biden administration, which was determined to reset relations with Beijing. China has refused to hand over valuable source data, including medical records and samples, dating from the early days of the coronavirus outbreak.

The Chinese told W.H.O. to take their word for what happened in and around Wuhan a year ago, presenting them with completed “analysis” from Chinese sources and refusing to let them see the original data.

The WSJ on Wednesday revealed a few previously unknown or downplayed details of this CCP stonewalling: the Chinese did not complete “some short-term tasks the team had hoped for, including detailed studies of blood samples from before December 2019 and compiling a definitive list of animals sold at the Huanan market,” and half of the Chinese team that presented its “analysis” to W.H.O. were political operatives, not scientists.

Some of that Chinese “analysis” was a pack of painfully obvious lies to boot. Some of the source data hidden from the W.H.O. team pertained to how many people were hospitalized in the Wuhan area with coronavirus-like symptoms before December 2019, the official beginning of the outbreak. The Chinese claimed there were only 92 such patients and none of them tested positive for antibodies, but they did not test for antibodies until “a few week’s before the team’s arrival,” when their samples were over a year old, and the Chinese coronavirus’s clearest symptoms are so common that it is nearly impossible for a population of almost 60 million to produce only 92 possible cases in three months.

When W.H.O. pointed these inconsistencies out to their Chinese hosts and demanded to see the source data, the response was a demand to go searching for coughs and fevers from November 2019 in other countries, to bolster the CCP’s political narrative that the coronavirus began somewhere else and was shipped to China by either frozen European seafood or sweaty American soldiers.

Another confrontation reportedly occurred when W.H.O. asked to test frozen blood samples from the winter of 2019 kept at a Wuhan blood bank, reasoning that if the Chinese coronavirus was spreading through the area before December, it might show up in some of the frozen specimens. The Chinese refused, claiming they have regulations against such testing, even though W.H.O. noted every other country in the world permits it, and one would think any competent blood bank would be eager to know if its frozen blood donations contained one of the most devastating viruses in human history.

The W.H.O. team got to spend all of three hours at the notorious Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is less time than cops would spend investigating a stolen bicycle, and much of that time was spent watching “presentations on the institute’s research, safety procedures, and the health of its staff.”

This was somehow good enough for the W.H.O. team to “unanimously” agree with a panel of CCP scientists that the institute was “unlikely” to be the source of the virus, a conclusion W.H.O. has been curiously reluctant to stand by since it was first announced. The WSJ article concluded by quoting Dr. Dywer admitting that his team did not see any “actual data” at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but wistfully hoping the Chinese might get around to providing it someday.

As far as the CCP and its state media are concerned, it is case closed in Wuhan. The state-run Global Times on Wednesday ran an interview with lead Chinese scientist Liang Wannian that was fronted by a comical “infographic” explaining why no one needs to ask any further questions about the Wuhan Institute of Virology, ever.

Laing said W.H.O.’s controversial visit to Wuhan was good enough, even though “the Covid-19 [Chinese coronavirus] outbreak remains an unsolved mystery.” He praised the hard-working Chinese scientists who prepared the analyses given to W.H.O. in lieu of actual data and samples, and accused foreign “politicians and media” who doubted China’s conclusions of “politicizing the scientific issue of tracing the source of COVID-19, regardless of scientific facts, for their own personal gain.”

Liang simply denied the documented fact that China refused to hand over source data to W.H.O. investigators and said there were no “conflicts” between China and foreign investigators at all.

“As for the original data of some cases, due to the privacy of patients, according to Chinese laws, we cannot let the international experts copy and take it out of the country, which they fully understood,” he claimed.

“After their field visits and study, the experts team agreed unanimously that it is extremely unlikely that the virus leaked from the [Wuhan] lab, so future virus origins-tracing missions will no longer be focused on this area, unless there is new evidence,” Liang concluded.",0.3704796787285778
"Russian President Vladimir Putin urged American counterpart Joe Biden to “stay healthy!” after reporters asked him Thursday to respond to Biden’s comments calling Putin a “killer.”

Biden made the remark in an interview with ABC News published Wednesday.

“He will pay a price,” Biden said of Putin in response to a question about reports of potential attempts by the Russian state to meddle in American politics. “We had a long talk, he and I, when we — I know him relatively well. And the conversation started off, I said, ‘I know you and you know me. If I establish this occurred, then be prepared.'”

Interviewer and former Democrat Party operative George Stephanopoulos asked Biden, “So you know Vladimir Putin. You think he’s a killer?”

Biden responded, “Mmm hmm, I do.”

Biden did not elaborate on any “price” he would make the Russian autocrat “pay.”

Putin responded to the interview the next day.

“As far as statements by my U.S. counterpart are concerned. What would I say to him in response? I would tell him: ‘Stay healthy!’ I wish him good health,” Putin said, according to Russian news agency TASS, which added that Putin insisted there was “not a hint of irony” in his well-wishing.

The Russian government in general reacted much more abrasively to the remarks.

“I would refrain from giving a wordy comment on that,” Putin’s presidential spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters Thursday during his regular briefing. “I will say one thing: these are very bad remarks on the part of the U.S. president.”

Peskov added that “nothing like that has ever happened before,” referring to Biden’s comments, and similarly described the bilateral relationship between America and Russia as “very bad,” without elaborating.

Moscow recalled its ambassador to the United States and several other diplomats in light of the remarks, though in announcing the move, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova did not specify why the envoys returned home. Zakharova, like Peskov, stated only that the relationship between the two countries was in a “difficult state” and at a “dead end,” blaming the United States exclusively for this situation.

Biden’s rhetoric on Russia has not yet yielded any significant policy hindrances for Putin’s regime. As ABC News noted in its summary of the Stephanopoulos interview, Biden’s vow that Putin would “pay” for international crimes was not accompanied by any specific action. Biden’s most significant policy move with Russia was to agree to a five-year extension of the New START arms control treaty, which Moscow was eagerly urging. The Putin regime had asked the prior administration of Donald Trump for a one-year extension that Trump rejected on the grounds the treaty was antiquated and that, without including China, it did little to prevent arms proliferation. Biden added four years to the Russian request and approved it almost immediately after taking office.

The concession to Putin reportedly occurred during Biden’s first phone call with the Russian leader, the “long talk” Biden alluded to in his talk with Stephanopoulos. No reports have indicated Moscow conceded anything to Washington in exchange for the deal.

Stephanopoulos’s reference to Putin as a “killer” referred to several high-profile incidents of opponents to the Putin regime suffering unexplained or mysterious illnesses later identified as poisonings. Some of those poisonings were the product of a chemical weapon known as “Novichok,” used almost exclusively by the Russian government.

The most recent example of such an attempted assassination is the case of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who fell ill and was forced into a medically mandated coma in August while on a visit to Siberia. Navalny’s team flew him to Germany, where doctors found “unequivocal proof” of the use of Novichok to kill him. Navalny himself, following his recovery, claimed that he convinced a Russian intelligence agent to confess to an assassination plot against him.

The Russian government denied poisoning Navalny and immediately arrested him upon his return to Russia. He remains in a penal colony at press time.

Medical professionals also identified Novichok as the agent behind the 2018 poisoning of foreign Russian official Sergei Skripal and daughter Yulia, which reportedly occurred in the United Kingdom. The incident, if proven to have been Putin’s doing, would be a case of the use of chemical weapons on foreign soil and, some observers asserted, an act of war. The elder Skripal served as a double agent for both Moscow and London. The Putin regime blamed unspecified “Western” actors for the poisoning.

The Russian government is also believed to have been behind the poisoning of yet another political opponent, former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, while he campaigned against pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych in 2004. Yushchenko was reportedly poisoned by dioxin, disfiguring his face and causing significant pain and swelling. Yushchenko survived the attack, won the presidential election, and blamed Putin for trying to kill him.

Unlike Yushchenko, former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko did not survive severe radiation poisoning after falling ill in 2006. Doctors found the cause of Litvinenko’s death to be the use of polonium-210, a highly radioactive substance. Investigators traced the substance to tea that he drank during a meeting with an allegedly former Russian government agent.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.",-2.294936799316016
"In China, the problem doesn’t seem to be a shortage of vaccine

China urges unhurried public to get vaccinated against COVIDThe Associated PressBEIJING

BEIJING (AP) — In China, the problem doesn’t seem to be a shortage of vaccine. Rather, with the COVID-19 outbreak largely under control at home, not enough people want to get the shot.

Chinese health officials appealed to the public Sunday to get inoculated. They also said that with vaccination not a guarantee against infection they would still require anyone arriving in China to quarantine for 14 days, even if they have received a vaccine.

“China will continue the current prevention control measures to prevent imported cases and rebound of domestic cases,” Feng Zijian, the deputy director general of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a news conference.

Through Saturday, nearly 75 million vaccine doses have been given, the country’s National Health Commission said. The number of people inoculated would be less, as some people have taken two shots.

China, with 1.4 billion people, has a much lower rate of vaccination than many other countries.

“Many people mistakenly think there is no practical meaning to be vaccinated because the epidemic situation is under effective control and the virus is far away from us,” He Qinghua, a National Health Commission official, said at the same news conference.

He warned that no one is immune to the disease, and that with the pandemic still ravaging other parts of the world, imported cases could trigger fresh outbreaks in China.

Chinese officials want to get enough people vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. Because the outbreak was not widespread in China, a relatively small proportion of the population acquired immunity through past infection, He said. Mainland China has reported 90,099 cases during the pandemic.

“Now that we have vaccines, we must let more people get immunity and protection through inoculation,” He said. “I once again suggest that people get vaccinated as soon as possible so as to acquire immunity.”

The relatively low rate of vaccination in China was one reason Feng cited for maintaining the current measures for overseas arrivals. He also noted concerns about how effective vaccines are against new variants of the virus.

China itself has had a vaccinated person get infected, its only recent case of domestic spread of the coronavirus.

Wang Huaqing, an immunization expert at China’s CDC, said that vaccines have failed to prevent infection in a small number or cases. He said the recent case is being studied to try to determine why the vaccine failed.",0.13765127707568642
"New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is facing allegations that he sexually harassed or behaved inappropriately toward several women who have worked with him

A look at Cuomo aides’ sexual harassment allegations The Associated PressNEW YORK

NEW YORK (AP) — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is facing allegations that he sexually harassed or behaved inappropriately toward women who worked with him — now including two current staffers in his office. One of them, Alyssa McGrath, came forward Friday in a report in The New York Times.

The accusations range from groping under a woman’s shirt and planting unwanted kisses to asking unwelcome personal questions about sex and dating.

The Democratic governor has said he “never touched anyone inappropriately” and “never made any inappropriate advances” and that “no one ever told me at the time that I made them feel uncomfortable.” He has called some allegations false.

Cuomo has also suggested that he was simply being an old-school politician in greeting people with hugs and kisses but that “sensitivities” have changed.

Here’s a look at some of the workplace allegations, in the order they became public:

LINDSEY BOYLAN, 36, a former state economic development adviser, says the governor kissed her on the lips as she was leaving a one-on-one meeting in his office and suggested playing strip poker on a state plane. Cuomo says both stories are false. Among her other allegations: Cuomo summoned her alone to his office after a holiday party and made what she took to be a reference to former President Bill Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The governor also sent Valentine’s Day roses to Boylan and other female staffers, she said.

CHARLOTTE BENNETT, 25, a former Cuomo aide, said the governor asked her about her love life — including whether she ever had sex with older men — and talked about his own, saying that age differences didn’t matter in relationships and he was open to dating women over 22. During a meeting alone in his office, the governor said he was lonely and talked about wanting to hug someone, Bennett said. She said she swiftly complained to Cuomo’s chief of staff and was transferred to another job. She said she spoke to a lawyer for the governor, but didn’t insist on further action because she liked her new post and wanted to move on.

ANA LISS, 35, a former aide, said Cuomo asked her whether she had a boyfriend, once kissed her hand at her desk and called her by patronizing names, including “blondie,” “sweetheart” and “honey.” At a reception, the governor hugged her then put his arm around her lower back and waist as they posed for photo, Liss said. She said she eventually asked for a job transfer. In an interview, Liss said she was “not claiming sexual harassment per se,” but felt the administration “wasn’t a safe space for young women to work.”

KAREN HINTON, who worked for Cuomo when he was Clinton’s federal housing secretary in the 1990s, said Cuomo gave her an overly long and intimate hug after calling her to his hotel room for a conversation that turned to personal topics on a trip where she was serving as a consultant to the housing agency. Cuomo said Hinton’s account was “not true.”

A MEMBER OF CUOMO’S STAFF alleged that he closed a door, reached under her blouse and fondled her after summoning her to the governor’s mansion in Albany for help with his cellphone, according to the Times Union of Albany. The newspaper didn’t name the woman, who said that she told Cuomo to stop groping her and that he had touched and flirted with her previously.

The Times Union’s reporting is based on an unidentified source with direct knowledge of the woman’s accusation.

The woman recently told a supervisor, and at least one of her bosses reported the allegation to a lawyer for the governor this month, according to the newspaper.

Cuomo called the report “gut-wrenching” in a statement and said: “I have never done anything like this.”

ALYSSA McGRATH, 33, a current administrative assistant in Cuomo’s office, told The New York Times that he looked down her shirt, quizzed her about her marital status, and told her she was beautiful, using an Italian phrase she had to ask her parents to interpret.

McGrath didn’t say the governor made sexual contact with her but thought his behavior was sexual harassment. She recalled Cuomo kissing her on the forehead and gripping her firmly around the sides while posing for a photo at a 2019 office Christmas party.

Cuomo lawyer Rita Glavin responded by reiterating his denials of inappropriate advances and touching. She told the Times he has greeted both men and women with hugs and kisses on the cheek, has put his arm around people for photos and uses such Italian phrases as “ciao bella” (“hi, beautiful” or “’bye, beautiful”), though she said he didn’t say that to McGrath.

“None of this is remarkable, although it may be old-fashioned,” Glavin added.",0.41210797322215725
"Students, parents and teachers in Germany have been caught in the middle as authorities in the country take different and sometimes contradictory approaches to opening or closing schools in the pandemic

Teachers lament ‘chaotic’ virus rules in German schoolsBy FRANK JORDANSAssociated PressThe Associated PressBERLIN

BERLIN (AP) — Under pressure to ease Germany’s virus restrictions, officials last month agreed to gradually reopen schools. Confirmed COVID-19 cases started climbing again, leading some states to backtrack while others pressed on and insisted that in-class teaching must be the rule.

Caught in the middle are students, parents and teachers such as Michael Gromotka, whose plans to teach art to his year 7-9 students were upended last week when the state of Berlin nixed their return to school after months of remote learning.

“It was all very chaotic,” Gromotka said. “We got less than a week’s notice.”

Gromotka, who is married to a fellow teacher and has a child in primary school, says the back and forth reflects the absence of a coherent strategy in Germany for how to safely keep schools open.

Authorities in Berlin purchased about 1,900 air filters that experts say will reduce the risk of the virus spreading throughout classrooms. But the available number is only enough to supply each of the capital’s 900 schools with about two devices.

Berlin’s online teaching platform is so overloaded during the day that some elementary school students must wait until 6:30 p.m. to have their video lessons. More reliable commercial systems were rejected over privacy concerns.

And while Berlin now offers free tests for staff and students, there is no requirement for anybody to take them before going to school.

“Teachers are incredibly worried,” Gromotka told The Associated Press.

He launched a petition demanding that secondary school teachers be given priority when it comes to getting coronavirus vaccines, arguing that they deserve the same protection as elementary school and kindergarten teachers because of the large number of students they come into contact with each week.

Like other educators, Gromotka says officials have failed to learn the right lessons more than a year into the pandemic.

Figures published by Germany’s disease control agency, the Robert Koch Institute, show the number of weekly confirmed cases among under-15s more than doubled over the past month as more children returned to schools and kindergartens.

The proposal to prioritize all teachers for vaccinations, like Italy is doing, has gained support from some education unions.

“We can’t pretend that schools are isolated from the rest of society,” said Juergen Boehm, who chairs VDR, an association representing certain secondary school teachers across Germany.

The former principal says it’s nearly impossible to police mask-wearing and social distancing rules in school hallways and buses, and that giving all of the country’s 1 million teachers the shots to protect them from COVID-19 would mean “far fewer problems.”

Likewise, Boehm backs a system of regular compulsory testing — if necessary, with help from the Red Cross or the army — and a firm threshold for reverting to online teaching in regions that top 100 new weekly cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

Many counties and cities already exceed that limit, which Chancellor Angela Merkel and Germany’s 16 state governors agreed should trigger an “emergency brake” on looser restrictions. But several states have insisted that schools must nevertheless remain open, arguing that it is in children’s best interest to go to school.

As Merkel meets again with governors Monday to discuss extending the lockdown measures, some state officials are suggesting the threshold for closing schools and kindergartens should be as high as 200 newly confirmed cases a week per 100,000 inhabitants.

So far the government has said there’s little it can do under Germany’s federal system to enforce nationwide rules for schools. As in the United States, education policy is largely the purview of Germany’s 16 states.

Boehm says he supports the principle of local control of schools but thinks there needs to be a clear rule for all in a situation like the pandemic.

Lothar Wieler, the head of the Robert Koch Institute, said earlier this month that from an infection control perspective, “closing (schools) would of course be a good step.”

But he acknowledged that factors other than medical concerns should be considered, too, and said in-class teaching could continue if “intelligent plans” were put in place to ensure it was safe.

The institute has proposed how that could be done with rigorous testing, mask-wearing and hygiene policies that would significantly reduce the risk of infection.

“It just needs to be implemented,” Wieler said.

Amid growing fears among weary parents that schools will be closed again soon, the federal government recently boosted funding for school test kits but refrained from imposing rules for how to use them.

“It’s the responsibility of the states to organize this,” Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said.

Germany’s minister for families, Franziska Giffey, said Monday that kindergarten children should also be tested regularly, given the rising cases there. She suggested parents should be responsible testing their own children.

Gromotka said teachers want schools to be safe and reliable however that is accomplished, but that a clear testing strategy and vaccinating all teachers would be good ways to start.

“Otherwise I fear that schools will soon have to close again, and that would be terrible for everyone involved,” he said.

___

Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic, https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak.",0.17266835918119475
"The European Union imposed sanctions on four Chinese officials accused of responsibility for abuses against Uyghur Muslims

EU slaps sanctions on 4 Chinese officials over Uyghur abusesBy LORNE COOKAssociated PressThe Associated PressBRUSSELS

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union imposed Monday sanctions on four Chinese officials accused of responsibility for abuses against Uyghur Muslims, part of a raft of measures targeting alleged human rights offenders around the world and provoking retaliation from Beijing.

The four are senior officials in the northwest region of Xinjiang.

The sanctions involve a freeze on the officials’ assets and a ban on them traveling in the bloc. European citizens and companies are not permitted to provide them with financial assistance.

China at first denied the existence of camps for detaining Uyghurs in Xinjiang but has since described them as centers to provide job training and to reeducate those exposed to radical jihadi thinking. Officials deny all charges of human rights abuses there.

Xinjiang had been a hotbed of anti-government violence, but Beijing claims its massive security crackdown brought peace in recent years.

China’s Foreign Ministry responded immediately, denouncing the sanctions as “based on nothing but lies and disinformation” and issuing its own retaliatory measures.

The ministry announced sanctions against 10 individuals and four institutions that it said had damaged China’s interests and “maliciously spread lies and disinformation.” They and their family members would be barred from entering mainland China, Hong Kong or Macao and cut off from financial dealings with those areas, the ministry said.

Among those targeted was Adrian Zenz, a U.S.-based German scholar who has publicized abuses against minority groups in China’s western regions of Tibet and Xinjiang. China has said companies and individuals have petitioned to sue Zenz, but it wasn’t clear who the plaintiffs were or how they would pursue legal action across borders.

Others targeted for sanctions include five members of the European Parliament: Reinhard Butikofer, Michael Gahler, Raphael Glucksmann, Ilhan Kyuchyuk and Miriam Lexmann.

The ministry did not say what specific measures would be taken against the organizations. They were listed as the Political and Security Committee of the Council of the European Union, where the 27 national envoys decide foreign and security policy; the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights; the German-based Mercator Institute for China Studies; and the Alliance of Democracies Foundation in Denmark.

Last week, China’s ambassador to the EU, Zhang Ming, had warned that Beijing would retaliate.

“We want dialogue, not confrontation. We ask the EU side to think twice. If some insist on confrontation, we will not back down, as we have no options other than fulfilling our responsibilities to the people in our country,” he said.

The new EU sanction system is similar to the Magnitsky Act — Obama-era legislation that authorizes the U.S. government to sanction those it sees as human rights offenders, freeze their assets and ban them from entering the United States.

EU foreign ministers, as part of Monday’s move, also imposed sanctions over repression in North Korea, “extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in Libya, torture and repression against LGBTI people and political opponents in Chechnya in Russia, and torture, extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and killings in South Sudan and Eritrea,” a statement said.

___

Christopher Bodeen in Beijing contributed to this report.",-0.5092112730817004
"Turkey’s weekly regional COVID-19 figures keep increasing as the country keeps relaxed restrictions in place for now

Infections continue to climb in Turkey amid relaxed measuresThe Associated PressISTANBUL

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey’s weekly regional COVID-19 figures keep increasing as the country keeps relaxed restrictions in place for now.

Health ministry statistics released late Saturday showed the rate of infection as more than 251 cases per 100,000 in Istanbul, the country’s largest city — up 41% since last week. That means about 40,000 new infections in Istanbul alone, which has quadrupled from numbers first released six weeks ago.

The government has divided its 81 provinces into four risk categories and said it would evaluate restrictions at a local level every two weeks. The latest figures show many cities turning “very high-risk” or “high risk.”

Turkey’s president announced this week that relaxed restrictions, like in-restaurant dining and reduced curfews, would continue “for some more time” despite rising infections, but said tougher measures could be brought back.

According to measures announced in early March, weekend curfews remained in place in “very high-risk” cities and Sunday lockdowns continued in “high risk” cities. Restaurants are open for indoor and outdoor dining in all the categories other than “very high-risk,” and nighttime curfews are applied across the country.

The seven-day average of infections across the country has climbed over 18,000, hitting daily rates last seen in December. The number of patients in critical care and deaths are also rising. The total reported death toll in Turkey is 29,959.

Facing an economic downturn, the government has been under pressure from business owners to resume operations during the pandemic.

___

Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at:

https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine

https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak",0.12059374720150652
"Local bars and halls run by Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion posts have fallen on hard times during the coronavirus pandemic

A year into pandemic, veterans halls ‘barely hanging’ onBy PHILIP MARCELOAssociated PressThe Associated PressNEW BEDFORD, Mass.

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (AP) — Paul Guilbeault knew the writing was on the wall for the last Veterans of Foreign Wars post in this city south of Boston when businesses across Massachusetts were ordered to close as the coronavirus pandemic took hold last March.

Within six months, the 90-year-old Korean War vet was proven right. VFW Post 3260 in New Bedford, a chapter of the national fraternity of war vets established in 1935, had surrendered its charter and sold the hall to a church.

“The economic shutdown is what killed us,” said Guilbeault, who has overseen the post’s finances for years. “There’s no way in the world that we could make it. A lot of these posts are barely hanging on. Most don’t make a huge profit.”

Local bars and halls run by VFW and American Legion posts — those community staples where vets commiserate over beers and people celebrate weddings and other milestones — were already struggling when the pandemic hit. After years of declining membership, restrictions meant to slow the spread of COVID-19 became a death blow for many.

The closures have added to the misery from a pandemic that’s hit military veterans hard. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs recently estimated the death toll in its facilities alone was approaching 11,000.

In many states, veterans posts were ordered to close like other bars and event halls last spring. Their supporters argued that the spaces serve a greater community purpose than their for-profit counterparts and should have been allowed to reopen sooner.

They say many posts quickly pivoted their community service efforts to respond to the pandemic. In Lakeview, Michigan, VFW Post 3701 made hundreds of masks for workers and operated blood drives with the Red Cross. In Queens, New York, American Legion Post 483 ran a food pantry that fed thousands. And posts from Connecticut to North Carolina have been hosting vaccine registration drives and clinics.

The closure of some halls and bars also means vets dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder and other wartime trauma have lost a critical safe space amid an isolating pandemic, leaders say.

“They can talk about things here that happened to them in the war that they’d never say to their psychiatrist or even their families,” said Harold Durr, commander of American Legion Post 1 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Like a number of posts nationwide, Durr says his facility qualified for federal and local pandemic relief, though most of it could only be used to cover employee salaries, not utilities and other expenses.

He says the shuttered post, which includes a bar and hall, has largely relied on donations to pay monthly costs.

“We’ve had a rough go,” says the 75-year-old Navy vet, who served in the Vietnam War. “But we’ve got to stay open. We’ve existed for 100 years. There’s no way we can let it close.”

How many vets halls and bars have permanently shuttered or risk closure because of the pandemic is hard to quantify.

The national VFW and American Legion organizations say the number of posts that dissolved completely last year was at or lower than prior years. But the organizations say they do not track bars and halls because they are locally controlled.

Many posts, they say, do not run halls or bars. Still, both organizations launched emergency grant programs last fall, doling out thousands of dollars to hundreds of posts to help cover facility costs and other expenses.

“A post could conceivably lose these things and still continue as a post,” said John Raughter, spokesman for the Indianapolis-based American Legion.

Some facilities have found workarounds to keep bringing in money, which goes to a wide range of community work, from hosting free lunches for disabled veterans to sponsoring high school ROTC programs and offering free gathering space for Scout troops and other groups.

Members of the VFW Post 2718 on Long Island, New York, have been dipping into reserves and organizing fundraisers until they can fully reopen their hall. Their next effort is a first-time Mother’s Day plant sale, said John McManamy, a former post commander.

In Massachusetts, the New Bedford post is the only one that’s dissolved for pandemic-related reasons so far, but the state risks losing some 20% of its VFW buildings if they are forced to remain closed into the crucial summer months, said Bill LeBeau, head of the VFW Massachusetts, which oversees local posts.

Closing VFW Post 3260 in the historic fishing port city some 60 miles (97 kilometers) south of Boston has been bittersweet for longtime members.

Dennis Pelletier, a 75-year-old Marine who served in Vietnam, had his wedding reception at the hall in 1967, the year it opened. He’s been a dues-paying member pretty much ever since.

“It’s been a part of my whole adult life,” Pelletier said. “It’s been a second home at times.”

But like VFW posts nationwide, the New Bedford hall struggled to draw new members. In the ’60s, it had more than 1,000 paying members; by last year, it had roughly 100, the majority in their 70s and 80s.

“The stigma of just being a bar is hard to overcome,” said Delfino Garcia, the post’s last commander. “Younger vets want something different. You’ve got to be more family-oriented. You’ve got to make it more hospitable. VFWs are struggling to adapt to that new reality.”

Guilbeault, who joined the post in 1956 after serving in the Air Force, has no regrets about winding things down.

With mortgage payments and other bills mounting, he had put in more than $5,000 of his own savings in those final days. He eventually recouped the money when the building’s sale was finalized in September, and the remaining profits went to the state VFW.

“In a way, it’s been a blessing to let it go,” Guilbeault said. “If we’d kept going, we’d still be closed. There was no sense keeping it open. All we were doing was accumulating debt, debt, debt, debt.”",1.9247352000639915
"March 22 (UPI) — Select college prospects and a limited number of fans will be allowed to attend the 2021 NFL Draft in Cleveland, the league announced Monday.

The 2021 NFL Draft runs April 29 to May 1 at FirstEnergy Stadium, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Great Lakes Science Center. All three days of the event will be broadcast on NFL Network, ESPN and ABC.

The live draft follows the unprecedented 2020 NFL Draft, which was planned to be in Las Vegas, but took place in a virtual fashion as a safety precaution for the coronavirus pandemic.

The 2020 NFL Draft featured prospects and fans watching from off-site locations while NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced draft selections from the basement of his Bronxville, N.Y., home.

Some prospects who don’t attend the 2021 event will participate remotely from their homes around the United States. NFL team personnel will be allowed to gather in respective draft rooms at locations “of their choosing,” the league said in a news release.

“We are thrilled to be heading to Cleveland for the NFL Draft, which has become one of the most highly-anticipated events in sports” said Peter O’Reilly, the NFL’s executive vice president of club business and league events.

“Just months after executing a safe and successful Super Bowl LV, we look forward to bringing the excitement of our draft traditions to fans in collaboration with the Browns, Destination Cleveland, Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, the city of Cleveland, and all of our local Cleveland partners.”

The 2021 NFL Draft also will feature fans designated by each of the 32 teams as “draft ambassadors.” Those fans will sit in an “inner circle” section and must be fully vaccinated and wear masks.

The NFL Draft Experience — the league’s interactive football theme park — also will be free and open to the public around FirstEnergy Stadium, but will have a limited capacity.

“We greatly appreciate the continued collaboration by the NFL, local and state government officials and medical experts who are all focused on creating a memorable and safe experience, Dee and Jimmy Haslam, who own the Cleveland Browns, said in a statement.

“We are also extremely encouraged by the state of Ohio’s vaccination rates and advancements that are allowing us to make the progress needed to return to a safe and more normal environment.",1.1715555820061057
"A man who survived the shooting that killed his wife at a Georgia massage business last week said police held him in handcuffs for four hours after the attack

Shooting victim’s husband says police detained him for hoursBy KATE BRUMBACKAssociated PressThe Associated PressATLANTA

ATLANTA (AP) — A man who survived the shooting that killed his wife at an Atlanta-area massage business last week said police treated him badly, detaining him in handcuffs for four hours after the attack.

Mario Gonzalez said he was held in a patrol car outside the spa. The revelation, in an interview with Mundo Hispanico, a Spanish-language news website, follows other criticism of Cherokee County officials investigating the March 16 attack, which killed four people. Four others were killed about an hour later at two spas in Atlanta.

Gonzalez’s accusation would also mean that he remained detained after police released security video images of the suspected gunman and after authorities captured him 150 miles south of Atlanta. He questioned whether his treatment by authorities was because he’s Mexican.

The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Monday.

Robert Aaron Long, a 21-year-old white man, is accused of shooting five people, including Gonzalez’s wife Delaina Ashley Yaun, at the first crime scene near Woodstock, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Atlanta. One man was wounded. In all, seven of slain victims were women, six of them of Asian descent.

Cherokee sheriff’s Capt. Jay Baker was removed as spokesman for the case after telling reporters the day after the shootings that Long had “a really bad day” and “this is what he did.” A Facebook page appearing to belong to Baker promoted a T-shirt with racist language about China and the coronavirus last year.

Sheriff Frank Reynolds released a statement acknowledging that some of Baker’s comments stirred “much debate and anger” and said the agency regretted any “heartache” caused by his words.

Gonzalez and Yaun, 33, had gotten a babysitter for their infant daughter and went to Youngs Asian Massage to relax. They were in separate rooms inside when the gunman opened fire.

Gonzalez heard the gunshots and worried about his wife but was too afraid to open the door, he told Mundo Hispanico in a video interview. Deputies arrived within minutes. Gonzalez said they put him in hand cuffs and detained him for about four hours, according to the website.

“They had me in the patrol car the whole time they were investigating who was responsible, who exactly did this,” Gonzalez said in the video.

During the interview with Mundo Hispanico, Gonzalez showed marks on his wrists from handcuffs. “I don’t know whether it’s because of the law or because I’m Mexican. The simple truth is that they treated me badly,” he said.

“Only when they finally confirmed I was her husband, did they tell me that she was dead,” he said. “I wanted to know earlier.”

Left alone to raise their daughter and his wife’s teenage son, Gonzalez said the shooter took “the most important thing I have in my life.”

“He deserves to die, just like the others did,” Gonzalez said.

Authorities have said the shooting in Cherokee County happened around 5 p.m., and just after 6:30 p.m. the sheriff’s office posted on Facebook still images from a surveillance camera showing a suspect in the parking lot outside. Reynolds said Long’s family recognized him from those images and gave investigators his cellphone information, which they used to track him.

Crisp County Sheriff Billy Hancock said in a video posted on Facebook that night that his deputies and state troopers were notified around 8 p.m. that the suspect was headed their way. Deputies and troopers set up along the interstate and saw the black 2007 Hyundai Tucson around 8:30 p.m. A trooper performed a maneuver that caused the vehicle to spin out of control, and Long was taken into custody.

___

Associated Press writer Michael Warren contributed to this report.",-0.43243716557953465
"Saudi Arabia has announced a plan to offer Yemen’s Houthi rebels a cease-fire in the country’s yearslong war and allow a major airport to reopen in its capital

Saudi Arabia offers cease-fire plan to Yemen rebelsBy JON GAMBRELL and ISABEL DEBREAssociated PressThe Associated PressDUBAI, United Arab Emirates

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia announced a plan Monday to offer Yemen’s Houthi rebels a cease-fire in the country’s yearslong war and allow a major airport to reopen in its capital, the kingdom’s latest attempt to halt fighting that has sparked the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in the Arab world’s poorest nation.

The move by Saudi Arabia comes after Yemen’s Houthi rebels stepped up a campaign of drone and missile attacks targeting the kingdom’s oil sites, briefly shaking global energy prices amid the coronavirus pandemic. It also comes as Riyadh tries to rehabilitate its image with the U.S. under President Joe Biden. Saudi Arabia has waged a war that saw it internationally criticized for airstrikes killing civilians and embargoes exacerbating hunger in a nation on the brink of famine.

Whether such a plan will take hold remains another question. A unilaterally declared Saudi cease-fire collapsed last year. Fighting rages around the crucial city of Marib and the Saudi-led coalition launched airstrikes as recently as Sunday targeting Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. A United Nations mission said another suspected airstrike hit a food-production company in the port city of Hodeida.

“It is up to the Houthis now,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan told journalists in a televised news conference in Riyadh. “The Houthis must decide whether to put their interests first or Iran’s interests first.”

A senior Houthi official, who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity under regulations, said the rebels had been aware of the proposal and in direct communication with the Saudis, as well as Omani interlocutors. However, he said the Saudis needed to do more to see a cease-fire implemented.

Saudi Arabia said the plan would be presented both to the Houthis and Yemen’s internationally recognized government later Monday. Both would need to accept the plan for it to move forward, with any timeline likely to be set by U.N. Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths.

Saudi Arabia made two concessions to the Houthis in the plan, while not offering everything the rebels previously wanted. The first involves reopening Sanaa International Airport, a vital link for Yemen to the outside world that hasn’t seen regular commercial flights since 2015. Officials did not immediately identify what commercial routes they wanted to see resume.

The second would see taxes, customs and other fees generated by Yemen’s Hodeida port while importing oil put into a joint account of Yemen’s Central Bank. That money would be accessible to the Houthis and Yemen’s recognized government to pay civil servants and fund other programs, officials said.

The Saudi government and the Yemeni government they back have accused the Houthis of stealing those funds in the past. A U.N. panel of experts’ report this year said the Houthis “diverted” some $200 million from that fund.

“Only a small portion of the funds were used to pay salaries,” the report said.

Whether the Houthis accept the Saudi proposal remains in question. On Friday, Houthi leader Mohammed Ali al-Houthi proposed a nationwide cease-fire contingent upon Saudi Arabia reopening Sanaa’s airport to commercial flights and lifting restrictions on cargo shipments to Hodeida. The port there handles the majority of the country’s vital imports. Both are long-standing demands of the Houthis, who swept into Sanaa from their northwestern strongholds in September 2014.

“There is nothing new about the Saudi initiative,” another senior Houthi official told the AP on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. “First, the airport and the port must both be opened.”

A Saudi-led coalition entered Yemen’s war in March 2015 as the Houthis threatened to take Yemen’s port city of Aden and completely overrun the country’s internationally recognized government. The Saudis promised the offensive — the brainchild of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — would be over in short order.

Six years later, the fighting rages on. The war has killed some 130,000 people, including over 13,000 civilians slain in targeted attacks, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Project. Tens of thousands of children have died of starvation and disease. Just last week, Griffiths warned that “the war is back in full force.”

Yemen’s internationally recognized government praised the Saudi initiative as an effort to “ease the suffering of the Yemeni people.” But in a statement, its Foreign Affairs Ministry also warned that the Houthis had “met all previous initiatives with obstinacy” and had “worked to deepen the humanitarian crisis.”

Since Biden took office, his administration reversed a decision by President Donald Trump naming the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization, allowing American aid to flow into rebel-held territory. He also ended U.S. support for the Saudis in the war.

Biden sent the U.S. envoy for Yemen, Tim Lenderking, to the region to negotiate a political settlement. Lenderking said earlier this month that the Houthis had an unspecified cease-fire proposal before them for a “number of days,” without elaborating. He reportedly met with Houthi officials while on a February trip to Oman, something the State Department has declined to acknowledge.

In a statement, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had spoken to the Saudi foreign minister about the war in Yemen.

Blinken supports efforts “to end the conflict in Yemen, starting with the need for all parties to commit to a cease-fire and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid,” the statement said.

___

Associated Press writers Ahmed al-Haj in Sanaa, Yemen, and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.",1.0075453493308906
"Former President Donald Trump has endorsed a conservative Georgia congressman in his bid to unseat the Republican secretary of state who refused to help overturn the November election results

Trump endorses challenger against Georgia elections chiefBy BILL BARROW and JILL COLVINAssociated PressThe Associated PressATLANTA

ATLANTA (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Monday endorsed a conservative Georgia congressman in his bid to unseat the Republican secretary of state who refused to help overturn the November election results.

Rep. Jody Hice, a tea party favorite and Trump acolyte, is the first major challenger to Brad Raffensperger since the secretary of state certified President Joe Biden’s narrow victory in Georgia and disputed Trump’s false allegations of fraud.

Trump’s endorsement marks his most direct attempt at retribution against those he blames for his loss and reaffirms his continued influence over the Republican Party.

“Jody has been a steadfast fighter for conservative Georgia values and is a staunch ally of the America First agenda,” Trump said in a statement that repeated the unsupported allegations of fraud. “Unlike the current Georgia Secretary of State, Jody leads out front with integrity. I have 100% confidence in Jody to fight for Free, Fair, and Secure Elections in Georgia, in line with our beloved U.S. Constitution.”

Raffensperger declined comment through a spokesperson.

Hice didn’t mention Trump in his announcement but has said previously that he expected the former president’s support. Trump has said separately that he also wants to help defeat Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, another Republican, in 2022.

“Every Georgian, in fact every American, has the right to be outraged by the actions and, simultaneously, the inaction of our Secretary of State,” Hice said in a statement Monday.

The former president has made clear his intentions to target Raffensperger and Kemp, also a Republican, for their parts in ratifying Biden’s victory.

“I’ll be here in a year in a half campaigning against your governor and your crazy secretary of state,” Trump said at a Georgia rally on Jan. 4, the eve of two Senate runoffs that Democrats swept to win control of the chamber.

Both Kemp and Raffensperger have said they were simply following the state’s election law and fulfilling their required duties.

The developments Monday drew immediate plaudits from the right.

“The establishment still doesn’t get how popular Trump is with the base, but they will,” said Debbie Dooley, an early tea party organizer and Trump ally who is close to Hice. “We’ve known Raffensperger was dead, and Jody can excite the base and raise money. This is a serious challenge.”

No heavyweight primary opponent has emerged yet against Kemp. Some Georgia Republicans are looking to former Rep. Doug Collins as Trump conservatives’ ideal challenger. But those close to Collins, one of Trump’s most high-profile House defenders during impeachment proceedings, say he is more likely to make another bid for the Senate after his unsuccessful campaign last year in a special election ultimately won by Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat.

Collins was Trump’s choice in 2019 for a Senate vacancy, opened by Republican Johnny Isakson’s retirement. But Kemp opted for Kelly Loeffler. Collins finished third in a jungle primary behind Warnock and Loeffler last November before Warnock prevailed in a runoff.

Hice has not cut as high a profile since his election in 2014 as Collins did, but the 60-year-old has been a loyal Trump lieutenant. He was part of a group of Republican officials in Georgia who relentlessly pushed Trump’s false claims of voter fraud last fall. He endorsed a lawsuit filed by Texas against Georgia and other battleground states seeking to overturn Biden’s victory in the U.S. Supreme Court — a suit the high court rejected — and he objected to the certification of Electoral College votes even after a pro-Trump mob violently stormed the U.S. Capitol. ___

Associated Press reporter Ben Nadler contributed to this story.",-0.03622480266363153
"Stocks were slightly higher in early trading Monday as a modest drop in bond yields was helping lift the broader market

Stocks rise slightly as investors closely watch bond marketThe Associated PressThe Associated Press

Stocks were slightly higher in morning trading Monday as a modest drop in bond yields was helping lift the broader market. Technology stocks were among the better performers, while banks fell.

The S&P 500 index was up 0.6% as of 11:00 a.m. Eastern. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.2% and the technology-heavy Nasdaq rose 1.1%.

Stocks ended last week in the red as a rise in bond yields caused selling in many parts of the market. Bond yields have been moving steadily higher all year as investors have bet that the U.S. economy is poised to strongly recover later this year as vaccinations and trillions of dollars of government stimulus take effect.

But a rise in bond yields causes parts of the stock market to appear more expensive than others, the dominant example being technology stocks. Big technology stocks rose sharply last year, and their high valuations make them a prime target for selling when investors can find safer places to park their money.

The prospect of higher interest rates as bond yields rise has some investors concerned that economic growth could slow. There are also concerns that the rise in bond yields could be a harbinger of inflation.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.69% after trading as high as 1.74% last week. Amazon, Apple, Cisco and Microsoft all rose 1% or more.

Bank stocks fell. Lower yields potentially mean banks will only be able to charger lower interest rates to borrowers. The KBW Bank Index of the 24 largest banks was down more than 2%.

The U.S.-traded shares of British drug company AstraZeneca were up 2% after British and U.S. health officials said the company’s COVID-19 vaccine was safe and earlier reports of blood clots were outweighed by the health benefits of the vaccine.

Kansas City Southern was up 13% after a Canadian railroad announced it would buy the company for $25 billion.

Apollo Global Management rose 3% after the private equity company announced that its longtime chairman Leon Black would be retiring. Black’s reputation had been damaged in the last couple of years by his association with deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The Turkish lira nosedived 17% after the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, removed central bank head Naci Agbal from his post on Saturday. The currency was trading at about 7.8 lira to the dollar Monday morning.

Agbal had been struggling to counter inflation by raising interest rates, while Erdogan contended that raising interest rates would contribute to inflation, contrary to economic experience and theory.",-1.5084688718727974
"Romania on Sunday recorded its highest number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units since the pandemic began

The Latest: Romania sets record for virus patients in ICUsBy The Associated PressThe Associated Press

BUCHAREST, Romania — Romania on Sunday recorded its highest number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units since the pandemic began.

The increasing pressure on ICU wards — where today 1,334 people are currently receiving care — comes amid a surge of COVID-19 cases in the Eastern European country.

Over the past week, Romania has been recording its highest number of infections in three months — on some days more than 6,000 new daily cases.

On Saturday, health officials convened in the capital as they looked for ways to increase ICU bed capacity in order to avoid a looming shortage.

But despite the pressure on Romania’s health care system, Prime Minister Florin Citu insisted that a strict national lockdown won’t be enforced.

“A lot of people are asking if we will end up in lockdown again. My very clear answer is: NO,” Citu wrote online Saturday.

Since the coronavirus pandemic began, Romania, which has a population of more than 19 million, has recorded more than 897,000 infections, 22,208 deaths, and it has administered more than 2.4 million vaccines.

___

THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:

— Pakistan Prime Minister Khan tests positive for coronavirus.

— Germany: Police clash with protesters against virus measures.

— Half of U.K. adults have received one dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

— As the coronavirus made an end-of-the-year surge across New York, few nursing homes escaped unscathed. But some proved especially helpless at stopping the spread of COVID-19, despite having nine months to stockpile protective equipment and refine preventative measures.

___

Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic, https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

___

HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

ISTANBUL — Turkey’s weekly regional COVID-19 figures keep increasing as the country keeps relaxed restrictions in place for now.

Health ministry statistics released late Saturday showed the rate of infection as more than 251 cases per 100,000 in Istanbul, the country’s largest city — up 41% since last week. That means about 40,000 new infections in Istanbul alone, which has quadrupled from numbers first released six weeks ago.

The government has divided its provinces into four risk categories and said it would evaluate restrictions at a local level every two weeks. The latest figures show many provinces turning “very high-risk” or “high risk.” Turkey’s president announced this week that relaxed restrictions, like in-restaurant dining and reduced curfews, would continue “for some more time,” but said tougher measures could be brought back.

The seven-day average of infections across the country has climbed over 18,000, hitting daily rates last seen in December. Patients in critical care and deaths are also rising. The total reported death toll in Turkey is 29,959.

___

NEW DELHI — India has reported its highest number of coronavirus cases in four months amid a worrying surge that has prompted multiple states to return to some form of restrictions on public gathering.

The Health Ministry on Sunday reported 43,846 new cases in the past 24 hours, the worst single-day increase since mid-November.

The central Maharashtra state, home to India’s financial capital Mumbai, accounts for more than half of the new infections. The state has imposed a lockdown in some districts until the end of the month and authorities in Mumbai city said they will roll out mandatory random coronavirus tests in crowded places.

According to the ministry, seven other states have been reporting a surge in new cases from the last week, leading some to reimpose containment measures, including focused lockdowns and restaurant and school closures.

India has so far reported more than 11.5 million cases of coronavirus infection, the world’s third-highest total after the United States and Brazil. The cases had been falling steadily since a peak in late September, but experts say increased public gatherings and laxity toward public health guidance is leading to the latest surge.

The government has announced plans to inoculate 300 million people by August. But only 44 million have been vaccinated so far, 7.4 million of them partially.

___

LAS VEGAS — The University of Nevada, Las Vegas is changing course and now plans in-person spring graduation ceremonies in May as the coronavirus outbreak slows.

UNLV President Keith Whitfield on Friday announced the change from plans announced in February to hold graduation virtually.

Whitfield said in a letter to students and staff that he firmly believes the university “can offer a traditional commencement while adhering to public health guidelines.”

“Graduation is the culmination of a student’s educational journey and is a significant milestone in their UNLV career. We need to make every effort to provide an experience our graduates so richly deserve,” Whitfield wrote.

Whitfield said there would be two ceremonies for spring 2021 graduates at 8 a.m. on May 14 and May 15 and a third ceremony for 2020 graduates on May 14 at 6:30 p.m.

All three ceremonies will be held at Sam Boyd Stadium.

___

PHOENIX — Arizona on Saturday reported 735 additional confirmed coronavirus cases with 42 more deaths amid indications of continued slowing of the coronavirus outbreak.

Arizona’s pandemic totals rose to 835,765 cases and 16,733 deaths, according to the state’s coronavirus dashboard.

Johns Hopkins University data showed the rolling average of daily new cases dropped from 1,265.1 on March 4 to 456.9 on Thursday while the rolling average of daily deaths declined from 62.2 to 24.6 over the same two-week period.

The state’s dashboard reported that the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients occupying inpatient beds rose to 700 as of Friday, up from 686 as of Thursday, but remained far below the Jan. 11 high of 5,082.

____

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo — The leading opposition presidential candidate in Republic of Congo was receiving oxygen at a private hospital after being diagnosed with COVID-19, a family member said, casting Sunday’s election into doubt on the eve of the vote.

Guy Brice Parfait Kolelas, 61, had skipped his final campaign event on Friday after telling some reporters a day earlier that he feared he had malaria. A relative who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter said plans were underway for Kolelas to be evacuated abroad for further treatment.

A video circulating on social media dated Friday showed Kolelas wearing an oxygen mask and with a blood pressure cuff on his arm as he lay in a hospital bed.

“My dear compatriots, I am in trouble. I am fighting death,” the candidate says in a weak-sounding voice after removing his oxygen mask. “However, I ask you to stand up and vote for change. I would not have fought for nothing.”

A campaign spokesman confirmed the authenticity of the video and Kolelas’ hospitalization. Two people at the hospital who had seen the Kolelas’ test results confirmed to the AP late Saturday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus.

___

LONDON — The U.K. says half of the country’s adults have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

The National Health Service has put shots in the arms of 26.9 million people, or 51% of the adult population, according to the latest government statistics. The NHS passed the halfway point on Friday by delivering 589,689 doses.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Saturday that’s the highest daily total since the mass vaccination program began in early December.

The celebration comes amid growing concerns about the failure of wealthy countries to share scarce vaccine supplies with developing nations. The director of a London-based health policy think tank says while Britain should be proud of the success of its vaccination drive, it’s time to start thinking about the rest of the world. Dr. Jeremy Farrar, director of Wellcome, says the country has the rights to enough doses to vaccinate its entire population twice.

He says ensuring the world is vaccinated is a scientific and economic imperative: “Science has given us the exit strategy, but it will only work if its benefits can reach the maximum number of people around the world.”

___

SANTIAGO, Chile — Chile has reported its highest daily count of 7,084 coronavirus infections since the start of the pandemic despite widespread restrictions and progress on vaccinations.

The government on Saturday reported cases topping the previous record in June. It says coronavirus has become the country’s leading cause of mortality, causing 26% of deaths this year.

Chile has given at least one vaccine shot to more than 29% of the population and both doses to 15% — far more than in other nations in the region. But Health Minister Enrique Paris says people should remain cautious since population-level immunity isn’t likely until about 80% are vaccinated, probably by the end of June.

Officials say hospital bed usage has reached 94%, with rising numbers among those below 60 as older Chileans have been inoculated.

The government has imposed restrictions on three quarters of the country’s municipalities. Officials say Saturday they are tightening limits on people entering from abroad, especially from Brazil.

___

DENVER — Colorado’s health department is moving to relax its statewide mask mandate and limits on gathering capacity.

Health officials say the state’s role in determining COVID-19 restrictions will lessen in favor of more local control as vaccination eligibility is extended.

For the majority of the state, masks will be required for indoor public places with 10 or more people, and the capacity restrictions remain in place.

The proposal would allow local authorities and “private entities” in the counties with the lowest coronavirus infection rates to determine whether masks would be required. It would end most restrictions on capacity for restaurants, retailers and outdoor events.

There are currently only two Level Green counties where this applies — the rural Crowley and Otero counties in southern Colorado — which means they have fewer than 15 cases per 100,000 people in a week.

Most of the state is in the next risk level up, while the Denver metro area is two levels higher than the least restrictive designation.

___

WARSAW, Poland — Poland reported more than 25,000 coronavirus cases Saturday, compared to less than 15,000 in early March.

Health Minister Adam Niedzielski blamed the increase on the British variant of the virus, which he described as “extremely infectious and vicious.” He urged Poles to observe restrictions that were reintroduced Saturday, closing hotels, shopping malls, theaters, galleries and sports centers.

Poland’s authorities have urged people to get vaccinated, saying they’re speeding up registration of more age groups for the inoculation. They use Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines.

Unlike many European countries, Poland never discontinued using the AstraZeneca vaccine, insisting it was medically approved and safe. However, many Poles were not turning up for their AstraZeneca inoculation and authorities blamed that on “panic” in other countries.

So far, more than 5 million doses of various COVID-19 vaccines, including some 1.8 million second doses, have been administered in the nation of 38 million.

___

ZAGREB, Croatia — Several thousand people in Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro rallied against anti-virus measures on Saturday, despite a rise in daily infections in the past weeks.

Protests in Croatia were held in the capital Zagreb and several smaller towns. Local media say participants refused to wear face masks or keep distance among themselves. while holding banners reading “Enough tyranny,” or “Give us back the flu.”

In Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, several hundred people protested after the Serbian government kept bars, restaurants and non-essential shops and businesses closed this week.

The state Montenegrin RTCG television reported about one hundred people came out in the rain to protest anti-virus rules. The report says that police urged them to respect distancing.

___

BERGAMO, Italy — Promises to vaccinate all Italians over 80 by the end of March have fallen woefully short, amid well-documented interruptions of vaccine supplies and organizational shortfalls.

Just one third of Italy’s 7.3 million vaccine doses administered so far have gone to people in that age group. The new government of Premier Mario Draghi has pledged to accelerate the vaccination campaign. It is aiming to vaccinate 80% of the population by September.

On Friday, Draghi said Italy aimed to administer 500,000 shots a day by next month, from a current daily level of about 165,000.

Italy has recorded more than 104,000 confirmed deaths, the sixth-highest tally in the world. As of early March, two thirds of Italy’s virus-related deaths were among those over 80.",0.2879546791172884
"AstraZeneca says that its COVID-19 vaccine provided strong protection among all adults in a long-anticipated U.S. study

AstraZeneca: US data shows vaccine effective for all adultsBy MARIA CHENG and LAURAN NEERGAARDAP Medical WritersThe Associated PressLONDON

LONDON (AP) — AstraZeneca reported Monday that its COVID-19 vaccine provided strong protection among all adults in a long-anticipated U.S. study, raising hopes that the findings could help rebuild public confidence in the beleaguered shot in other countries and moving a step closer to clearance for American use.

AstraZeneca said the vaccine was 79% effective overall at preventing symptomatic cases of COVID-19 — including in older people — and that none of the study volunteers who were vaccinated were hospitalized or developed severe disease. The company also said its experts did not identify any safety concerns related to the vaccine, including finding no increased risk of rare blood clots identified in Europe.

The findings bolster AstraZeneca’s prior research in Britain and other countries, and add to real-world evidence that the shots are offering good protection as they’re used more widely. But confidence in the vaccine has been repeatedly hit because of concerns about how data was reported from some previous trials, confusion over its efficacy in older adults and a recent scare over clotting.

AstraZeneca said it will seek clearance in the United States “in the coming weeks,” putting it on track to arrive just as the country is projected to have a big boost in supplies of three other vaccines — from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — that already are in use.

AstraZeneca’s interim results are based on 141 COVID-19 cases in the 30,000-person trial, but officials declined to tell reporters during a news conference Monday how many were in study volunteers who received the vaccine and how many in those who got dummy shots. Two-thirds of the volunteers received vaccine.

“These findings reconfirm previous results observed,” said Ann Falsey, of the University of Rochester School of Medicine, who helped lead the trial. “It’s exciting to see similar efficacy results in people over 65 for the first time.”

A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee will publicly debate the evidence behind the shots before the agency decides whether to allow emergency use. Ruud Dobber, an AstraZeneca executive vice president, said that if the FDA OK’s the vaccine, the company will deliver 30 million doses immediately — and another 20 million within the first month.

The AstraZeneca shot, which has been authorized in more than 70 countries, is a pillar of a U.N.-backed project known as COVAX that aims to get COVID-19 vaccines to poorer countries, and it has also become a key tool in European countries’ efforts to boost their sluggish vaccine rollouts. That important role in the global strategy to stamp out the pandemic make doubts about the shot especially worrying.

Stephen Evans, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said the new data could help to allay concerns about the vaccine.

“The benefits of these results will mainly be for the rest of the world where confidence in the AZ (AstraZeneca) vaccine has been eroded, largely by political and media comment,” he said.

Dr. Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, said the results were reassuring but that more details were needed to back up AstraZeneca’s claim that the vaccine was completely effective at preventing severe disease and hospitalization.

”It would be good to know how many severe cases occurred in the control group and so what the confidence intervals are for this 100% figure,” said Hunter, who was not connected to the study. “But this should add confidence that the vaccine is doing what it is most needed for.”

Scientists had hoped the U.S. study would clear up some of the confusion about just how well the shots really work, particularly in older people. Previous research suggested the vaccine was effective in younger populations, but there was no solid data proving its efficacy in those over 65, often those most vulnerable to COVID-19.

Britain first authorized the vaccine based on partial results from testing in the United Kingdom, Brazil and South Africa that suggested the shots were about 70% effective. But those results were clouded by a manufacturing mistake that led some participants to get just a half dose in their first shot — an error the researchers didn’t immediately acknowledge.

Then came more questions, about how well the vaccine protected older adults and how long to wait before the second dose. Some European countries including Germany, France and Belgium initially withheld the shot from older adults and only reversed their decisions after new data suggested it was offering seniors protection.

AstraZeneca’s vaccine development was rocky in the U.S., too. Last fall, the FDA suspended the company’s study for an unusual six weeks, as frustrated regulators sought information about some neurologic complaints reported in Britain; ultimately, there was no evidence the vaccine was to blame.

Last week, more than a dozen countries, mostly in Europe, temporarily suspended their use of the AstraZeneca shot after reports it was linked to rare blood clots — even as international health agencies insisted the benefits of the vaccine outweighed the risks. On Thursday, the European Medicines Agency concluded after an investigation that the vaccine did not raise the overall risk of blood clots, but could not rule out that it was connected to two very rare types of clots. It recommended adding a warning about these cases to the vaccine’s leaflet.

It’s not unheard of for such rare problems to crop up as vaccines are rolled out since trials typically look at tens of thousands of people, and some issues are only seen once the shot is used in millions of people.

France, Germany, Italy and other countries subsequently resumed their use of the shot on Friday, with senior politicians rolling up their sleeves to show the vaccine was safe.

The AstraZeneca shot is what scientists call a “viral vector” vaccine. The shots are made with a harmless virus, a cold virus that normally infects chimpanzees. It acts like a Trojan horse to carry the coronavirus’s spike protein’s genetic material into the body that in turn produces some harmless protein. That primes the immune system to fight if the real virus comes along.

Two other companies, Johnson & Johnson and China’s CanSino Biologics, make COVID-19 vaccines using the same technology but using different cold viruses.

___

Neergaard reported from Washington.

___

Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic, https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak.",0.10857456113371787
"Ikea’s French subsidiary and several of its executives went on trial Monday over accusations that they illegally spied on employees and customers

Ikea France on trial over claims it spied on staff, clientsBY NICOLAS VAUX-MONTAGNY and OLEG CETINICAssociated PressThe Associated PressVERSAILLES, France

VERSAILLES, France (AP) — Ikea’s French subsidiary and several of its former executives went on trial Monday over accusations that they illegally spied on employees and customers.

Trade unions reported the furniture and home goods company to French authorities in 2012, accusing it of collecting personal data by fraudulent means and the illicit disclosure of personal information.

The unions alleged that Ikea France paid to gain access to police files that had information about targeted individuals, particularly union activists and customers who were in disputes with Ikea.

The company fired four executives and changed internal policy after French prosecutors opened a criminal probe in 2012. But at Monday’s trial in the Versailles court, lawyers for Ikea France denied any strategy of “generalized espionage.”

An Ikea employee and CGT union activist, Hocine Redouane, said at Monday’s trial that the company wrongly suspected him of being a bank robber because their investigation system found criminal records involving a bank robber with the same name.

“Such a system can easily slip into abuse,” Redouane said.

Another accusation alleged that Ikea France used unauthorized data to try to catch an employee who had claimed unemployment benefits but drove a Porsche. Another says the subsidiary investigated an employee’s criminal record to determine how the employee was able to own a BMW on a low income.

The former head of Ikea France’s risk management department, Jean-François Paris, acknowledged to French judges that 530,000 to 630,000 euros a year ($633,000 to $753,000) were earmarked for such investigations. Paris, who is among those accused, said his department was responsible for handling it.

Former Ikea France CEOs Jean-Louis Baillot and Stefan Vanoverbeke, former Chief Financial Officer Dariusz Rychert, store managers and police officers are also going on trial.

If convicted, the two ex-CEOs face sentences of up to 10 years in prison and fines of 750,000 euros. Ikea France faces a maximum penalty of 3.75 million euros. The trial is scheduled to last until April 2.

The company also faces potential damages from civil lawsuits filed by unions and 74 employees.

Anne-Solene Bouvier, lawyer for the employees, argued that the case is important for French society as a whole. “The right to privacy for employees should be sacred,” she said.

Ikea France, a subsidiary of Swedish furniture company Ikea, said Monday it has cooperated with French judicial authorities.

“Ikea France takes the protection of its employees’ and customers’ data very seriously,” the company said in a statement. It said it adopted compliance and training procedures to prevent illegal activity after the investigation was opened in 2012.

The lawyer for Ikea France, Emmanuel Daoud, said there was no poof of “a widespread system of spying.” The lawyer for the company’s former human resources director called the case “a fairy tale” invented by union activists.

In France, Ikea employs more than 10,000 people in 34 stores, an e-commerce site and a customer support center.

___

Nicolas Vaux-Montagny reported from Lyon. Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.",-0.39740254847639783
"NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell will announce the names of this year’s rookie draft class within shouting distance of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

No basement blues: Goodell on hand for draft in Cleveland By TOM WITHERSAP Sports WriterThe Associated PressCLEVELAND

CLEVELAND (AP) — NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell will be leaving his man cave to announce this year’s rookie draft class within shouting distance of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

The league announced some its plans for this year’s three-day event in Cleveland, which will include some of the prospects being in person after last year’s draft in Las Vegas was held virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some of Cleveland’s iconic downtown locations, including the Rock Hall, FirstEnergy Stadium and the Great Lakes Science Center, will be incorporated into the three-day festivities from April 29-May 1. Most of the events are are outdoors.

Goodell will be on hand to welcome the league’s newest players — but from a short distance. Building on the success of last year’s virtual event, when the commissioner read players’ names from the basement of his home, other draft picks will participate remotely from around the country.

The league said the three-day event will be open to the public, and protocols from the experiences of hosting the Super Bowl in Tampa will be in place.

The league will again partner with state and local public health officials to ensure the safety for fans and participants. Fans will be required to wear face coverings and adhere to physical distancing.

A main stage will be built along Lake Erie to serve as the central hub for draft activities, including unnamed musical acts

“We are thrilled to be heading to Cleveland for the NFL draft, which has become one of the most highly anticipated events in sports” NFL executive Peter O’Reilly said.

The NFL will also use this year’s draft to promote the COVID-19 vaccine.

This year’s draft coincides with the the Cleveland Browns’ 75th anniversary.

___

More AP NFL coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL",0.978560471624099
"As an aspiring comic in Los Angeles, Jo Koy often could only go on stage during ethnic theme nights

Comic, Netflix staple Jo Koy talks race, rejection in memoirBy TERRY TANGAssociated PressThe Associated Press

Like many famous comics, Jo Koy had early struggles at comedy clubs. But, unlike them, the half white and half Filipino comedian could only seem to book spots on ethnic theme nights like “Wonton Wednesdays” and “Asian Invasion.”

“There’s a lot of comics that had to do it. I’m not just saying Asians — Black people, Latinos, anyone that was ‘other’ had to do these themed shows. And it sucks,” Koy recalled recently.

Segregating comics may sound bizarre and offensive in today’s world but that underlying racism “baked into” the comedy club circuit was acceptable in the early 2000s, according to Koy. How he went from there to being a Netflix darling and having a movie deal with Steven Spielberg is part of the career journey Koy, 49, tells in his new memoir.

“Mixed Plate: Chronicles of an All-American Combo,” out Tuesday, is an ideal companion to Koy’s stand-up with its humorous — and at times painful — origin stories behind some of his most popular bits. The book shows how Koy’s mixed-race background ultimately shaped his brand of comedy and his determination not to give up on his childhood dream.

“I’m not trying to pat myself on the back. It was a long road,” Koy said. “And when I finally got to this point in my career, I just looked at my manager. I was like, ‘Man, I would really like to tell people, you know, this struggle, and how hard it was to really get here.’”

With the help of a writing partner, Koy, born Joseph Glenn Herbert, lays bare how he grappled with his mixed-race identity as a child growing up in Tacoma, Washington. He doesn’t shy away from deeply personal topics including an older brother with violent schizophrenia and a father who left when he was only 12 years old. (The book also documents their reconciliation.)

“I’ve always been open to just letting people be inside my life,” Koy said. “So when I said I was going to write a book, of course I’m going to tell them everything. Or else, you’re not going to really know the story of how I got there.”

Koy, who’s sold out stadium shows, has aspired to make people laugh since age 11. He didn’t “speak school” and was never interested in conventional pursuits like college. For him, earning $5 doing stand-up on an open mic in a coffeehouse was more thrilling. By the 1990s, he followed his mother and stepfather to Las Vegas and started doing comedy contests and small clubs there. In 2001, he decided to make the big move to Los Angeles.

The comedy club circuit wasn’t exactly receptive to his bi-racial appearance.

“You come to Hollywood, and they have no idea what they’re looking at — as horrible as that sounds,” Koy said. “‘What’s your story? We don’t get it. Where do we put you?’”

Koy took whatever gigs at clubs like The Improv and the Laugh Factory — even the ethnic “theme nights.” Meanwhile, he juggled as many as three part-time jobs. By 2003, he also had to factor in his newborn son.

In the book, he recounts performing at the Laugh Factory while a then-unknown Tiffany Haddish would be off to the side watching his son.

“We had that that little bond of ours, you know, that we both had seen struggle,” Koy said. “I love Tiffany, that she was she was there during that process. She still is in my life to this day, which is even more amazing.”

Seeing his toddler son play with his mother, it hit Koy that family life could be funny fodder. While mimicking his mother’s accent and mannerisms is now classic Koy, he initially hesitated for fear of being labeled “the Filipino comic.” But he saw that all audiences seemed to find anecdotes involving his mother relatable.

“That’s when I knew. I was like, ‘Oh, I got something good here. I know how to do it now,’” Koy said.

His Filipino roots shine brightly in the book. Koy may be the first comic with a memoir that’s part recipe book. There are instructions on how to make Filipino dishes like lumpia and chicken adobo. He wants to keep being “an ambassador for Filipino food” and culture.

With three Netflix comedy specials under his belt in the last four years, including one filmed in Manila, Koy said people often think that the streaming service discovered him. But like other times in his life, he was rejected by them for their 2017 comedy slate.

Determined to give them a reason to say yes, Koy put on his own special. He booked a theater in Seattle and paid for a high-quality crew to film it. The final product was enough to elicit an offer from Netflix.

Since then, Koy has built a reputation as an in-demand comedian. With plenty of on-screen experience including being a panelist on Chelsea Handler’s old E! talk show, “Chelsea Lately,” Koy seems one sitcom or film away from the next level of stardom.

One of his Netflix specials got Spielberg’s attention. The director’s production company, Amblin Entertainment, is producing a starring vehicle for Koy, “Easter Sunday.” Based on Koy’s own experiences, the movie comedy follows a family gathering on the titular holiday.

Even with all these opportunities, Koy’s mother sometimes asks him if he’ll drop stand-up for a regular job “with benefits.”

“I don’t think about retiring. I’m gonna die on that stage,” Koy said. “That’s kind of hard to explain to an immigrant parent. They don’t understand that. But you know what? We’re all enjoying this.”

___

Tang reported from Phoenix and is a member of The Associated Press’ Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ttangAP",1.3828348814614038
"March 22 (UPI) — Jorge Soler hit one of the longest home runs of 2021 spring training with a 484-foot blast in a Kansas City Royals win over the Colorado Rockies.

Soler’s homer came in the bottom of the fifth frame in the 6-1 win Sunday at Surprise Stadium in Surprise, Ariz.

The Royals led 2-0 as the game entered the fifth inning. Carlos Santana grounded out in the first at-bat of the half-inning. Soler then stepped in to face Rockies relief pitcher Dereck Rodriguez.

Soler fell behind 1-2 in the count. He then obliterated a Rodriguez fastball to left field for a solo homer. Royals third baseman Hunter Dozier struck out swinging in the next at-bat.

Rodriguez then allowed a triple to Ryan O’Hearn. Hanser Alberto then drove in O’Hearn with an RBI single for a 6-0 lead.

Rockies third baseman Josh Fuentes hit a solo home run to left field in the top of the eighth inning for the final run of the game.

Soler went 2 for 3 with an RBI and a run scored in the win. He is hitting .225 with four home runs and eight RBIs this spring. Royals second baseman White Merrifield also went 2 for 3 in Sunday’s win.

The Royals host the San Diego Padres in another spring training game at 4:05 p.m. EDT Monday in Surprise.",0.9879619751798537
"WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider reinstating the death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, presenting President Joe Biden with an early test of his opposition to capital punishment.

The justices agreed to hear an appeal filed by the Trump administration, which carried out executions of 13 federal inmates in its final six months in office.

The case won’t be heard until the fall, and it’s unclear how the new administration will approach Tsarnaev’s case. The initial prosecution and decision to seek a death sentence was made by the Obama administration, in which Biden served as vice president.

But Biden has pledged to seek an end to the federal death penalty.

In late July, the federal appeals court in Boston threw out Tsarnaev’s sentence because it said the judge at his trial did not do enough to ensure the jury would not be biased against him.

The Justice Department had moved quickly to appeal, asking the justices to hear and decide the case by the end of the court’s current term, in early summer. Then-Attorney General William Barr said last year, “We will do whatever’s necessary.”

Tsarnaev’s lawyers acknowledged at the beginning of his trial that he and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, set off the two bombs at the marathon finish line in 2013. But they argued that Dzhokar Tsarnaev is less culpable than his brother, who they said was the mastermind behind the attack.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died following a gunfight with police and being run over by his brother as he fled. Police captured a bloodied and wounded Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hours later in the Boston suburb of Watertown, where he was hiding in a boat parked in a backyard.

Tsarnaev, now 27, was convicted of all 30 charges against him, including conspiracy and use of a weapon of mass destruction and the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer during the Tsarnaev brothers’ getaway attempt. The appeals court upheld all but a few of his convictions.",-0.11107718145013391
"The NFL is scrapping the virtual format it used for the 2020 NFL Draft, and planning to for a “large, live, in-person” draft in 2021, according to sources.

As Sports Business Journal reports, the NFL is moving forward with a plan to have their draft prospects on a stage and fans in attendance when the draft kicks off from Cleveland on April 29. However, the league is looking at an outdoor venue for the event and will enforce strict mask compliance.

“We have been characterizing it as a ‘large, live, in-person event,” said Greater Cleveland Sports Commission CEO David Gilbert. As Gilbert explains, the crowd is expected to be “the largest event in this city in many years, certainly since the [2016] Republican Convention.”

The NFL says it will use the draft to promote vaccines,” Pro Football Talk reports. “About a quarter of Ohio adults have already received at least one shot, and on March 29 all Ohio adults will become eligible, meaning that by the time the draft rolls around, a large percentage of those in attendance should be vaccinated.”

The NFL Draft Experience, a fan-friendly event held at each draft will be held at “FirstEnergy Stadium and the broad plaza between the stadium, the Great Lakes Science Center and the Rock ‘n’ Roll HOF, all located just north of downtown Cleveland.”",0.8615717576740924
"Attorney Tony Buzbee claims that he is prepared to submit a large amount of new evidence to the Houston Police alleging more sexual misconduct allegations against Houston Texans QB Deshaun Watson.

Buzbee, who is representing 12 women alleging sexual assault against the NFL quarterback, also said he will request that a grand jury review the evidence, according to the New York Post.

“Per advice from a well-known criminal defense attorney: Our team will be submitting affidavits and evidence from several women, who had experiences with Deshaun Watson, to the Houston Police Department and the Houston District Attorney, on Monday morning,” Buzbee wrote in a Saturday Instagram post. “We will request that a grand jury be empaneled to consider the evidence we provide.”

Buzbee added that his clients will file five more lawsuits against Watson.

The attorney also said that at least “10 additional women” are prepared to accuse Watson. Some, Buzbee said, are massage therapists and at least one alleges that she was forced to perform oral sex on the player.

The NFL said only that Buzbee’s accusations are “under review” while the Texans have said they are monitoring the situation.

Watson says he is innocent, but his legal team said that they will have an official statement sometime soon.

TMZ added that Watson claims that he has never crossed the line with any of the massage therapists and believes that the women are being represented by a “money-hungry attorney” looking for a fat payout.

Watson signed a $156 million contract last year.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.",1.4340408357759837
"Authorities investigating Tiger Woods’ February 23 single-car crash now say that it appears the golf great didn’t hit the brakes before impact.

According to investigators reviewing the crash scene and the data from the vehicle’s black box. Indeed, he didn’t seem to take his foot off the gas pedal, Woods’ car never slowed down before he lost control of the car, the New York Post reported.

Woods was found unconscious immediately after the wreck, according to testimony from a bystander who was first on the scene.

However, the player regained consciousness before first responders arrived at the scene. The 45-year-old player was conscious and alert when he was pulled from the wrecked auto.

Woods is said to have no memory of the accident.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva has taken criticism for how he has dealt with the incident. The sheriff, though, recently said that Woods got no special treatment during the investigation into the wreck.

Villanueva caught criticism for quickly coming out to say that the February 23 crash was “purely an accident” before the full investigation was finished. He also immediately said that there was “no evidence” that Woods was impaired while behind the wheel and insisted he would pursue no charges.

“I know there’s been a lot of concern about, was he received any treatment any different than anybody else — he did not. He received the same treatment everybody else would receive,” Villanueva said. “One, there’s no obvious evidence of impairment, and he’s compound fracture in a horrendous scene. Our concern shifts to the humanitarian, you know, life preservation, those kinds of things. And the accident becomes secondary.”

The sheriff’s department also insisted that they won’t release anything else about the case, saying, “We are not releasing any further information at this time.”

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.",-0.10593444427391661
"A new poll shows that there is a deepening racial divide over politics in sports, especially about taking a knee during the national anthem.

The Axios-Ipsos poll of 2,035 adults taken in March finds a deep racial divide in mixing politics with sports. A slight majority (54 to 44) feel it is inappropriate for athletes to take a knee during the national anthem. However, as Axios notes, that slight majority only exists because the preponderance of white respondents had serious objections to the practice.

According to the poll, 67 percent of whites find it is inappropriate to kneel during the national anthem. However, only 14 percent of blacks are against the practice. Also, 38 percent of Hispanics disagree with kneeling as did 42 percent of Asian respondents.

The divide is starker when broken down by party. Fully 89 percent of Republicans oppose kneeling during the national anthem while only 25 percent of Democrats are against it. For independents, 51 percent oppose kneeling.

The results were similar for the question of whether athletes should use their sport to speak out on political issues. The poll found a near-even split on the question with 60 percent of white respondents saying athletes should not use their sport to advocate for political causes. However, 84 percent of blacks, 63 percent of Hispanics, and 68 percent of Asians said it was OK for athletes to speak out.

There was, however, an agreement that athletes should not be fired for speaking out, regardless, and that they have a First Amendment right to speak.

Though, as to using Native American names, symbols, or mascots for sports teams, the poll found that most overall had no problem with the practice.

The poll found that 64 percent said that changing team names to get rid of Native American imagery had gone too far in America today. But there was a racial divide here, too, with blacks skewing to the far left on the topic. 61 percent of blacks said that teams should not be allowed to use Native American names or mascots. A strong majority of whites disagreed with the black respondents and slight majorities of Hispanics and Asians joined whites in their positive view of using Native American names and mascots.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.",0.10632497969880778
"A minor league player in the Chicago Cubs organization has been arrested after police found 21 pounds of methamphetamines in his bag.

Jesus Camargo Corrales, 25, was pulled over Wednesday in Eagle, Colorado, after police spotted him driving erratically.

Police searched the vehicle using a K-9 who quickly took interest in the rear wheel well and seat area. A subsequent search revealed a duffel bag that contained “21 pounds of meth, 1.2 pounds of Oxycodone pills, several baseball gloves, cleats and $1,000 in cash.”

According to WGN 9:

There were two other people in the car during the search and police said they were released after they determined they had no knowledge of the drugs. Camargo Corrales now faces several felony drug charges. His bond was set at $75,000.

The Cubs minor leaguer told police he was driving from Arizona to Denver to teach a baseball clinic.

Camargo, originally from Mexico, was assigned to the Single-A South Bend Cubs in February.",-2.3405577042076398
"SAN ANTONIO (AP) — NCAA basketball administrators apologized to the women’s basketball players and coaches after inequities between the men’s and women’s tournament went viral on social media and vowed to do better.

NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball Dan Gavitt vowed to do better during a zoom call Friday morning, a day after photos showed the difference between the weight rooms at the two tournaments.

“I apologize to the women’s student-athletes, coaches and committee for dropping the ball on the weight room issue in San Antonio, we’ll get it fixed as soon as possible,” Gavitt said.

During the call, other differences were raised: There are 68 teams in the men’s filed, 64 in the women; and the NCAA pays for the men’s National Invitational Tournament, but not the women’s NIT.

“The field size and NIT, those would be decisions made in conjunction with membership,” Gavitt said. “Those are not decision we could make independently. They are good questions and it’s timely to raise those issues again.”

In a step to solve the weight room issue, the NCAA modified space in the convention center to turn it into a useable workout facility. That work should be completed Saturday. The NCAA had offered ro put a weight-lifting area in the open space next to the practice courts, but coaches didn’t want that because then other teams would be in the vicinity when they were practicing.

“We fell short this year in what we have been doing to prepare in the last 60 days for 64 teams to be in San Antonio. We acknowledge that,” said NCAA Senior Vice President of women’s basketball Lynn Holzman, who is a former college basketball player. “Last night we did have a call with our coaches and team administrators in a way to solicit feedback and their experience thus far.

“Yesterday was the first day our teams had the opportunity to have practice,” she said. “Part of that call was to get feedback on potential solutions to address some of those concerns, including the weight room issue.”

While the difference between the men’s and women’s weight facility was clearly jarring, in the manual that the NCAA had sent to teams before the tournament they specifically had said that no weights would be available until after the second round of the tournament.

This is the first time in the women’s tournament that every game is being played on neutral sites. In the past, campuses would host the opening rounds so teams would be able to schedule weight room times in those on-campus.

Gavitt said that the NCAA will use this opportunity for better collaboration of men’s and women’s basketball.

“What we pull together in months and years, we tried to do in weeks and days,” he said. “That’s meant some shortcomings. I apologize and feel terrible about anything that falls short of our lofty expectations. Some of those short comings we’ve seen in Indianapolis as well.”

South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said it’s unacceptable for anything to fall short for just the women.

“There’s a miscommunication at the highest level of the NCAA. Either it’s miscommunication, no communication or just not downright caring if people know what’s happening on our (women’s) side of things,” Staley said. “And that must stop. … The NCAA owns March Madness in all it’s luxury. Then it should feel luxurious to every student athlete, man or woman.”",1.6734015868762353
"The Cleveland Indians have confirmed that they intend to jettison their 105-year-old name, but now say they will not make the change before 2022.

On Thursday, Indians Owner Paul Dolan told the Akron Roundtable that the team may have to delay implementing its new name and graphics in 2022, instead of this year.

“The timeline remains the same,” Dolan said during the Zoom event. “Just to be clear, we said, ‘No sooner than 2022.’ Our target is still 2022, but it is a difficult process. Trying to find a name that works, that we can clear, and ultimately in a tight time frame.

“By ‘tight,’ I mean we can’t just show up in spring training (in 2022) and say, ‘Here’s the new name.’ We have to have it buttoned up long before that,” Dolan added.

“It could be sometime in the middle of this year whether we know we’ve got it down where we can do it for 2022. If not, we’d have to push it to 2023. We’re working hard to get it done by then, but there’s no certainty in that,” he said.

Last year, President Donald Trump lamented the team’s name change, calling it another example of the cancel culture.

“Oh no! What is going on? This is not good news, even for ‘Indians,'” Trump wrote on Twitter in Dec. “Cancel culture at work!”

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.",-0.3301856385981262
"Several players reportedly took a knee during the playing of the national anthem as the NCAA March Madness tournament got started on Friday, reports say.

For instance, most of the players for the No. 16 seed Drexel took a knee as the anthem played ahead of their losing game against Illinois, according to the Associated Press.

Players for Colgate also took a knee before losing to no. 3 seed Arkansas at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.

Five members of Ohio State’s team also took a knee during the anthem.

The wire service also reported that players took a knee before Virginia Tech/Florida game before Florida came out victorious.

Several Colgate players took a knee during national anthem here. pic.twitter.com/cdh8uV42uk — Pat Forde (@ByPatForde) March 19, 2021

Five Ohio State players kneel for the national anthem prior to the game against Oral Roberts. pic.twitter.com/iIN97IkdBJ — Colin Hass-Hill (@chasshill) March 19, 2021

Unlike other sports, there are no standing rules crafted as guidance for what NCAA players can and cannot do during the national anthem. The NCAA only notes that players must follow whatever rules their sport-specific tournaments have written.

Dozens of college players have continued to take a knee during the regular season.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.",0.7229971036461674
"Numerous US-based companies make high-quality leather holsters that provide a beautiful, durable hostler option amid what is largely otherwise a Kydex holster world.

Businesses like Galco Gunleather, DeSantis Holsters, 1791 Gun Leather, MJB Gun Leather, Tucker Gun Leather, and others, are making holsters that last and provide all-day carry comfort.

Here is the Glock 17 Gen 5 in a Galco OWB leather holster. It evenly disperses the weight of the pistol while holding it close to the body, making it easy to cover the full-sized gun with a jacket or shirt when carrying.

Here is the Sig Sauer P2022 in a DeSantis Speed Scabbard holster, which provides all-day carry comfort with a retention adjustment, allowing the concealed carrier to adjust how tightly the pistol locks into the holster.

Here is the Ruger LCR in a 1791 Gun Leather OWB holster. The holster holds the LCR firmly against the body and looks good doing it.

Here is the wildly popular Heckler and Koch VP9 with an X-Tech Tactical magazine extension in a MJB Gun Leather holster. Even with the mag extension–allowing the pistol to hold 21 rounds–the weight of the gun is properly distributed via the width of the MJB holster.

Here is the Sig Sauer Emperor Scorpion in a Tucker Gun Leather OWB holster. This holster has a Kydex insert under the leather, ensuring the holster retains its shape and ability to lock the full-sized 1911 in day after day, year after year.

OWB holsters also afford the option for open carry, in states where open carry is legal. This provides an added degree of versatility for those who choose to carry their firearm in leather.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.",-0.04451847279772955
"The NCAA is facing strong criticism after a women’s basketball player posted a video showing the large workout room provided to men’s tournament players and the small space given to the women.

Sedona Prince, a redshirt sophomore player for the Oregon Ducks, posted the video calling attention to the disparities between the weight rooms late Thursday evening.

“I got something to show y’all. So, for the NCAA March Madness, the biggest tournament in college basketball for women … This is our weight room,” she said as she pointed toward a small, single stack of weights.

“Lemme show y’all the men’s weight room,” Prince said as she pointed to the much larger men’s weight room.

Let me put it on Twitter too cause this needs the attention pic.twitter.com/t0DWKL2YHR — Sedona Prince (@sedonaprince_) March 19, 2021

Critics noted that the equipment in the women’s weight room pales compared to the men’s area. The men’s weight room includes ample space furnished with various machines, benches, racks, and other training equipment. Meanwhile, the women got some yoga mats and a single rack of six dumbbells.

Tournament authorities quickly came out with a statement blaming the unavailability of “space” for the disparity in furnishings.

“We acknowledge that some of the amenities teams would typically have access to have not been as available inside the controlled environment,” said NCAA VP Lynn Holzman, according to TMZ.

Statement from Lynn Holzman, NCAA VP of women’s basketball.#ncaaW pic.twitter.com/gYsesS9Hky — NCAA Women’s Basketball (@ncaawbb) March 18, 2021

“In part, this is due to the limited space, and the original plan was to expand the workout area once additional space was available later in the tournament,” Holzman added.

Prince responded to the NCAA’s claim of limited space for the women’s facility.

“Now when pictures of our weight room got released vs. the men’s, the NCAA came out with a statement saying that it wasn’t money, it was space that was the problem,” Prince said.

Then, she took video of a room with more vacant space, and said, “If you aren’t upset about this problem, then you are a part of it.”

However, another explanation is one no one will take about: Women’s sports don’t make money. Just for an example, The NCAA earned well over $1 billion from its programs in 2019, but about $870 million of that came from the Men’s March Madness games that year.

Still, the tournament took a heap of criticism:

What in the hell? https://t.co/MJ1qAzPKOU — Franklin Leonard (@franklinleonard) March 19, 2021

“tHeY DidN’T hAvE thE SpAcE” cmon on mannn. https://t.co/Ou7G6p4pe9 — Jared Sullinger Sr. (@Jared_Sully0) March 19, 2021

NCAA a joke… smh https://t.co/t8WNiDkN1l — Anfernee Simons (@AnferneeSimons) March 19, 2021

Like what is this? https://t.co/nwknpJZJoU — Kayla Grey (@Kayla_Grey) March 19, 2021

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.",-1.1211198885055258
"An elderly woman has filed a lawsuit against ex-NFL player Kellen Winslow II, accusing him of shocking sexual misconduct allegedly perpetrated at a California gym in 2019.

The woman, who was 77 when she claims that Winslow accosted her, says that the former Cleveland Browns player committed lewd acts in front of her including pointing at his exposed, erect penis and saying, “Do you see this, do you like it,” Outkick reported.

The woman claims that Winslow did it again about two weeks later, this time inside the fitness center’s Jacuzzi.

The woman is suing Winslow for unspecified damages, and saying she has “suffered and continues to suffer great pain of mind and body, shock, [and] emotional distress.”

Winslow was eventually convicted of assaulting three women and handed a 14-year sentence in February.

The Former NFL player was convicted of raping a 59-year-old homeless woman in 2018, exposing himself to a 59-year-old woman, and fondling himself in front of a 78-year-old woman in 2019. He was also accused of raping a 17-year-old hitchhiker, but a jury could not agree on the charge.

San Diego County Superior Court Judge Blaine Bowman described Winslow as a sexual predator and noted that he carefully chose vulnerable women as his victims.

“The vulnerability of the victims was no accident. It was the type of victim that you sought out yourself because you felt that perhaps they wouldn’t report the crime,” the judge said.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.",-0.3268027897128417
"Kataluna Enriquez, a biological male who identifies as a woman, has been crowned Miss Silver State USA, which is described as the “biggest preliminary competition for the Miss Nevada USA pageant.”

Enriquez bested the biological females in the competition, putting him in the position to compete for the state’s competition, Miss Nevada USA, with hopes of competing in the bigger contests, Miss USA and Miss Universe.

“Miss Silver State was a great experience,” Enriquez told local outlet FOX 5, describing it as a “celebration of womanhood and diversity and this celebration of being your true self.”

Enriquez detailed his experiences competing in other pageants outside of the state, one of which asked for documents from a doctor. The competitor described the request as “invasive.”

“It brought me back to time where I felt like I was not welcome,” Enriquez said as the outlet noted that he was not assigned a roommate by the competition, which Enriquez declined to name out of fear of retribution:

Enriquez said she understands change doesn’t come easily and some beauty pageants may not be ready for transgender title holders. FOX5 looked at the rules of the pageant Enriquez said discriminated against her and nowhere do they say competitors must be born biologically female.

“I have a great feeling about Nevada … I am looking forward to it,” Enriquez added.

The news comes as Democrats continue to pursue the Equality Act, which effectively changes the legal recognition of sex in favor of gender identity, opening the doors for biological males to compete in women’s competitions and operate in traditionally single-sex spaces, such as locker rooms and homeless shelters.

Glamour magazine recently included a biological male in this year’s Women of the Year awards, identifying transgender model and activist Munroe Berdorf as a “gamechanging influencer.”",1.3846182518797332
"Florida is the latest of more than 20 states where lawmakers are crafting legislation to prevent biological men from participating in women’s sports.

Florida lawmakers passed the bill out of committee on Wednesday. The legislation has two more committee stops in the House and a similar bill in the Senate has yet to hold a hearing.

“The act is pro-women and pro-girls and only acknowledges the biological differences between men and women,” Republican State Rep. Kaylee Tuck, said of the bill she sponsored.

The Associated Press (AP) reported on the development:

The bill, called the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, would require that anyone participating in girls and women’s sports at the K-12 and college level be biologically eligible to do so. If challenged, they would have to get confirmation from a health care provider that they are female. That could include a doctor examining their genitals. But Democrats slammed the proposal, calling it discriminatory against transgender girls and women. The House Secondary Education & Career Development Subcommittee voted 13-4 to approve the bill, with all “no” votes cast by Democrats. The measure is based on an Idaho law that has been blocked by a federal court while a lawsuit challenging its legality proceeds.

In arguing in favor of her bill Tuck cited Allyson Felix, the only woman to win six track and field gold medals at the Olympics.

“Allyson Felix is the fastest woman in the world… but yet the personal best in the 400 meters can be beaten by hundreds of high school boys,” Tuck said. “If we allow biological males to compete in athletic events against biological females, we may never see another Allyson Felix again.”

Maybe we should all start asking our doctors if they know the difference between women and men, and then resolve to find new medical care if they can’t give us an answer that makes sense. https://t.co/F6O1z9852S — WoLF (@WomensLibFront) March 18, 2021

Democrats who opposed the bill said there wasn’t an existing problem in Florida, and Tuck acknowledged she was unaware of any disputes about transgender students participating in female athletics.

Democratic Rep. Marie Paule Woodson claimed the bill is a “dangerous piece of legislation” that will hurt people who are “vulnerable.”

Conservatives lawmakers across the nation are reacting to President Joe Biden’s executive order that expands the prohibition of discrimination against women based on their biological sex under the federal Title IX statute to include perceived sex or “gender identity.”

Thank you @RepHartzler for entering into record the testimony of ADF clients Selina, Chelsea, and Alanna, all of whom lost athletic opportunities because of males competing in their sports. #SaveWomensSports #TitleIX #FairPlay pic.twitter.com/JtuLr0J6vD — Alliance Defending Freedom (@AllianceDefends) March 17, 2021

AP reported Mississippi became the first state this year to enact such a ban when the governor signed it into law last week.

As Breitbart News reported, a recent poll shows separating sports by biological sex is gaining support:

People were asked: As you may know, Mississippi is moving towards banning transgender athletes from participating on women’s sports teams at the state’s high schools and universities. Based on what you know, do you support or oppose banning transgender athletes from competing on women’s sports teams? Only Democrat and Gen Z voters have more opposition to the ban than support of it.

• Men: 59 percent support/29 percent oppose

• Women 46 percent support/34 percent oppose

• Republicans: 74 percent support/74 percent oppose

• Democrats: 40 percent support/42 percent oppose

• Independents: 49 percent support/33 percent oppose

• Gen Z: 43 percent suppose/44 percent oppose

• Millennials: 56 percent support/28 percent oppose

• Baby Boomers: 50 percent support/32 percent oppose

Follow Penny Starr on Twitter or send news tips to pstarr@breitbart.com",-0.39049651273395536
"It’s not unusual for NFL players to come to each other’s aid when facing public controversy or even serious accusations of wrongdoing.

However, former NFL wide receiver Roddy White went about defending Deshaun Watson in a very unique way.

Thursday brought with it a new report that Houston Texans QB Deshaun Watson was facing a third separate accusation of sexual assault. One of the allegations stems from a reported December 28 incident in which Watson is accused of coercing a massage therapist into performing oral sex on him.

That accusation brought forth an absurd claim from former Falcons wide receiver Roddy White, in which he claimed that it was “impossible” to force someone to perform oral sex.

I hate this for @deshaunwatson the quickest way now to get a bag is to sue someone. It’s impossible to make someone give u oral sex. This is a far stretch and everybody want to get paid. — Roddy White (@roddywhiteTV) March 18, 2021

While the first part of White’s tweet is undeniably true and contributes greatly to the large number of false lawsuits filed every year. The idea that it’s “impossible” to force someone to perform oral sex is beyond ridiculous.

Watson is currently seeking a trade from the Texans. A process that will no doubt be complicated by the growing number of serious accusations mounting against him. In addition, Watson also has to be concerned about the NFL’s Personal Conduct Policy, a policy that does not necessitate legal charges in order for the league to exact punishment on players.

A fact which was proved in 2017 when Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott was handed a six-game suspension after an ex-girlfriend accused him of domestic violence.",-0.23947079558455817
"The Joe Pags Show

Saturday 12pm–3pm ET

This is a straight-forward talk show where Joe Pagliarulo is getting a reputation for just telling it like it is. He tackles the news of the day — and beyond — and really lays it on the line.",0.7718910773328997
"On today's show, YouTube marked ""Louder with Crowder"" as ""age-restricted."" You'll be SHOCKED to know what YouTube doesn't restrict by age! Also, a deep dive into the crisis at the border. Bill Maher wants you to believe he doesn't believe what he believes. And is Trump launching his own social media platform?

Watch the LIVE show here.





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To enjoy more of Steven's uncensored late-night comedy that's actually funny, join Mug Club — the only place for all of Crowder uncensored and on demand.",0.7855723067206957
"Comedian Dave Landau filled in for Steven Crowder on Wednesday and discussed the short film put out by Rage Against the Machine called Killing In Thy Name. The documentary features old interviews and live footage of Rage Against The Machine, as well as footage captured by a camera crew that follows a teacher as he ""educates"" his young students on America's history of oppression.

In this clip, Dave and the Louder with Crowder crew reviewed the documentary and offered their thoughts about why documentary would ask children when they realized they are white, among other things. Watch the clip for more.

Can't watch? Download the podcast here.

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To enjoy more of Steven's uncensored late-night comedy that's actually funny, join Mug Club — the only place for all of Crowder uncensored and on demand.",-1.1853648776643106
"Up to 3,000 migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border — teenage boys age 15-17 — are moving to the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas ""within the week,"" says Dallas County Commissioner for District 2, J.J. Koch. But just who approved this plan?

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) didn't, and the city government kicked the responsibility to convention center management. Is it possible the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) intentionally sidestepped the GOP governor because of political animosity?

Koch joined the ""Glenn Beck Radio Program"" Thursday to provide the details he knows so far. Glenn asked Koch if it's possible that FEMA and the Biden administration made these arrangements without even notifying county, city, or state level authorities.

""Technically, they can do that, but functionally, as a matter of working with your partners and actually getting stuff done, you never do that. You don't blow past your county folks, your city folks, and you most certainly don't blow past your partners at the state level. I mean, I don't care how acrimonious a relationship is between a governor's office and that of the presidency, if you're bringing in FEMA, this is an emergency. This is something that we're saying is important. So if it's that important, you sure as heck have to get it right by having all the people at the table to make it work,"" Koch answered.

""But they're not interested in making it work,"" he added. ""They get their feel-good sugar rush. They let the people in, and do all the things the liberals love — and [say] you know what, Texas, you'll just have to clean up the mess.""

Glenn asked whether the city of Dallas would have allowed a private hotel to host a group of 3,000 people who may or may not have the coronavirus, noting in particular that the city has arrested numerous business owners for violating COVID-19 restrictions.

""I know for a fact the answer is no, because they were pushing back against having the Republican National Convention here for three days,"" Koch replied. ""They were doing everything they could to let folks know that if the convention had to be moved, it was not going to come to Dallas. Dallas was going to try everything they could to stop that from happening. So the hypocrisy was just astounding.""

Watch the video below to catch more of the conversation:

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn's masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.",1.581468202385816
"You can't let the news of the day distract you from what's really going on, and it's happening right under our noses.

Two weeks ago, Glenn Beck exposed how the financial system was being weaponized, in the name of climate change, to enact the Great Reset and usher in an oligarchy. And just this week, a former BlackRock executive — who is a true believer — spoke out in frustration, saying this is all just ""a distraction from the problem of climate change"" and it's being done for money and power.

In this video clip from the full episode, which you can find here, Glenn broke down how the green global elites are now planning, not only to categorize you based on your skin color, religion, occupation, ideology, and carbon footprint, but to give you an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) score. Your score will determine everything for you: Whether you can buy a home, get a new car, open a business ... everything.

Watch the video clip below:

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn's masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.",-2.1124261235997186
"Columbia University is set to have six additional ceremonies for their graduates next month, separated by race, income, and other self-identifying factors such as if they're part of the LGBTQ+ community, in what the school is calling ""Multicultural Graduation Celebrations.""

According to an announcement posted on the university's website, offering separate graduation ceremonies for Native Americans, Asian, Latino, black, or low-income students, as well as a ""Lavender"" graduation for the LGBTQ+ community, is intended to ""invite community members to reflect on personal growth and community experiences that have impacted their time as students through to graduation.""

On this episode of ""The News & Why it Matters,"" Sara Gonzales, Elijah Schaffer, and Sydney Watson discussed this latest example of how critical race theory is affecting America's schools and asked what could be more unifying than separating students for their final college experience?

Watch the video below:

Want more from The News & Why It Matters?

To enjoy more roundtable rundowns of the top stories of the day, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.",0.6356717474085883
"There have been some crazy tweets over the years, but suggesting that interracial marriage is a form of racism takes the cake.

Comedian Bill Burr (a cis white male) was a presenter at this year's Grammy Awards on Sunday, during which he mispronounced the name of the winner of the Regional Mexican Music award, Natalia Lafourcade. The mistake sent feminists on Twitter over the edge.

In this clip, Chad Prather had a some fun at the expense of one outraged Twitter user, who suggested that a cis white male like Burr (who is married to a black woman, Nina Hill) sometimes enters an interracial marriage because they are ""racist."" Watch to hear from Chad.

Can't watch? Download the podcast.

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To enjoy more of Chad's comedy, craziness and common sense, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.",0.6098327112397975
"Happy anniversary! It's one year since Americans were told ""15 days to flatten the curve,"" and we're taking a look back. We'll cover what we were told then and figure out what turned out to be true. HINT: Not much. It's a party! No masks or social distancing necessary.

Want more from Steven Crowder?

To enjoy more of Steven's uncensored late-night comedy that's actually funny, join Mug Club — the only place for all of Crowder uncensored and on demand.",-0.07857817179681402
"Dictionary.com released the first major word list update of 2021. The update included 600 ""words"" and a few of them had Pat Gray peeved on Monday's program.

In this clip, Pat reacted to a few new additions, including ""supposably,"" ""finna,"" and ""embiggen.""

""Supposably instead of supposedly?"" Pat groaned. ""So you're going to put the mispronunciation of an actual word as a word!?""

Watch the clip to hear more of the list. Can't watch? Download the podcast.

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Want more from Pat Gray?

To enjoy more of Pat's biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.",-0.7359067791003103
"As we get closer to Derek Chauvin's trial, there are more riots on George Floyd's behalf. Today, Steven Crowder covers what the mainstream media are afraid to. He also covers Joe Biden's train wreck of a prime-time address. And what's with the left's sudden concern over cancel culture? Watch the show live here.





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Want more from Steven Crowder?

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"Congress' latest COVID relief bill purchases a staggering $1.9 trillion in new debt for our nation. But as our fiscal ship sinks ever deeper in a sea of red, the lefties at MSNBC are crowing that ""a lot of people's lives are going to get better"" thanks to this bill.

""What they mean is a lot of the Democrat base is going to get better,"" BlazeTV host Mark Levin said on the latest episode of ""LevinTV.""

Levin went on to explain why he says the bill is ""COVID relief"" in name only and the red ink on the U.S. Treasury's ledger is really just money flying out of your own pocket to bail out the blue states' abysmal fiscal failures that predate the pandemic.

Watch the video below for more from Mark Levin:

Want more from Mark Levin?

To enjoy more of ""the Great One"" — Mark Levin as you've never seen him before — subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.",0.7398551812876661
"Supporters of South Dakota's Fairness in Women's Sports bill are accusing Republican Gov. Kristi Noem of ""betrayal"" and ""pandering to special interests"" after she vetoed the legislation, sending it back to the state legislature with recommended changes.

The legislation, H.B. 1217, would prohibit any student at a state school from joining a sports team that does not match his or her biological sex. So, for example, a boy who identifies as female and takes hormones to affirm his gender identity would be prohibited from playing on girls' sports teams or competing against girls.

Republican majorities in the state legislature sent the bill to Noem's desk for her signature, and although at first she said she was ""excited"" to sign it, on Friday Noem issued a ""style and form"" veto, sending it back to lawmakers.

In a statement, the Alliance Defending Freedom, a non-profit legal group that supports social conservative causes, blasted the governor's decision.

""Gov. Noem had an opportunity to protect women and girls by signing the Fairness in Women's Sports bill, but instead she pandered to the demands of special interests,"" Alliance Defending Freedom General Counsel Kristen Waggoner said. ""In what was an abuse of her 'style and form' veto power, she gutted protections for collegiate athletes and took away legal recourse for girls forced to compete against biological boys.""

The South Dakota state constitution empowers the governor to send bills ""with errors in style or form"" back to the legislature with specific recommendations for change.

In a letter to lawmakers, Noem stated her belief that ""boys should play boys' sports, and girls should play girls' sports,"" but said she was ""concerned that this bill's vague and overly broad language could have significant unintended consequences.""

Among her concerns is that the bill is ""unrealistic in the context of collegiate athletics."" Both the NCAA and the South Dakota Chamber of Commerce reportedly lobbied Noem against the bill. The NCAA objected to policies it views as discriminatory against transgender athletes, and the Chamber of Commerce was concerned that the state could lose millions of dollars of business revenue if South Dakota colleges and universities lose NCAA accreditation and tournament games are no longer held in the state.

""Competing on the national stage means compliance with the national governing bodies that oversee collegiate athletics,"" Noem wrote to lawmakers.

""The proposed revisions limit House Bill 1217 to elementary and secondary school athletics, which are primarily conducted among South Dakota schools and at the high school level are governed by the South Dakota High School Activities Association, a creature of South Dakota law. The proposed revisions will also remedy the vague language regarding civil liability and the use of performance-enhancing drugs,"" she said.

Republican sponsors of the bill said Noem's proposed changes would significantly weaken the legislation and be morally inconsistent.

""The recommended changes will substantially change the content of the bill. The legality was removed, which leaves the bill with a very weak authority. Removing the collegiate is simply saying that biology matters in high school, but not in college,"" Republican state Sen. Maggie Sutton, the bill's lead sponsor in the state senate said.



Republican state Rep. Rhonda Milstead, H.B. 1217's sponsor in the House, accused the governor of violating the state constitution with her veto.

The state constitution says: ""Bills with errors in style or form may be returned to the Legislature by the Governor with specific recommendations for change."" Milstead argues the proposed changes go beyond ""style"" or ""form"" to be tantamount to legislation from the executive branch.

""It is overreaching by trying to legislate law as the executive branch,"" Milstead said.

Noem's explanation was also received poorly by the Alliance Defending Freedom.

""We are shocked that a governor who claims to be a firebrand conservative with a rising national profile would cave to 'woke' corporate ideology,"" Waggoner said.

She continued: ""The governor tried to explain her betrayal with claims that her hands were tied by NCAA policy. But there is no NCAA policy that requires schools to allow males to compete on women's teams as Gov. Noem suggests. The governor also vetoed the part of the bill that gives girls any legal recourse against unfair policies that arise. What's left is mere lip service for women and girls forced to compete against biological males.""",0.16337000445768157
"Opponents of a California bill banning police officers who've engaged in ""public expressions of hate"" say the proposed legislation also would target cops who have conservative views, KCRA-TV reported.

What are the details?

The California Law Enforcement Accountability Reform, or CLEAR Act — Assembly Bill 655 — would require background checks on ""whether a candidate for specified peace officer positions has engaged in membership in a hate group, participation in hate group activities, or public expressions of hate, as those terms are defined. The bill would provide that certain findings would disqualify a person from employment.""

Termination could result for presently employed officers, the bill's language states.

Assembly member Ash Kalra, author of the bill, told the station that ""you have a constitutional right to have racist and bigoted views. You don't have a constitutional right to be a police officer.""

Definitions

The bill defines ""hate group"" as ""an organization that, based upon its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities, supports, advocates for, or practices the denial of constitutional rights of, the genocide of, or violence towards, any group of persons based upon race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.""

In addition, the bill defines ""public expression of hate"" as ""any explicit expression, either on duty or off duty and while identifying oneself as, or reasonably identifiable by others as, a peace officer, in a public forum, on social media including in a private discussion forum, in writing, or in speech, as advocating or supporting the denial of constitutional rights of, the genocide of, or violence towards, any group of persons based upon race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.""

""Public expression of hate"" also is defined as ""the public display of any tattoo, uniform, insignia, flag, or logo that indicates support for the denial of constitutional rights of, the genocide of, or violence towards, any group of persons based upon race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.""

The bill's language adds, however, that public expression of hate ""does not include visiting the website of a hate group, or any single, isolated comment posted on an online forum, chatroom, or other electronic or social media operated by a hate group.""

Kaira added that ""the role and responsibility of peace officers is so important for a community healing — for a community's safety — and the people in the community don't feel that those that are entrusted with that responsibility look at them in a way that's unbiased. That undermines our entire public safety system,"" KCRA noted.

Conservative officers, candidates are vulnerable

But Greg Burt — the California Family Council's director of capitol engagement — told the station that the bill's language is too broad.

""I think everyone can agree that no one wants cops serving us who belong to violent hate groups, but this bill goes far beyond that. It actually goes after individual cops who simply have conservative social views on issues like marriage,"" Burt noted to KCRA. ""I think there's a mistake in assuming that Christians who have conservative views on moral issues are going to be a threat to folks who disagree with them.""

Professor Leslie Jacobs of the McGeorge School of Law told the station that the government potentially can control even the private speech of its employees ""if it disrupts the efficient operation the enterprise and the job.""

KCRA said the bill is scheduled to go before the Assembly Public Safety Committee on April 6.",-2.2136512799188015
"It's not just when you're having fun that time flies. I can't believe it's nearly 11 months since my first article noting that locking down and masking children is a crime against humanity divorced from all science. Yet here we are almost a year later, entering a new spring season, with children being forced to mask in school (assuming they are even in school) and being wrongly treated as vectors of spread rather than the future of our country. The consequences are unfathomable and will plague us for years to come.

Last week, CBC News reported that McMaster Children's Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario, saw a 90% increase in children admitted for eating disorders, along with a tripling of children patients admitted after suicide attempts over a four-month period.

The culprit? A ""lack of social interaction, increased conflict at home, and the inability to rely on friends as main contributors.""

As a result, the hospital has also seen double the admissions for drug-related psychosis.

Sadly, there is nothing unique to Canada. It's occurring everywhere in the world where children were shut out of school and where adults selfishly projected their own fears upon children. In places like Los Alamos, New Mexico, emergency responders saw a tripling of suicides during the first eight months of the lockdowns. In August, the CDC reported that 25% of young adults considered suicide, yet the agency has failed to fundamentally change its policies in the ensuing months.

It didn't have to be this way. Even if one agreed with the unprecedented masking and social isolation of adults, the science was clear from day one that children were less at risk either to get sick from or to spread the virus than from typical seasonal pathogens. We could have left children alone to live much of their normal lives and routines.

Ironically, in September 2019, just months before the coronavirus outbreak became apparent in Wuhan, Johns Hopkins wrote a paper for the World Health Organization gaming out ""Preparedness for a High-Impact Respiratory Pathogen Pandemic."" Hopkins, which became a leading voice for lockdowns just a few months later, warned about the severe consequences of ""non-pharmaceutical interventions"" (NPIs).

""During an emergency, it should be expected that implementation of some NPIs, such as travel restrictions and quarantine, might be pursued for social or political purposes by political leaders, rather than pursued because of public health evidence,"" warned the team from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. ""WHO should rapidly and clearly articulate its opposition to inappropriate NPIs, especially when they threaten public health response activities or pose increased risks to the health of the public.""

Well, several months later, those political NPIs are exactly what Hopkins recommended. Officials destroyed the health of a generation of children, all for politics, when they knew from day one that this virus was not a danger to children. The evidence from day one showed lockdowns of children would be all pain and no gain, yet Hopkins refused to heed its own advice from September 2019.

""It is necessary to further study the effectiveness of NPIs in a variety of contexts to ensure that they are employed properly with a strong evidence base, and that the value of taking any specific NPI intervention in a particular pandemic setting is not outweighed by the potential harm,"" warned the authors, prophetically. ""It is important to communicate to political leaders the absence of evidence surrounding many NPI interventions and the adverse consequences that may follow them.""

To this day, we never hear a word from people like Anthony Fauci or CDC Director Rochelle Walensky about the negative consequences of COVID cult-like living on children or anyone else. In fact, this is not even a case of the consequences outweighing the benefits, because there are zero benefits to lockdown. We didn't need 12 months of evidence after lockdowns were implemented to predict they'd fail. The same Hopkins paper predicted this just months before. Here is the money quote:

In the context of a high-impact respiratory pathogen, quarantine may be the least likely NPI to be effective in controlling the spread due to high transmissibility. To implement effective quarantine measures, it would need to be possible to accurately evaluate an individual's exposure, which would be difficult to do for a respiratory pathogen because of the ease of widespread transmission from infected individuals. Quarantine measures will be least effective for pathogens that are highly transmissible, have short incubation periods, and spread through true airborne mechanisms, as opposed to droplets.

It was known from day one that this virus was highly transmissible like a cold and that there was no way we could stop the spread of it as we could of Ebola. Shortly afterward, it became apparent that this virus is transmitted through aerosols, not through droplets, which is why it spread like wildfire even after all the measures were strictly adhered to. It's also why masks became useless.

If one had to list the pros of masking and isolation on one side of a paper, and the short and long-term harms on the other side, the pro side would be blank and the con side would not have enough room to enumerate all of the ways we are destroying the social, mental, emotional, physical, developmental, and educational health of our kids.

Now, as more kids finally return to school, the same people who destroyed their lives for a year are now suggesting that they should strictly wear masks and be yelled at all day for not wearing them properly. ""Oh, it's just a mask, what's the harm?"" they ask. Yet anyone with a modicum of common sense understands that a mask, aside from the physical harms, serves as a constant reminder for children to needlessly fear this virus and one another. Would we ever treat our pets this way?



Thankfully, the public is finally starting to fight back. People took to the streets to demonstrate in cities throughout the world , including in nearly every country in Europe. Police in Austria even joined in with the protesters. The question for us is whether Americans will lead the freedom spring marches or follow far behind Europe.",0.6461853525869512
"A current aide of Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) has accused the New York governor of sexual harassment and misconduct.

Over the last several weeks, multiple women have accused Cuomo of making inappropriate remarks and engaging in disturbing sexual behaviors including making unwelcome advances, including the woman's friend — also a Cuomo aide — who said earlier in March that Cuomo put his hand underneath her blouse and groped her.

The 63-year-old Democrat has denied any wrongdoing.

What are the details?

In a Sunday New York Times report, the aide, Alyssa McGrath, accused Cuomo of ""ogling her body, remarking on her looks, and making suggestive comments to her and another woman in his office.""

The Times reported that Cuomo called McGrath and a female co-worker ""mingle mamas"" and inquired about her ""lack of a wedding ring"" and the status of her divorce.

""She recalled him telling her she was beautiful — in Italian — and, as she sat alone with him in his office awaiting dictation, he gazed down her shirt and commented on a necklace hanging there,"" the outlet noted.

McGrath, a 33-year-old woman who has been working for the Cuomo administration since 2018, said that during one encounter, she was summoned to Cuomo's office for dictation.

""I put my head down waiting for him to start speaking, and he didn't start speaking,"" she said. ""So I looked up to see what was going on. And he was blatantly looking down my shirt.""

She said that Cuomo then asked her, ""What's on your necklace?""

The necklace, McGrath said, was in her shirt.

""He has a way of making you feel very comfortable around him, almost like you're his friend,"" she recalled. ""But then you walk away from your encounter or conversation, in your head going, 'I can't believe I just had that interaction with the governor of New York.'""

McGrath said of the continued flow of women making accusations against the governor, ""It makes me really upset to hear him speak about this and completely deny all allegations. And I have no doubt in my mind that all of these accusers are telling the truth.""

In a statement, Cuomo's lawyer, Rita Glavin, responded to McGrath's allegations by saying that he never made ""inappropriate advances or inappropriately touched anyone.""

""The governor has greeted men and women with hugs and a kiss on the cheek, forehead, or hand,"" Glavin said. ""Yes, he has posed for photographs with his arm around them. Yes, he uses Italian phrases like 'Ciao bella.' None of this is remarkable, although it may be old-fashioned. He has made clear that he has never made inappropriate advances or inappropriately touched anyone.""



The Times reported that Cuomo has ""asked New Yorkers to await the outcome of two investigations into the multiple allegations of sexual harassment against him before passing judgment.""

McGrath said that during a 2019 Christmas party, Cuomo ""kissed [her] on the forehead.""

""And in the picture we posed with him that year, he is gripping our sides very tightly,"" she recalled.

McGrath has continued to go to work amid the burgeoning number of allegations against the Democratic lawmaker.

""She says that executive offices are largely quiet, far from the heady days of Mr. Cuomo's pandemic-related popularity, when the halls of the Capitol buzzed with excitement and purpose,"" the Times noted.

Anything else?

Earlier in March, a Cuomo aide said that he reached underneath her blouse and groped her chest while the two were alone in the executive mansion.

McGrath said that the woman — her co-worker, who has not been publicly identified at the time of this reporting — ""froze"" when the alleged interaction took place.

""She froze when he started doing that stuff to her,"" she said. ""But who are you going to tell?""

McGrath said that the co-worker told her that Cuomo directed her not to talk to McGrath — with whom she shares a friendly relationship — about the alleged incident.

""He told her specifically not to tell me,"" she said.



The Times noted, ""Over the last three years, Ms. McGrath said, the governor had seemingly fostered an unusual work triangle with her and her friend, the co-worker he allegedly groped, blending a professional relationship with unwanted attention. There was paternalistic patter, but also a commandeering, sometimes invasive physicality.""

In a statement, Mariann Wang, an attorney for McGrath, told the Times, ""This would be unacceptable behavior from any boss, much less the governor.""

""The women in the executive chamber are there to work for the State of New York,"" Wang added, ""not serve as [Cuomo's] eye candy or prospective girlfriend.""",0.22782867603635693
"A northern Michigan county that encountered controversy regarding the 2020 general election has decided to hand-count every ballot in an upcoming primary instead of using machines from Dominion Voting Systems.

Antrim County commissioners voted unanimously to hand-count the votes of the upcoming May 4 primary. The commissioners rejected a proposal from county clerk Sheryl Guy to apportion $5,080 to hire consultants to prepare Dominion voting machines for the upcoming primary.

Commissioners are concerned that reprogramming the machines and then using them in the primary would violate a judge's order. The machines could be evidence in an ongoing lawsuit; reprogramming them could delete data relevant to the case.

""If we use them, we have to delete them, which is contradictory to a court order,"" commissioner Terry VanAlstine said before the vote, according to the Epoch Times. ""We can't delete the data that's on the machines. If you use the current machines, they need to be swiped, they need to be cleared. And we can't do that.""

""We are left with equipment not 'certified for use' as required by the Secretary of State,"" Guy said.

In order for the voting equipment to be ready for the primary, it has to be tested for accuracy by April 29.

""Her plan to hire Alabama-based consulting firm Pro V & V to remove and secure the hard drives, replace them with new hard drives, and share contractual information with 13th Circuit Court Judge Kevin Elsenheimer, who is presiding over the case, was met with skepticism and open hostility by some officials and many residents,"" the Traverse City Record-Eagle reported.



""If humans want to create a bias and favor certain candidates, they certainly have that ability with any of these machines,"" Dale Eschenburg, who served as a volunteer poll auditor in December, said. ""Dominion has no credibility in my view. Did you direct your staff to delete those images, or where you asked to do so by Dominion or our executive branch? At the end of the day we had integrity in our election, but it was after four tries to get the numbers right.""

The only options were to purchase new voting machines that would reportedly cost approximately $150,000, ask the court for permission to use the current machines, or hand-count the votes. The commission opted to hand-count the votes despite the process possibly be illegal in Michigan.

Antrim County officials are hopeful that the state will understand the extraneous circumstances.

""The state says we can't. But let them come and tell us that we can't, given our circumstance,"" Ed Boettcher said. ""We're going to say we're going to hand-count them and let the state tell us we can't.""

""The ballots will be exactly as they are now,"" Boettcher added. ""We're just going to count them manually instead of with the machine. But we want to make sure they're going to certify it.""

In November, Guy conceded that her office — and not Dominion Voting Systems — was responsible for an ""incomplete software update that mistakenly assigned about 2,000 votes cast for then-President Donald Trump, to then-Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden.""

""Initial results in the Republican county showed a local victory for Joe Biden over Donald Trump. But it was attributed to human error, not any problems with voting machines, and corrected. A judge still took the extraordinary step of allowing forensic images of Dominion election equipment,"" according to U.S. News & World Report.

""These errors were quickly discovered and rectified by the protective systems our state has built in to verify and protect election integrity and were further verified when a hand count was completed,"" Michigan Sen. Ed McBroom (R) said in December.

William Bailey filed the lawsuit on Nov. 23, accusing the county of election fraud, a violation of the ""purity of election clause,"" and said his constitutional rights had been violated after a marijuana ordinance proposal passed by a single vote, the Traverse City Record-Eagle reported. A remote hearing is scheduled for March 22, according to court records.",0.8075217336051574
"Federal and local investigators ""have so far not found evidence"" of a federal hate crime in the Atlanta spa tragedy in which eight people — including six Asian women — were massacred

What are the details?

Despite the narrative that widely circulated in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, the Associated Press reported that investigators working the case cannot find definitive evidence that clears the federal standard of a hate crime.

From the AP:

Though investigators have not ruled out ultimately filing hate crime charges, they face legal constraints in doing so. Federal statutes require prosecutors to prove that the victims were targeted because of specific factors, like race, gender identity, religion, national origin or sexual orientation, or the suspect infringed on a federally or constitutionally protected activity. To successfully prosecute a hate crimes case, prosecutors typically seek tangible evidence, such as the suspect expressing racism in text messages, in internet posts or to witnesses.



No such evidence has yet surfaced in the Georgia probe, according to the officials, who have direct knowledge of the investigation...

NBC News corroborated the AP's reporting.

In fact, the local U.S. attorney in Atlanta has not directed the FBI's Atlanta field office to open a preliminary federal hate crime investigation, yet another indication there is insufficient evidence for a hate crime.

""So far, no directive has been given, the officials said, because after probing electronic devices and conducting interviews, investigators have seen no evidence leading in that direction,"" NBC News reported.

Still, the FBI said it may pursue federal hate crime charges if investigators uncover evidence indicating the killer targeted the victims because of their race.

""If, in the course of the local investigations, information comes to light of a potential federal violation, the FBI is prepared to investigate,"" Kevin Rowson, a spokesman for the Atlanta's FBI office, told NBC News.

Georgia officials, however, have stated that state hate crime charges remain possible.

What about the motive?

While the investigation remains in the introductory stages, law enforcement revealed the alleged killer admitted he had a ""sexual addiction"" and targeted the spa businesses because they were a ""temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate.""

""It sounds to me like these locations, he sees them as an outlet for him, that something that he shouldn't be doing and that is an issue with porn and that he was attempting to take out that temptation,"" Cherokee County Sheriff's Office spokesman Capt. Jay Baker said.

Baker has since been removed from the case after outrage when he said the killer was just having a ""really bad day"" when he massacred eight people.",-2.8684628600613014
"A migrant who is seeking asylum in the United States admitted in an interview that aired Sunday that he would not have attempted to travel to the U.S. if Donald Trump were still president.

In fact, the migrant said specifically that he decided now was the right time to seek asylum here because of President Joe Biden.

What are the details?

ABC News anchor Martha Raddatz recently spoke with a Brazilian man — just one of the tens of thousands of migrants who are traveling to the U.S. in search of asylum — who admitted that Biden's presidency was a motivating factor for coming to America.

""Would you have tried to do this when Donald Trump was president?"" Raddatz asked.

""Definitely not. Definitely. We have a chance, you know. The same environment that's been going on today wasn't there last year,"" the man responded. ""We used to watch the news and I definitely wouldn't do this.""

Raddatz followed up,"" So did you come here because Joe Biden was elected president?""

""Basically, basically,"" the man said. ""The main thing was the violence in my country. And the second thing, I think, was Joe Biden.""

What is the background?



Biden campaigned on promises to reverse many of Trump's deterrent immigration policies. After Biden won the election, migrants said they expected the Biden administration to ""honor its commitments.""

Thus far, Biden has made good on his promises. For example, Biden repealed Trump's ""remain in Mexico"" policy that forced asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico while their asylum requests are processed by U.S. immigration courts.

Now, because migrant processing infrastructure is being overwhelmed by asylum-seekers, some migrants are reportedly being released from custody without necessary court information.

Still, despite the magnifying crisis, Biden administration officials are blaming Trump.

""As we were coming into the administration, we knew we were inheriting an absolute mess from the previous administration — that there were aspects of our legal immigration system that had been gutted and a department that lacked the personnel to administer our laws,"" Julie Chavez Rodriguez, director of the White House's office of intergovernmental affairs, told CNN.

Another administration official told CNN, ""When we came into office, like, it was a disaster. I mean, really. The staffing wasn't in place, the structures weren't in place.""

However, Texas Democrats like Rep. Henry Cuellar, who represent districts along the U.S.-Mexico border, believe Biden's immigration policies are contributing to the crisis.

""You just can't say, 'Yeah, yeah, let everybody in' — because then we're affected down there at the border,"" Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) said recently. ""The bad guys know how to market this.""",-0.46688276135010615
"Former President Donald Trump will return to social media in a few months, but it won't be on an existing platform. Trump will instead create ""his own platform"" that will ""completely redefine the game,"" according to one of his top aides.

In Trump's final month as president, Twitter permanently banned him for tweets that were deemed as ""incitement of violence"" in relation to the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol building by Trump supporters. Trump was then suspended from Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, and Shopify.

Trump has been relatively quiet since he was banished from the largest social media platforms. What few communications Trump has delivered since Jan. 20 have been statements released through his ""Office of the Former President"" in Palm Beach County, Florida.

Jason Miller, a former spokesman and senior adviser for Trump's campaign, teased how and when the 45th president would return to social media. Speaking to Fox News' ""Media Buzz,"" Miller proclaimed that Trump will return to social media on his own platform.

""I do think we're going to see President Trump returning to social media in probably about two or three months here with his own platform,"" Miller teased. ""This is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media.""



""It's going to completely redefine the game, and everybody is going to be waiting and watching to see what exactly President Trump does, but it will be his own platform,"" Miller told host Howard Kurtz.

Miller did not provide specifics as to the new social media platform or even the name of the project, but he said that Trump has been holding ""a lot of high-powered meetings"" at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Miller added that ""numerous companies"" have approached Trump regarding the potential venture.

""This new platform is going to be big,"" Miller proclaimed. ""Everyone wants him and he's going to bring millions and millions — tens of millions — to this platform.""

Based on social media comments, the early favorite for the name of Trump's social media platform is ""Trumpet.""

Miller then pivoted to a new endorsement that Trump will make on Monday.



""Pay attention to Georgia tomorrow, on Monday,"" Miller said. ""There's a big endorsement that's coming that's going to really shake things up in the political landscape in Georgia. It's big, it's coming tomorrow, and just be sure to tune in.""



Two weeks ago, Trump urged former football great turned political commentator Herschel Walker to run for the U.S. Senate against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock (Ga.).

""Wouldn't it be fantastic if the legendary Herschel Walker ran for the United States Senate in Georgia?"" Trump said in a statement issued by his super PAC. ""He would be unstoppable, just like he was when he played for the Georgia Bulldogs, and in the NFL. He is also a GREAT person. Run Herschel, run!""

Earlier this month, Trump publicly voiced his support for South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) and Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo (R), who are both running for re-election. Trump also endorsed Arkansas Lieutenant Governor Tim Griffin (R), who is running to be the state's attorney general.",-0.2628361521870787
"A senior Teen Vogue staffer who opposed Alexi McCammond's hiring as editor-in-chief because of old offensive tweets has her own history of questionable tweets.

McCammond was hired by Condé Nast to be the new editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue, but then decade-old tweets she wrote as a teenager were unearthed. Many staffers at Teen Vogue found the offensive tweets to be ""racist and homophobic,"" which were hurtful towards Asian and LGBTQ communities. Staffers ""privately expressed concerns"" to Condé Nast's global chief content officer Anna Wintour and CEO Roger Lynch, according to a report from the Daily Beast. More than 20 Teen Vogue staffers also wrote a letter to management to express their concern about McCammond's hiring.

Following the cancel culture firestorm, McCammond and Condé Nast parted ways.

McCammond announced her resignation from the Condé Nast magazine over the tweets she made when she was 17 years old.

""I became a journalist to help lift up the stories and voices of our most vulnerable communities. As a young woman of color, that's part of the reason I was so excited to lead the Teen Vogue team in their next chapter,"" McCammond said. ""My past tweets have overshadowed the work I've done to highlight the people and issues that I care about — issues that Teen Vogue has worked tirelessly to share with the world — and so Condé Nast and I have decided to part ways.""

McCammond was a political journalist at Axios, an NBC and MSNBC contributor, and won an award from the National Association of Black Journalists for being the emerging journalist of the year.



It turns out that one of the Teen Vogue staffers who signed the letter advising management not to hire McCammond because of her racist tweets also wrote offensive tweets in the past. Christine Davitt, a senior social media manager at Teen Vogue, reportedly used the N-word in several tweets from a decade ago.

On March 8, Davitt posted the letter from the Teen Vogue staff to management on her Instagram with the caption: ""So proud of my @teenvogue colleagues. The work continues…""

After McCammond announced she would be resigning, Davitt tweeted, ""[Exhales the deepest sigh I have ever sighed],"" according to the Post Millennial.

Now, Davitt's tweets from 2009 and 2010 have resurfaced, which use the N-word. In two of the tweets, she appears to use the slur while talking to a friend. The third tweet reads, ""I love the contradictory nature of the phrase 'white n****.'""

Davitt calls herself a ""queer fat filipinx femme in brooklyn"" in her Instagram bio. Fox News reported, ""Davitt says in multiple tweets that she is of mixed Irish and Filipino descent.""

Davitt's own magazine published an op-ed in 2019 titled"" ""Stop Using the N-Word If You're Not Black."" The Teen Vogue article lectured their readers, ""There's been much debate within the Black community about the N-word and just how much good our supposed 'reclaiming' of it can actually do. And in moments like this, that feels like a valid point. But one thing that shouldn't be up for dispute is who gets to use it. And if you ain't Black, that ain't you.""

Davitt has since locked her Twitter account and protected her tweets.",-1.1204347450585974
"The border crisis has gotten so uncontrollable that President Joe Biden's Customs and Border Protection is considering releasing illegal immigrants into the United States without providing them with a court date.

A senior source with Customs and Border Protection told Fox News that the Rio Grande Valley Sector would begin releasing illegal immigrants who claim asylum without issuing a Notice to Appear, which means they will be discharged without being administered a date to appear in immigration court.



""Such a decision would be unprecedented if enacted and would place the responsibility of seeking an asylum hearing on the migrants through Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or legal assistance,"" Fox News reported.

The source from the CBP said the revolutionary change was necessary because the border situation has ""become so dire that BP [Border Patrol] has no choice but to release people nearly immediately after apprehension because there is no space to hold people even to do necessary NTA paperwork."" The report noted that issuing an NTA can take hours for one person or a family. The potential new policy would purportedly not apply to unaccompanied minors.



When an illegal alien crosses the U.S. border and is caught by federal border agents they are issued a Notice to Appear, which is a ""charging document issued by ICE, CBP, or the USCIS seeking to commence formal removal proceedings against an individual before a federal immigration court.""

Rio Grande Valley Sector agents are based in Texas and ""patrol over 320 river miles, 250 coastal miles and 19 counties equating to over 17,000 square miles,"" according to the CBP website. There are Rio Grande Valley Sector CBP stations in Rio Grande City, Harlingen, Fort Brown, McAllen, Brownsville, Falfurrias, Corpus Christi, Weslaco, and Kingsville.

The current border crisis has seen the highest number of illegal immigrants attempting to enter the U.S. in the last 20 years, according to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and a senior official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

To attempt to handle the flood of migrants across the U.S. border, the Biden administration has reportedly awarded an $86 million contract to pay for hotel rooms to house 1,200 migrant family members.

The Department of Homeland Security has reportedly floated the idea of flying migrants from the U.S. southern border to states on the Canadian border.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced on Saturday that a new migrant facility had been opened in Pecos, Texas.

Texas has bared the brunt of Biden's immigration crisis, where migrant facilities are reportedly packed up to 729% of capacity, and children are allegedly held in cells ""akin to jails.""

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) blasted the Biden administration over its handling of the massive surge, calling it an ""abject failure."" Abbott revealed that one migrant facility for minors had unsafe drinking water and another one had a COVID-19 outbreak.



Nine Republican senators ripped Biden for his actions regarding the U.S. southern border in a letter last week that demanded answers from the administration.

Last week, Mayorkas said if ""loving parents"" send their children to the U.S. border, ""We will not expel"" them, ""we will care for them.""

Mexican officials have recently admitted that immigration policies by the Trump administration helped curb the overwhelming surge of migrants from Central and South America.",0.643343249290092
"MSNBC analyst Malcolm Nance claimed Friday that joking about President Joe Biden's infamous tripping incident while boarding Air Force One could encourage an assassination attempt against Biden.

What is the background?



With cameras rolling, Biden tripped three times while climbing stairs to board Air Force One on Friday. In response, the White House blamed the wind.

Of course, the incident quickly triggered internet memes and jokes.

Donald Trump Jr., son of former President Donald Trump, even posted a video that jokingly showed his father hitting a golf ball that strikes Biden in the head to trigger his stair-tripping incident.

""It wasn't the wind folks,"" Trump Jr. tweeted.

What did Nance say?

The MSNBC terrorism analyst claimed Trump Jr.'s tweet was ""dangerous"" because it could inspire bad actors to harm the president.

""Well, it's dangerous because what he does is he makes light of the potential of injury people,"" Nance alleged on Dean Obeidallah's SiriusXM radio show.

Shockingly, Nance claimed that members of firearm forums may see Trump Jr.'s video and become inspired to use their ""long-range shooting skills"" against Biden.

Look, you know one of the things that I do is I monitor right-wing extremists' internal communications. I watch their chats, I watch their telegram channels and their Parler tweets and go on the forums that they're very prevalent on.



And some of the forums that are prevalent are gun forums. And let me tell you, you want to see some seething hotbeds of violence — you know potential violence — and some of these people have long-range shooting skills. And this is the sort of thing that they would you know they would see that video and it would turn into a discussion of whether they use a .338 Lapua or whether they use .50 caliber BMG to get that shot, right?



Somehow Trump Jr.'s video invokes murder jokes, Nance went on to claim.

""That is joking about murder, and you know the thing is so long as it's not directly stating you know 'I want to do X,Y or Z to Joe Biden' they can get away with that. But the point is [Trump Jr's video] mainstreams the potential for danger,"" Nance said.",0.014775865711882372
"Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe revealed Friday that an upcoming report will disclose that government officials have recorded more unidentified flying objects that are ""difficult to explain.""

Ratcliffe's remarks boost expectations for an upcoming government report about UFOs put into motion by the second pandemic-related stimulus bill.

The law, signed into law by former President Donald Trump last December, forced U.S. spy agencies and the Pentagon to disclose what they know about UFOs to the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services Committees within 180 days.



What did Ratcliffe say?

Speaking with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, Ratcliffe explained what the government report could disclose.

""There are a lot more sightings than have been made public. Some of those have been declassified,"" Ratcliffe said. ""And when we talk about sightings, we are talking about objects that have seen by Navy or Air Force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite imagery that, frankly, engage in actions that are difficult to explain. Movements that are hard to replicate that we don't have the technology for or traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom.""

Ratcliffe added that government officials have attempted to find a ""plausible solution"" for the UFOs — but admitted ""there are instances where we don't have good explanations for some of the things we've seen.""

""There have been sightings all over the world,"" Ratcliffe explained. ""When we talk about sightings, the other thing I will tell you is, it's not just a pilot or just a satellite, or some intelligence collection. Usually we have multiple sensors that are picking up these things, and some of these are unexplained phenomenon, and there is actually quite a few more than have been made public.""

Maria Bartiromo John Ratcliffe UAP Disclosure www.youtube.com

What is the background?

Government interest in disclosing additional UFO-related intelligence has been growing in recent years.

More from the Washington Examiner:

The Defense Department announced in September that then-Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist approved the creation of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force on Aug. 4, and the government group would be led by the Navy under the ""cognizance"" of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.



Videos from the Navy were released last year through the Freedom of Information Act that showed UFOs moving at incredible speeds and performing seemingly impossible aerial maneuvers. One of the videos was shot in November 2004; the other two were shot in January 2015. The three videos were code-named ""FLIR1,"" ""Gimbal,"" and ""GoFast.""

In fact, Ratcliffe said that he attempted to declassify some government intelligence on UFOs during his tenure as DNI, but was unsuccessful.

Anything else?

Just last month there was a UFO reported by American Airlines pilots for which the Federal Aviation Administration had no answer.

""A pilot reported seeing an object over New Mexico shortly after noon local time on Sunday, Feb. 21, 2021. FAA air traffic controllers did not see any object in the area on their radarscopes,"" the FAA said, Forbes reported.",-0.9085247435112979
"Nine Republican senators sent a barbed letter to the Biden administration that shined a spotlight on the current border crisis, and claimed President Joe Biden was largely responsible for the recent immigration surge.

The letter is led by Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and signed by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), John Kennedy (R-La.), and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).



""Regardless of what the Biden Administration wants to call this current set of circumstances it has created, this surge in illegal immigration carries significant risks,"" the letter reads. ""It also imposes a heavy burden on public resources. Congress and the American people must have additional clarity about how DHS and HHS are addressing it.""

The letter highlights how Biden's rhetoric and promises during the campaign fueled the current immigration crisis.



""During the presidential transition, then-President elect Biden made it clear that once in office, he would immediately begin rolling back immigration policies put in place to curtail illegal immigration, ensure careful vetting of asylum applicants, and protect U.S. national security interests,"" the GOP senators wrote. ""In keeping with this agenda, since January 20, President Biden and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have been aggressively reversing previous policies and replacing them with lax border security and enforcement policies that encourage immigrants to illegally migrate to the United States.""

The senators reference Biden's ""sweeping immigration proposal that, if passed, would grant mass amnesty with no strings attached to millions of illegal immigrants in the United States."" The Republicans note that the promise of citizenship combined with ""no effort whatsoever to secure the southern border"" has incentivized a massive surge in illegal immigration to the United States.

""Not surprisingly, these changes have been taken by many in Central and South America as an open invitation to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border with an expectation that arriving in the near future could mean an easy path to U.S. citizenship,"" the letter states.

""Smugglers have been recruiting increasingly large groups of as many as 1,000 or more people to bring across the border, encouraging them to make the trip on the basis that the Biden Administration is easier on illegal immigration than past administrations,"" the senators wrote.

The letter then presented ""staggering"" illegal immigration statistics to enunciate the severity of the crisis on the U.S. southern border.

""According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), nearly 78,000 people were detained or arrested at the U.S.-Mexico border in January 2021.6 That was the highest number recorded for the month of January at any point during the last decade, and those numbers have only continued to climb.""

""CBP has now confirmed that it encountered over 100,000 migrants at the southern border in February. That's the highest number for the month of February since 2006.""

""During the first week of March, there were several days when U.S. agents apprehended more than 4,000 migrants per day.""

""There also has been a drastic increase in the number of border crossings by unaccompanied alien children (UAC).""

""DHS personnel encountered more than 5,800 at the southwest land border in January. That was about 90% higher than the number DHS personnel encountered at the southwest border during the same month last year.""

""As of the first week of March, unaccompanied minors were crossing the border at a rate of about 350 per day, or about four times the rate recorded in fall 2020.""

The letter also addressed the concerning spike of unaccompanied children attempting to cross the border. The senators pointed out that the Biden administration enacted a policy of no longer expelling minors under the age of 18, and instead, the children must be sent to a Department of Health and Human Services facility within 72 hours. The new policy likely ""offered a fresh incentive for families to send their children on the extremely dangerous journey to cross the border alone.""

The senators questioned the surprise decision to house ""as many as 3,000 unaccompanied immigrant boys aged 15-17"" for up to three months at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, Texas.

""The city of Midland was blindsided by the news. Midland Mayor Patrick Payton, who was not even consulted or notified in advance, described the sudden arrival of the migrants as 'the strangest, most backward, disrespectful thing [he recalls seeing]… in a very long time.,"" the letter says.

The letter, which is addressed to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, demanded answers to 14 questions regarding the immigration crisis.

The GOP senators want to know how many migrants has CBP encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border since Biden's inauguration, questions about migrants with COVID-19, how the DHS will protect Americans from a coronavirus outbreak from the migrant surge, how many migrants does DHS currently project will cross the border this year, and the operating costs to handle the enormous influx. The senators want the questions answered by no later than April 2.",0.3380207584099747
"Federal attorneys in North Carolina have been investigating allegations of voter-related fraud, and on Friday, announced that 24 additional people have been charged over the last 18 months.

Agents of Homeland Security Investigations under the Document and Benefit Fraud Task Force in the Eastern District of North Carolina launched a probe into voter fraud. On Friday, the U.S. attorney's office for eastern North Carolina released a statement revealing that four defendants were being charged with making false claims of U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote in the 2016 general election. The two charged with unlawful voting also are accused of false claims of citizenship, according to the Associated Press.

""Gabriela Guzman-Miguel, 26, and Jose Abraham Navarro, 42, both of Mexico, are accused to have voted despite lacking the legal status to do so,"" the Epoch Times reported. ""The list described both as aliens or immigrants.""

The defendants hailed from 15 countries, including Honduras, France, Yemen, Iraq, Nigeria, and Canada. The first charges were filed in September 2019, and arrests have been as recent as this month.

""The charges include making false claims of U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote, naturalization fraud, and fraud and misuse of visas, permits, and other documents as it relates to the registration to vote, and false statements in immigration proceedings,"" the statement from the U.S. attorney's office for eastern North Carolina reads, adding that there are no charges of conspiracy.



""Those charged face jail time and fines of up to $350,000 if convicted,"" the Epoch Times noted.

In August 2018, charges of voter fraud-related charges were announced against 19 foreign nationals. Robert J. Higdon, Jr., United States Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, unveiled charges against foreign nationals from Mexico, Italy, Korea, Haiti, Panama, Korea, El Salvador, Germany, Poland, Guyana, Nigeria, Japan, and the Dominican Republic. The foreign nationals were hit with criminal charges of voting by an alien and false claim of U.S. citizenship.

""The right to vote is a precious privilege available only to citizens of the United States,"" Higdon said in February 2019. ""When a non-citizen votes in a federal election it serves to dilute and devalue the vote of American citizens and places the decision making authority of the American electorate in the hands of those who have no right to make those choices. This case is particularly disturbing as the defendant worked for the Board of Elections. My office will do its part to protect the rights of every American citizen to cast their vote freely and to have it counted fairly.""",-0.24192668070340162
"Russian President Vladimir Putin challenged President Joe Biden after being called a ""killer"" and the White House responded on Thursday during a media briefing.

Putin issued the challenge after Biden agreed to the description of the Russian leader during an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News.

""It takes one to know one,"" Putin taunted on Thursday. ""We always see our own traits in other people and think they are like how we really are.""

Later, he issued the challenge while speaking to a reporter.

""I've just thought of this now. I want to invite President Biden to continue our discussion, but on the condition that we do it actually live. But with no delays, directly in an open, direct discussion,"" Putin said in Moscow.

""It seems to me, it would be interesting both for Russian people and for the U.S. people, as well as for many other countries,"" Putin added.

When asked about Putin's request, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that the president was very busy.

""I'll have to get back to you if that is something we're entertaining. I would say that the President already had a conversation already with President Putin, even as there are more world leaders that he has not yet engaged with,"" Psaki said.

""And we engage with Russian leaders, members of the government, at all levels. But I don't have anything to report to you in terms of a future meeting,"" she added.

In the same interview with Stephanopoulos, Biden said that Putin would pay for trying to meddle in the U.S. election by influencing public opinion.

""The price he is going to pay, well, you'll see shortly,"" Biden threatened.

Here's more of Putin's response to Biden's remarks:",0.33980267064330627
"The Joe Pags Show

Saturday 12pm–3pm ET

This is a straight-forward talk show where Joe Pagliarulo is getting a reputation for just telling it like it is. He tackles the news of the day — and beyond — and really lays it on the line.",0.6908937754548048
"Phil, like you've never seen before

What does a man do when liberals try to run him out of town for quoting a Bible verse? He goes deep into the woods and starts a fire. Join Phil Robertson like you’ve never seen him before. No middlemen, no PC police — just truth, from Phil’s mouth to your screen.

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SEE MORE SHOWS",-0.025005693517144403
"Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) was forced to backtrack Friday after he undercut Democratic talking points regarding the growing migrant crisis at the southern United States border.

What are Democrats doing?

As the migrant crisis intensifies, Democrats have been downplaying the seriousness of the crisis. The Biden administration, for example, has refused to call the situation a ""crisis.""

Reports indicate that some migrant children are being forced to sleep on the floor while others can only take one shower per week. One facility in Donna, Texas, even reached more than 700% capacity. Many of the housing families are ""akin to jails,"" the New York Times reported.

Currently, there are more than 13,000 migrant children in U.S. custody, according to CBS News:

On Tuesday, the U.S. government had more than 13,000 unaccompanied migrant children in its custody. More than 4,200 were stuck in Border Patrol facilities unfit to house them, including 3,000 who had been held beyond a 72-hour legal limit. Another 9,200 minors were being housed in shelters that are scrambling to reactivate beds taken offline during the pandemic.

What did Murphy say?

Murphy admitted Friday that migrant children are being separated from their families.

""Just left the border processing facility. 100s of kids packed into big open rooms. In a corner, I fought back tears as a 13 yr old girl sobbbed (sic) uncontrollably explaining thru a translator how terrified she was, having been separated from her grandmother and without her parents,"" Murphy tweeted.

In response, many people noted that Murphy just admitted that minors are being separated from their family members under President Joe Biden's leadership, a reality that was harshly criticized during the Trump administration.

For example, Fox News host and Townhall editor Katie Pavlich noted, ""The Biden administration is separating kids from their family members, according to this Democrat Senator.""



Meanwhile, Steve Guest, an adviser to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), highlighted Biden's promise to end ""family separation.""

Later, Murphy clarified that children are not being taken from their parents — just other relatives.



""For clarification, kids are no longer separated from their parents at the border (in this case, the girl's parents are in the US). But even though kids can now stay and apply for asylum, if they are traveling w relatives who aren't parents, the relative can't stay,"" Murphy said.

Finally, Murphy defended the Biden administration's handling of the crisis — and, of course, blamed the Trump administration for the current situation.

""[T]he Biden Administration is trying their best to uphold the rule of law with humanity. They have a ton of work ahead to clean up the mess Trump left them, but their intentions are true,"" Murphy said.

""The desperation these kids and families are fleeing is hard to describe. The memory of that 13 yr old girl will be w me forever. So long as conditions are abysmal in places south, people will find a way to get here, no matter how high the wall is or how many border agents,"" he added.

Anything else?

Despite attempts from Democratic politicians to downplay the crisis — such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calling it a ""humanitarian challenge"" — immigration activists say the current situation mirrors what was criticized under former President Donald Trump.

""It really does look and feel in many ways like a parent-child separation,"" Lisa Koop, associate director of legal services at the National Immigrant Justice Center, told USA Today. ""The trauma of the separation is very similar.""",0.9201162532084586
"Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Friday that mandating social distancing of 6 feet throughout the coronavirus pandemic ""has probably been the single costliest mitigation tactic.""

Gottlieb's comments came the same day the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released updated guidance essentially saying that 3 feet is adequate social distancing if masks are worn. The new guidelines mainly addressed schoolchildren.

What did Gottlieb say?

Speaking on CNBC's ""Closing Bell,"" Gottlieb shockingly admitted the 6-foot social distancing requirement was not ""based on clear science.""

""The 6-foot distancing requirement has probably been the single costliest mitigation tactic we've employed in response to COVID,"" Gottlieb said.

""And it really wasn't based on clear science,"" he added. ""We implemented it early on based on an assumption coronavirus was going to spread like influenza, and there had been some prior research that flu spread predominately through droplets, and if you stated 6 feet apart from people, it reduced droplet transmission.""

However, Gottlieb explained scientists learned COVID-19 spreads ""through aerosols — not just droplets.""

""So, probably 6 feet isn't as effective as it would be if this was purely droplet transmission,"" Gottlieb said. ""I think the fact that we've probably over-relied on a flu-based model caused us to under appreciate the role of aerosol transmission, and probably caused us to overestimate contaminated surfaces as a source of spread. It probably caused us to underestimate the utility of high-quality masks in reducing transmission. It probably caused us to overestimate the impact of distancing to 6 feet.""

""We should have re-adjudicated this much earlier,"" Gottlieb admitted.

What about the biggest mistake?



Gottlieb said on CBS' ""Face the Nation"" earlier this month the failure to mandate mask wearing at the beginning of the pandemic was ""the single biggest mistake because it was the easiest intervention that we could have reached for early to prevent spread.""

""I think this was a real failure to detect all of the asymptomatic spread. We overestimated the role of fomites, of contaminated surfaces in spreading this virus, because we weren't recognizing all the spread that was happening from asymptomatic individuals, because we weren't doing good tracking and tracing. We were using a flu-model to detect COVID spread and it wasn't applicable,"" Gottlieb explained.

""If we had recognized earlier all this spread through asymptomatic transmission and the fact that this is spreading not just through droplets but also aerosolization, enclosed environments, we probably would have recommended masks and high-quality masks much earlier,"" he continued. ""So that was probably the single biggest mistake, largely because it was a single easiest intervention that we could have reached for early.""",-1.3033788387627658
"The News & Why It Matters

Listening to the news doesn't have to be such a bummer. Your favorite personalities sit down for a roundtable rundown of the top stories of the day.",1.084087082605903
"Reform This! with Dr. Zuhdi Jasser

The courageous voice of pro-American Muslims. Zuhdi Jasser breaches the many fault lines between Islamic communities and the West, covering controversial issues few have the courage to confront.",-0.27292487899519435
"The Joe Pags Show

Saturday 12pm–3pm ET

This is a straight-forward talk show where Joe Pagliarulo is getting a reputation for just telling it like it is. He tackles the news of the day — and beyond — and really lays it on the line.",1.371993220723836
"""CNN is fake news!""

That's what CNN viewers heard Saturday as CNN Supreme Court reporter Ariane de Vogue reported live from outside the Supreme Court following Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court.

""CNN is fake news! Yeah! It's fake news! CNN. Fake News. It's fake,"" one man screamed.

Others in the raucous crowd then joined him, screaming ""fake news"" and loudly booing.

The crowd was so loud, in fact, that CNN host Wolf Blitzer had to stop de Vogue from continuing to report on Barrett's nomination.

""Ariane, I want you to standby— we can barely hear what you're saying because of the crowd behind you,"" Blitzer said.",-0.6676945077874599
"President Donald Trump had poignant words for his predecessor over the new Supreme Court vacancy.

In an essay commemorating Ruth Bader Ginsburg, former President Barack Obama suggested the high court's vacancy must remain open in the spirit of ""consistency.""

Obama wrote:

Four and a half years ago, when Republicans refused to hold a hearing or an up-or-down vote on Merrick Garland, they invented the principle that the Senate shouldn't fill an open seat on the Supreme Court before a new president was sworn in. A basic principle of the law — and of everyday fairness — is that we apply rules with consistency, and not based on what's convenient or advantageous in the moment. The rule of law, the legitimacy of our courts, the fundamental workings of our democracy all depend on that basic principle.

On Saturday, before traveling to North Carolina for a campaign rally, Trump responded to Obama's request.

A reporter asked: ""Sir, President Obama's pick in 2016, Merrick Garland, didn't get a chance to move forward. That was an election year. Why should your pick get a chance to move forward in an election year?""



Trump responded: ""Well, that's called 'the consequences of losing an election.' He lost the election. He didn't have the votes. When you lose elections, sometimes things don't work out well.""

Trump has said he and the Republican-controlled Senate will move forward to fulfill their constitutional duty of filling the Supreme Court vacancy.",0.5954192779006411
"News of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death has triggered further division in an already fractured political world: Democrats say the Supreme Court's new vacancy should not be filled in an election year, while Republicans are vowing to hold a vote on whomever President Donald Trump nominates.

But how did Ginsburg feel about election year Supreme Court nominations?

Fortunately, she made it clear in 2016 when Republicans and Democrats fought over filling the vacancy left by Antonin Scalia's sudden death nine months before the election.

When asked if the Senate should consider then-President Barack Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland, Ginsburg said, ""That's their job,"" the New York Times reported.

""There's nothing in the Constitution that says the president stops being president in his last year,"" Ginsburg added.



Several months later, Ginsburg said having only eight justices on the Supreme Court is not good.

""Eight is not a good number,"" she said, the Washington Post reported.

And there you have it.",-0.5340679013363697
"A video of a man shopping in what appears to be a Walmart store went viral last week after he defended himself from two women who accosted him for not wearing a mask despite minding his own business.

""Take a picture of me, does that make you feel better?"" the man tells the woman. ""Why don't you get a life lady? Going around, taking pictures of people? I feel so sorry for you.""

According to the woman behind the camera, the man's crimes were not wearing a mask and not following the direction arrows on the aisle. After 30 seconds into the interaction, the woman tells her mother — who also filmed the interaction — to call 911.

""You people are like monkeys falling out of a tree!"" the man exclaimed, before flipping his middle fingers toward both women.

The man then mockingly tells the second woman to go ""burn something down"" or ""tear a monument down,"" to which the first woman replied, ""Are you burning crosses?""

""You people are f***ing idiots,"" the man responds.

Shockingly, the first woman then tells the man, ""Good luck with the virus. Good luck with the virus. Your whole family tree is getting cut off at its roots.""

All the while, the man continues to look for the item that he sought to purchase.",-1.2907739717191584
"Last week, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, a Democrat, demanded that his city's residents cancel their Fourth of July celebrations over fear of spreading coronavirus — and even outlawed firework shows in Los Angeles County, according to KABC-TV.

""We're going to have to celebrate differently this year. Everyone should cancel plans with others for the 4th of July. You shouldn't gather with anyone who doesn't live in your household. Please stay home and save lives — it's that simple,"" Garcetti said.

But video taken from Los Angeles after the sun went down Saturday showed how defiant Californians responded — with a skyline full of beautiful fireworks.

Here's a time-lapse of the Los Angeles skyline Saturday night:

As Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said, ""God bless the good people of California.""",-1.7734251515167434
"We wish we didn't have to share this with you, but it's news.

The pathway to the 2020 Democratic Party nomination for billionaire businessman and longshot presidential candidate Tom Steyer is through South Carolina where he has invested millions of dollars. However, most polls show him in a distant third place in the state, which means he will likely end his presidential campaign after Saturday's election in the Palmetto State.

As a last-ditch effort to appeal to the state's crucial African American voting bloc that makes up well over half of South Carolina's Democratic primary voters, Steyer appears to be resorting to pursuing celebrity endorsements. While music concerts are not uncommon for presidential candidates, at a campaign event on Friday night, Steyer took the stage with rapper Juvenile and danced to his 1998 hit, ""Back Dat A** Up.""

The DailyWire's Joseph Curl shared a video of the spectacle, which we have included below for your viewing pleasure.

From another angle:",0.41751870209189407
"How rehearsed are some presidential candidates? According to a new video of Sen. Elizabeth Warren: very.

The video places two clips of Warren side-by-side, showing the Massachusetts senator rehearse talking points after Friday's debate. One clip is an interview with MSNBC, the other is from an interview with CBS News.

Of course, politicians use talking points all the time. However, what is startling about this video is that it shows Warren, at several points, recite the talking points word-for-word, rather than giving a unique response to each interviewee.

The reaction was biting.

""She lies so fast, she may try being an auctioneer after her political careers tanks,"" one person responded.

""Pre-planned speeches. Inauthentic & rehearsed,"" another person said.",-0.31603455160200744
"Hillary Clinton wants your friends and family to see the evidence against President Donald Trump's alleged wrongdoing, posting to social media Thursday a website that lays out the Democrats' case against the president.

""Make sure your family and friends see the evidence for themselves,"" Clinton said. The president asked a foreign power to interfere in the 2020 election for his own political gain. Americans deserve free and fair elections. He must be held accountable.""

But Clinton's plea against the president did not go over well.

Kimberly Strassel, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, responded to Clinton's petition by reminding the former secretary of state about the evidence against her and her 2016 presidential campaign for its alleged role foreign election interference, specifically through the Steele dossier.

""Make sure family and friends see IG report: Clinton didn't just invite foreign influence in 2016; she paid for it. Her team funneled Russian dossier lies to the FBI, for her political gain. Americans deserve free and fair elections. If only press would hold her accountable,"" Strassel wrote back to Clinton.

Ouch.",-1.423272773690301
"Rapper Snoop Dogg took to Instagram this week to mock Jussie Smollett regarding the controversy surrounding the actor allegedly staging a hate crime on himself, according to the Daily Wire.



What else?



In January, the actor formerly on the series ""Empire"" claimed he was physically assaulted by supporters of President Trump as he walked through the streets of Chicago after midnight.

TMZ said at the time:



Sources directly connected to Jussie tell TMZ, the actor arrived in Chicago from New York late Monday, and at around 2 AM he was hungry and went to a Subway. We're told when shortly after he walked out on his way home, someone yelled, ""Aren't you that f***ot 'Empire' n*****?""



The 2 men — both white and wearing ski masks — viciously attacked Jussie as he fought back, but they beat him badly and fractured a rib. They put a rope around his neck, poured bleach on him and as they left they yelled, ""This is MAGA country.""



As TheBlaze recently reported, the city later determined that Smollett's alleged attack was merely a hoax. Prosecutors then charged Smollett with16 counts related to making false statements to law enforcement officials. However, the actor ended up only having to agree to pay a fine of $10,000 and perform community service in exchange to have the charges dropped.

Smollett is now suing the city of Chicago for its handling of the case.",-0.7353935262448617
"On Wednesday, The Sun posted footage of a cheery grandpa playing along (apparently unknowingly) with his son's practical joke.

According to the outlet, the British gentleman was tricked into thinking his son's doorbell camera contained a retina scanner, and the video taken by the camera is gold.

Check it out below:

",-0.498214405594408
"Antifa violence descended on the nation's capital Saturday, one week after journalist Andy Ngo was brutally assaulted by violent Antifa protesters in Portland last week.

Given Antifa's reputation for violence, far-left protesters distributed press ""guidelines"" to members of the media ahead of Saturday's protests, which, among other things, instructed journalists to avoid ""publishing any potentially incriminating photos or video footage"" because they ""can be used as evidence in court.""

Essentially, Antifa wants the media to cover up their violence to avoid prosecution.

These are the rules for members of the press in order to go inside the #AllOutDC rally, which is the antifa side.



One that suck out: ""Please avoid publishing any potentially incriminating photos or video footage..."" pic.twitter.com/Kn4piXC1sz

— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) July 6, 2019

Additionally, Antifa organizers restricted media from entering certain protest areas, and demanded media members obtain explicit consent from protesters before photographing or videoing.

(H/T: Julio Rosas)",-2.255358243330112
"The Associated Press reported Friday that the West Coast has a serious — and seriously gross — problem on its hands: dead whales.

A lot of them.

And authorities are scrambling.

So many gray whale carcasses — about 160 from Mexico to Canada so far — have washed up on West Coast beaches that the federal NOAA Fisheries is running out of places to put them while they decompose.

Now the feds are asking people with private beachfront property to ""host"" a whale as it becomes worm food. They've had about 15 takers so far.

Another option

The Oregon Department of Transportation, however, long ago gave us another solution for dealing with rotting whale corpses, and it starts with obtaining about 1,000 pounds of dynamite.

Image source: YouTube screenshot

On Nov. 12, 1970, the ODOT used half a ton of dynamite to conduct a ""controlled explosion"" designed to blast the washed-up carcass of a gray whale back into the Pacific.



It went ... poorly.

Instead of sending the dead beast back into the waters, chunks of whale were blown into the air, covering bystanders who had come out to watch the event with whale bits and littering the beach with nastiness.

Huge chunks of whale damaged cars in a parking lot more than a quarter of a mile away.

Image source: YouTube screenshot

To really get a full understanding of the nightmare, you have to witness the KATU-TV report from journalist Paul Linnman, who was tasked with covering what would become legend:



Oregon's Exploding Whale - 2012 KATU AM Northwest (KATU's 50th Anniversary) youtu.be

Yay, Oregon.",1.2662582193506466
"It was one of the greatest public policy achievements of our lifetimes — the generation-long decline in violent crime. Since the early 1990s, violent crime and murder have dropped by two-thirds, with almost every subsequent year showing a new drop in crime levels from the previous year. Many people thought this was a permanent and irreversible trend and even forgot what it was like to live with ubiquitous violent crime. Well, new data presented by the FBI shows that the entire generation-long gain against murder has been wiped out, with no end in sight.

For the past seven years, I have been a lone voice fighting the trend of de-incarceration promoted by both parties and the Koch brothers. Those who forgot that we achieved the drop in crime by locking up career criminals used the low crime levels to justify ""criminal justice reform,"" aka jailbreak. Well, now those policies have come home to roost.

Although the FBI doesn't release its full uniform crime reporting until later in the year, on Monday, the agency released preliminary statistics showing a 25% increase in murder reporting last year from an incomplete set of major city data reporting. What does that mean? It's not just a reversal of the downward trend, but according to the New York Times, ""A 25 percent increase in murder in 2020 would mean the United States surpassed 20,000 murders in a year for the first time since 1995.""

The data does not even include New York, Chicago, and New Orleans, which experienced particularly sharp increases in murder in 2020. Also, a sample of 37 cities shows that the trend of higher crime is persisting into 2021, with those cities reporting an average of 18% more homicides for the first quarter of this year over last year.

While the NYT recognizes the sharp increase in crime, the paper criticizes the FBI for changing its method of reporting and feigns ignorance as to the source of the rise in crime. ""Although it's not clear what has caused the spike in murder, some possibilities are the various stresses of the pandemic; the surge in gun sales during the crisis; and less belief in police legitimacy related to protests over police brutality,"" speculates author Jeff Asher.

Well, the stress of the lockdowns (not the pandemic) certainly didn't help, but in fact, crime went down last year from March until the Floyd riots in late May. Also, most of the increased murders are in inner cities, not across the board, which is what one would have expected if the virus was the cause. Furthermore, where is the evidence that the gun sales are to the criminals (who get them on the black market) and not to the people protecting themselves against the criminals? Also, ""less belief in police legitimacy"" is an uncanny way to describe lack of deterrent, which is the real culprit. We have simply stopped deterring and punishing crime in this country.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Portland, Oregon, where BLM and ANTIFA, including some career criminals, have been able to riot, beat, burn, and occupy public and private property with impunity for nearly a year. The result? According to crime policy expert Sean Kennedy, a fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute, since June 2020 (just after the Floyd riots), there has been a 255% increase in murder in Portland through February 2021 and a 173% increase in shootings.



Remember, Portland is not known for murder. As Jeff Reynolds of PJ Media explains based on Kennedy's data: ""The numbers are truly alarming. From January through April 2020, there were a total of three murders in Portland. Just in January and February 2021, we've already seen 20 murders. For the period of June 2020 through February 2021, 71 murders have occurred in Portland. That's a staggering 255% increase over the same period one year prior.""

""Less belief in police legitimacy,"" indeed! It's more like the criminals know they will not be punished for their crimes.

The bottom line is that a mixture of pretrial criminal releases from jail, early prison releases (both accelerated under COVID), hands-off policing, unpunished rioting, and virtually no prison time for juvenile carjackers has created a perfect storm to reverse the downward trend on crime we once thought was irreversible.

There is no city that showed the drop in crime in the 1990s better than New York City, yet it now also serves as the poster child for the reversal of that trend, with a 47% increase in murder and a 100% increase in shootings. Police unions in New York place the blame squarely on the mass pretrial releases of gun and other violent felons. It's not that more guns are on the street as a result of first-time suburban moms buying guns to protect themselves; it's that more gun felons and gang leaders are on the streets and not behind bars. The same people who promote locking up the guns are working overtime to release those who commit gun violence.

According to the NY Division of Criminal Justice Services, the average daily jail census in New York in 2020 was less than half the level from just a few years ago. That's an awful lot of criminals who used to be locked up who are now out on the streets.

Couple that with the war on cops, and it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out why crime is spiking.



What about Philadelphia – the City of Brotherly Love? After a year of record homicides, murders are already up 32% in 2021 compared to this time last year. The refusal to clamp down on juvenile criminals, gun felons, drug traffickers, and gangsters by Soros DA Larry Krasner has ensured that city streets are full of black homicide victims, in addition to carjackings, drugs, and homelessness. Democrats have scared Republicans into changing their views on sentencing by playing the race card and falsely claiming that black criminals are unjustly incarcerated. The result of the reversal in tough-on-crime policies has created record homicides, in which black people make up 86% of the Philly murder victims, even though they only compose 44% of the city's population. Indeed, only the lives of black criminals matter to the political class, not black victims of crime.

What's interesting is that our government understands deterrent when it wants to. Notice how there has never been another right-wing gathering, much less riot, since Jan. 6. Let's just say the government more than effectively deterred such behavior by holding people without bail for simple trespassing. Now imagine if the government wielded such a stick against violent criminals throughout the country.",0.6587400223352178
"Segregation is back.



I'm not sure what to make of the systemic racism with states openly creating segregationist policies for vaccine deliveries. Are they singling out blacks as more worthy of protection than whites or are they using blacks as their live experiments, as occurred in the 1930s? Either way, equal protection under the law is being shredded in the administration and delivery of vaccines.

Last month, the ABC affiliate in Toledo, Ohio reported the following shocking policy from the Lucas County, Ohio government: ""Moving forward, 20% of all the vaccine allotment in Lucas County will be earmarked for people of color. Those vaccines will be made available at locations more easily accessible to underserved populations at pop-up sites within communities and even mobile units.""

I remember in the 1990s learning in school for the first time about segregation and seeing the pictures of water fountains earmarked for ""colored people."" I thought we were long done with that policy (and nomenclature), but alas, here we are in 2021 and state and local governments across the government are segregating and even prioritizing vaccination by race.

Dayton, Ohio is now earmarking 25% of vaccines for ""people of color"" (whatever that means) and are hosting vaccination drives for ""qualified"" colored people only.

Last month, Ohio hosted town halls across the state about the vaccine literally segregating people by race. Reminiscent of the Deep South in the 1930s, here was the schedule posted by the state's health department:

Notice, how they not only segregate people by race, but decline to even mention white people – opting instead for the term ""rural Ohioans.""



Aside from the immoral and insane segregationist mindset of the vaccine distribution, it's also built upon a fallacy that blacks are somehow inherently more vulnerable to the virus. Overall, blacks have accounted for 12% of the COVID-19 deaths in Ohio. They are actually 13.1% of the population.

Isn't it fascinating and terrifying at the same time that COVID-19 can be used as a pretext by government to breach every moral, legal, scientific, and rational basis for a just governance under the ruse of ""saving lives?"" Evidently, they can use the virus to restore segregation as well.

Minnesota is another state where the health care establishment is touting ""disparity"" in vaccination rates, and therefore, is pursuing a blatantly biased targeting of blacks for vaccination to make up what they perceive as a racial gap.

""We're going to see through data [that] we are under-vaccinating communities of color,"" Gov. Tim Walz said. ""This is an issue we're all going to have to work on.""

Minnesota Public Radio then repeated the mantra that ""people of color in Minnesota are more vulnerable to the worst impacts of COVID-19 due to a host of factors embedded in decades of economic and health-related systemic racism.""

Again, the reality is that blacks only account for 5% of the deaths in Minnesota, even as they compose 7% of the state's population. It is true that seniors, who are much more vulnerable from the virus, are disproportionately non-black, but that is exactly why the virus rollout targeted seniors (of all color) rather than specific races (regardless of age).

The left, in their mind, believes it's better to focus on younger blacks than older whites because, in their warped view, some people's lives don't matter simply because of the color of their skin.

Yes, they are willing to sacrifice seniors and prioritize younger people because they are from the political class's chosen race. Unless, of course, they have other motivations in targeting blacks for the vaccine.

More generally, the government's response to COVID-19 has peeled off a dirty scab behind the political class of this country. The virus is now being used as an excuse to violate everything sacred in this country, in order to align with their sadistic post-modern view of the world in a way they could never have gotten away with prior to COVID-19. For example, Columbia University is using the opportunity of online graduation ceremonies to host six separate events specifically segregated by race and behavioral identity.

Liberals call themselves progressives but are really regressing to a dark period of our history.",0.1364986332372748
"Augustine. Aquinas.

Luther. Calvin.

Don Lemon.

Yeah, I know, but stick with me here.

Because for all the CNN host's supreme ridiculousness, he actually landed on the target of all targets earlier this week when, on ""The View,"" of all places, he addressed the character of God and how it applies to life in this world.

Doesn't matter if his arrival there was accidental. Doesn't matter if his conclusions were wrong. Doesn't even matter if his intentions were malevolent.

Just talking about God and not the latest social justice distraction ultimately served to let the lion out of its cage. Theology, not woke-ology, was front and center. And since it is theology that long held the privilege of being known as the mother of the sciences in the canon of Western civilization, it means any conversation that includes it as its plumb line for debate has a chance at arriving at something truly worthy — if not flat-out divine.

So many of our modern conversations have zero chance at such an outcome because they pit the inspirational and intellectual equivalent of the lint in our navel against fingernails on the chalkboard. From stem to stern, there is simply no ""there"" there. Yet when Don Lemon ineptly addressed the Catholic Church's obvious and predictable refusal to bless same-sex relationships, my only wish was that he had the stamina to keep his interest parked there indefinitely.

Here's what Lemon said: ""If you believe in something that hurts another person or that does not give someone the same rights or freedoms, not necessarily under the Constitution, because this is under God, I think that that's wrong. And I think that the Catholic Church and many other churches really need to re-examine themselves and their teachings, because that is not what God is about. God is not about hindering people or even judging people.""

Total nonsense? You betcha. But not only is God part of the conversation, assertions are being made about Him as if they not only matter, but are in fact fundamental to who we are as a people on this earth.

How often does progressivism willingly and enthusiastically give you that opening? Well, when the very existence of progressivism has as one of its chief aims to make the answer to that question ""never,"" you should understand why I don't want to scare Lemon away. This is the cancel culture, after all.

Like I said earlier, I may not fully trust Lemon's motivations for choosing this discussion, but I know with certainty that as long as I can keep him engaged there, I have a shot at saving civilization through something other than bloodshed. If you won't even acknowledge God's place in the world, how can you ever kneel before his will and purpose?

Not so coincidentally, the nation of Denmark now appears to be addressing the cost of ignoring the things of God for far too long. Sure, it's not saying that out loud, but when its government announced it will limit the number of residents with ""non-Western origin"" in neighborhoods to a maximum of 30% within 10 years in order to ""reduce the risk of religious and cultural parallel societies,"" it may as well have been saying that ""all of our secular utopian fantasies have hit a dead end.""

So Denmark acted. Either it addresses reality as it really is and not as it wishes it to be, as determined through hard experience, or it will die. And so it is with Don Lemon, just as it is with each and every one of us.

God exists and He has a plan for us. Without that knowledge, we are lost. So God bless you, Don, for finally picking up a map for a change.

Now let me further help you in your cause, because you are unfortunately holding it upside down.",0.011459204520539055
"Ivermectin is hydroxychloroquine 2.0. A grassroots collection of doctors and medical researchers across the world have found what can be described as a cheap and effective near-cure for COVID-19 with no side effects, yet the information is not getting out to the public. Worse, the medical-government complex is engaging in censorship, and the medical establishment is making it hard for doctors to prescribe the drug, often threatening revocation of licensing for doctors who dare treat COVID patients outpatient.

Now is the time to make ivermectin, along with hydroxychloroquine and other cheap, safe, and effective repurposed drugs, over the counter. Better yet, for a fraction of the price we are spending on isolation, lockdown, testing, tracing, and experimental gene therapy (aka the vaccine), why not mail everyone a kit of these cheap drugs, supplements, and therapeutics?

Like most Americans, I never heard of ivermectin, a commonly used drug to treat parasitic infections, until Dr. Pierre Kory's riveting testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Dec. 8. Almost in tears, Kory, a pulmonologist and ICU specialist, studied exactly how the virus can become deadly in some people and learned that ivermectin perfectly pre-empts and often reverses the process that creates the superinfection, inflammatory response, and cytokine storm that are the hallmarks of most of the deadly cases.

Yet, rather than his protocol becoming universal guidance in every American hospital and primary care office and promoted by the government, YouTube took down the Senate committee's video of his testimony.

What gives? It's not like Dr. Kory said anything negative about the sacred trinity of lockdowns, masks, and vaccines. He merely touted a lifesaving, cheap cure to this virus.

Well, the question answers itself: If there really is a cheap, easy-to-use cure that can even be used as a prophylaxis against the virus, then there is no need for the expensive drugs and vaccines and no pretext to control our lives. In other words, in the same way that hydroxychloroquine was blacklisted early on when it could have saved hundreds of thousands of people across the world, ivermectin, which has been proven to work even in later stages of the virus, is the drug that cannot be mentioned. Several family members of critically ill patients had to get court orders in New York to allow ivermectin treatment, which proved to be lifesaving.

A group of Italian, Russian, and Spanish researchers conducted a meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) of ivermectin use against COVID-19 and published their findings in the form of a letter in Signa Vitae, an Italian medical journal that specializes in intensive care and emergency medicine research. Out of a total of 1,323 patients from seven randomized controlled trials performed in six countries, the pooled results showed an 81% decline in mortality among hospitalized patients with COVID-19 relative to the placebo group.



""While modern medicine cannot do without ironclad evidence, in an emergency situation the use of a cheap medication without major side effects may be reasonable even if strong verification of its efficacy is still lacking,"" concluded the authors. ""While there is an urge of large high quality RCTs, results from the reported trials all point in the same direction, and cannot be overlooked.""

It's important to keep in mind that these results were achieved among hospitalized patients who had already suffered the effects of the inflammatory response to the virus. Imagine if, rather than destroying the lives of vulnerable populations (along with everyone else), people were given prophylactic and early outpatient treatment of ivermectin and other promising therapeutics.

Our government has just spent $2 trillion lining the pockets of selected Americans and special interests for ineffective non-pharmaceutical interventions. Just $100 billion of the funding is directed toward therapeutics, but most of that funding will go to line the pockets of Big Pharma to continue developing extremely expensive and untested drugs rather than researching the repurposing of cheap and readily available drugs like ivermectin that have been used by millions of people for 50 years without problems.

It's heartbreaking to watch how the government blocks information and access to drugs that can end the pandemic, while prescribing draconian measures like children wearing masks that only produce harm and no good. Just take California, for example. The state had the earliest and strongest lockdown, yet it's estimated, based on serology tests, that 45% of Los Angeles residents have antibodies.

Which means the share of the population that already contracted the virus is likely higher, because many people who get the virus with no symptoms either don't produce antibodies or only had them for a short period of time.



In other words, L.A. is in the upper bounds of viral spread of anywhere in the country. Residents have received the full dose of what they tried to avoid – herd immunity – at a bitter and painful cost. Why would our government promote something so insane as mask-wearing after these dismal results rather than cheap repurposed drugs that would pre-empt serious symptoms in almost everyone? Why would they regard drugs that have been dispensed billions of times over 50 years as experimental and unproven, while treating novel gene therapy vaccines being used under emergency use as ironclad?

Why would the powers that be fund a fraudulent study against hydroxychloroquine that later had to be retracted by the Lancet? Everyone knows these drugs have been used for parasite infections (in the case of ivermectin) and auto-immune diseases such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis (in the case of hydroxychloroquine) for years without problems. Why would anyone believe they are suddenly causing side effects? We don't have any good answers, but the censorship is occurring. As Dr. Kory lamented in a recent article, ""When doctors on the front lines try to bring awareness of and use such medicines, they get silenced.""",0.2989896461738627
"One year after ""15 days to flatten the curve,"" aka the greatest infringement upon individual rights by executive power in American history, legislatures have been shockingly slow and tepid in making sure this mistake never happens again. However, there are some potential bright spots, one of them in the Buckeye State.

In Ohio, we have the first legislature in the country to finally pass a meaningful limitation on emergency health powers through both chambers, with margins likely large enough to override a gubernatorial veto. Gov. Mike DeWine is irate that legislators think they have the power to check him in his capricious edicts governing the most intimate facets of human life and commerce. Yet despite his promise to veto the bill, every legislator in his own party will likely override his veto.

Last week, the Ohio House and Senate passed the final version of SB 22, which would limit the scope and duration of the governor's emergency health orders. SB 22, sponsored by Sens. Terry Johnson and Rob McColley, passed in the Senate 25-8, with every Republican supporting it, and in the House 57-38, with several Republicans absent and only three Republicans voting against it.

The main provision of the final version will allow the legislature to strike down, via a concurrent resolution, any emergency health order after 30 days. The governor's emergency declarations would automatically expire after 90 days if the legislature fails to act. More importantly, specific orders and policies issued by the governor pursuant to the emergency or any standing order issued by the health director to slow the spread of a virus (under the existing non-emergency infectious disease statute) can be terminated immediately. Thus, business closures or mask mandates could be terminated from day one, even before the legislature is able to cancel the underlying emergency after 30 days.

The bill would also systemically reform the entire scope of state police powers over quarantine by carefully aligning state quarantine policies with the more traditional, limited use against targeted individuals who are sick. SB 22 defines ""isolation"" and ""quarantine"" to prohibit state and county health departments from isolating anyone who has not been ""medically diagnosed"" with the illness or quarantining healthy people who are not diagnosed with an infectious disease or in direct contact with someone who was medically diagnosed with the illness.



Finally, local boards of health can only target specific businesses for any regulations when they experience unusual outbreak. They can only shut down schools that experience an outbreak, and even then, they can only do so for the limited time it takes to sanitize the school. This precludes the entire premise of mass civil liberty violations and restores the concept of quarantine to its historic application, which was limited in time and scope.

In many ways, this is a somewhat modest bill, in the sense that it gives DeWine 90 days for an emergency health order. This bill should be the bare minimum for what other states propose. How long does it usually take to convene a legislature? Ideally, governors should not be able to legislate control over people's lives for more than a few days without the legislature weighing in. Yet DeWine believes he should have authority to forcibly mask and shut down people for years on end without any legislative input. DeWine charged that this bill ""clearly violates the separation of powers.""

How dare the legislature attempt to legislate when it actually matters? Leave it to the executive!

DeWine believes that striking down an emergency order with a concurrent resolution violates the state's constitution. The problem is that his own 2019 budget contained a similar proposal:

Besides, while a governor is violating every aspect of the federal Constitution and every clause of the Bill of Rights, are we really going to focus on process issues while ignoring his dictatorial power?



The governor is promising to veto the bill this week, but legislative leaders in both houses have told me they feel they have the three-fifths majority needed to override the veto because several House members who would have supported the bill were absent last week.

Republicans have supermajorities in 18 other states, many of them much larger than their majorities in Ohio. It's truly outrageous that no other state appears to be this far along in passing a meaningful bill like SB 22, which has already gone through both houses in Ohio. State legislators need to start asking themselves why they even run for office if they plan to cede power – during the most important and tumultuous times that actually affect our lives – to unelected bureaucrats in the executive branch.

As for DeWine, he stands for re-election next year, with his entire party rebuking him on the issue of our time. That is an ominous sign for him in the upcoming primary, when he is likely to be challenged from the right. By trying to take all the legislative power for himself, he might find himself without any executive power by the end of next year.",0.5205105868386617
"""Asbestos particles are on average 5 microns, which are much larger than SARS-CoV-2, yet nobody in my field – industrial hygiene – would recommend that we could protect workers from asbestos exposure using a mask,"" said Stephen Petty, a certified industrial hygienist and hazardous exposure expert, on my podcast last week. ""In fact, I would argue that you'd lose your credentials for saying such a thing.""

The notion that cheap cloth and surgical masks are considered proper protection, much less bona fide PPE, for a virus that is 0.1 microns – 1/50th the size of average asbestos fiber – was always absurd. And the fact that this virus spread for two entire subsequent waves after masks became universal, with zero evidence they played any role in altering the natural course of the virus – is proof of this universal fact that OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and other agencies that dealt with hazardous exposure always understood.



For respiratory protection, OSHA has the Respiratory Protection Standard — RPS (29 CFR 1910.134), which has strict prescriptive requirements for use of respirators. Masks are not part of the RPS because they cannot be fit-tested – and OSHA knows this. Only fitted respirators can help protect against particles anywhere near the size of viruses. A surgical mask is absolutely not considered PPE, and even if it were, it would work as well as a chain-link fence in front of swarming gnats.

Mask-wearing has become such a religious sacrament that people will place them on their toddlers for hours, they will exercise in them, and they will engage in all sorts of contradictory and absurd behavior that implicitly ascribes super-magical powers to cheap Chinese cloths. Yet few people remember what OSHA has said for years about the issue of masks and protection against viruses.

In order to remind a nation under an unfathomable psychosis of ""toxic maskulinity,"" here is your handy timeline of statements OSHA made about masks when the agency was actually trying to follow science and properly protect people, not engage in politics and virtue-signaling. As you read through it, you will understand why Ian Miller's more than 100 mask charts demonstrate that masks have never worked anywhere against this virus.

May 2009: OSHA Fact Sheet : Respiratory Infection Control: Respirators Versus Surgical Masks

While explaining that surgical masks only work for splashes or large droplets, OSHA made it clear: ""Surgical masks are not designed or certified to prevent the inhalation of small airborne contaminants."" OSHA goes on to say: ""Their ability to filter small particles varies significantly based upon the type of material used to make the surgical mask, so they cannot be relied upon to protect workers against airborne infectious agents.""



December 16, 2009: Video : The Difference Between Respirators and Surgical Masks

In this video, the narrator says very emphatically, ""A surgical mask is not a respirator, and that's an important distinction for you and your employer to understand."" The video is targeted mainly at health care workers. ""Face masks are not designed or certified to seal tightly against your face or to prevent the inhalation of small airborne contaminants."" The video also says: ""Remember, face masks are not considered respirators and they do not provide respiratory protection.""

January 2011: Respiratory Protection for Health Care Workers Training Video

OSHA again reiterates that while face masks, including surgical and medical procedure masks, protect against splashes, they ""are not designed or certified to seal tightly against your face or to prevent the inhalation of small airborne contaminants"" (at 9:20). As the video shows arrows of contaminants getting around and through the mask, the narrator declares, ""During inhalation, small airborne contaminants pass through gaps between the face and the face mask and the material of the mask."" The narrator emphasizes again, ""Remember, face masks are not considered respirators and do not provide respiratory protection.""

May 2015: Hospital Respiratory Protection Program Toolkit

Per this 96-page resource for respirator program administrators, on the very first page, it states that it contains recommendations as well as descriptions of mandatory safety and health standards. These are intended to assist employers in providing a safe and healthful workplace. In this resource, OSHA indicates: ""Facemasks are not considered respiratory protection.""

December 20, 2017: OSHA letter from worker requesting clarification of OSHA's Respiratory Protection Standard

In response to a question by the writer as to whether surgical masks should be permitted on a voluntary basis when respiratory protection is not required, OSHA states: ""Surgical masks do not seal tightly to the wearer's face, nor do they provide a reliable level of protection from inhaling smaller airborne particles.""

April 2020: Ten Steps All Workplaces Can Take to Reduce Risk of Exposure to Coronavirus (a poster)

This was OSHA's initial guidance to employers on how to deal with the virus in the workplace. The agency recommend disinfecting the room and limiting the number of people, which is in line with long-standing protocol, but did not mention a word about masking , presumably because the idea of a mask blocking a virus would be absurd.

However, at some unknown point, OSHA placed a disclaimer on the top of this poster stating the following: ""Given the evolving nature of the pandemic, OSHA is in the process of reviewing and updating this document. These materials may no longer represent current OSHA recommendations and guidance. For the most up-to-date information, consult Protecting Workers Guidance.""

Clearly, those promulgating this material didn't want to show their work and accentuate the point that they never believed masks worked, but still had to broadly notify people that the science is ""evolving.""

January 29, 2021: Protecting Workers: Guidance on Mitigating and Preventing the Spread of COVID-19 in the Workplace

Now, roughly eight months after mask-wearing became a national religion, they suddenly change their tune with this ""guidance,"" which appears to be updated periodically. Under the section ""What Workers Need to Know about COVID-19 Protections in the Workplace,"" this document states:

Face coverings are simple barriers to help prevent your respiratory droplets or aerosols from reaching others. Not all face coverings are the same; the CDC recommends that face coverings be made of at least two layers of a tightly woven breathable fabric, such as cotton, and should not have exhalation valves or vents.

The main function of a face covering is to protect those around you, in case you are infected but not showing symptoms. Studies show that face coverings reduce the spray of droplets when worn over the nose and mouth.

Although not their primary value, studies also show that face coverings can reduce wearers' risk of infection in certain circumstances, depending upon the face covering.

You should wear a face covering even if you do not feel sick. This is because people with COVID-19 who never develop symptoms (asymptomatic) and those who are not yet showing symptoms (pre-symptomatic) can still spread the virus to other people.

Notice carefully how they slipped in the word ""or aerosols"" in expressing the disproven assumption of mask efficacy, which stands in opposition to years of their own research, but then when they speak about the actual ""studies"" on efficacy, they only identify ""spray of droplets"" as the extent of effective protection from masks. Note also the ""emotional persuasion"" argument to falsely suggest you help others by wearing a mask, not yourself.

As anyone with a scintilla of logic recognizes, very few people, especially with everyone keeping so far away from each other, are spitting into each other's mouths with visible droplets that would be large enough for masks to block. In no way could such a rare occurrence account for the rapid spread of tens of millions of cases long after people wore the masks as regularly as pant and shirts.

Recently, Biden's former top epidemiologist, Michael Osterholm, joined a group of scientists criticizing the CDC for continuing to downplay aerosol transmission and not updating its indoor guidance based on this fact. But it was OSHA that said for years that masks absolutely do not work for aerosols.

As the FDA says on its website until this very day, masks do not work for airborne-transmitted viruses, only to ""block large-particle droplets, splashes, sprays, or splatter,"" which is not the primary transmission method of the virus. The FDA also says, ""Surgical masks are not intended to be used more than once,"" guidance rarely abided by as a result of the mask mandate.

Absurdly, on OSHA's ""evolving"" web page on ""Control and Prevention,"" the agency plainly recommends that workers ""wear cloth face coverings."" Buried deep down in the document, though, is a memorial to the pre-political scientific view: ""Surgical masks are not respirators and do not provide the same level of protection to workers as properly-fitted respirators. Cloth face coverings are also not acceptable substitutes for respirators.""

So they openly admit cloth masks are worthless, and then toss out an unverifiable throwaway line that surgical masks ""do not provide the same level of protection,"" when they know all too well that they provide no level of protection for the small aerosols, which are what really gets into people's lungs.

The fact that everyone universally understood this until last April, and the fact that every place that had an ironclad mask mandate in place for months with low cases, such as Los Angeles and the Czech Republic, yet still suffered from the most prolific spread in the world in later months, should make it clear that the long-standing guidance predating COVID politics is the authentic science.

Last June, after mask-wearing had already morphed into a budding religious cult, Cambridge and Greenwich Universities published a study predicting that universal mask-wearing would prevent a second wave. As Reuters explained their findings, ""Even homemade masks can dramatically reduce transmission rates if enough people wear them in public.""



Well, it wasn't just ""enough"" people who wore them, but it became universal with the sternness of nothing we've ever seen before in society. Yet there were two more waves of the virus subsequently that were greater than the first wave, especially in the areas with strict lockdowns and mask-wearing. But to this day, they will look us in the face and say we need masks to prevent the fourth wave, as if the world began yesterday.

It's not merely a problem of collateral damage – in which government is forcing children to suffer long-term mental and physical health problems from prolonged mask-wearing in return for zero protection from the virus. It's that they are offering people who are legitimately vulnerable to the virus a false sense of security that masking will protect them indoors when they know quite well that anyone advocating this for other hazards as small in size as this virus would lose their job over such a recommendation.



As Stephen Petty said on my podcast, the way his profession always deals with exposure risks is to employ engineering controls, which include destruction, dilution, or containment. For a fraction of the cost we've spent on destroying and then subsidizing the entire economy, we could have focused on filtration systems or self-cleaning systems that would actually have protected people. Just as on the pharmaceutical side, our government focused on expensive and ineffective treatments rather than cheap established drugs and supplements that could have fortified most people against the virus, it likewise focused on lockdowns and masks as an illusory means of exposure protection rather than actually killing the virus.

How much science are our government officials willing to distort, and how many lives are they willing to sacrifice for an article of faith that has already been disproven by two uncontrolled waves after universal mask-wearing became a fundamentalist religion? Exactly as long as we allow it to continue.",0.1219784339987557
"What can states do when the federal government not only keeps its border open, but directly invites the cartels and smugglers to bring in potentially millions of new migrants, along with cartel members, gangsters, and previously deported criminals? That is a question we never thought we'd have to grapple with, but it is of vital importance for our national security and communities.

In January, I laid out the constitutional case for states to secure the border when the federal government is actively working against border security, one of the foundational purposes for the states to create a federal government in the first place. Now, one Texas lawmaker is introducing a bill that could serve as the impetus for states actually securing some degree of control over the border.

On Monday, Texas state Rep. Bryan Slaton filed HB 2862, which would fund the completion of the border wall in Texas with state funds. The bill requires the governor to request reimbursement from the federal government. Such an effort would bolster the existing Operation Lone Star, in which Gov. Greg Abbott has deployed the Texas Rangers to the border.

The reason this bill is so important is because the Biden administration halted the construction of the border fence even while portions of the wall were still being built. The fact that parts of the wall were built non-contiguously has allowed the cartels to easily go around the fencing. Worse, as I reported last week, the cartels now have the advantage of using the new access roads built during the construction. Thus, the half-completed fencing, in some ways, leaves us more vulnerable than before the construction.

Overall, the Trump administration constructed 453 miles of new fencing – 373 miles of replacement fencing for existing designs that were dilapidated or easy to breach and 80 miles where no fencing existed. However, most of that fencing was in Arizona or in the El Paso sector, which includes far west Texas and New Mexico. Just 18 miles were completed in the Rio Grande Valley sector and zero miles were completed in the Del Rio and Laredo sectors, but 165 miles in those three sectors were under construction when Biden terminated the project. Del Rio, in particular, is a hot spot at this point.

It's also important to build in Arizona. As the Cochise County sheriff told me in an interview, the fact that the wall and its infrastructure were halted midway through made things worse than they were before. Builders completely ripped out the old fencing to build new fencing, but now, with construction halted, there is nothing there, and illegal immigrants and smugglers can cross over with cars and enjoy the newly built access roads. ""They literally just walked away from it,"" said Sheriff Dannels.



What's worse is that in Cochise County, the infrastructure in the low water crossings was not completed, which means that when the heavy rains come in a few months, the foundations will be destroyed, making it much more expensive to rebuild. Meanwhile, time is of the essence, as Sheriff Dannels is now counting close to 3,000 runners detected on his cameras per month, up from just 400 a month a year ago. His sergeant, Tim Williams, who runs the camera system, tells me the department is only apprehending about 35% of them. Due to the rugged terrain and remote areas, those crossing in areas of the border like Cochise are mainly criminals and drug runners – not the sort of people you want disappearing into the interior.

Arizona would be wise to follow up with its own bill to complete at least the existing infrastructure of the border wall. Likewise, other red states can chip in by appropriating small amounts of money to pool together in an effort to help these two border states shoulder the national burden. They can also crowdsource from private funds.

Such a national effort to complete the border wall would publicly embarrass the Biden administration and force an inflection point in our body politic regarding the border situation as a whole. States will be forced to choose between anarchy and security. The red states have no choice but to act before hundreds of thousands more teem through our border.

Don McLaughlin, mayor of Uvalde, Texas, 60 miles into the interior from the Del Rio border with Mexico, explained on my podcast how ranchers in his county are now being confronted by desperate smugglers.



""The ranchers are getting confronted more and more, their fences are getting cut, and their land is being trashed by the migrants,"" said the border mayor. ""What's concerning is that they are getting bolder and bolder about coming to your house and demanding you give them food, you give them transportation, and you give them money. It's a powder keg that's going to blow up. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when somebody is going to get shot – whether it be a local citizen, a local rancher, or one of these immigrants coming across the ranches, because they're getting braver and braver. And some of them, to be honest, are very aggressive when they approach you. We're seeing more aggressiveness now than we've ever seen before.""

The anarchy that spills over on our side of the border obviously bubbles up from the Mexican side. Even the Mexican government has become exasperated with Biden. As Reuters reports, Mexico President AMLO referred to Biden as the ""migrant president,"" and his government is concerned at how Biden's policies have created a sophisticated market for organized crime up and down the smuggling routes of Mexico.

Perhaps the red states can even work with Mexico to build the wall and make Biden pay for it!",0.5329867514604908
"Despite a full year's worth of science and data showing that kids in school are not at risk at all from this virus and that they are not meaningful vectors of spread, even the reddest of states are making them the last to get a reprieve from the mask fascism, rather than the first. This is likely the most radical policy ever implemented in our lifetimes. The muted response from most established conservative officials and organizations is shocking.

Yesterday, many conservatives celebrated yet another red state governor removing the mask mandate when Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon announced he would terminate the mandate by the end of the week. However, in his press release, he adds the following gem: ""The face covering protocol will remain in place in K-12 schools as a safety measure to ensure that classroom learning and all student activities can continue to occur safely.""

I guess a ""face covering protocol"" is one way to euphemize the criminalization of the breathing of our children for absolutely no scientific reason and with no legal justification. How a policy like this could ever have gotten off the ground in a state like Wyoming, much less be continued indefinitely, reveals a weakness of resolve in our own people.

What's worse than shutting down schools is acclimating children to a ""new normal"" of child abuse that, because it has the veneer of a return to normalcy, can continue long-term, if not forever. The bar of sanity was set so low from the get-go that the psychosis of masking children for a virus that affects them less than the flu will only get worse over time.

One school in the supposed red state of Ohio is now requiring double masking of children! Also in Ohio, a Dayton pediatrician is now warning about an increase in rhinovirus now that kids will return to school. The horror! Kids will now get the common cold again! Ironically, COVID has been so minimal for children that we forgot what it was like for significant portions of a class to be out of school with fever during the winter months. Ailments like strep throat, the flu, enterovirus, and other common infections will now be used as an excuse to either shut schools or forcibly mask children forever.

In fact, this is no joke. If imposing a severe form of abuse and prohibiting normal breathing of children for seven hours a day was implemented without a scintilla of blowback from most parents – all for a virus that doesn't affect the kids – it's not hard to see how the flu and even the common cold will be the new baseline for permanent masking. Despite the entire notion of regulating the lives of children being thoroughly discredited by the data, there is almost no county in the entire country where people can school their children without their faces being covered.

Data from Sweden published in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine examined ~2 million school-age children (ages 1 to 16) from March through June 2020, where there was no masking or other mitigation efforts, and found just 15 children (0.00075%) required hospitalization from COVID-19, and there was not a single reported death. They also found no greater risk of serious infection among teachers than the general population, adjusting for other variables. A similar study in Norway found remarkably low transmission in schools, even though there is no recommendation to wear masks.

With so few kids getting sick from this virus and so little evidence that masks work for anyone, why are we not considering the harmful effects of mask-wearing on children, sometimes as young as 3?

The first results of a German study of over 26,000 children and adolescents show 68% of parents reported impairments in their children as a result of mask-wearing, including the following side effects: irritability (60%), headache (53%), difficulty concentrating (50%), decreased happiness (49%), malaise (42%), impaired learning (38%), and fatigue (37%).



What are the benefits of this mandate, even if masks did work in stopping a spread, that could possibly justify this collateral damage? And what about the emotional damage? A 2010 paper from Harvard University observed the damage that can be caused by exposing them to endless fear and anxiety: ""Ensuring that young children have safe, secure environments in which to grow, learn, and develop healthy brains and bodies is not only good for the children themselves but also builds a strong foundation for a thriving, prosperous society,"" wrote the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child for Harvard University. ""Science shows that early exposure to circumstances that produce persistent fear and chronic anxiety can have lifelong consequences by disrupting the developing architecture of the brain.""

Has anyone bothered to study what masks do to children's wonderous God-given immune systems that have performed so well against this virus? How much bacteria do they help trap in the lungs of children? God didn't design us to have our noses and mouths covered, especially at the developmental stage of life.

Consider the fact that all of this harm was perpetrated against a generation of children for absolutely zero gain. The Peaster Independent School District of Parker County, Texas, for example, was one of the few counties in the country that never required masks or social isolation. According to Superintendent Lance Johnson, enrollment numbers were up this year, and it was one of the few districts in the country where the academic growth is tracking at grade level. ""Our kids have thrived and our teachers have thrived,"" he said. ""And it's just been real eye-opening to see how we've done things different than other schools.""

It turns out that the absentee rates among teachers were only slightly higher than at that time in 2019, which clearly indicates that the rate of infection among teachers was not any higher than the general community, as was witnessed in Sweden and Norway.

""18 months ago what we're doing to kids would've been criminal,"" said Johnson. ""And here we are fighting going back to that model, fighting letting kids be kids, and letting kids socialize and letting them have a normal school year.""

How can we accept another day of this in all those red states? Demand better.",-0.09821432767450533
"A tale of two classes of people. The alien is the citizen and the citizen is the alien.

American businessmen are being threatened with jail time for exercising their property rights because they supposedly violated a royal edict of individual governors, which in itself is against our written laws. Many are having trouble finding legal help.

At the same time, illegal aliens are pouring into our country thanks to a royal edict of Joe Biden essentially promising to suspend most deportations – against our written laws. Now, the Biden administration is offering illegal aliens a formal process through which they can contest their deportation if they feel it doesn't comport with Biden's ""priorities.""

No such process was accorded to the American people before they had their rights stripped under the new regime of COVID fascism. Indeed, we are second-class citizens in our own land.

On Friday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the creation of the ICE Case Review (ICR) process for individuals who believe their case does not align with ICE's enforcement, detention, and removal ""priorities."" What's the nature of the process?

""This process continues efforts to further the development of an orderly immigration system that treats individuals humanely while ensuring national security, border security, and public safety,"" wrote ICE in a press release last Friday. ""The ICR process offers another channel through which noncitizens and their representatives can request that ICE exercise its prosecutorial discretion on a particular noncitizen's behalf, and to resolve questions and concerns, consistent with law, policy, and the interests of justice.""

Talk about the inmates running the asylum! I wish I could have my request heard on behalf of so many business owners who believe the various departments of health could better exercise their prosecutorial discretion by not going after those who seek to exercise their property rights. I guess that is only for ""noncitizens and their representatives.""

Now hold that thought and pay attention to the story of Marlena Pavlos-Hackney, a Polish immigrant who came here to escape communism in the early 1990s. She is the antithesis of those invading our border. She came here with permission and started a restaurant in Holland, Michigan, only to now be confronted with communism in the land of the once free. She now faces a bench warrant for her arrest for keeping her business open after losing her license. Why did she lose her license? She had the audacity to earn a living and keep it open when Gov. Gretchen Whitmer illegally shut restaurants and ruined the lives of their owners.

Where is the government-funded legal help for her? Where is her hotline to call and demand that the government focus its ""prosecutorial discretion"" on people who are actually a threat to society? A hard-working American immigrant is being stripped of her constitutional rights, while illegal aliens who either engage in criminal conspiracies of human smuggling or who pay the evil cartels get to manipulate our legal system against our laws and national sovereignty.



There is a two-tier justice system in this country that is beyond anything our founders could have imagined. While Marlena is facing arrest for not having ""social distancing"" in her restaurant, the CDC is now allowing child care shelters that house illegal aliens to expand from 50% capacity to 100% capacity. Numerous illegal aliens who test positive continue to be released into the country. And that's if they even bother to request a test. At present, the CDC is not requiring all the illegal aliens to even take a test. Yet if an American travels from abroad, he must have a negative COVID test in order to enter the U.S. If non-Americans invade our land border? Not so much.

Just last week, in a 5-3 decision, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that the burden of proof to demonstrate eligibility to remain in the country is on the alien, not on the United States. The Immigration and Nationality Act (§1229a(c)(2)(A)) clearly states that an alien applying for admission show ""clearly and beyond doubt"" that he is ""entitled to be admitted and is not inadmissible."" Those laws have now been unilaterally canceled in favor of Joe Biden's new standard of everyone being legal until proven otherwise.

When will we enjoy a standard granting us the benefit of a doubt to live freely? Do we need to travel through the border as well?",-0.7876579982484545
"""I apologize for ever imposing such an illogical, illegal, and inhumane mandate on the public. We now recognize that there is zero correlation between mask-wearing and reduced spread and that criminalizing human breathing is beyond the scope of governmental power anyway. We are therefore going to follow the law and the science henceforth and bar all schools and establishments from discriminating against people who choose to breathe freely.""

That is the speech you have not and will not hear from even the better Republican governors pretending to lift their mask mandates.

A tyrannical edict that was never law to begin with, but that was deeply embedded into society through vociferous shame will not dissipate once the edict is lifted – even if categorically rescinded. After all, it is just as much the law of the land now as it was before. However, if you listen carefully, these governors are not even fully lifting the mandates.

When you read between the lines of some of these orders, it becomes clear that these governors still believe they have the right to regulate a human being's breathing, that the rising and falling of cases somehow depends upon these ritualistic sacraments rather than natural phenomena, and that they reserve the right to reinstitute mask mandates in the future. As such, don't be surprised if a number of more liberal localities and school superintendents continue to mandate it on our children. I'm receiving a lot of complaints from my podcast listeners in Texas that their school districts continue to obdurately stand behind the forcible masking of children.

For example, the Frisco Independent School District, which is just north of Dallas, announced ""that the District will continue to require face coverings for students, staff and visitors, as has been the case all school year."" I suspect this will happen all over the state and country.



It's even worse in Mississippi.

""Today, I signed what I expect will be one of my last executive orders regarding COVID-19,"" said Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves on Tuesday. ""Our hospitalizations have plummeted, and our case numbers have fallen dramatically as well. In fact, our case numbers have fallen to the point where no county meets the original criteria for a mask mandate.""

Thus, he still buys into the myth that masks help against the spread; he merely concedes that they are not necessary at this point. As the Associated Press reports, ""Reeves said he is encouraging people to wear face coverings in public, but is not requiring it."" That, in conjunction with the fact that the order still recommends business follow CDC guidance, makes it clear that the culture in the private sector will very much be influenced by the mask cult.

Worst of all, Reeves is still requiring masks for schoolchildren! These are the first people who should be exempted from a mask mandate, even if masks worked. Children are not in danger from the virus, and reams of data from school reopenings have proven that schools are not extra vectors of spread in the community. To exempt an adult from wearing a mask in a store for 20 minutes, but require children to wear masks and somehow learn and properly interact with each other for seven hours per day is insane. Heck, maybe Biden is right about Reeves being a Neanderthal; he just didn't realize it.

The reality is that most of these governors simply saw the writing on the wall — that the legislatures were about to clip their wings and the peasants were getting antsy. This is why they are not ceding any legal or intellectual point, and most of them are continuing the mask mandate in some form.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey joined most GOP governors in removing restrictions on businesses, but he is not flinching from the mask mandate one iota. Ditto for Wyoming's Mark Gordon. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, even while easing some restrictions, contended that some other governors need to ""be a little more prudent."" They are acclimating us to tyranny to the point that we now think a little reprieve is a magnanimous act rather than one of tyranny. This is occurring in some of the reddest states.

Conservatives must push state legislatures to permanently ban governors from making such edicts ever again. Time is short, as many state legislatures will adjourn in a matter of weeks. The best time to fight tyranny is when it's on the run and on defense. If we've learned anything these past 12 months, it's that liberty cannot be taken for granted.",-0.7999842210184525
"What would you call a situation where tens of thousands of young males pour over our border, orchestrated by the most violent cartels and smugglers in the world? How would you refer to high-speed car chases and bailouts across our border continuing on for at least 200 miles beyond the border? It sure looks like an invasion to ordinary Americans. But what do you call it when our own Department of Homeland Security is orchestrating such chaos, lawlessness, and trans-national travel during a pandemic at the same time officials are entreating Americans to obey COVID fascism? A sadistic undermining of the very foundation of this country, indeed.

""Illegal immigrants from 59 different countries have crossed the border illegally in our area – the Del Rio Sector,"" warned Uvalde, Texas, Mayor Don McLaughlin in an exclusive interview with TheBlaze. ""These illegal immigrants are from China, South America, Venezuela, Cuba, and the Middle East and Africa, just to name a few.""

Uvalde is a small town of 17,000 inhabitants, and it is now overrun by illegal immigrants and an international cartel smuggling operation. Uvalde is 40-60 miles from the border, but it might as well be right at the border given how the smuggling corridors come right up to this town.

""In our city and county, we are averaging 6-8 car chases a week,"" said McLaughlin in describing how the border crisis strains the area's small law enforcement operation, which is already stressed from the logistics of the pandemic and the recent weather-driven energy crisis.

""These human smugglers have no regard from human life – they have led our officers on chases through our town at speeds exceeding 100 mph. In two instances, our local law enforcement officers have been shot at. It's not unusual to find weapons in these cars when they are caught. In Kinney County, which borders us, the chases are exceeding 20 a week. In these chases they are finding illegal immigrants that have previously been deported and have criminal records for sexual assault, murder, and drug trafficking.""

The Biden administration has ended Trump's pandemic response policy, which, pursuant to Title 42, required Customs and Border Protection to immediately turn away illegal aliens who show up at the border. The new policy openly invites illegal aliens to come in, which has created an entire cottage industry for the smugglers and the drug cartels. While the smugglers can present illegal aliens who don't have criminal records openly at the border, they still have to sneak in those with criminal records through gaps in the border wall, which leads to dangerous high-speed chases that result in what are known to border officials as ""bailouts."" Often the smuggler will drive off the road and crash, with the occupants bailing out and running in every direction.

The more agents have to deal with those coming in directly, the less manpower they have to apprehend the dangerous ""runners"" who usually have criminal records. This is particularly a problem during the pandemic, when more personnel are now required to deal with the social distancing logistics of the mass flow across the border.

The fact that the border wall was stopped midway through construction has actually been a boon to the smugglers, because they are able to use the newly created access roads to gain entry into the interior but are not completely blocked because of the gaps, as reported by the Washington Times from Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels. This has enabled the high-speed chases and bailouts to penetrate deep into Texas, as far as Jackson County on the eastern coast, which is some 200 miles from the border.

""We're on the travel corridor,"" said Jackson County Sheriff A.J. Louderback in an interview with TheBlaze. ""We've had an uptick in stolen three-ton pickups; we're having the bailouts coming through.""

Louderback placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Biden administration. ""This is a comprehensive, multi-pronged strategy to disable and dismantle every facet of our immigration system,"" said the veteran rural sheriff. ""This is a concerted effort to alter all of immigration laws through policy change. It's an absolute nightmare. I don't think there is a single place in the INA that has not been violated. It's obvious to me that they've been working on this for quite some time. We went from a secure border to an unsecure border in a matter of days.""

Sheriff Dannels told me that in southeast Arizona, in some of the most rugged terrain at the border, the cartels now have roads they can use to navigate an area that was previously extremely hard to traverse. ""By ending the wall construction with the roads exposed, they have become nothing but cartel roads,"" said Dannels to me. Here is a picture of the access roads built behind the wall in Cochise County.

Cochise County Sheriff's Department

According to Dannels, apprehensions in his remote county went from 300-500 a year ago to 2,500 in December. The suspension of the border wall mid-construction in his county has been a boon for the cartels. ""We went 24 months without illicit drugs, and now we're catching more than 500 pounds,"" said Sheriff Dannels. ""12 people were injured in car crashes, and there have been two deaths. Some of the coyotes [human smugglers] are now shooting at my deputies. It's insane how nobody sat down with local law enforcement to discuss the ramifications of not completing the construction that was already under way.""



The bailouts are often risky for the migrants as well. In California earlier this week, 13 of them were killed when their car caught fire during a high-speed incursion at a breach in the border fence, which the Biden administration refuses to repair.

Mark Lamb, sheriff of Pinal County, Arizona, is seeing the same problem on the western side of the border. ""We're 60 miles off the border, and we've had 45 pursuits and have assisted in another 80 with other agencies,"" the Arizona sheriff told TheBlaze. ""We had one bailout where they had 11 people who bailed into the desert and left us with a 16-year-old Guatemalan girl in the car. ICE doesn't even have space for these people, and they are let go right into our communities. Talk about a kick in the teeth. When you do this, it sends a message to criminals that they can do whatever they want because we are no longer for the rule of law.""

Not only is Lamb prohibited from holding these people, he wouldn't even have the jail space anyway. ""We get 20-30 a day right now. I could fill my entire jail within a week.""

The cartels are sending 2,000 children over the border each week this month, and there are now at least 8,000 minors in custody, approaching a record. The Biden administration is openly bragging about estimates of 117,000 minors on the way. With that comes a massive pipeline of transnational gang recruitments inside our country and in every major city.



It's a lose-lose for everyone. Americans are stuck with the expenses and social effects, as well as the narcotics and increased gang activity. At a time when the lockdowns are tempting so many Americans to turn to drugs, the Biden border invitation is creating a lucrative market for the drug cartels in human smuggling as well as drug smuggling. And in the irony of all ironies, the COVID lockdown policies that are inducing the circuitous drug cycle exacerbated by the border policies are suddenly being relaxed when it comes to illegal aliens.

As for the illegal aliens themselves, Mayor McLaughlin observes that there is nothing humanitarian about chaotic open borders.

""We as a country act as though we are helping these illegal immigrants as we release them into our country. We talk about slave labor and sex trafficking all the time, but these illegal immigrants end up working day jobs where they are picked up in neighborhood street corners where they stand around waiting for work, are paid subpar wages, and if hurt, are dropped off back without getting taken care of. The women are forced into the sex trade to survive and take care of their families. We are not helping these people or our country. We are only setting them up to fail.""",0.9747692461068678
"What if I told you we could essentially cure the virus with dirt-cheap drugs, end all the destructive tyranny that doesn't work, and build up small businesses and personal health rather than lock people down? That is the stimulus Republicans should be pushing, but almost none of them are even promoting such a message. They continue agreeing to the false premise that the way to treat COVID is with masks, contact tracing, massive dependency-inducing handouts, and shutdowns. They just don't like some extraneous provisions in the bill.

Let's not forget that Republicans already passed two massive ""stimulus"" bills that flushed trillions of dollars into a lockdown by enabling governors and mayors to destroy people's lives without having to pay for it. Which is why, if you listen carefully to their objections to this third bill, they are extremely tangential and are only aimed at some of the extraneous earmarks for construction projects in some states.

Well, as a conservative, I will tell you, I'd take 100 Cuomo tunnel earmarks any day over spending trillions subsidizing the education cartel and blue states and the tracing and spying on Americans. Yet Republicans have spent all their time fighting against transit and bridge funding, but agreeing to the fundamental premise that we need trillions of dollars to treat COVID and that the way to do so is with these ritualistic and tyrannical mandates.



For example, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy railed against the ""non-COVID waste in this bill."" But that waste, as insidious as it is, only represents a fraction of the price tag. It's the ""COVID"" funding and the policies undergirding it that are the problem. Democrats are already agreeing to remove those minor expenditures anyway. Unfortunately, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell praised the fact that Congress ""passed five COVID-19 rescue packages"" as ""the largest peacetime fiscal expansion in American history ... because both parties had shaped the bills together and they met Americans' urgent needs."" He only cared about the fact that this bill is more partisan.

How about we end the shutdown and fund the cheap, efficacious protocols for prophylaxis and early treatment — and actually solve the problem? To that end, a GOP that actually believes in freedom, health, science, prosperity, and the Constitution would create the following opposing legislative package:

End all COVID mandates : Using Section 5 of the 14th Amendment, Congress should declare that all COVID restrictions violate the privileges and immunities of citizens and are hereby suspended. They have not worked and have only brought pain to the country. That is the ultimate stimulus. Anything short of that would ensure that yet another $2 trillion goes towards stimulating shutdown and misery rather than freedom and growth.

Using Section 5 of the 14th Amendment, Congress should declare that all COVID restrictions violate the privileges and immunities of citizens and are hereby suspended. They have not worked and have only brought pain to the country. That is the ultimate stimulus. Anything short of that would ensure that yet another $2 trillion goes towards stimulating shutdown and misery rather than freedom and growth. Make ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine available over the counter: It's time to dispel the lie that there is no cure to this virus, absent expensive vaccines and ineffective drugs like Remdesivir. There are several proven protocols for both early stage use and prophylaxis, where a regimen of hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin mixed with other cheap supplementals completely cures the virus without hospitalization. India is doing this for $2.65 a person, rather than $1,500 checks being spent on nothingness. A World Health Organization meta-analysis found that ivermectin reduced fatalities by 75%. All 42 studies conducted on ivermectin use in COVID patients, half of which have been peer-reviewed, have found positive effects, including an 89% reduction in disease severity as a prophylaxis and even a 51% improvement in late stage treatment. The average of 214 studies on hydroxychloroquine show 65% improvement in early stage use. Despite the ironclad evidence behind their efficacy, people cannot get these medicines without a prescription, and many doctors will not prescribe them early on, nor will hospitals use them as part of an intermediate stage protocol. Anyone who opposes right to try is condemning many people to needless death by having the virus trigger super infections and cytokine storm, in which the options for treatment are very limited.

It's time to dispel the lie that there is no cure to this virus, absent expensive vaccines and ineffective drugs like Remdesivir. There are several proven protocols for both early stage use and prophylaxis, where a regimen of hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin mixed with other cheap supplementals completely cures the virus without hospitalization. India is doing this for $2.65 a person, rather than $1,500 checks being spent on nothingness. A World Health Organization meta-analysis found that ivermectin reduced fatalities by 75%. All 42 studies conducted on ivermectin use in COVID patients, half of which have been peer-reviewed, have found positive effects, including an 89% reduction in disease severity as a prophylaxis and even a 51% improvement in late stage treatment. The average of 214 studies on hydroxychloroquine show 65% improvement in early stage use. Despite the ironclad evidence behind their efficacy, people cannot get these medicines without a prescription, and many doctors will not prescribe them early on, nor will hospitals use them as part of an intermediate stage protocol. Anyone who opposes right to try is condemning many people to needless death by having the virus trigger super infections and cytokine storm, in which the options for treatment are very limited. Mail out packets of supplementals to every family: Rather than spending trillions of dollars locking down people (and then subsidizing the fallout) who will get the virus anyway and then offer no treatment, why not build people up to take control over their own health and freedom? This virus has brought forth a wealth of research showing that vitamin D, vitamin C, quercetin, and zinc work great against this and other viruses as prophylactics. A pair of randomized controlled trials in Spain found a reduction in ICU admission among patients receiving high doses of vitamin D by 96% and 80% respectively. A Spanish study of zinc in COVID patients also found a 130% higher death rate among those COVID patients hospitalized with low zinc levels. In addition, there is evidence behind the efficacy of melatonin and aspirin and several other cheap drugs being used at early stages. If everyone were given such a kit, we'd see a reduction in all sorts of viruses, again, for a fraction of the cost.

Rather than spending trillions of dollars locking down people (and then subsidizing the fallout) who will get the virus anyway and then offer no treatment, why not build people up to take control over their own health and freedom? This virus has brought forth a wealth of research showing that vitamin D, vitamin C, quercetin, and zinc work great against this and other viruses as prophylactics. A pair of randomized controlled trials in Spain found a reduction in ICU admission among patients receiving high doses of vitamin D by 96% and 80% respectively. A Spanish study of zinc in COVID patients also found a 130% higher death rate among those COVID patients hospitalized with low zinc levels. In addition, there is evidence behind the efficacy of melatonin and aspirin and several other cheap drugs being used at early stages. If everyone were given such a kit, we'd see a reduction in all sorts of viruses, again, for a fraction of the cost. Cancel all taxation and major regulations on small businesses for five years: Government owes it to small businesses to rebuild them after the destruction they have wrought upon them. As many as 44% of all small businesses might close this year as a result of the fallout. Rather than throwing money at so many people who never lost a penny, why not target the relief to those businesses that the government forcibly shut down? The best way to do that is to zero out all taxation and major regulations for five years. But I'd only tailor it to small businesses, because big businesses benefited from the unconstitutional shutdowns at the expense of mom-and-pop shops.

Such a plan would build up the citizenry rather than lock them down. It would empower them to remain healthy and defeat this virus rather than make them victim to helplessness and a death trap of expensive and ineffective treatments out of their hands. It would save lives from lockdown and COVID. However, that would short-circuit both the tyrannical politicians and their crony allies in big business. With power to seize and money to make, who in Washington is interested in saving lives?",0.5730960831251446
"It was the most unprecedentedly destructive decision in the history of human civilization. Officials decided to lock down a society and treat every human being like a leper until a vaccine was introduced, regardless of whether those interventions helped one iota in slowing the virus. Well, the vaccine is here, so it's game over, right? Wrong. ""Variants"" are the new 15 days years to flatten the curve. Except the premise is built on a lie.

""The US is at risk of losing all its recent gains in the battle against Covid-19 as highly contagious variants take advantage of Americans getting lax with safety measures,"" read the opening line of a fresh new piece of panic porn from CNN on Tuesday. Never mind the fact that the mask mandates have not been lifted one iota in states like California and have been intensified at the federal level, but of course, we already know masks don't work.

It's the perfect narrative. What more can they do to keep people under their control as roughly 35% of the country has already gotten the virus and pretty much any vulnerable person who wants a vaccine now has access to one? Well, watch out for the new variants that, of course, just magically appeared and were never there all along – they will make us start all over again!

We already know that T cells and B cells play the predominant role in stimulating immunity against coronavirus, at least against any serious illness. So how does T cell immunity work against the new strains? Researchers at the Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine Research, La Jolla Institute for Immunology, tested both people who already had the original strain of the virus and those who had the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines to see if the T cell responses worked against the four new strains: B.1.1.7 (British), B.1.351 (South African), P.1 (Brazilian), and CAL.20C (Californian).

The results? ""T cell responses are largely unaffected by the variants.""

""Overall, the results demonstrate that CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses in convalescent COVID-19 subjects or COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are not substantially affected by mutations found in the SARS-CoV-2 variants,"" concluded the authors of this complex T cell study.



This study should come as no surprise to those who have been following the research on T cell immunity over the past year. Researchers in Singapore found that those who recovered from SARS-1 in 2003 not only retained their SARS-specific memory T cells 17 years later, but that those T cells appeared to work against SARS-CoV-2 in lab simulations. It stands to reason that a variant of SARS-CoV-2 is unlikely to pose a greater challenge to the immune systems of convalescent COVID patients that it does to those who had a completely different form of coronavirus.

The media is trying to scare people by reporting each variant as if it's something novel to this particular virus, when in fact, most viruses have endless numbers of variants that are generally not impervious to the immune system's response triggered by the original variant. Forget about four or five variants; already, back in June 2020, a paper published last in the WHO Bulletin claimed that a variant analysis of SARS-CoV-2 genomes ""detected in total 65776 variants with 5775 distinct variants.""

The media is focusing on these few variants as if they are somehow more deadly, but the reality is that cases and deaths have plummeted in all of the source countries, such as South Africa, Brazil, and England, over the past two months, coinciding with the same decline following the late fall spike in nearly every part of the world.

Additionally, according to a study by University of Arizona researchers, the British variant has been circulating in the U.S. since mid-November and does not appear to have altered the existing trajectory of the virus under the original strain. Clearly, these variants have not altered the natural progression – roughly two-month cycles of mechanical waxing and waning of this virus – that we have observed since the beginning.

A King's College study of 37,000 people during the peak of the fall spread in England found no proof of higher mortality, hospitalization rates, or reinfection due to the new Kent B.1.1.7 variant among those who already recovered from the original virus. ""A key question was whether immunity would be lost with the new strain,"" observed Professor Tim Spector OBE from the School of Life Course Sciences. ""Our analysis found that of every 1,000 people previously infected with the virus, only 7 got reinfected and this rate was not affected by the new Kent variant. It's reassuring that reinfections are still really rare many months after previous infection, suggesting that both natural immunity and vaccines will be effective against this new strain.""



An even larger study of 184K from New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) for the British government concluded as of January that ""we do not have evidence of an increased risk of hospitalization in individuals with variant B1.1.7.""

Finally, it's important to remember that if those sowing panic about variants are correct, then it is a self-indictment of their own policies. Clearly, masks and lockdowns did not prevent their proliferation and never will in the future. Consequently, if somehow natural infection and vaccination do not protect against them, then there is no point in continuing any of these policies.

You know what does help and has not been proven any weaker against any variant – yet the government will not promote it? Cheap drugs and natural supplements – from hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin to doxycycline, vitamin D, zinc, quercetin and even aspirin and melatonin. Many of these treatments naturally boost the immune system and/or prevent viral RNA from replicating itself. They work for all sorts of RNA viruses, not just COVID, so the variants will not change this equation.



As such, it looks like the real answer to this problem – to the extent they believe it's real – is to mail out cheap kits to every American to use as a prophylactic, as India has been doing for $2.65 a person.

Sadly, that would unleash freedom in America without lining anyone's pocket. It would also alleviate the fear and panic of getting the virus. Given that tyranny and cronyism control our government and media, the contradictory panic porn will continue, forcing our public health officials to double down on failure to address their own supposed concerns.",0.08918521592996458
"While forcible masking of adults is immoral and illogical, the masking of children is downright satanic. Even if, in some alternate universe, cheap Chinese face burkas worked against transmission of particles much smaller than their pores, the virus poses no statistically meaningful danger to children. Together with the hiatus of the flu, children are actually better off than they've ever been in terms of viruses. So why, as a free people, are we forcibly masking babies often younger than two years old with no regard for the evidence of masking's efficacy or the physical and psychological damage of such demonic measures?

By now, most of us have seen the outrageous video of a family being thrown off a Frontier Airlines flight in Miami, when the child caught not wearing a mask was reportedly a baby younger than 2 years old. As outrageous as the story is, we have become desensitized to the fact that children across the country are being masked for seven hours a day every day. How can this be tolerated for another day, especially when our ""leaders"" plan on doing this indefinitely? Where are the lawsuits? Where are the numerous GOP-controlled legislatures banning this draconian form of child abuse?

Evidently, Italy values freedom more than we do. Last week, il Giornale, a daily newspaper in Milan, reported that an Italian court ruled in favor of a parent who sought an exemption from the mask mandate for their child who suffers from breathing issues. Although the court ruling applied only to that particular plaintiff, the judge found that the government ""has not provided proof of the scientific validity, for the purpose of containing the spread of the COVID virus, of the use of masks during school hours"" and that therefore ""[masking] is suspended immediately.""

What is so absurd is that even if masks worked, children are not threatened by this virus, nor are they vectors of spread. Children are actually being abused at a time when respiratory viruses are a lower threat to them than ever, even according to Biden's top coronavirus adviser, Dr. Michael Osterholm.

""We are seeing almost no viral respiratory pathogens today in our pediatric population,"" said Osterholm on a talk show last week (beginning at 16:40 mark). ""If you go look at our hospitalization rates for kids, it is dramatically below what we've seen in recent years.""

So why did the flu disappear? Because of the masks? Not a chance.

""Now, you can't say it's just because of mitigation, because frankly we haven't done all that well with mitigation with COVID-19,"" continued the famed University of Minnesota scientist. ""Look at all the cases we've had. So, if, in fact, it were just that, you'd expect to see at least some activity with flu and with the other viral repository pathogens. So, I think there is something going on here that mother nature is doing and across a diverse area of the world that we just don't understand.""

Indeed, when the politicians and the ""scientists"" were still predicting a ""twindemic"" of the flu and COVID back in the early fall, I proved, with the help of Kyle Lamb, that the flu had disappeared in areas and during times when people were not wearing masks or locked down.

The point is that masks played no role in mitigating any of this, and children are better off than ever before. So why are we continuing the abuse of endless masking?



It's simply an article of faith – a modern-day version of Moloch, whereby we sacrifice the physical and mental health of a generation of children to the gods of virtue-signaling.

Just how absurd is mask-wearing? We know that 87% of particles with influenza viral RNA are smaller than 1 micrometer, with many particles as small as less than one-tenth of a micrometer. One study that examined a sample of over 11,000 particles found that over 90% of SARS-CoV-2 particles were smaller than 0.3 microns, which clearly means this virus is primarily an airborne transmission virus. Most people who are together indoors for long periods of time, who are responsible for most of the transmission, wear cloth masks. Studies have shown most cloth masks have pores between 80 to 500 micrometers and that they expand with each washing. It is simply ludicrous to suggest that they can have any degree of efficacy, any more than using a screen door on a submarine.



The reality is that if you are indoors with someone who is predisposed to spread and you are pre-disposed to getting the virus (both factors still unclear and likely out of our hands), you will get infected regardless of masks or the ritualistic six-foot distance. While relatively large droplets, 100 micrometers for example, fall to the ground within a few seconds (even larger spittle falls immediately) and rarely wind up in someone else's mouth, the microscopic aerosols can remain suspended for days.

How can we permanently mask our children, beginning with toddlers, based on such anti-scientific insanity?

European officials seem to be fighting harder for liberty than Americans. Yesterday, the U.K. Express published comments from experts and school officials decrying recommendations in England that children be masked in schools.

""The use of masks in classrooms will undoubtedly be detrimental to learning particularly for any children with learning impairments or any special educational needs,"" wrote Ross Jones, former consultant pediatrician, in the British Medical Journal.

Jones noted that even the WHO's recommendation of masking schoolchildren states that it should be ""accompanied by monitoring not only of any effect in reducing SARSCoV-2 transmission but also of any harms to either mental or physical health, but this has not been done.""

States with GOP majorities need to pass some version of North Dakota's HB 1323, which bars all local officials from denying entry into schools or businesses based on masks. They should also pass Tennessee's Medical Non-Discrimination Business and Consumer Act (SB 0320/ HB 0794), which would apply anti-discrimination law to those without masks, at least to schoolchildren.

We must remember that as schools begin to reopen in critical numbers in the coming days, we will have just one shot at defining what that reopening looks like: Will it be the only normal of children interacting with each other, or will it be a satanic hell of shaming a human being for his or her own God-created face?",-1.8924894862575585
"Even if one believes government has the legal right and the scientific backing to destroy our lives over a virus, shouldn't such decisions be made by a legislative body? This is a simple proposition anyone who supports representative democracy should rally behind, yet 10 months into the greatest government display of control of our lives, we continue to have health departments making the most consequential decisions of all time without legislative input. Governors continue to tell legislatures to mind their own business, and the response from most GOP-dominated legislatures has been tepid at best.

There is no virus that can possibly prevent legislators from weighing in, at least not after a few days into the initial emergency. We should all agree that if the actions taken by the governors, mayors, and health departments are so compelling, then the legislature should easily be able to approve them — if not within hours or a day, certainly within a week. As such, any decision that is made against the life, liberty, or property of an American — from business and school closures to quarantining and masking — should only be made by an elected body within just a few days of the presumed emergency.

Are the 31 GOP-controlled legislatures passing these bills, even in the 19 states where they command veto-proof majorities? Very few of them are going far enough, although some are headed in the right direction. Idaho, Ohio, and North Dakota are examples of some states where one chamber has passed meaningful limitation on the governor's orders. However, one to two months into the legislative sessions, not a single state has effectively checked the dictatorial powers yet with a categorical bill passed by both chambers.

Last week, the New Hampshire House passed a bill zeroing out all fines levied against businesses and individuals under emergency health orders. Shockingly, Gov. Chris Sununu (R) said, ""We can't claim to support law and order, then incentivize law-breaking and reward those who do not follow the rules.""

From following these efforts in numerous states, I get the sense that this is the belief held by nearly every governor in the nation. They believe they have the right to legislate against the most intimate parts of a citizen's life, and in turn, the legislature has no businesses getting involved. Sununu believes that the legislature is being lawless by interfering with his private ""laws.""

It's not surprising that governors believe they should have as much power as possible. What is shocking, though, is that state legislatures are not more aggressively checking their power and appear content to allow governors to continue ruling as kings. For example, the GOP supermajorities in West Virginia failed to apply limitations to the current declared emergency. Indiana's supermajorities refuse to fully check the power of the liberal RINO Gov. Eric Holcomb.

The scary thing is that the clock is ticking on state legislative schedules, and many of them will be out of session within a few weeks, which will enable governors to rule without any checks and balances for the next eight to nine months. At a minimum, states must pass bills forcing the governors to call the legislatures back into session as soon as governors declare an emergency or give the legislature itself the ability to call itself back in to session.

What I'm observing now in most state legislatures is an antiquated law designed to protect liberty being used to protect tyranny. Most states limit the legislature to just a few months of active lawmaking, and some states even limit the number of days during the session that legislators can introduce legislation. This was done to prevent the government from legislating away too many of our rights. However, what has happened in recent years is that most of the ""legislation"" is promulgated by the governor, the state agencies, or the courts. They have zero limitations on the time or scope of their ""legislative"" powers. Thus, limiting the ability of the legislature to convene actually prevents the people from using their only democratic avenue to redress their grievances against executive tyranny.

Take Utah, for example. There is an allegedly Republican governor, with the GOP controlling the House by 58-17 and the Senate by 23-6. Yet it as might as well be California when it comes to mask mandates. The state legislative session ends this coming Friday night, and legislators have yet to limit the power of the government or health department. With the legislature out of session until 2022, the health department extended the criminalization of human breathing without a Chinese face burka through March 25. Without any sort of legislation – and indeed, with the legislature slated to be out of session – these unelected bureaucrats are suggesting that the mandate will be in place until 1.6 million people have been vaccinated, and even then, citizens will be allowed to breathe freely only in ""low transmission"" counties. With masks already never having worked in Utah, the unelected bureaucrats have now set up a standard that will continue with no recourse for the citizenry until the legislature convenes next year.

James Madison, writing in Federalist #48, observed, ""The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity, and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex."" He further believed, ""The legislative department derives a superiority in our governments from other circumstances.""



""Its constitutional powers being at once more extensive, and less susceptible of precise limits, it can, with the greater facility, mask, under complicated and indirect measures, the encroachments which it makes on the co-ordinate departments,"" wrote Madison. ""It is not unfrequently a question of real nicety in legislative bodies, whether the operation of a particular measure will, or will not, extend beyond the legislative sphere.""

It was in this vein that many state constitutions limited the powers of their legislative authorities. Little did their framers know that not only would the executive branch begin to legislate against fundamental rights all year round, but the legislature would be all too content to permanently cede that authority.",0.4047375986878971
"Increasing skepticism and even anger about the long-standing COVID-19 advisory role of Dr. Anthony Fauci have filled social media in recent days.

Sure, some of us have been pointing out the need to rid the White House and the nation of his presence for nearly a year now, but it turns out Fauci's latest calls for double masking and remaining locked down even after getting vaccinated have pushed a new segment of Americans over the edge.

And to that I say, ""Amen.""

More and more people simply want their damn country back and resent that the so-called ""experts"" seem to be addicted to either doubling down on failure or mandating increasingly hysterical and obtuse remedies that would make Rube Goldberg machines blush.

It's a lot more than mere resentment, though. So many people have been hurt in mind, body, and soul by Fauci's arrogant and inconsistent medical meanderings. Among the costs: Their ability to provide for themselves and their family. Their ability to worship and speak freely. Their ability to receive an education. Their ability to flourish in athletics and the arts. And perhaps most of all, their ability to trust one another as fellow citizens.

It might be years before we realize how busted we truly are, as both individuals and a community, because of Fauci's perverse Frankenstein act. The claim that he is a healer is a farce that grows day by day. Instead, he has specialized in growing hopeless zombies and goose-stepping minions in his lab of nonsense.

There needs to be accountability after a year of such needless overreach and arrogance. Somebody has to pay. Because this all could have been different if we had learned the right lessons nearly a year ago when people like Idaho's Sara Brady were among the first to fall victim to Fauci's paranoia-inducing spell.

She's the mom who was arrested in April o2020 for the high crime of playing on a playground with her kids and now continues to wait in limbo for a trial to address her trespassing charge as she amasses growing attorney fees.

Brady had been at the park for barely five minutes before police arrived at the behest of a Karen Supreme who simply couldn't tolerate the freedom being enjoyed right in front of her as she cowered in her car eating lunch. And so it was that two young children saw their mother handcuffed right in front of them by the inheritor of Barney Fife's limp pistol and tin-can badge.

""Unfortunately for the officer and the state of Idaho, they arrested a woman who will fight until she has no breath left in her,"" said Tim Brady, Sara's husband. ""What a lot of people don't know, especially those that have taken time out of their lives to criticize, threaten, harass and stalk her and our family is that she is the wife of a police officer. To add insult to injury, I have worked with the officer that arrested my wife several times throughout my 19-year law enforcement career.""

Yeah, you heard that right. A cop is so fed up by the abuses of power destroying our nation that he is now speaking up without apology. Because this is about far more than just his wife. Fauci isn't supposed to be our model or our muse for how government works, nor how America's citizens are to be respected and served.

""I have to hope that law enforcement's role with the tyrannical orders and edicts over the past year are the minority,"" Tim said. ""I fear that the profession I love will someday in the future force me to leave because I won't participate in destroying my nation. The next time you hear or see a story about the abuse of law enforcement power, please remember there are those of who are still out there fighting for what is right. Vowing to uphold the oaths we have taken.""

This is the chaos and purposelessness Fauci and company have wrought, as whatever oaths they once took, Hippocratic or otherwise, have been forgotten or perverted. Where a cop's faith in his noble profession as well as his own respect for authority are hanging by a thread as he saw roughly 400 inmates released from his local prison due to COVID, making room behind bars for the likes of his wife for daring to get some fresh air.

Enough. That's what we should have said then. And that's what we must say now.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is a traitor to the cause of freedom, whether they understand that or not. So wake up. Fauci isn't your friend. He's a fiend. His time as the diabolical moral and medical compass of our nation is a permanent scar on the land.

For God's sake, enough.",-0.6739464497742184
"James Madison once asserted that ""in a republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates."" Well, today, only executive power predominates, because federal and state executive agencies seem to be the only ones doing the legislating. As Joe Biden continues to pass sweeping ""laws"" unilaterally with no authority from Congress, the red states are the only even potential check on his abuse of power. It appears that the state of Oklahoma has now taken up the mantle as the second state to move to block these executive orders.

On Thursday, the Oklahoma House overwhelmingly passed a bill, HB 1236, that would grant the state's attorney general and state legislature the authority to review the president's executive orders to determine constitutionality. Specifically, the bill would authorize the legislature to recommend that the attorney general review any executive order, federal agency rule, or federal congressional action to determine whether the state should seek an exemption or declare it unconstitutional. If either the attorney general or the legislature, by concurrent resolution, declares the act unconstitutional, then all state and local officials and any publicly funded organization are prohibited from enforcing it.

The federal actions covered under this bill include any orders pertaining to health emergencies; the regulation of natural resources, agriculture, and land use; infringements upon the Second Amendment; the regulation of the financial sector as it relates to environmental, social, or governance standards, the regulation of education; the regulation of college or school sports; or any other powers reserved by the State of Oklahoma or the people of Oklahoma.

This bill is probably the single most direct and effective way of countering federal power-grabs. As written, it would potentially pave the way for the legislature to block Biden's mask mandate, transgender agenda in school sports, and racially biased orders in finance and commerce, just to name a few.

Oklahoma's House is now the second chamber to pass a state sovereignty bill against federal overreach. The North Dakota House passed a similar bill, HB 1282, earlier this month. However, that bill passed by a narrow margin, 51-43, with nearly 30 Republicans voting against it. The Oklahoma bill, on the other hand, was introduced by the speaker himself, Rep. Charles McCall, and passed 79-18 along party lines, which means it has a good chance of going to the governor's desk.

A few minutes after passage of HB 1236, Rep. Jay Steagall introduced HR 1005, a resolution expressing the right of a state to defend the Constitution and intervene on behalf of the liberties of its citizens.

""Oklahoma hereby asserts sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers,"" states the text of the resolution, which passed 80-14. ""THAT this resolution shall serve notice to the federal government of our intent to maintain the balance of powers where the Constitution of the United States established it. THAT we intend to ensure that all federal government agencies and their agents and employees operating within the geographic boundaries of Oklahoma, or whose actions have an effect on the inhabitants, lands or waters of Oklahoma, shall operate within the confines of the original intent of the Constitution of the United States.""



In introducing the bill, Rep. Steagall, who is the chairman of the States Rights Committee, stated plainly the intent of the legislative effort this week. ""I submit to you that it is the duty of the state to interpose between the central government's abuse of power and the people in order to secure the authorities, rights, and liberties of the people, and that duty falls squarely on the shoulders of the state legislature.""

While so many conservatives are focused on Congress, many fail to see that the states are where the power resides. Republicans control both houses in 31 state legislatures, the majority of them with supermajorities. If every chamber were to mimic this legislation, there would be large swaths of the country free from the totalitarian edicts of the left, regardless of what happens in Washington.",0.5595774910475292
"U.S. Rep. Tom Reed, a Republican from western New York who was accused last week of rubbing a female lobbyist’s back and unhooking her bra without her consent in 2017, apologized to the woman on Sunday and announced that he will not run for reelection next year.",0.22369665520146098
"The crisis on the southern border is worsening, with more than 15,000 migrant children now in U.S. custody, and a new report that the Biden Administration is spending $86 million to house migrants in hotel rooms.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas continued to call the border situation a ""challenge"" and not a ""crisis"" and blamed the Trump administration for it.

""The border is secure, the border is closed...It takes time because the entire system was dismantled,"" Mayorkas told Fox News Sunday.



But Sen. Tom Cotton said it is the Biden Administration that has done the dismantling, and called the Biden border policy ""recruit and release.""

""I mean he's basically saying the United States will not secure our border and that's a big welcome sign to migrants across the world,"" Cotton said.

The media and lawmakers from both parties have criticized the Biden administration for restricting press access to overcrowded facilities housing unaccompanied migrant children.

Hope Frye of Project Lifeline said inside the facilities are, ""children standing up with nowhere to sit down, children who can't all lay down at the same time or can't lay down at all.""

Biden said Sunday that he intends to travel to the southern border ""at some point,"" but said he's in no rush because he said he knows what's going on there.

Donald Trump released a statement in response to Biden's remarks on Sunday, saying, ""We proudly handed the Biden Administration the most secure border in history,"" and that it has turned ""a national triumph into a national disaster.""

BELOW: This tweet shows photos from border patrol tents (Image provided by Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-TX)

“Exclusive photos from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection temporary overflow facility in Donna, Texas, reveal the crowded, makeshift conditions at the border as the government's longer-term child shelters and family detention centers fill up.”https://t.co/WJnkV4zBFX pic.twitter.com/7XqagoPwak — Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) March 22, 2021

One migrant from Honduras traveling through Mexico to the US border said he wanted to thank Joe Biden ""from the bottom of our hearts"" for opening the border.

When another migrant who crossed the border was asked if he would have tried it when Donald Trump was president, responded: ""Definitely not.""



A campaign flag for President Joe Biden flies over tents at a camp of migrants at the border port of entry leading to the U.S., March 17, 2021, in Tijuana, Mexico. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Texas Republican congressman Michael McCaul says with spring weather the situation on the border is only going to get worse.

""The message is coming back, 'Hey, we got a new president, come on in, we're open for business to the traffickers... and I predict a million people trying to get into this country by the summertime,"" McCaul said to ABC.

This has also created a crisis for Mexico, which has had to send many more officers to its southern border to stop migrants on their trek to the U.S.",-0.7990361390175781
"Alternative medicine is a type of treatment that continues to grow in popularity. Often it includes treatments that aren't new and some people might even call them ancient.

Since its inception, many have called modern medicine a gift from God. Sometimes, however, we look back to the treatments of our ancestors. Dr. Josh Axe, the founder of the most-visited natural health website in America, says equating healing with pharmaceuticals is a relatively new concept.

""Up until 150 years ago when somebody used the word medicine it typically didn't mean a synthetic medicine,"" he told CBN News, ""It typically meant an herb or spice, like ginger or frankincense, and all of these things that are referenced in the Bible that's what was meant by medicine.""

In his new book Ancient Remedies: Secrets to Healing with Herbs, Essential Oils, CBD, and the Most Powerful Natural Medicine in History Dr. Axe recommends herbs, supplements, essential oils and foods to treat about 75 different conditions.

""For instance, if somebody is struggling with hypothyroidism, I go through those top five herbs so people know exactly what to do,"" he said, ""If somebody has Alzheimer's, I go through what to do. If somebody has inflammation, heart disease, diabetes, chronic pain, hormone imbalance, I go through all of those things in there.""

Dr. Axe says some natural treatments date back to the dawn of civilization.

'It's believed that Abraham taught a lot of these natural ways of healing, using different herbs and foods to support healing,"" he said, ""And that is the basis of Chinese or different types of Asian medicine.""

Why Go Natural?

Many people are content to use medicines that are made in a lab, however, if given the choice, might prefer something a little more natural. Dr. Axe points out that many of today's man-made drugs often began as imitations of their natural counterparts.

""For instance, take white willow bark. That's where they got the idea for aspirin,"" he explained, ""White willow bark helps naturally thin the blood, reduces pain naturally, is anti-inflammatory. Well, aspirin is actually taken from that. But these pharmaceutical companies wanted to save money, so they started making it themselves, that is synthetic.""

Dr. Axe says that process can result in side effects like nutritional deficiencies.

""Diabetes drugs actually pull Coenzyme Q10 from your body and certain B vitamins,"" he said, ""So if you're on a diabetes drug it increases your risk of a heart attack and stroke. If you have taken an antibiotic drug it kills the good bacteria in your body and also depletes your body of zinc.""

Healing Any Disease Begins with This

Dr. Axe maintains that regardless of the disease, the first step towards healing involves building a better gut since that's where most of our immune system resides.

""The foods that are most healing to the gut, number one, is bone broth,"" he explained, ""Bone broth is made up of 90 percent collagen and your gut itself is made up of 70 percent collagen so you have to have collagen in order for it to heal.""

He said healing the gut not only involves adding the right foods to our diet, but also subtracting the wrong ones.

""Gluten, dairy, and sugar are the things that will most weaken our immune systems.""

Marijuana's Sober Cousin

Dr. Axe says we can also boost our body's natural defenses against disease by balancing our hormones, lowering stress, and getting a good night's sleep. He says marijuana's sober cousin, CBD, can do all three.

""There are two main compounds found in hemp, which are CBD and THC,"" he said, ""THC, that's the compound that can cause hallucinogenic effects where people hear about getting high. CBD is a completely different compound.""

So while drug companies churn out their pills, Dr. Josh Axe points to nature. He says we, like people centuries before us, can use the remedies there to cure what ails us.

***As certain voices are censored and free speech platforms shut down, be sure to sign up for CBN News emails and the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving news from a Christian Perspective.***",0.34318004287152426
"The presence of faith and prayer are undeniable in the NCAA brackets as March Madness rolls along.

Oklahoma's Oral Roberts University, a Christian college founded by the evangelist Oral Roberts, became the second number 15 seed to advance to the Sweet 16, upsetting the number 7 seeded Florida Gators 81 to 78 on Sunday.

ORAL ROBERTS IS HEADED TO THE SWEET 16 pic.twitter.com/fUw1jvGjbX — CBS Sports (@CBSSports) March 22, 2021

Success for ORU's Golden Eagles follows Friday's victory when they beat the #2-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes 75 to 72 marking ORU's first tournament win since 1974.

""I'm thankful to Jesus Christ for putting us in this position,"" said junior Kevin Obanor before Sunday's big game. ""We want it very bad. It's bigger than us, just to leave a legacy behind for ORU. I'm just very eternally grateful and I just can't wait to play tomorrow.""

Loyola University in Chicago is another faith-based college celebrating success after defeating #1-ranked Illinois 71-58 during Sunday's second round of the NCAA Tournament.

***As certain voices are censored and free speech platforms shut down, be sure to sign up for CBN News emails and the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving news from a Christian Perspective.***

The Rambler's secret weapon, Sister Jean Delores Schmidt, prayed her team to a Sweet 16 spot, easily beating the Fighting Illini by 13 points.

Many credit Sister Jean's pregame prayers for the team's success. From her wheelchair, she prayed for God's hand to reach over the players throughout the game.

""As we play the Fighting Illini, we ask for special help to overcome this team and get a great win,"" the 101-year-old said. ""We hope to score early and make our opponents nervous. We have a great opportunity to convert rebounds as this team makes about 50 percent of layups and 30 percent of its 3 points. Our defense can take care of that.""

Sister Jean had the Illinois scouting report ready for Loyola pic.twitter.com/OzfksLQBG5 — Sports Illustrated (@SInow) March 21, 2021

Sister Jean watched the game from the stands while sporting the Rambler's trademark maroon and gold scarf.

Loyola maintained its lead in the eight-to-12-point range during most of the second half.

""We tried everything in the bag,"" Illinois coach Brad Underwood said. ""Everything that's made us one of the most efficient offensive teams, today, just for whatever reason, didn't work.""

The team says there's no denying the spiritually inspired support from Sister Jean helped lead Loyola to the Elite Eight.

""It's amazing what happens when you get a group of young men who believe,"" said Loyola coach Porter Moser. ""And these guys believed.""",-0.8628051905651851
"DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — In the Middle East, where sport and diplomacy are closely intertwined, political passions can spill over onto the playing field.

With the Palestinian cause the core issue uniting Arabs across the region for decades, Israeli players meeting Arab opponents on the field have learned the age-old conflict always looms. Spectators have thrown shoes and jeered. Egyptians, Saudis and others have refused handshakes or pulled out of matches.

But on Friday, politics played a vastly different role. Months after the United Arab Emirates normalized ties with Israel, an Israeli national rugby squad touched down in Dubai to meet the Emirati team on the field for the first time. The more experienced Israeli team swiftly beat the UAE 33-0 in the first 7-a-side friendly match, held without crowds because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The rugby players and few spectators rose as Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, blared over the grassy field and through rows of skyscrapers. The players shook hands, slapped backs and bumped fists over a thumping electronic beat.

Emirati players seemed uncomfortable only when asked about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While the UAE and Israel were never at war and for years cultivated covert ties, the federation of seven sheikhdoms formally considered Israel an enemy.

Following the establishment of formal ties last year, the public blowback in the UAE has been muted if not absent, as authorities suppress all dissent. Palestinians, for their part, have lambasted the Israel-UAE normalization as a betrayal of their cause for statehood.

“We don’t think about whether Israel is a good country or a bad country,” said Ibrahim Doree, an Emirati player, his face glistening with sweat after the game. “We just follow our leaders,” he added, declining to discuss the conflict before rushing to meet the Israelis for a barbecue dinner in the desert.

The Israelis were more emotional. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin beamed onto the field with a dramatic speech about friendship.

“This is insane, insane,” said Israeli player Ori Abutbul, shaking his head in disbelief. “I have no words when people ask me how I feel.”",0.24676176594922747
"One of Donald Trump's senior advisers says he will be back on social media soon but this time on his own platform.

Jason Miller, who was the spokesperson for Trump's 2020 campaign, told Fox News' ""#MediaBuzz"" on Sunday that the former president will return to social networking with a brand new platform.

.@JasonMillerinDC said President Trump will be ""returning to social media in two or three months"" with ""his own platform"" that will ""completely redefine the game"" and attract ""tens of millions"" of new users. #MediaBuzz — #MediaBuzz (@MediaBuzzFNC) March 21, 2021

""This new platform is going to be big,"" Miller said, expecting it to attract ""tens of millions of people.""

And the move is expected to happen in two to three months.

""This is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media, it's going to completely redefine the game, and everybody is going to be waiting and watching to see what exactly President Trump does.""

***As certain voices are censored and free speech platforms shut down, be sure to sign up for CBN News emails and the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving news from a Christian Perspective.***

CBN News previously reported in January that Trump was looking into creating his own social media site following the bold move by Twitter to ban him from the platform.

At the time, Trump tweeted from the @Potus account, indicating that he was discussing the idea with other sites and an update would be forthcoming.

""We have been negotiating with various other sites, and will have a big announcement soon, while we also look at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future. We will not be SILENCED!""

""STAY TUNED!"" he added.

In the @POTUS tweets, Trump noted overturning Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law that safeguards tech companies from being held accountable for what users post on their sites.

""Twitter may be a private company,"" the former president said, ""but without the government's gift of Section 230 they would not exist for long.""

Twitter promptly removed the tweets from that account, referencing its guidelines on banned users attempting to bypass the block by way of other accounts.

Trump was also banned from Facebook and Instagram shortly after the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.",0.11796693519719971
"A Canadian father was arrested earlier this week after he violated a court order banning him from speaking out about his biological daughter’s gender transition.

The man, whose name is reportedly under a publication ban put in place by the British Columbia Court of Appeals, was found in contempt of court and arrested Tuesday for speaking out about his daughter’s case and referring to his transgender child — who identifies as a male — with female pronouns, according to The Post Millennial.

In January of last year, the father went to court after learning his daughter was undergoing hormone therapy to transition to a boy, Global News reported. The child, whose name has also been protected, claims to have been exploring transition treatment since the age of 13 and has identified as a male since the age of 11.

The child’s dad first went to court in 2018, when he was made aware of his biological daughter’s intentions. He argued at the time that treatment should be predicated on the approval of both parents, who are separated. The girl’s mother, it should be noted, supports the transition.

In their decision, the justices of the B.C. Court of Appeals ruled the father could not voice his opposition to his daughter’s decision and was warned any attempt to pressure his child to change course would be considered a form of family violence, punishable by law. Chief Justice Robert Bauman and Justice Barbara Fisher said the dad’s “refusal to accept” his teenage daughter’s choices “is troublesome,” adding that his failure to fully endorse his kid’s desire for irreversible transgender treatments has caused the minor “significant pain” that has “resulted in a rupture of what both parties refer to as an otherwise loving parent-child relationship.”

The “rupture,” the justices added, is not in the child’s “best interests.”

With that in mind, Bauman and Fisher ordered the father to refer to his biological daughter only by male pronouns and barred him from speaking to members of the media.

The girl’s transition apparently started at school, where she was being exposed to pro-transgender educational materials. Because she did suffer from feelings of dysphoria, the school began referring to her by a male name and even put that new name in her seventh grade yearbook — all without informing her parents.

School officials reportedly received input from a psychologist, Wallace Wong, who encouraged the young girl to take testosterone, referring her to an endocrinology unit at a nearby hospital.

In February of last year, the father told The Federalist — after he learned all this — that he “had a perfectly healthy child a year ago, and that perfectly healthy child has been altered and destroyed for absolutely no good reason.”

“She can never go back to being a girl in the healthy body that she should have had,” he said. “She’s going to forever have a lower voice. She’ll forever have to shave because of facial hair. She won’t be able to have children.”

The father has accused the government of “state-sponsored child abuse.”",0.8081109530119025
"LONDON (AP) — Advanced trial data from a U.S. study on the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine shows it is 79% effective, the company announced Monday in long-awaited research that may answer some questions about the shot's effectiveness in older populations.

AstraZeneca said its experts also identified no safety concerns related to the vaccine, including a rare blood clot that was identified in Europe. Experts found no increased risk of clots among the more than 20,000 people who got at least one dose of the AstraZeneca shot.

Although AstraZeneca's vaccine has been authorized in more than 50 countries, it has not yet been given the green light in the U.S. The U.S. study comprised more than 30,000 volunteers, of whom two-thirds were given the vaccine while the rest got dummy shots.

In a statement, AstraZeneca said its COVID-19 vaccine had a 79% efficacy rate at preventing symptomatic COVID and was 100% effective in stopping severe disease and hospitalization. Investigators said the vaccine was effective across all ages, including older people — which previous studies in other countries had failed to establish.

The early findings from the U.S. study are just one set of information AstraZeneca must submit to the Food and Drug Administration. An FDA advisory committee will publicly debate the evidence behind the shots before the agency decides whether to allow emergency use of the vaccine.

Scientists have been awaiting results of the U.S. study in hopes it will clear up some of the confusion about just how well the shots really work.

Britain first authorized the vaccine based on partial results from testing in the United Kingdom, Brazil and South Africa that suggested the shots were about 70% effective. But those results were clouded by a manufacturing mistake that led some participants to get just a half dose in their first shot — an error the researchers didn’t immediately acknowledge.

Then came more questions, about how well the vaccine protected older adults and how long to wait before the second dose. Some European countries including Germany, France and Belgium initially withheld the shot from older adults and only reversed their decisions after new data suggested it is offering seniors protection.

Last week, more than a dozen countries, mostly in Europe, temporarily suspended their use of the AstraZeneca shot after reports it was linked to blood clots. On Thursday, the European Medicines Agency concluded after an investigation that the vaccine did not raise the overall risk of blood clots, but could not rule out that it was connected to two very rare types of clots.

France, Germany, Italy and other countries subsequently resumed their use of the shot on Friday, with senior politicians rolling up their sleeves to show the vaccine was safe.

“These findings reconfirm previous results observed,"" said Ann Falsey of the University of Rochester School of Medicine, who helped lead the trial. “It's exciting to see similar efficacy results in people over 65 for the first time.”

Julian Tang, a virologist at the university of Leicester who was unconnected to the study, described it as “good news” for the AstraZeneca vaccine.

“The earlier U.K., Brazil, South Africa trials had a more variable and inconsistent design and it was thought that the U.S. FDA would never approve the use of the AZ vaccine on this basis, but now the U.S. clinical trial has confirmed the efficacy of this vaccine in their own clinical trials,” he said.

“Though seemingly possibly slightly less efficacious on paper, the AZ vaccine is much cheaper and much easier to store and transport than the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines currently in use in the U.S.”

AstraZeneca said it would continue to analyze the data in preparation for submitting it to the FDA in the coming weeks. It said the data would also soon be published in a peer-reviewed journal.",0.9566961155623298
"The mayor of Miami Beach, Florida has declared a state of emergency over concerns with the large crowds of people descending upon the area for Spring Break.

In a press release issued Saturday, Interim City Manager Raul J. Aguila advised that an 8:00 p.m. curfew was in effect, along with the closure of certain causeways. These measures were instituted in an effort to begin clearing the city out after an unexpected influx of people showed up.

""Too many people are coming here right now,"" Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber said at a press conference. ""Our city in this area has become a tinder, and we can't have a policy of simply hoping it's not lit.""

And Miami Beach Police spokesperson Ernesto Rodriguez said the city has made over 900 arrests throughout February and March, according to Fox News.

Here’s Miami Beach tonight, 10 minutes after new 8 p.m. city-wide curfew. City also declared a State of Emergency today in light of larger than expected #SpringBreak crowds. @CBSMiami pic.twitter.com/D6aCjgE2cf — Brooke Shafer (@BrookeShaferTV) March 21, 2021

This led one well-known business to voluntarily close down until at least March 24, out of precaution, until the surge of vacationers starts to dwindle.

""For decades, the Clevelander South Beach has been one of the most famous and prominent businesses on Ocean Drive,"" an online statement reads. ""Recently, we have grown increasingly concerned with the safety of our dedicated employees and valued customers and the ability for the city to maintain a safe environment.""

Mayor Gelber said he doesn't ""blame them for wanting to close"" given that the city seems like it's ""under a level of siege.""

Miami Beach's City Commission plans to meet Sunday at 3 p.m. to review the curfew and additional steps that may help to suppress the huge amount of Spring Breakers.

***As certain voices are censored and free speech platforms shut down, be sure to sign up for CBN News emails and the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving news from a Christian Perspective.***",0.4301768473042225
"Republican Julia Letlow won a special election for Louisiana's 5th Congressional District on Saturday, less than four months after her husband Luke Letlow passed away due to complications from COVID-19.

After defeating 11 other candidates for the U.S. House seat, she became the first Republican woman from Louisiana to be elected to Congress.

""This is an incredible moment, and it is truly hard to put into words. What was born out of the terrible tragedy of losing my husband, Luke, has become my mission in his honor to carry the torch and serve the good people of Louisiana's 5th District,"" Julia Letlow said in a statement.

The late Luke Letlow was elected in a runoff election on Dec. 5. Just weeks later on Dec. 18, he announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19, and the next day he was admitted to a Monroe, LA hospital.

***As certain voices are censored and free speech platforms shut down, be sure to sign up for CBN News emails and the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving news from a Christian Perspective.***

Former President Donald Trump expressed his support for Julia Letlow on Saturday.

""Julia Letlow is outstanding and so necessary to help save our Second Amendment, at the border, and for our military and vets,"" Trump said. ""Louisiana, get out and vote today — she will never disappoint! Julia has my complete and total endorsement.""

And she raised over $680,000 for the race, more than all of her competitors combined.

Julie Letlow ran on issues similar to her husband such as supporting agriculture, widening broadband internet access, and supporting conservative values.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) commended Letlow on her victory, saying that she ""offered a message that united Louisiana voters and defied predictions by winning this special election outright with a clear majority - a remarkable accomplishment among a field of 12 candidates.

""As Julia succeeds her late husband and our friend, Luke, we look forward to welcoming her to Congress, where her expertise in higher education will help us continue to deliver solutions for America,"" McCarthy said in a statement.

Additionally, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) congratulated her on the accomplishment.

""She has continued to exemplify strength, determination, and tenacity in the wake of a terrible tragedy. I know that these same characteristics that got her through the last few months will make her an excellent advocate for Louisiana in Washington, D.C.,"" Bel Edwards said.",-0.19972146236689706
"COMMENTARY

We live in an incredibly anxious and depressed culture here in America, and the COVID-19 pandemic, civil unrest, and divisive politics have further exacerbated this issue. According to a 2020 report from Mental Health America, more than 47 million adults in our nation are experiencing some form of mental illness. My home state of Texas is one of the lowest ranking in the nation for quality of mental health and treatment for mental illness in adults.

Moreover, across America, approximately 4.4 million children have been diagnosed with anxiety and another 1.9 million have been diagnosed with depression. Most concerning, suicide has become the second leading cause of death among people 10 to 34 years of age.

We have an established mental health crisis on our hands. Sadly, the Christian church has often neglected to respond in a loving and supportive way to those who are struggling with mental health issues. I'm heartbroken to say many people who have sought help and hope within the church have been turned away, shamed, or told — sometimes by well-meaning pastors or lay counselors — they just need to ""pray harder"" or ""have more faith.""

2021 is a new year, and it's time for the Christian church to respond to this crisis in a new way.

In 2019, Lifeway Research surveyed pastors, congregants, and their families about mental illness and the church. The survey revealed nearly half of pastors (49%) ""rarely or never speak to their church in sermons or large group settings about acute mental illness."" Additionally, close to one in four individuals surveyed indicated they had either ""stopped attending church, had not found a church to attend or had changed churches based on the church's response to mental health issues.""

I believe the church's failure lies not in ill intention but largely in misinformation and lack of proper training. While there is a spiritual aspect to mental health that churches and pastors can and should address, we often have missed the clinical reality of mental health.

Complicating the matter is the fact that in my generation (Baby Boomers) mental health has often been viewed as a taboo subject to be discussed only at home, if at all. We were raised to believe that if you are a follower of Jesus, you're not supposed to struggle with mental health, depression or anxiety. I remember thinking this way when I was a young Christian, and it took several painful experiences over the course of my life for me to grasp what it's like to struggle with mental health.

My father was brutally murdered by a shoplifter at his store when I was 20 years old. Losing him in such a violent way launched me into one of the darkest valleys I've ever had to walk through. At one of my lowest points, I seriously doubted God's existence.

Then, 10 years ago, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The treatment and recovery periods were grueling and left me exhausted both physically and emotionally. Anxiety and depression took hold. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I couldn't enjoy the things I once loved. I felt like a dead man walking, and I wondered if I was ever going to make it. Some Sundays I had to drag myself to the pulpit.

It took me more than a year to come out of that darkness. I sought the help of professional counselors who recommended different forms of treatment that were effective in my battle with depression. The church also played an indispensable role, caring, loving, and encouraging me during my hardest days. This is what the apostle Paul exhorted us to do in Galatians 6:20, ""Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the love of Christ"" (ESV).

If we are followers of Jesus, we are tasked with not only caring deeply about the spiritual health of others, but their mental, emotional and physical health as well, for they are all tied together.

The good news is the church is uniquely equipped to care for people struggling with mental illness. As a local community of faith called to love one another, it acts as a crucial support system for all who are in need. Many of the Bible's teachings — such as forgiving those who have wronged us, recognizing the inherent value of every human life, and giving thanks for the blessings we have — are used by professional counselors to help people cope with and overcome depression and anxiety.

***As certain voices are censored and free speech platforms shut down, be sure to sign up for CBN News emails and the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving news from a Christian Perspective.***

The church has the potential to change the tide of the mental illness epidemic rising in our nation, but for this to happen we need to start talking about the issues. We need to equip ourselves so we can offer effective, practical care for people who need healing. This is why Prestonwood has started Life Recovery Ministry, a program to help people cope and heal from emotional, physical, relational, and spiritual wounds caused by illness, addiction, and abuse. Life Recovery Ministry will host The River Conference on March 19 and 20, to address mental health stigma, domestic abuse, sexual healing, and more. This event will feature experts in psychology and religion and is open for in-person and online attendance.

We the church can no longer stand on the sidelines while people are suffering and hurting. We must step up and step in to end this critical cycle before it's too late.

Dr. Jack Graham is the pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church, one of the largest and fastest-growing churches in America. He is also a noted author, and his PowerPoint Ministries broadcasts are available in 92 countries and are heard daily in more than 740 cities. Facebook | www.facebook.com/PPTMinistries Twitter | @jackngraham",1.2179746040046504
"COMMENTARY

How is it possible that Israel, often touted as the only stable democracy in the Middle East, is going to the polls for the fourth time in two years on March 23rd? And has had the same Prime Minister in office since 2009? A man whose party, by the way, has never won more than 25% of the vote?

The Israeli political scene is in upheaval. Hand in hand with the unprecedented fourth election in two years, there hasn't been a stable government since 2018. Prime Minister - Benjamin Netanyahu, or Bibi - has just surpassed fifteen years at the helm of the country, spread across 5 terms. Trying to explain what is going on in Israeli politics to friends and family back in the US, is challenging to say the least.

From the outside, Israeli politics seems messy and noisy. Spoiler - it looks like that from the inside too. American politics are a veritable bastion of restraint and orderliness compared to the boisterous hyperactive democracy on display in Israel.

In order to understand what is going on here, it helps to leave the mental framework of the American two-party system that conveniently places anyone and everyone on either the left or the right side of the aisle. Israel is a parliamentary democracy, meaning that Israelis vote for one of many parties - 39 in this election - and parties are apportioned seats in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, according to their voter yield. To form a government, parties representing a majority of Members of Knesset (61 out of 120 members), must come together as a coalition, which is what is referred to as a government.

The trick is in cobbling together parties in alliances in order to reach the majority and form a government. The complication is that, in practice, every Knesset is a mix of larger and small parties, but no party large enough to capture the majority outright. In fact, no single party in Israeli history has ever managed to get an outright 61 seat majority. As a result, even after election results are in, it's impossible to know what a government will look like until the parties have negotiated between themselves. It's not unusual for seven or eight parties, and their myriad interests, to make up a coalition.

Given that the name of the game is forming a coalition, it can be easier to think about the political map in terms of blocs - the right-wing bloc, the left-wing bloc, the Arab Israeli parties, and then the swing parties that could sit with either side.

With all these moving parts, there are two key things to keep in mind:

First, as absurd as four elections in two years maybe, the prior three Israeli governments failed for, ultimately, a healthy reason: they were not able to deliver on their core premise, a majority alliance for legislative progress. Let's contrast this to Washington, whose stability can sometimes perpetuate years of legislative gridlock. In the Israeli system, gridlock has a natural escape hatch, in government dissolution. Take this last Israeli government, a ""unity"" government formed as an emergency measure, in the background of the May 2020s worsening corona crisis. While unity in name, it was anything but in function. This government was among one of Israel's worst, producing no substantive legislation and failing to even pass a national budget. Yes, this new election will cost taxpayers additional billions in shekels, and yes, many of the core issues that toppled the previous three governments have yet to be resolved. But at least the Israeli system continues to provide an outlet for reshuffling the deck in hopes of unsticking the cards - without having to wait a mandatory four years.

Second, what is often pointed to as a weakness of Israeli democracy - the many small parties, the cobbled coalitions - can actually function as a source of strength, and one that gives minority groups the potential for more influence and power. In another system, smaller parties that represent specific groups, be it religious groups in the case of the Ultraorthodox parties, or identity groups like Arab Israelis would have little to no influence. In Israel however, because a coalition is often composed of at least four parties, small parties can negotiate outsize portfolios and wield significant political power. This can cut both ways - one of the reasons that we find ourselves on the eve of the 4th election in two years is because the Ultra-Orthodox parties representing 12% of the population have been able to control major power centers, appropriate significant portions of public funds to their constituents and essentially operate as a state-within-a-state for years because they are such critical coalition partners for Benjamin Netanyahu.

However, just as they have been able to wield outsized influence with the current administration, the pendulum can swing the other way. This cycle, some polls are showing that the 'kingmaker' party, may not be any of the usual suspects, but rather Ra'am. If during coalition negotiations Ra'am is the key to forming a government, even though they will have 4, maybe 5 seats in the Knesset, they will most likely be able to demand ministries and resources as though they were a much larger party.

We have no idea, of course, who will emerge victorious in next week's election, or whether the stalemate will continue and lead to a fifth round. But regardless of how it turns out: Israeli politics are rowdy but robust, messy but efficient, and structurally inclusive. When reading about this election and the power plays that will inevitably follow, remember that while Israel's democracy may look dysfunctional from the outside, it is a genuine reflection of the multitude of groups that live side by side in this small, but loudly diverse, country.



Carrie Keller-Lynn and Aliza Landes are co-hosts of the new podcast, Us Among the Israelis (Apple Podcasts & Spotify), an engaging and insightful look at what it is like to live in the world's most interesting country by two American immigrants. Carrie earned her JD/MBA from Stanford and her BA from Yale. Aliza is a graduate of Sloan School of Management and Harvard Kennedy School. Experienced Israeli educators, Carrie and Aliza have taken a combined 400 American students to Israel.",0.24122787662269868
"An Evangelical university beat second-seeded Ohio State University Friday in the first round of the men's NCAA basketball tournament.

Oral Roberts University beat the Buckeyes 75 to 72 marking the school's first tournament win since 1974 and the tournament's first big upset.





Junior Kevin Obanor led his team to victory with 30 points and 11 rebounds. After the game, he told Fox 23 he was eternally grateful for the win.



""I'm thankful to Jesus Christ for putting us in this position,"" Obanor said. ""We want it very bad. It's bigger than us, just to leave a legacy behind for ORU. I'm just very eternally grateful and I just can't wait to play tomorrow.""



It is a true David versus Goliath story as ESPN's Men Tournament Challenge picked Ohio State over the Golden Eagles by 95%.



Head coach Paul Mills said that despite 14 million people voting that they would lose, belief and hard work pulled them through.



""We were super resilient and we were super tough down the stretch and I knew once we got into overtime we were going to win that thing,"" Mills told his players. ""From a together standpoint, from a belief standpoint (it) happened.""

Embed video:



The team took to the floor after the win to pray and give thanks to God.



Oral Roberts University's mission is to develop Holy Spirit-empowered leaders through whole person education to impact the world.



ORU alum Sean Feucht called the victory a real miracle.



""Prayer really works,"" he wrote on Instagram. ""There is no way a #15 team beats one of the most prestigious sports programs in America...BUT GOD!!!



On Sunday, the school will face seven-seeded Florida in the second round.",-1.0505662600911778
"A Washington University computational biologist is calling for creationist courses and degrees to be labeled on a student's transcript to maintain ""national norms"".

Dr. Joshua Swamidass claims this ""constructive solution"" would hold Christian institutions to a higher academic standard.

""Credit from courses that include creation science should not be used toward science degrees,"" he wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. ""Nor should they be eligible for transfer to secular institutions.""

""But deviations from national norms in a science curriculum need to be prominently disclosed, tracked and reported,"" he added.

Swamidass offers this response to the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) who recently debated if they should still consider the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools (Tracs) as an accrediting agency.

Schools under Tracs include Bob Jones University which adheres to the belief that life is created by God rather than by natural processes such as evolution.

""This might seem like a classic instance of the tension between religion and science,"" Swamidass writes. ""But the real issue is whether Americans can live alongside each other while disagreeing about the most important issues.""

David Klinghoffer, Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, warns that Swamidass's suggestion is troubling.

""Creationist thoughts and those who think them, are indeed penalized in his system,"" Klinghoffer writes in Evolution News & Science Today. ""Invidious labeling is all about reward and punishment....and this is a very dangerous concept.""

Steve Pettit, the president of Bob Jones University, criticizes Swamidass's claims calling them misleading.

""Our students, while adhering to biblical viewpoints on the origin and diversity of life, must be fully conversant with, and able to think critically about both models,"" he explained. ""Dr. Swamidass's 'compromise'—excluding credit from courses presenting evidence for multiple models—would marginalize outstanding scientists with biblical viewpoints about origins,"" he continued.

Klinghoffer adds that Swamidass's suggestion is also a move toward tighter censorship.

""I don't see any reason why the labeling or othering concept should not be expanded to cover areas of education where other out-group ideas are discussed, whether political, cultural, or philosophical,"" he writes. Where would it end?""

""With increasingly aggressive censorship by Big Tech, racial indoctrination in the workplace, and state-imposed lockdowns approaching a one-year anniversary, it has felt, more and more, like we are living in China. If the Swamidass proposal were accepted, it would be a step further in that direction,"" he added.",-0.47597132211998516
"March is Women's History Month and the spotlight is on the ""Queen of Soul,"" Aretha Franklin.

Franklin is the focus of Genius: Aretha, the National Geographic's Emmy-winning series, dramatizing the stories of the world's most brilliant innovators.

With this season beginning on Sunday, the series will explore Franklin's musical genius.

And in the starring role is Hollywood's triple threat - Tony, Emmy, and Grammy award-winning performer Cynthia Erivo.

During an interview with CBN's Studio 5, Erivo explained that Franklin has marked our history with a unique level of brilliance.

""The long catalog of music she shared with us, not just because of the songs that they were and the music that they gave us but because of the stories they were telling. She was able to use the experiences in her life, use the emotions she had, and infuse her music with it. So, we got to know her through these pieces of music.""

""She taught black businesswomen in the music industry how to stand up for ourselves and I hope people get that from watching this. She really wanted to be a valued part of the creation of her music,"" Ervio added. ""That's only part of her brilliance on top of which she was an activist for feminist and for civil rights. To do all of that while being an artist is really very special.""

***As certain voices are censored and free speech platforms shut down, be sure to sign up for CBN News emails and the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving news from a Christian Perspective.***

Erivo admitted that there was a sense of pressure while playing Franklin since she is also one of her heroes.

""It's just a huge overwhelming sense of responsibility because you really want to tell the story as fully, as truthfully, and as honestly as you can. There was a small voice in my head trying to make sure that we don't play pretending. I really want to be in the moment every time we were doing a scene and tell the story as fully as I could. It's a huge responsibility but it's not one that I take lightly. That's where the work begins where you actually tell the story.""

The actress said her Nigerian culture helped her identify with Franklin's strong connection to Gospel music.

""I was listening to Gospel when I was a little girl because I recognized the voices and there's something in the Nigerian culture that calls to the very root of where Gospel begins and it's the rhythm, the sounds, the songs we sing,"" the actress explained. ""There are so many songs that are current and known now that Nigerians have been singing in their plainest way and they come together and make this new sound that I've always been connected to because I recognize myself in them.

""To hear that the root of where she began really was Gospel...just to go back and sing some of those songs, felt good.""

To find out more about Genius: Aretha, click here.",-0.45490539631398874
"On March 23, Israel will hold its fourth national election in two years. This is a result of political stalemate and politicking that’s placed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against most other parties, with his Likud party showing one of its lowest polling projections in the past three elections. It is not the first election since the pandemic, but the pandemic will play a more significant role than the previous election a year ago.

In addition to the pandemic, there are several other issues that make this election and the potential outcome unique. This analysis will explain some of the main issues so that after March 23, you’ll understand better whether Israel will be able to form a stable government and move forward, or be doomed to an unprecedented fifth election later this year.

How Israel’s System Works

Israel is a parliamentary democracy. This means that Israelis vote for a party, not a candidate. Each party has its own way of determining the leader of that party, and their respective list of candidates. Some employ a democratic primary, and others through appointments by the head of the party. Factions made up of two or more parties with common interests and have joined forces for their mutual interests, decide their lists based on internal agreements allocating these positions.

The parliament, Knesset, has 120 members who are determined by a proportional representation of seats based on the number of votes received. Parties must win at least 3.25% of the total votes (the threshold) to enter Knesset. After the election, Israel’s President consults the leaders of all the parties that passed the threshold for their recommendations as to who should form the government. Usually, that’s the head of the party with the most votes, but not always, depending on who has the best probability to form a government from among the rest of the incoming Knesset. To form a government, one requires at least 61 Knesset members to vote in favor, typically as a coalition of a few to several parties.

Israel has no early voting or absentee ballots. As most Israeli adults have been vaccinated, on election day, Israelis will line up to vote in person, in a socially distanced way, and place a paper ballot inside an envelope, and place that envelope inside a second. Shortly after the polls close there will be a good sense of the overall shape of the Knesset, but actual numbers won’t be sure until a day or two later when the ballots of soldiers voting on their bases are counted, and the final numbers and percentages are determined.

The Parties

Some three dozen parties are running for the 24th Knesset, more parties than Baskin Robbins has flavors. Most will not receive the required 3.25%. Yet with Israelis suffering election fatigue, it’s possible that there could be a surprise “protest vote” not (yet) represented in the polls that catapults a fringe party into prominence, and a place of influence. The main parties estimated to pass the threshold and enter Knesset, in general order of their current polling positions are:

Likud – the long-standing party founded by Menachem Begin that’s been one of Israel’s leading parties since the 1970s is right of center and represents much of the wide diversity of Israel’s population. It is headed by incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, the longest-serving PM in Israeli history.



– the long-standing party founded by Menachem Begin that’s been one of Israel’s leading parties since the 1970s is right of center and represents much of the wide diversity of Israel’s population. It is headed by incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, the longest-serving PM in Israeli history. Yesh Atid – has been on the scene since 2012, considered to be center-left, is headed by former TV personality Yair Lapid who has served in past coalitions with Netanyahu as prime minister, but who now is one of the leaders of the “anyone but Bibi” camp.



– has been on the scene since 2012, considered to be center-left, is headed by former TV personality Yair Lapid who has served in past coalitions with Netanyahu as prime minister, but who now is one of the leaders of the “anyone but Bibi” camp. New Hope – a new party established last year by former Likud member and previous minister Gidon Sa’ar who is considered to the right of Netanyahu. While Sa’ar was once close to Bibi, they have long been at odds, and Sa’ar has placed all his chips and future career on replacing Netanyahu.



– a new party established last year by former Likud member and previous minister Gidon Sa’ar who is considered to the right of Netanyahu. While Sa’ar was once close to Bibi, they have long been at odds, and Sa’ar has placed all his chips and future career on replacing Netanyahu. Yamina – a right-of-center party that’s gone through a variety of incarnations, breaking away from a wider national religious group, merging back, and running on its own. It is headed by former government minister Naftali Bennett who was also once close to Netanyahu and is now challenging him to be PM and the head of the right of center nationalist camp.



– a right-of-center party that’s gone through a variety of incarnations, breaking away from a wider national religious group, merging back, and running on its own. It is headed by former government minister Naftali Bennett who was also once close to Netanyahu and is now challenging him to be PM and the head of the right of center nationalist camp. Yisrael Beiteinu – a party headed by another former Netanyahu confidant and government minister Avigdor Liberman that combines right of center policies with liberal social and often anti-religious views. It typically attracts Russian immigrants.



– a party headed by another former Netanyahu confidant and government minister Avigdor Liberman that combines right of center policies with liberal social and often anti-religious views. It typically attracts Russian immigrants. Joint List – three Arab parties merged to form this faction to succeed collectively and not have any one of them slip below the threshold. In recent elections, they have won enough votes to be the third-largest party in the Knesset.



– three Arab parties merged to form this faction to succeed collectively and not have any one of them slip below the threshold. In recent elections, they have won enough votes to be the third-largest party in the Knesset. Shas – an ultra-Orthodox Jewish party made up by and representing mostly Sephardic Jews, whose families are from predominantly Arab countries of north Africa and the Middle East.



– an ultra-Orthodox Jewish party made up by and representing mostly Sephardic Jews, whose families are from predominantly Arab countries of north Africa and the Middle East. United Torah Judaism - an ultra-Orthodox Jewish party made up by and representing mostly Ashkenazi Jews, whose families are from predominantly eastern European countries and specific rabbinic dynasties decimated by the Holocaust and rebuilt in Israel.



- an ultra-Orthodox Jewish party made up by and representing mostly Ashkenazi Jews, whose families are from predominantly eastern European countries and specific rabbinic dynasties decimated by the Holocaust and rebuilt in Israel. Labor – from Israel’s founding until the late 70s, Labor and its predecessors were the predominant political force in Israel. Since then, Labor not only has not won more than a handful of elections, but its representation in Knesset has waned, nearing extinction. It is left-wing socially and politically. Labor has been led by ten different people in the past 20 years, a product or symptom of its waning influence.



– from Israel’s founding until the late 70s, Labor and its predecessors were the predominant political force in Israel. Since then, Labor not only has not won more than a handful of elections, but its representation in Knesset has waned, nearing extinction. It is left-wing socially and politically. Labor has been led by ten different people in the past 20 years, a product or symptom of its waning influence. Blue and White – was formed before the last election and is headed by former Chief of Staff and retired general Benny Gantz. They formed a unity government with Likud last spring which quickly unraveled as the government fell apart. It is now polling just above the threshold.



– was formed before the last election and is headed by former Chief of Staff and retired general Benny Gantz. They formed a unity government with Likud last spring which quickly unraveled as the government fell apart. It is now polling just above the threshold. Religious Zionists – is a right-wing nationalist-religious faction that’s the merger of two parties. They are controversial in having a person on their list who is widely derided as racist and not qualified to serve but seen as a potential key partner of a Likud-led government.



– is a right-wing nationalist-religious faction that’s the merger of two parties. They are controversial in having a person on their list who is widely derided as racist and not qualified to serve but seen as a potential key partner of a Likud-led government. Meretz – a far-left party that espouses controversial positions considered pro-Arab and anti-Israel by some, that is polling just below the threshold. Meretz could be a key element to having enough seats to form a government, but hard to imagine right of center Sa’ar and Bennett sitting in a government with them.



– a far-left party that espouses controversial positions considered pro-Arab and anti-Israel by some, that is polling just below the threshold. Meretz could be a key element to having enough seats to form a government, but hard to imagine right of center Sa’ar and Bennett sitting in a government with them. Ra’am – is an Arab Islamist party that, until this election, was part of the Joint List. It broke away over the Joint List sweeping rejecting any government plans, including the heralded Abraham Accords, and not representing the interest of Israel’s Arab citizens. It is polling just below the threshold but if it passes, could become a key player in supporting the establishment and maybe being part of the next government.

Budget

Officially, the previous government fell apart over the failure to pass a state budget. Yes, Israel has not only entered 2021 with no budget, but we still don’t have a budget for 2020. This is a legal issue that some believe Netanyahu played deliberately, not allowing his Likud Finance Minister to bring a budget for a vote, knowing that it would force the dissolution of the government and a new election. It’s a bit third-world for a county to operate without a budget, especially during a pandemic. This has created real hardships and challenges for wide sectors of society to be able to plan, purchase, or even fulfill existing obligations. It may become a key issue that comes back to bite Likud, guilty of obsessive political maneuvering at the detriment of nine million Israelis, many of whom remain unemployed or suffering significant hardship as a result of the pandemic.

Netanyahu’s Legal Issues

Over the past two years, legal allegations and the indictment of Prime Minister Netanyahu have been recurring issues. Unlike last year, legal proceedings have begun, and Netanyahu has appeared in court. Despite the bad optics, and weakening support, polls show him remaining “most qualified.” It’s unclear how much of that is intuitive, after all a man holding the same position for over a dozen years has qualifications that nobody else does. Or is it an indication of remaining strong support? There will be no more public court appearances before the election so how much more, if at all, this will be a factor is probably limited.

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Unemployment and the Economy

A year ago, Israel’s economy was strong and unemployment in low single digits.

Today, the economy is much weaker, and unemployment hovers around 20%; one in five Israeli adults out of work. Israel’s had a token bailout, and while the majority of Israeli adults have been vaccinated at least once, we seem all vaxxed up with no place to go. The economy is opening again including hotels, restaurants, cultural and sporting events, and more. But there are many fewer Israelis who can afford dinner out or go to a movie.

It’s unclear how much the hope of things opening up further will be incentive to reward the government under Likud with people’s votes, or how much Israelis struggling through three lockdowns and more, whether this will be a major deciding factor in a vote for change. One key element of this is that despite the success in vaccinating so many, a pillar of the economy is tourism which has been decimated. There remains no end in sight as to when tourists will be allowed back to fill the buses, hotels, shops, and tourist sites, and giving people who have been out of work for a year the opportunity to earn a living.

Fall of Likud

Polls are changing daily but to give a sense of how far the Likud has dropped, have a look at the current parties and the number of seats they hold as compared to what current projections are (in parenthesis):

Likud – 36 (27-29) reflecting more than a 20% drop

Yesh Atid – 17 (20)

Joint List – 15 (8)

Blue and White - 14 (4)

Shas – 9 (6-8)

United Torah Judaism – 7 (7-8)

Yisrael Beiteinu – 7 (7-9)

Yamina – 5 (11-12)

Labor – 3 (5-6)

Meretz – 3 (4)

New Hope – (9-12)

Ra’am – (4)

Religious Zionists – (4-5)

If there are no drastic changes, Netanyahu and Likud will have no path to form a coalition. Even with Yamina, and the other parties that would reflexively join a government under him, they do not reach the 61 seats needed. Likud once led with as many as 48 seats in 1981 and sunk to as few as 19 and 12 seats respectively under Netanyahu’s leadership. This significant drop could lead to Likud being out of power.

Mathematically, Yesh Atid, New Hope, Yamina, Yisrael Beiteinu, Labor, and Blue and White could surpass 61 seats, even more, if Meretz is added. However, the contortions needed to bridge the interests and ideologies of some of the most right-wing and the most left-wing parties would be a herculean challenge, not to mention the egos and agreement over who serves as prime minister.

The Arab Vote

Not included in the mathematics to form a coalition are the Arab parties. Historically, they have not supported the formation of a government for their own nationalistic reasons, and the major national parties have not wanted or needed to seek their support. This red line has been widened in recent years with the Arab Joint List in many ways serving as a fifth column, actively supporting Israel’s adversaries in many conflicts. Most recently, they rejected the Abraham Accords’ heralding of peace and diplomatic relations with four Arab states.

A growing number of Israeli Arabs feel that the Joint List is not representing their interests, reflected in the drop from being the third-largest party. This is underscored by Ra’am, the Arab Islamist party, running on its own. It’s not clear if they will pass the threshold, but if they do, Ra’am brings another dynamic to the table that will be unique: the possibility of supporting the formation of a coalition if not in fact being part of that in some way. Because Ra’am wants to be a player and not sit in (a hostile) opposition, it could easily throw its support behind either of the two camps’ attempts to form a government, exacting a high “price” in the form of funding for the Arab community, government positions, and more. For that reason, even Netanyahu has been actively courting the Arab vote. It’s not unusual for Arabs to vote for and be part of Israel’s major national parties. However, Arabs remember the Prime Minister’s previous election day cry that the Arabs are coming out in droves as a ploy to get more right-wing voters to come out, and to peel off as many votes for Likud from ideological competitors. This time, the Arab vote remains one of the biggest wild cards.

PA Elections

Another Arab vote that has a looming impact is the Palestinian Authority's plan to hold its first “national” election in over 15 years. Parliamentary elections are scheduled for May, followed by another election in the summer for PA president. However, in a society with no democratic tradition, there are any number of reasons why the election might not happen. Whether it happens or not, to the extent that there are polls in the PA that might be accurate, these could cast a shadow on and impact the Israeli vote. Certainly, if the Israeli election is non-decisive and there’s another vote in the fall, the outcome of a possible PA election will have an impact. Most Israelis are beyond the belief that the PA is a reliable partner as indicated by the strengthening of the Israeli right and near disappearance of the Israeli left. Yet with the glimmer of a chance for peace, Israel would still make concessions. But as bad or inept as the PA is now, the further radicalization of the PA with the emboldening of Hamas or other relative extremists will impact the Israeli electorate.

The PA also has a “passive” influence in that it's not uncommon to see a spike in Palestinian Arab terror and rockets prior to an Israeli election. Domestically, this tells Palestinian Arabs that they will continue to resist and fight Israel no matter who wins. But the ripple effect on Israeli voters has an impact that emboldens the right. A plus side of the pandemic is that there’s been a drop in terror attacks such as stabbings, car-rammings, and rockets being fired. Nevertheless, with an election upon us, it won’t be unusual for terrorists to try to have their “voice” heard and presence made on March 23.

Challenge from the Right

It's rare in a democracy to have an incumbent facing the strongest challenge to reelection from the same side of the political spectrum. However, the main challenge to Netanyahu and Likud this election is from the right. Gidon Sa’ar and New Hope won’t join or support a government led by Netanyahu. Naftali Bennet and Yamina are keeping options open, so people are calling him ”kingmaker.” But mathematically, if he can’t help Netanyahu form a government because they don’t have enough votes anyway, the likelihood of Sa’ar and Bennett joining forces to form a government increases.

In parallel, both Sa’ar and Bennett have said they will not sit in a government led by Yesh Atid’s Yair Lapid, and Lapid has said it’s more important to have Netanyahu out than him become Prime Minister. While these red lines could change, one lesson from the failure of the last government is that when Benny Gantz broke his promise not to sit in a government under Netanyahu, and got played doing so, he lost credibility. His party now holds 14 seats and may drop to four, or not even make it past the threshold. Nobody wants to make the same mistake.

Because he left Likud, it's possible that Sa’ar can do something that nobody else can: peel off Likud Knesset members after the election to join and support a government under his leadership. Others in Likud are also unhappy with Netanyahu but haven’t had the nerve to split from Likud as Sa’ar did. Rather than sitting in the opposition, they could join and strengthen a Sa’ar led government, minimizing the need to rely on the left-wing parties. This could propel the leader of the party with the third or fourth-largest number of votes to become Prime Minister.

The Pandemic

The pandemic has had many ripple effects in Israel that may impact the election. Unemployment, the economy, deaths, three lockdowns, a failed government that promised to deal with these issues, and more. Israel leading the world in vaccinations is a point of pride, but Israelis are asking rhetorically, “so what? Now we’re vaccinated but the country and economy is still a mess.” With the borders still closed to tourists, and Israelis unable to travel, and unclear about returning home to vote, the outcome of Israelis being stuck overseas and not able to come home to vote could create a problem.

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Electoral Fatigue

As much as Israelis are tired of the impact of the pandemic, Israelis are tired of elections. It’s like a costly overdose of democracy. While polls may be accurate for those planning to vote, what’s unclear is how many Israelis are fed up and planning to use the day to go to the beach, skipping the vote altogether. Or, perhaps, Israelis will swarm to voting stations to try to make a change. Either of these variables can have a significant impact on the eventual outcome and will be watched closely.

As many variables that go into the election itself also exist in the eventual outcome. The votes will be counted, and the Knesset’s 120 seats divided up in relatively short order.

However, the bottom line as to whether anyone will be able to form a government, who that will be, which parties will be included, and more, are all questions to look at in the weeks and even months following March 23. Hopefully, it will be conclusive enough that Israelis will be spared another vote later this year.",0.6310072930965996
"Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, people talked about it possibly marking the biblical end times. Get ready, because if that's true, then more hardship would lie ahead.

The COVID-19 crisis is regarded as a black swan, a once-in-a-century event affecting the entire world.

So, what might be next? A Christian financial expert says get ready for something known as gray swan events – trends we are already experiencing and they're likely to transcend the pandemic.

""A gray swan is an event that is obvious, it's out in the open, people see it, they know that it is there, they know it is a significant threat, but they tend to ignore it and do nothing about it,"" Crown Financial CEO and radio host Chuck Bentley insisted.

Bentley explains this further in his new book, Seven Gray Swans: Trends That Threaten Our Financial Future.

Digital Currency and a Cashless Society

Among the seven: The global move toward digital currency and a cashless society. Bentley said the transition actually began years ago and has proceeded rapidly since COVID-19 hit.

""Especially with the threat of our actual physical currency may be tainted with the virus. And over time, the Bible warns that ultimately the anti-Christ will control the world through the economy and so, I think we need to be aware that it is moving in that direction rapidly and to do our part to be prepared for that.""

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Stimulus Payments and Universal Basic Income

Also, when the US Congress considered another multi-billion dollar stimulus package, most Americans wanted to know how much to expect in their bank accounts or mailboxes. Bentley warns temporary relief payments could easily turn into a permanent, universal basic income program.

""Those types of programs are very hard to stop. But my hope is that we will not endorse this policy, to see that continue because ultimately we cannot afford it. It would be like eating sugar for your diet. It feels good for a little while, but it doesn't do good in the long term.""

Skyrocketing Debt Crisis

Bentley believes this is a result of the U.S. embracing modern monetary theory, that debt doesn't matter so, the Fed goes on printing dollars indefinitely.

A similar trend in Venezuela led to hyperinflation with an overall five-year rate that rose a whopping 53-million percent.

America's stunning $28 trillion national debt now exceeds the size of the entire U.S. economy and is expected to total 102% of the US gross domestic product by the end of this fiscal year. Bentley doubts the debt will ever be repaid and that would lead America's creditors to inflict some painful options on the public.

""Some sort of austerity program, some sort of massive tax increase, a hyperinflation that would make it easier for the government to repay their debt,"" he explained.

Biometrics and Social Scoring

The use of biometrics and social scoring also make up these gray swan trends. Airlines are pushing for COVID-19 contact tracing and the use of smartphone apps to prove travelers have been vaccinated for the virus. And Bentley said a number of companies are already using social scoring.

""Right now if I take an Uber, not only l do I evaluate the driver, but the driver evaluates me and a private company could vote me out of their system. We're seeing that in social media right now.""

We see some of this ranging from Twitter blue checks to Facebook likes and others.

In China, the Communist Party uses social scoring to rate its citizens' obedience to government authority and loyalty to communist ideology. Positive scores garner favor while those with low scores are denied jobs, travel benefits, and education.

***As certain voices are censored and free speech platforms shut down, be sure to sign up for CBN News emails and the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving news from a Christian Perspective.***

Speech Police and Cancel Culture

Eventually, such a system could prove dangerous for Americans unwilling to comply with acceptable speech and cancel-culture norms.

""Even getting things like a tax refund, being able to travel, being able to have access to certain properties – buildings or museums. I think it's coming, "" Bentley insisted. ""I think it's one we all need to have a heightened awareness of and to be very careful about supporting the things that allow ultimate control over our free speech.""

So, if the birth pangs of the seven gray swan events are already upon us, how can we prepare and protect our families and investments? Bentley said we must prudently chart a wise path without becoming paralyzed, or reacting emotionally.

""We obviously need to diversify our investments, we need to get out of debt, we need to increase our savings, we need to increase our ability to persevere through what I think are going to be turbulent times.""

READ 24/7 Surveillance with Shocking Rewards and Punishments: Could China's Big Brother System Come to USA?",-1.7472412753845534
"Demons were stalking her every move, cursing and spitting on her, threatening to kill her. So how did a desperate scream save her?

PLANT CITY, Florida - Jenny Weaver thought dabbling in the occult as a teenage witch would be ""fun"" like she saw in the movies. Instead, the torment that followed throughout her life became so unbearable that Jenny wanted to die.

For Jenny, it all started as a supernatural game.

“Things were happening. I was moving things,” says Jenny. “I would go up to a drawer to open a drawer and before my hand would even touch it, the drawer would go ‘shhew’ and open.""

“Lights would bust and break when we would start talking about the demonic realm, glass fall all over us,” says Jenny.

But eventually, it turned into something much more sinister.

Jenny grew up on Florida’s Gulf Coast with seven siblings. Her home was dominated by abusive parents, who handed out punishment for the slightest offense. It wasn’t much better at their church that didn’t teach about a loving father, but a vengeful, angry God ready to condemn sinners to hell.

“I was always thinking God’s disappointed in me. God’s upset,” says Jenny. “So, I was really filled with shame and condemnation.”

Then her father walked out, leaving 13-year-old Jenny, her siblings, and their mom destitute.

“So, I must not even be worthy enough to be loved, to be thought of, to be cared for,” says Jenny. “You shouldn’t even be alive. Why are you even here?” she thought. “It would be better off if you just killed yourself.”

Feeling powerless and unloved, Jenny started cutting and smoking pot. Then she saw a movie about teen witches that showed her a way to take charge of her life. Soon, she was pouring over books about witchcraft, Wicca, and the occult, and trying spells with her friends.

“Wiccan religion is, ‘Do what you want, but do no one any harm.’” says Jenny. “It’s kind of like, ‘Oh, it’s the good witch.’ I felt like I had power,” says Jenny. “And, so, I’m looking at this like, ‘Oh, this is the most amazing thing ever.’”

But that power and control were only an illusion because the turmoil in Jenny’s home, and within herself, remained. At 17, after a fight with her mom, Jenny ran away and dropped out of school. Bouncing between friends’ homes and drug houses over the coming years, she got into harder drugs, sometimes blacking out for days.

“And I was so broken and so hurting all the time, that I engaged in just the craziest things you could imagine, and just gave my—gave myself away to whoever, whenever, whatever,” says Jenny. “It didn’t matter.”

Then she moved in with a girl who came from a family of witches. Her new friend showed her the things she thought were harmless and fun opened the door to a dark, sinister, and very frightening world Jenny only thought existed in books and movies.

“You would feel demon spirits literally walking by you like a human being was walking by you,” says Jenny. “Touching you. Scraping the wall. It went from, ‘Oh, this is gonna be really fun,’” says Jenny, “into, ‘I’m gonna choke you out until you die. I’m gonna take your life.’ All the time. Constantly tormented.”

Terrified, she stopped practicing witchcraft, but the demon of addiction would continue to haunt and torment her for years to come.

“I would just say, ‘If I just die now, I just die now.’” says Jenny. “And-and I would just lay there and go, ‘I-I just hope I just die. I hope these drugs—they—these are the ones that just take me out this time.’”

At 26, she was living with her boyfriend, Stephen, and hopelessly addicted to meth. Then she got pregnant. One day, seeing no hope for her or her baby’s future...

“I just fell on my knees and I screamed out as loud as I possibly could, ‘God, help me!!!’” says Jenny. “And it was like the loudest, longest scream. I remember just like groaning, ‘Ohhhh, please.’ And I didn’t see lightning, I didn’t see any of that, but I felt a peace,” says Jenny. “And that was the first time I felt the Lord saying to me in my heart, my heart, ‘I’m gonna help you. I’m gonna help you.’”

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Jenny says that help came in an unexpected way: two days later she was arrested, sent to jail, and ordered to complete a drug treatment program. There, she began to hear about a different God, a heavenly father who was loving, merciful, and ready to forgive through his son, Jesus Christ. One night, Jenny whispered a prayer.

“I just cried, and I said, ‘God, I-I just want You to help me.’” cries Jenny. “I really want to love people, but there was such a hardness. And I just asked the Lord to take it. And I said, ‘God, I’m just gonna give You my life today,’” says Jenny. “And I surrendered to the Lord.”

“And I knew that everything that I had gone through, everything that I had done, had been forgiven,” says Jenny. “And when-when Jesus did that for me, it changed everything. Everybody that threw me away, He-he came, and He healed that.”

On the day of her release, Jenny gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Cameron. Later, Stephen also got clean and accepted Christ, and the couple married in 2013. But, a part of Jenny’s past wasn’t letting go, and for a few years, she still sensed a dark presence in her life. Then at a deliverance service at church, a woman led her in prayer to renounce witchcraft.

“I would say, ‘I renounce,’ and if I would try to say it at first, it was like ‘Wwww,’ and they wouldn’t let me,” says Jenny. “It was like my mouth was—I couldn’t even get the words, and they would say, ‘Rrrr, we’re not—we're not leaving, no.’ And they would curse and spit,” says Jenny. “It was very, very, very crazy.”

Finally...

“I knew there was a release,” says Jenny. “I could tell, I could feel it. I knew. I was like, ‘Okay, I’m free. They’re gone. They’re gone.’ And I was just, ‘Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus,’” says Jenny.

With the past far behind her, Jenny went on to develop a close relationship with her mom. She was also able to reconcile with her dad a few months before he passed away. Today, Jenny is a homeschool mom, entrepreneur, and worship leader, sharing her music and her passion for the Lord.

“Jesus came running after me,” says Jenny. “When I cursed at Him, when I literally said the worst kind of words you can imagine at God, and the whole time Him calling my name saying, ‘No, she’s my daughter. I’m coming after her.’”

Jenny Weaver is now a minister and worship leader. You can find her videos here.",-0.10614066603503491
"After widespread questions about voter fraud in the 2020 election, the importance of securing election integrity has never been more prominent.

So Regent University's Robertson School of Government will host a virtual conference on the topic on Tuesday, March 23, 2021. The event will feature notable speakers including Congresswoman Michele Bachmann who has just joined Regent University as dean of the Robertson School of Government.

""Election integrity is the foundation for every citizen's right to vote in a free and fair election,"" said Bachmann. ""The electoral process is a significant, fundamental component of political freedom. Through this important conference, our goal is to educate individuals about election integrity and to raise awareness surrounding the electoral process.""

Other participants include Dr. Ben Carson, Mr. Mark Steyn, Mr. Eric Metaxas, Secretary Kris Kobach, Secretary Jay Ashcroft, The Gateway Pundit Editorial Board, and many others.

Throughout the event, panelists and keynote speakers will highlight the importance of freedom of speech, election integrity in a representative democracy, election irregularities and correlated impacts on future elections, and voter ID, among other topics.

The election integrity conference will feature nationally-renowned speakers, and here are the qualifications of just a few of the panelists who will be speaking:

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Dean of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University

Dr. Ben Carson, Former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

Mr. Mark Steyn, New York Times best-selling author and Tucker Carlson guest host

Mr. Eric Metaxas, New York Times best-selling author and radio host

The event is free and open to the public. Click HERE to reserve your space at the March 23rd conference.

***As certain voices are censored and free speech platforms shut down, be sure to sign up for CBN News emails and the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving news from a Christian Perspective.***",-0.5832813064330726
"More than one in four American adults has gotten at least one COVID-19 shot. Two states, Alaska and Mississippi, are now allowing anyone over the age of 16 to get vaccinated. President Biden says he hopes all American adults will be allowed to get one by May first.

Meanwhile, health officials are now looking at vaccinating the younger generation. Moderna is now beginning a COVID-19 trial on children ages six months to 12 years old. If it's successful, most children that age will be able to get a COVID vaccine in early 2022.

Trials on teenagers first began in December of last year. If they are successful, most adolescents will be able to get vaccinated by this coming fall.

Christian psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen told CBN News that expanding vaccinations to children and teens could clearly help in the long run.

""Over time, I think they could be very important because even though children aren't getting dramatically sick they still can spread the virus and the more we get on top of this the sooner we'll get away from a pandemic that has spawned a mental health pandemic that is devastating so many people,"" he said.

Religious leaders from many faiths went public with their shots on Tuesday at Washington, D.C.'s National Cathedral in an effort to encourage the larger faith community to help end the pandemic as soon as possible.

""As a believer and a scientist,"" said NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins, ""I can see the opportunity to use the tools of science as a chance to be part of God's plan for healing. The vaccines have in many ways for many people been an answer to prayer. They are safe and effective beyond what we had a right to expect. And yet they will not help people by sitting on the shelf.""

READ: What You Need to Know About the Leading Coronavirus Vaccines

President Trump, who is now fully vaccinated, recommended on Tuesday for others to follow his lead.

""I would recommend it,"" he told Fox News. ""I would recommend it to a lot of people who don't want to get it and a lot of those people voted for me frankly, but we have our freedoms and we have to live by that and I agree with that also, but it's a great vaccine, it's a safe vaccine and it's something that works.""

Meanwhile, in Western Europe, the AstraZeneca vaccine is suspended in a handful of countries over the possibility that blood clotting in some recipients might be caused by the vaccine. However, some health officials there believe an investigation will show no link.

The AstraZeneca vaccine is not available in the United States. The only vaccines currently being given in the U.S. are made by Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson.

At the same time, health officials in Europe are pulling back on the AstraZeneca vaccine, that part of the world is experiencing a surge in cases that some blame on lifting lockdowns too soon.

""They simply took their eye off the ball,"" said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, ""I'm pleading with you for the sake of our nation's health, these should be warning signs for all of us.""

***Start Your Day with CBN News QuickStart. Go here to sign up for CBN News emails to ensure you keep receiving news from a Christian Perspective.***",0.36886138672733126
"The president will break a historic two-month streak of no press conferences next week, announcing he'll hold his first such event on March 25th at the White House.

He is the first president in decades to go this long without holding a formal question and answer session with the media. The last 15 presidents have held a press conference within 33 days in office. Barack Obama waited 20 days. Donald Trump waited a week. Biden will have held out for over two months.

The decision to hold the conference comes after mounting calls from all sectors of the media.

CNN chief media correspondent Brian Stelter noted the lapse one month into Biden's presidency as he hosted a panel recently on the noticed absence.

Katie Rogers, the White House correspondent for the New York Times, acknowledged, ""The president is someone who's been kept on a pretty tightly constricted messaging streak lately.""

So far, his public appearances have been carefully scripted, allowing him at most to field one or two informal inquiries at a time, usually in a hurried manner at the end of an event.

***Start Your Day with CBN News QuickStart. Go here to sign up for CBN News emails to ensure you keep receiving news from a Christian Perspective.***

The White House has clearly tried to limit him, concerned about his tendency to misspeak or struggle for a word.

Former Trump Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany says the Biden team has utilized the strategy for months, starting with the 2020 election.

""The basement strategy is what he employed on the campaign trail,"" she noted in an interview with the Fox Business Network's Stuart Varney. ""He went something like 50 days and he only took questions twice and when he did they were hand-picked questions so I think his staff does not have faith that he can stand at the podium and have a press conference the way President Trump did many times,"" she said.

Former Clinton Press Secretary Mike McCurry recently called press conferences ""indispensable"" to the presidency. Many indeed see them as a way to more substantively understand how the commander-in-chief thinks about key issues.

There's clearly no shortage of national debates for Biden to weigh in on, ranging from COVID relief to the record-shattering 50+ executive orders he's signed since taking office.",0.8026591802843893
"Roughly 50 groups, angered by Big Tech's censoring and de-platforming of conservative voices nationwide, want the states to step up and fight the social media giants. In a letter, these activist groups ask the attorney general in each state to go after Big Tech for basically lying.

The letter mentions how Twitter, Facebook, and Google/YouTube each claim objectivity, yet clearly choose sides.

Dan Gainor at the Media Research Center told CBN News, ""If a company tells you – as all these Big Tech companies have done – that they are neutral, and then act in an opposite manner, that may be a violation of local laws.""

Gainor suggested not waiting around for the White House to make any sort of move to stop Big Tech's censoring and de-platforming.

""The Biden administration is closely tied to Big Tech,"" Gainor pointed out. ""Big Tech was enormously supportive of Biden's candidacy. I don't think there's a snowball's chance in a very warm place that they're going to do anything.""

***As certain voices are censored and free speech platforms shut down, be sure to sign up for CBN News emails and the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving news from a Christian Perspective.***

States Must Step Up

This is why the Media Research Center's Brent Bozell said at a recent webinar the states must step up.

""There is a responsibility that the states have we believe within our consumer laws that are on the books to protect citizens from unfair trade practices, and certainly, what is going on with Big Tech applies directly to that,"" Bozell stated.

And states are stepping up, with Bozell mentioning, ""There are now 19 states that are taking actions to rein in Big Tech at the state level, which is very encouraging.""

At the same webinar, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton commented, ""Some of these tech companies are so large and so monopolistic and so abusive in their actions that we have to take action.""

Paxton's going after and investigating Big Tech now, as is Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge.

""All of us on the attorney general front are pushing back against Big Tech,"" Rutledge said. ""We're part of these lawsuits, part of these investigations.""

$10,000 Per Violation

Rutledge is going further, though, by pushing a state bill to punish de-platforming and censoring, and, ""To seek penalties under the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, with a penalty of a violation of $10,000 per violation.""

""How does a company find itself in violation?"" Rutledge asked, and answered, ""If they put someone in their jail, if they cancel their account, put it on hold to demonetize that individual or that company, or they act not in good faith.""

She said of the giant social media platforms, ""These are the new town squares. So we must protect freedom of speech and encourage the sharing of ideas, and welcome thoughts.""

Back in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott is promoting a state Senate bill that would treat in law the media giants ""akin to common carriers"" without power to ""block, ban, remove, de-platform, demonetize, de-boost, restrict, deny"" viewpoints they find objectionable.

Back to the Good Ol' Days?

Gainor just hopes such actions can return social media to the pre-censoring and de-platforming days.

""We need to fight for the territory that we fought hard to gain, and that is existing platforms, existing opportunities: Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, Amazon, etc.,"" he said.

Big Tech, though, is fighting back and maybe showing they have something to hide as Twitter is suing Texas' Paxton in an attempt to stop his investigating of how all the social media giants de-platformed Donald Trump at almost the same time in early January.

In its suit, Twitter charges, ""Paxton made clear that he will use the full weight of his office, including his expansive investigatory powers, to retaliate against Twitter for having made editorial decisions with which he disagrees.""

The suit also accuses Paxton of ""unlawfully abusing his authority as the highest law enforcement officer of the State of Texas to intimidate, harass and target Twitter.""

Few at MRC's webinar have much faith the social media giants will repent and give up their power to control speech.

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch said of them, ""Big Tech is just a small group of uncensored, unchecked individuals who decide they want to silence us. They have no regulatory authority, but yet in fact they do that. They do it day in and day out.""

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Censored Over an Anti-Human Trafficking Post

Fitch saw that first hand after Twitter didn't like a video she posted about human trafficking.

""I put it up. Within 37 seconds they took it down at Twitter,"" Fitch recalled. ""Now my video is a minute and 23 seconds, so they didn't even watch the entire thing. They decided to silence me right off the bat.""



""If Twitter or any of these platforms can just be so cavalier that they take down an attorney general…wow!"" Fitch exclaimed. ""That means they're going to take all of us down.""

Fitch is asking Mississippians to share their personal stories of being censored at censoredonline@ago.ms.gov.

'Most Powerful Companies in the History of Man'

Bozell pointed out, ""81 percent of Americans – not liberals, not conservatives, not Republicans, not Democrats – across the board, 81 percent of Americans now believe that Big Tech needs to be regulated, that there needs to be anti-trust regulation to break those companies up. They are far too powerful. They're the most powerful companies in the history of man.""

""These companies have such an incredible platform and influence over the American society, and we cannot have Americans losing their free speech,"" commented Arkansas' Rutledge. ""What we have seen is if your thoughts do not agree with the thoughts of the provider, your thoughts may be canceled.""

Must Find a Way to Operate Outside Big Tech's Infrastructure

""They're now interfering in the single most basic right of all Americans, which is the right of free speech,"" Bozell charged. ""If you say something contrary to the narrative, you're shut down. Or in fact, you're just thrown off the platform altogether.""

This is why MRC's Dan Gainor warns all those targeted need to figure out now how to live, do business and communicate outside Big Tech's infrastructure, so these bullies can't gang up and cherry-pick which sites and speech to silence, as they did with Parler in January.

""The conservative movement needs to move ahead building its own infrastructure,"" Gainor urged. ""Because as we saw, with Parler particularly, that infrastructure can go away almost overnight.""",-0.25673131376314917
"WASHINGTON – Despite their opposite approaches, California and Florida have seen almost identical outcomes in COVID-19 case rates. While Florida has worked to stay open, California has pursued strict lockdowns.

In Florida, schools are open, something Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis touted in his March State of the State address.

""Florida schools are open and we are one of only a handful of states in which every parent has the right to send their child to school in person,"" he said.

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In California, schools are still widely locked down, which Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom addressed in his own State of the State address.

""Working together with parents and teachers and school leaders we've turned the conversation to whether to reopen to when,"" said Newsom.

Newsom ordered the nation's first statewide COVID shutdowns and continues to maintain a mask mandate. Indoor dining and other activities are strictly limited in California too.

Meanwhile, Florida has no statewide restrictions and DeSantis is not allowing cities to fine people who don't wear masks.

""Every business in Florida has the right to operate,"" DeSantis said in his address. ""Over these many months we've stood up for small family owned businesses and saved thousands of them from ruin.""

California's slow reopening is expected to gain speed in April.

""Because California, we're not going to come crawling back,"" said Newsom. ""We will roar back.""

But all the severe restrictions might be for naught. The CDC says since COVID began, California and Florida have had nearly the same case rate, around 8,900 per 100,000 people. They also fall side by side in death rate, Florida ranked 27th among states and California 28th.

In terms of unemployment, right now Florida sits at 5.1 percent. California is at 9.3 percent.

""I've been to those two states in the last month. It's like Venus and Mars,"" economist Stephen Moore told CBN News. ""Florida is open for business. Schools are open. Stores are open. The restaurants are open, the churches are open. People are getting up and about. California is just the opposite. Everything's pretty much locked down.""

CBN medical reporter Lorie Johnson says it's a question of human behavior and responsibility.

""The question is can the government control human behavior or should we rely on self-control?"" said Johnson. ""Florida has an extremely high number of senior citizens and what we saw in Florida were these senior citizens controlling themselves, locking themselves down, if you will.""

These latest figures come as California Republicans help organize a recall against Newsom that's drawn nearly two-million petition signatures, which is 500,000 more signatures than what's needed before Wednesday's deadline.",0.8449929519426527
"The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced on Tuesday that it has recovered dozens of fragments of a biblical scroll for the first time in about 60 years in what was described as a “complex and challenging national archaeological operation.”

The “new” Dead Sea Scroll fragments, include portions from the Book of 12 Minor Prophets, including the books of Zechariah and Nahum.

“These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to one another, render true and perfect justice in your gates. And do not contrive evil against one another, and do not love perjury, because all those are things that I hate—declares the Lord.” That passage from Zechariah 8:16-17 is one example of a text that was found.

Despite the fact that most of the text is in Greek, the name of God appears in ancient Hebrew script, known from the times of the First Temple in Jerusalem.

The scroll is believed to have been hidden there during the Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire nearly 1,900 years ago.

In a massive national operation to prevent looting, archaeologists and volunteers retrieved the fragments from the Cave of Horror by clinging to ropes.

“For years we chased after antiquities looters. We finally decided to pre-empt the thieves and try to reach the artifacts before they’re removed from the ground and the caves,” said Amir Ganor, head of Theft Prevention for the IAA.

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Since 2017, the IAA in cooperation with the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria and funded by the Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage have been pro-actively surveying the caves to retrieve antiquities from the Judean Desert.

“The aim of this national initiative is to rescue these rare and important heritage assets from the robbers’ clutches,” said IAA director Israel Hasson, who launched the national operation.

Hassan said the scroll fragments are a “wakeup call to the state” that it must allocate resources to complete “this historically important operation.” He said they need to ensure that all the data is discovered and recovered before the robbers find it.

“The desert team showed exceptional courage, dedication, and devotion to purpose, rappelling down to caves located between heaven and earth, digging and sifting through them, enduring thick and suffocating dust, and returning with gifts of immeasurable worth for mankind,” Hasson said in a statement.

Archaeologists also discovered a hoard of coins from the time of the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt; a 6,000-year-old partially mummified skeleton of a child and a well-preserved more than 10,000-year-old basket, which may be the oldest intact basket in the world.

About 80 kilometers (nearly 50 miles) of caves have been surveyed so far using drones, rappelling techniques and mountain climbing equipment, the IAA said. Archaeological excavations were conducted in certain caves including zoological and biological aspects.

Dozens of youths and other young people in pre-military programs participated in the archeological excavations.

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The Dead Sea Scrolls, first discovered more than 70 years ago, are the oldest known copies of the Bible. The climatic conditions inside the caves preserved the ancient and precious objects. As such, they have always been targeted by looters.

As early as the late 1940s they were aware of the “cultural heritage remains of the ancient population of the Land of Israel with the first discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Hananya Hizmi, Head Staff Officer of the Archaeology Department of the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria, said in a statement.

“Now, in this national operation, which continues the work of previous projects, new finds and evidence have been discovered and unearthed that shed even more light on the different periods and cultures of the region,” Hizmi said.",0.34667861114420345
"To shoot or not to shoot: that's the question police officers often have to answer in just a split second. The pressure to make the right decision is only increasing following the number of high-profile shootings in 2020.

Law enforcement officers face a critical balancing act each shift they work. They strive to follow the law, protect and serve citizens, and then safely return to their own families at the end of the day. It's an unenviable position they're in – to make quick decisions that are sometimes deadly and often second-guessed.

We traveled to one facility outside Atlanta to see first-hand the training that can better prepare officers for those high-pressure situations.

At The Georgia Public Training Center, officers use a simulator that's about as real as it gets. Made by InVeris, the simulator puts trainees into a 300-degree video environment of a crime taking place.

""The simulation can actually have people walk up behind you, beside you, have multiple people inside the scenario. And by using this type of system it puts the officer that's in training or an advanced officer into types of situations that we can't recreate in real life without somebody getting hurt or injured,"" explained Chris Wigginton, the director of the training center.

This facility has been training officers across Georgia in crucial decision-making since the 1980s.

""We required every officer in the state to receive additional use of force training and de-escalation training before any other on a national level before any other state was doing this,"" Wigginton said. ""We talk about it in a lecture-based environment. We test them academically on a written test,"" he added

After that, they're put through the high-tech simulation, where an instructor controls each moment of the scenario and can change what happens next with the click of a button. This is where costly mistakes are revealed before they happen in real life.

Sometimes it all boils down to an officer making a bad decision. And when an officer makes a bad decision, sometimes a life will be lost.

I asked Wigginton about statistics that indicate blacks are more likely to be killed by law enforcement than others.

""I just do not believe that law enforcement sets out to murder people of color,"" Wigginton said. ""When you talk to officers that are involved in use-of-force cases, black, white, Asian, Hispanic – it doesn't matter – every one of them will tell you the same thing. That when that situation started to escalate, color or creed had nothing to do with the decisions they made. It was all about survival and staying alive.""

We talked specifically about three high-profile cases in 2020 and asked Wigginton his take on each.

First, we asked about the case that electrified the nation, the killing of George Floyd.

""What happened there was not justified and I think it was very shocking to not only the law enforcement community but to the nation,"" Wigginton said.

Then there was Breonna Taylor, an innocent woman shot to death when Louisville police stormed her home searching for illegal contraband. Her boyfriend shot at the police, thinking they were robbers breaking in. Officers returned fire, and one of their bullets killed Taylor.

""When those officers went through the threshold of that door, if they start receiving fire, they're justified in returning fire. And I asked somebody the other day, how many rounds should an officer take before they feel the need to shoot back?"" Wigginton said.

Then there is the case of Rayshard Brooks, shot to death not too far away from The Georgia Public Training Center, by Atlanta Police after a tussle where Brooks grabbed one of the officers' tasers and ran.

""In that incident, the use of force up to deadly force was justified in the way officers applied that,"" said Wigginton.

He also told us the center requires racial sensitivity and diversity training, but some things are out of officers' control.

""People want to look at it and say, 'well, an officer's had de-escalation training. Why did this incident end up in a deadly force encounter?' Well, sometimes that's not the officer's decision. We always leave out the other part of that conversation and that's the citizen that's involved in that encounter. The officer cannot control what that citizen does.""

He says the training here is designed to prevent as many deaths as possible, which he believes is the goal of the vast majority of officers on the streets.

""Think about this just a minute. Do you think there's a police officer who wakes up and puts on their uniform and says, 'today I'm going to go out and murder someone?' I just don't see a police officer who wakes up and wants to get involved in a use-of-force situation.""

Law enforcement officials say it's important to remember the emotional toll officers suffer when they shoot and kill someone. They must live with that for the rest of their lives. That's where a different kind of training or therapy comes in. Even then, some can't recover and are forced to give up their careers.",-0.816909432863004
"WASHINGTON – You could say Dana Perino has done it all in her professional life. And now, in her new book that's geared toward young women, she's showing how you can, too.

Perino is best known as a Fox News personality, where she was just named co-anchor of ""America's Newsroom,"" a job she says she loves.

""I had no idea how much I would love doing this show with Bill Hemmer,"" Dana told CBN News. ""He is a generous colleague. He's kind, thoughtful, smart. We have so much fun in the mornings.""

Perino also co-hosts ""The Five"" each evening on the network.

""I just feel a real renewed energy in my career and I'm really grateful for that,"" she said. ""At this point in your life, you think, what's next? What am I going to do? Maybe I've reached the top of my career. But no, there was another twist and a turn.""

She writes about all of it in her new book, Everything Will Be Okay: Life Lessons for Young Women (From a Former Young Woman).

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It's Perino's story and what she's learned along the way, beginning in Wyoming and Colorado where she was raised, to the White House where she became press secretary for President George W. Bush, a role she says she almost forfeited.

""So I go to the White House that Monday, I'm very nervous because I don't really want to leave the White House but my husband and I made this decision,"" Dana said. ""I see Ed Gillespie and say, 'Hi, can I talk to you after this morning's meeting?' He said, 'Yes, I need to talk to you too.'""

Fast forward to their private conversation and Dana was on the verge of breaking the news she was leaving Washington.

""And he said, 'Hey, do you mind if I go first?' And I said, 'Oh sure.' And he said, 'The President would like to name you as press secretary on Friday.'""

Perino says she wonders what would have happened had she gone first in that conversation.

""It's just another example of God's grace and trusting that He has the plan."" She said. ""You don't have to plan. You can stop planning. You can have goals. You can work very hard. You can make assignments for yourself for things you want to improve and learn more about things and be a better writer and add more reading, and go to bed early and really try to take care of yourself because that's a really important decision, but the truth is, everything is okay because everything is in His hands.""

Throughout the book, Perino talks about the important role faith has played in her life. Love, too – she says marrying her husband Peter was one of the best decisions she's ever made.

""I met him on a plane when I was 25,"" she explained. ""It's a whole great love story and my career has really been enhanced because of him. One of my favorite pieces of advice in the book is choosing to be loved is not a career-limiting decision, that you can make a commitment. Your career will not suffer because you choose that loving relationship in your life.""

Her passion for mentoring led Perino to write the book.

""I love working. I love my job. I love all these opportunities that I've had,"" she said. ""But I feel like at this point, one of the most rewarding things about working is helping younger people achieve their goals.""

Two words she uses throughout the book: joy and serenity.

""Finding serenity is just so important to me,"" she said, remembering a compliment a friend once gave her. ""He said, 'You are so energetically calm.' I thought, oh, maybe I've made it because that's how I really want to be and I want to help others get to that point too.""

The book is dedicated to Perino's mother, Janice, who she says was the first person to ever tell her that everything will be okay.

***As certain voices are censored and free speech platforms shut down, be sure to sign up for CBN News emails and the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving news from a Christian Perspective.***",0.8303810828121444
"Murder. Forced sterilization and present-day concentration camps. All tactics China is reportedly using against millions of Muslims known as Uighurs.

That conclusion in a report from the Washington, D.C.-based Newline Institute for Strategy and Policy. The authors say they have proof that Beijing is intent on destroying China's Muslim Uighur population as part of a broader campaign to unify the country under one ethnic identity.

""The evidence is overwhelming that China is clearly in breach of the 1948 Genocide Convention,"" Dr. Azeem Ibrahim, co-author of the report and director of special initiatives with the Newlines Institute, told CBN News.

That evidence included public and leaked Chinese state documents, testimony from more than ten thousand eyewitnesses, and satellite images. The overall conclusion: it all points to President Xi Jinping's brutal goal to meld the country's 55 ethnic minorities, including Uighurs, into China's Han culture.

Han Chinese account for more than 90 percent of the population.

""[Xi] himself, is less of a Communist and more of a Han nationalist,"" Dr. Ibrahim said. ""He's in the process of Sinification of the entire country; and it's not just Uighur Muslims, they are of course the most prominent ones, but there's actually other minorities too: There's Kazakhs, Uzbeks and even actually Christians minorities, which they have a process of bulldozing their churches.""

Click above to watch: Newlines Institute's Dr. Azeem Ibrahim joined CBN's senior international correspondent George Thomas for a closer look at China's crackdown on Uighur Muslims.

Seven years after President Xi told authorities to show ""absolutely no mercy"" to the Uighurs, as many as two million of them are now locked up in concentration camps spread across China's Xinjiang Province.

There they endure torture, rape, forced sterilization, slave labor and are stripped of their Muslim faith and told to embrace Communist ideology.

""The Chinese propagandists call these 're-education camps' or 'vocational training centers', they must think we are idiots,"" said Gary Bauer, with the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Click above to watch: Gary Bauer with the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom talked with George Thomas about how American companies are complicit in fueling the persecution of China's Muslim population.

Some half a million Uighur children have been removed from their families, placed in state-run orphanages, and brainwashed.

""Forced labor and centralized care of children serve to inhibit the inter-generational transmission of culture, religion, and language by reducing joint family times and instead drastically increasing parents and children's exposure to secular government teaching and training,"" said Adrian Zenz, a prominent German researcher and a senior fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.

Beijing is reportedly sending Han Chinese men to sleep with Muslim Uighur women while their husbands are in prison or shipped against their will to far-off towns and cities. All in an effort to promote ""ethnic unity.""

""Han Chinese have actually been moved from other parts of China into Xinjiang and they are encouraged to marry, and in many cases, forcibly marry Uighur women, to essentially dilute the identity through their offspring,"" said Dr. Ibrahim. ""This is a very calculated and thought out process from the state apparatus in China.""

China has repeatedly denied its ethnic policies amount to genocide.

""The claim that there is 'genocide' in Xinjiang could not be more preposterous. It is just a rumor fabricated with ulterior motives and a thorough lie,"" claimed Wang Yi, China's foreign minister.

Meanwhile, dozens of U.S. companies like Nike, Coca-Cola, Adidas, Tommy Hilfiger, and others, are facing renewed pressure to stop using Uighur workers to produce their goods in Xinjiang Province factories.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom accuses these companies of complicity, fueling Uighur persecution.

""If corporate America won't take action, consumers need to and stop doing business with companies like Nike and Coca-Cola and others who benefit from forced labor in China,"" Tony Perkins with Family Research Council told CBN News.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet top Chinese officials in Alaska on Thursday. He's expected to bring up Beijing's actions in Xinjiang.

""If China claims that there is nothing going on, that it gives access to the international community, to the United Nations, if they have nothing to hide, show it to us, show the world,"" Blinken said during a House Foreign Relations Committee hearing this week.

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"WASHINGTON, D.C. - The president came before the American people Thursday to talk about the crisis he says has America on a war footing – the year-long battle against the coronavirus. Joe Biden told Americans he feels their pain and frustration, facing a year of the pandemic and the lockdowns and restrictions to fight it.



""We all lost something: a collective suffering, a collective sacrifice. A year filled with the loss of life and a loss of living for all of us,"" Biden said in the primetime television address.



Enough Vaccine for All by Memorial Day



He promised some hope, stating, ""We'll have enough vaccine supply for all adults in America by the end of May.""



And that means enough citizens should be getting the shots in time for the nation to celebrate the 4th of July.



""Where we not only mark our independence as a nation, but we begin to mark our independence from this virus,"" Biden explained. Though he was quick to add, ""That doesn't mean large events with lots of people together, but it does mean small groups will be able to get together after this long, hard year.""



He encouraged Americans in the meantime to keep wearing masks, social distancing and getting the vaccinations to beat the virus.

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Restrictions Could Be Reinstated



""We can't let our guard down,"" Biden implored. ""This fight is far from over.""



He continued, ""We need everyone to get vaccinated. We need everyone to keep washing their hands, stay socially distanced and keep wearing a mask as recommended by the CDC.""



The president also warned, ""If we don't stay vigilant and the conditions change, then we may have to reinstate restrictions to get back on track. Please, we don't want to do that again. We've made so much progress. This is not the time to let up. Just as we were emerging from a dark winter into a hopeful spring and summer is not the time to not stick with the rules.""

'The Government Isn't Some Foreign Force'



And Biden sounded frustrated with those fighting against the government imploring Americans to do things like wear a mask.



The president proclaimed, ""We need to remember the government isn't some foreign force in a distant capital. No. It's us, all of us: 'We the People.'""



He complained, ""We've turned against one another. A mask – the easiest thing to do to save lives – sometimes it divides us; states pitted against one another, instead of working with each other.""



Taking Shots at the Trump Administration



Though calling for unity repeatedly, Biden took a couple of shots at the Trump administration. Like how he characterized its earliest reactions to COVID-19, saying, ""We were hit with a virus that was met with silence, and spread unchecked. Denials for days, weeks, then months. That led to more deaths, more infections.""



He also blamed the Trump administration for having too little vaccine on hand when Biden first took office, saying, ""Two months ago, this country didn't have nearly enough vaccine supply to vaccinate all or anywhere near all of the American public.""



President Biden also spoke about his own administration's accomplishments with the vaccine rollout – although critics, including some in the major media, say he's overstated them, while not acknowledging the work spearheaded by the Trump team that led to the speedy creation of the vaccines in the first place.



Trump Weighs In



Donald Trump weighed in on that, saying in a Wednesday evening statement, ""I hope everyone remembers when they're getting the COVID-19 (often referred to as the 'China Virus') vaccine, that if I wasn't president, you wouldn't be getting that beautiful 'shot' for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn't be getting it at all.""



Biden's address came after he signed the massive $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill Thursday afternoon.



It will give most Americans $1,400 stimulus checks. But Republicans argue the bill is stuffed with left-wing spending that has nothing to do with COVID, while expanding the government and adding still more to the exploding national debt which now stand at $28 trillion.

***Start Your Day with CBN News QuickStart!!! Go here to sign up for QuickStart and other CBN News emails to ensure you keep receiving news from a Christian Perspective.***",-1.2291259928225093
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",0.11308939430389328
"World Water Day 2021 serves a critical purpose. The unpleasant truth behind the need for a World Water Day is that not everyone in the world has the water resources they need to live a healthy life. As the world population expands it is important that these problems are addressed. Clean, safe water for proper sanitation, drinking, and hygiene is something that no human being should have to live without. But for some, Water Day 2021 is a reminder that all they have access to is dirty water that is a threat to their health. For others, World Water Day 2021 is marked by gratefulness for clean water solutions that have changed their lives. The question for you is, will you partner with us on World Water Day 2021 to help change lives for the better?

Water Day 2021 For Some Will Mean Suffering

For some World Water Day 2021 will be marked by struggle and suffering. The sad truth is that even in 2021 many people do not have access to safe, clean, reliable water. Many must walk miles daily to get the water they need to bathe, cook, and drink. Often these water sources provide dirty, bacteria-infested water. The people who drink it often get sick. Then, in need of any water they can get, they are forced to drink the same contaminated water again the next day. Across Asia, Africa, and Latin America villager’s lives are consumed with this daily struggle to acquire water. World Water Day is about working to bring an end to the suffering caused by lack of clean water around the world.



Operation Blessing observes World Water Day annually to help bring water issues and water scarcity to the forefront. Throughout the year we help provide clean water solutions to needy people. Since water scarcity and water shortages are such a critical humanitarian problem, we are using this day to encourage people to get involved.

For Others World Water Day 2021 Is Light In The Darkness

Not everyone whose life was mired in an exhaustive struggle for dirty water is still suffering. Through the generosity of our partners, we have provided clean water systems to change lives. Here are some of those victories.

Lake Chapala Mexico And A Rain Catchment System Lake Chapala is the source of food and water for many people living near Guadalajara, Mexico. While beautiful, the lake is not a safe place to get water as it contains heavy metals harmful to humans. For some of the poor people depending on this poisonous lake, help was needed. The solution was a clean water project from Operation Blessing.



Operation Blessing partners helped supply a rainwater catchment system to the El Chalpicote Elementary School. Now the children no longer have to consume polluted water. This school is an example of what we can accomplish by focusing on water issues. Water Purification In Honduras Jeslin, and her Honduran village, have been forever changed by a water purification system. She can enjoy clean water when she needs it. The Operation Blessing water project provides water that she doesn’t have to travel miles to get and water that won’t make her sick. Jeslin is an example of the great things World Water Day can stand for. And You Can Participate Right Here Right Now To Bring Clean Water to Others Partner with us to provide clean water solutions to people who need it.

Works Cited

“OHCHR | the Global Water Crisis and Human Rights.” www.ohchr.org, www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Environment/SREnvironment/Pages/EnvironmentWater.aspx. Accessed 23 Feb. 2021.

“The World’s Water Crisis Explained on World Water Day.” Science, 22 Mar. 2018, www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/world-water-day-water-crisis-explained.

United Nations. “Scarcity | UN-Water.” UN-Water, 2011, www.unwater.org/water-facts/scarcity/.

—. “Water.” Un.org, 30 Nov. 2018, www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/water/.

“Water Crisis | World Water Council.” Worldwatercouncil.org, 2015, www.worldwatercouncil.org/en/water-crisis.

https://plus.google.com/+UNESCO. “World Water Day.” UNESCO, 5 Oct. 2018, en.unesco.org/commemorations/waterday.

Nations, United. “World Water Day EN.” United Nations, www.un.org/en/observances/water-day.

“World Water Day | Drinking Water | Healthy Water | CDC.” www.cdc.gov, 26 Oct. 2020, www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/world-water-day.html. Accessed 23 Feb. 2021.",-1.5575632273894493
"For more than five decades, Marie Ortiz has been a guardian for the underserved in her native city of New Orleans as a respected civil rights and community activist, saying, “I’ve given my all! Being honest. I really did serve New Orleans well.”

The 81-year-old still confronts injustice with conviction. Marie believes, “That’s what’s going to change everything--Love and forgiveness is a moral excellence! And if we get that in us to love and stop hating, we’re going to be a better people and God will bless us marvelously!”

Those same distinct principles that would serve Marie for a lifetime shaped her during childhood. She recalls, “Love and forgiveness! I watched my family do that when I was a little girl. It was instilled in me in that loving home that I was raised in. They fed the hungry. They housed people! I was brought up with that. It’s still with me and I’ll never give it up!”

Marie walked, prayed and marched with many renowned leaders of the Civil Rights movement. A few joining her family as her greatest influences, saying, “First of all, my mother and Coretta King! They believed things the way I did about the character, the personality and the love for mankind.”

The local civil rights icon and pastor remains hopeful and available to further social justice. Marie says, “I’m so encouraged! Even though you see protesters and all that going on--black and whites just coming together in love. People loving one another more than I ever seen when I was a child. “Walk in faith because without faith it is impossible to please God!”

Marie’s faith and activism brought her unique opportunities. In 1988, Marie met Pat Robertson, an aspiring presidential candidate, when their political contacts intersected in New Orleans. She remembers, “John Rondino was over Pat’s election and he called me up, knowing I was very popular in the city and asked me if I be the woman coordinator? I was elated because Pat was a Christian and he was speaking God stuff. They asked me to greet Pat and escort him into the luncheon they were having. And all of the other candidates were there. Pat Robertson, a presidential candidate. I said, ‘Pat Robinson is with God.’ I said, ‘He’s already a winner, he’s with Jesus. He’s just getting the message out.' I got my button!”

It got Marie even more! Introduced to CBN, she identified with their mission and message! Marie says, “Oh, I love The 700 Club! They take care of the poor. They do mission work. CBN is one of my homes! That’s my home--that’s a part of me!""

She partners with CBN, extending her life’s work in reaching the needs of others, saying, “Why not support something like that? Doing wonderful work! And they love Jesus! Helping people building houses and all that! Makes me feel good because when I see it on the TV, I say, ‘I’ve got my little dollar in there! It just blesses me!’”",-0.6117616058829098
"The crisis on the southern border is worsening, with more than 15,000 migrant children now in U.S. custody, and a new report that the Biden Administration is spending $86 million to house migrants in hotel rooms.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas continued to call the border situation a ""challenge"" and not a ""crisis"" and blamed the Trump administration for it.

""The border is secure, the border is closed...It takes time because the entire system was dismantled,"" Mayorkas told Fox News Sunday.



But Sen. Tom Cotton said it is the Biden Administration that has done the dismantling, and called the Biden border policy ""recruit and release.""

""I mean he's basically saying the United States will not secure our border and that's a big welcome sign to migrants across the world,"" Cotton said.

The media and lawmakers from both parties have criticized the Biden administration for restricting press access to overcrowded facilities housing unaccompanied migrant children.

Hope Frye of Project Lifeline said inside the facilities are, ""children standing up with nowhere to sit down, children who can't all lay down at the same time or can't lay down at all.""

Biden said Sunday that he intends to travel to the southern border ""at some point,"" but said he's in no rush because he said he knows what's going on there.

Donald Trump released a statement in response to Biden's remarks on Sunday, saying, ""We proudly handed the Biden Administration the most secure border in history,"" and that it has turned ""a national triumph into a national disaster.""

BELOW: This tweet shows photos from border patrol tents (Image provided by Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-TX)

“Exclusive photos from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection temporary overflow facility in Donna, Texas, reveal the crowded, makeshift conditions at the border as the government's longer-term child shelters and family detention centers fill up.”https://t.co/WJnkV4zBFX pic.twitter.com/7XqagoPwak — Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) March 22, 2021

One migrant from Honduras traveling through Mexico to the US border said he wanted to thank Joe Biden ""from the bottom of our hearts"" for opening the border.

When another migrant who crossed the border was asked if he would have tried it when Donald Trump was president, responded: ""Definitely not.""



A campaign flag for President Joe Biden flies over tents at a camp of migrants at the border port of entry leading to the U.S., March 17, 2021, in Tijuana, Mexico. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Texas Republican congressman Michael McCaul says with spring weather the situation on the border is only going to get worse.

""The message is coming back, 'Hey, we got a new president, come on in, we're open for business to the traffickers... and I predict a million people trying to get into this country by the summertime,"" McCaul said to ABC.

This has also created a crisis for Mexico, which has had to send many more officers to its southern border to stop migrants on their trek to the U.S.",-1.7327430886637984
"What’s Stopping Me from Loving My Neighbor?

“Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31).

Why do we make this simple command so hard? Instead of just doing it, we over-examine and dissect it with questions like “what does love really mean here?” and “Is a neighbor someone in need, everyone in general, or something else?” In the midst of solving this puzzle, we implement a murky placeholder for the command. “Love” becomes anything not directly offensive or intrusive, and “neighbor” becomes such a vague global notion of everyone, we’re all but off the hook from loving the actual people we’re surrounded by everyday: our neighbors.

With that said, how can we get back to the core of this command and make strides toward living it out in our neighborhoods?

Three Things Stopping Us: Time, Fear, and Misunderstanding

“I don’t have time to invest in my neighbors”

I agree with you. In fact, I’m in the same boat. I don’t have time for my neighbors either. I actually don’t have time for prayer, meditating upon God’s Word, or sharing the gospel. My schedule is packed with my roles as a husband, father, employee, church volunteer, and more. But that’s all because having time and taking time are two very different things.

In order to have an impact on the neighbors next door, across the way, or beyond the alley, we have to take time from something else. Now, if you’re going to say there is nothing you can take time from in order to pour time into fulfilling the second greatest commandment Jesus gave us, I would be much less hesitant to agree. I recommend meditating upon your schedule as well as your daily and your weekly routine – including the weekends. What could you take time from in order to make time for this most important of activities?

The fear of what if…

“What if my neighbors don’t like me?” “What if it turns into a major commitment I’m not ready for?” “What if they’re like that neighbor I saw on the News the other night?” Exhausted yet? Who wouldn’t be after mentally living out 100 outcomes that haven’t happened? But what if your neighbors do like you? What if the Lord opens an opportunity for someone to hear the gospel next door? What if one of the best friendships you’ve ever had is a smile and friendly introduction away? Anticipating the positive instead of the negative can be very helpful and rewarding. But I think there is another tactic that can be even more helpful.

Instead of surrounding yourself with anxiety-driven “what-ifs”, consider swapping them for faith-filled “even ifs.” Here are some examples:

Even if my neighbor is non-responsive to my efforts, I know I am honoring God by seeking to live out His commands.

Even if my neighbor turns out to be unkind, I know God will use my efforts to impact him/her in some way that is for my good and His glory.

Even if my neighbor has no interest in the gospel when the opportunity opens to share it, I will thank God for the opportunity to be a faithful witness for Him and a potential stepping stone to their future salvation.

Misunderstanding the mission

When some Christians hear “love your neighbor as yourself” in regard to their actual neighborhood, they can immediately interpret it as “neighborhood evangelism.” It becomes a mission to find the neighbors who don’t seem to know Jesus and blaze the shortest possible path to a gospel presentation. This can cause us to pursue an ulterior motive instead of an ultimate motive. Here’s what I mean.

An ulterior motive is usually manipulative. It’s when we say or do something in the open but intend something else privately. In a neighborhood context, it could mean that we are sweet to our neighbors or seek to help them for a time – but in reality, we’re only looking for an opportunity to share the gospel. It’s a much nicer version of bait-and-switch.

An ultimate motive is different. It’s a longed-for destination. In a neighborhood context, it could mean that we truly seek to love, help, and bless our neighbors for their good. In doing so, as we have conversations and grow in fellowship, we look for natural opportunities to share the story of Jesus and His impact on our lives. However, your love as a neighbor is not hinged upon a gospel transaction. In short, we don’t love our neighbors to convert them. We love them because we are converted.

By taking these three points into consideration, I think we can take big steps toward loving our neighbors and opening new gospel opportunities that we never even considered:

Start an across-the-yard conversation.

Leave a baked good on a doorstep (with a note that it has been handled safely).

Offer to help with some yard work while socially distanced.

Download a neighborhood app (like NextDoor.com) and introduce yourself to neighbors.

Ask if anyone in the neighborhood is interested in starting a book club via ZOOM.

When you stop to think about it for a bit, the opportunities for simply getting to know your neighbors to extend the love of Jesus toward them are virtually endless.

Copyright © 2021 Brock Anderson, used with permission.",-0.07403181690848096
"Alternative medicine is a type of treatment that continues to grow in popularity. Often it includes treatments that aren't new and some people might even call them ancient.

Since its inception, many have called modern medicine a gift from God. Sometimes, however, we look back to the treatments of our ancestors. Dr. Josh Axe, the founder of the most-visited natural health website in America, says equating healing with pharmaceuticals is a relatively new concept.

""Up until 150 years ago when somebody used the word medicine it typically didn't mean a synthetic medicine,"" he told CBN News, ""It typically meant an herb or spice, like ginger or frankincense, and all of these things that are referenced in the Bible that's what was meant by medicine.""

In his new book Ancient Remedies: Secrets to Healing with Herbs, Essential Oils, CBD, and the Most Powerful Natural Medicine in History Dr. Axe recommends herbs, supplements, essential oils and foods to treat about 75 different conditions.

""For instance, if somebody is struggling with hypothyroidism, I go through those top five herbs so people know exactly what to do,"" he said, ""If somebody has Alzheimer's, I go through what to do. If somebody has inflammation, heart disease, diabetes, chronic pain, hormone imbalance, I go through all of those things in there.""

Dr. Axe says some natural treatments date back to the dawn of civilization.

'It's believed that Abraham taught a lot of these natural ways of healing, using different herbs and foods to support healing,"" he said, ""And that is the basis of Chinese or different types of Asian medicine.""

Why Go Natural?

Many people are content to use medicines that are made in a lab, however, if given the choice, might prefer something a little more natural. Dr. Axe points out that many of today's man-made drugs often began as imitations of their natural counterparts.

""For instance, take white willow bark. That's where they got the idea for aspirin,"" he explained, ""White willow bark helps naturally thin the blood, reduces pain naturally, is anti-inflammatory. Well, aspirin is actually taken from that. But these pharmaceutical companies wanted to save money, so they started making it themselves, that is synthetic.""

Dr. Axe says that process can result in side effects like nutritional deficiencies.

""Diabetes drugs actually pull Coenzyme Q10 from your body and certain B vitamins,"" he said, ""So if you're on a diabetes drug it increases your risk of a heart attack and stroke. If you have taken an antibiotic drug it kills the good bacteria in your body and also depletes your body of zinc.""

Healing Any Disease Begins with This

Dr. Axe maintains that regardless of the disease, the first step towards healing involves building a better gut since that's where most of our immune system resides.

""The foods that are most healing to the gut, number one, is bone broth,"" he explained, ""Bone broth is made up of 90 percent collagen and your gut itself is made up of 70 percent collagen so you have to have collagen in order for it to heal.""

He said healing the gut not only involves adding the right foods to our diet, but also subtracting the wrong ones.

""Gluten, dairy, and sugar are the things that will most weaken our immune systems.""

Marijuana's Sober Cousin

Dr. Axe says we can also boost our body's natural defenses against disease by balancing our hormones, lowering stress, and getting a good night's sleep. He says marijuana's sober cousin, CBD, can do all three.

""There are two main compounds found in hemp, which are CBD and THC,"" he said, ""THC, that's the compound that can cause hallucinogenic effects where people hear about getting high. CBD is a completely different compound.""

So while drug companies churn out their pills, Dr. Josh Axe points to nature. He says we, like people centuries before us, can use the remedies there to cure what ails us.

***As certain voices are censored and free speech platforms shut down, be sure to sign up for CBN News emails and the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving news from a Christian Perspective.***",-1.526323872513734
"DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — In the Middle East, where sport and diplomacy are closely intertwined, political passions can spill over onto the playing field.

With the Palestinian cause the core issue uniting Arabs across the region for decades, Israeli players meeting Arab opponents on the field have learned the age-old conflict always looms. Spectators have thrown shoes and jeered. Egyptians, Saudis and others have refused handshakes or pulled out of matches.

But on Friday, politics played a vastly different role. Months after the United Arab Emirates normalized ties with Israel, an Israeli national rugby squad touched down in Dubai to meet the Emirati team on the field for the first time. The more experienced Israeli team swiftly beat the UAE 33-0 in the first 7-a-side friendly match, held without crowds because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The rugby players and few spectators rose as Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, blared over the grassy field and through rows of skyscrapers. The players shook hands, slapped backs and bumped fists over a thumping electronic beat.

Emirati players seemed uncomfortable only when asked about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While the UAE and Israel were never at war and for years cultivated covert ties, the federation of seven sheikhdoms formally considered Israel an enemy.

Following the establishment of formal ties last year, the public blowback in the UAE has been muted if not absent, as authorities suppress all dissent. Palestinians, for their part, have lambasted the Israel-UAE normalization as a betrayal of their cause for statehood.

“We don’t think about whether Israel is a good country or a bad country,” said Ibrahim Doree, an Emirati player, his face glistening with sweat after the game. “We just follow our leaders,” he added, declining to discuss the conflict before rushing to meet the Israelis for a barbecue dinner in the desert.

The Israelis were more emotional. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin beamed onto the field with a dramatic speech about friendship.

“This is insane, insane,” said Israeli player Ori Abutbul, shaking his head in disbelief. “I have no words when people ask me how I feel.”",1.655339293341429
"Ismail and Irma could hardly wait for the arrival of their baby daughter. They had lost three children in the past from miscarriages and premature births. But on the day she delivered baby Khofifah, she wasn’t ready for the words she heard from the midwife.

“She said ‘Please stay calm,’” Irma told CBN. “‘Your child can be fixed. She just needs an operation.’”

Baby Khofifah was born with a cleft lip. No one in their community in Indonesia had ever seen anything like it before.

“I couldn’t stop shaking when I saw my baby’s lip for the first time,” said Ismail. “I was shocked. I felt so sorry for her.”

Their fears grew worse when Khofifah stopped gaining weight.

“Because of Khofifah’s cleft lip, she kept choking on the milk,” said Irma. “She could drink only a little. I love her so much! She’s the baby we had been waiting for! We would do anything to get her an operation.”

But Ismail earns only five-dollars a day making sandals. That’s just enough to buy food and pay a few monthly bills.



“My wife and I often talk about our baby’s future,” said Ismail. “What would it be like? I couldn’t stand the thought that, when she grew up, people would make fun of her.”

Then one day, the couple got a call from the midwife.

“She said that we could get Khofifah an operation,” said Ismail. I told her that I didn’t have any money to pay for it. But he said, ‘No, it’s free! CBN would take care of everything.’ I was so happy!”

CBN arranged for Khofifah to receive free cleft lip surgery at a city hospital three hours from their home. The operation was a success and a month later, we went to visit the family.

“Every day when I come home from work,” said Ismail happily, “it refreshes me to see Khofifah’s smile!”

“My daughter looks beautiful!” said Irma. “It’s like a dream come true. We can never repay you for helping her. Thank you very much, CBN!”

CBN partners are making a difference in the lives of hurting people throughout the world. If you are not a partner, please join today. Your gifts make it possible to provide a tangible future to those in desperate need, bring medical services to the sick, help feed and clothe children here at home and overseas, and broadcast a message of hope around the world. Become a CBN partner today!",-1.604400019777054
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",-0.47495746599513927
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",-1.559852209966269
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",0.08919500139841714
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",-1.1167028770223897
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",1.0695490699191665
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",-0.8356786120276462
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",0.2304710814463966
"Get this important free factsheet: Combating Coronavirus: Building a Strong Immune System. Download now!

Combating Coronavirus: Building a Strong Immune System is available to all registered CBN Online Community members.

Log-in or Sign Up to Download this Free Resource

CBN Online Community membership is free, and you will enjoy the benefits of:

Important information

Excellent resources

Special offers that will improve your life and the lives of those you love

Sign Up Now to Join the Community and get this Free Resource!",0.48386220167161936
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",-0.4632020391349143
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",-0.2257366086066706
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",0.38624001767972704
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",-1.1685476426944588
"What’s Stopping Me from Loving My Neighbor?

“Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31).

Why do we make this simple command so hard? Instead of just doing it, we over-examine and dissect it with questions like “what does love really mean here?” and “Is a neighbor someone in need, everyone in general, or something else?” In the midst of solving this puzzle, we implement a murky placeholder for the command. “Love” becomes anything not directly offensive or intrusive, and “neighbor” becomes such a vague global notion of everyone, we’re all but off the hook from loving the actual people we’re surrounded by everyday: our neighbors.

With that said, how can we get back to the core of this command and make strides toward living it out in our neighborhoods?

Three Things Stopping Us: Time, Fear, and Misunderstanding

“I don’t have time to invest in my neighbors”

I agree with you. In fact, I’m in the same boat. I don’t have time for my neighbors either. I actually don’t have time for prayer, meditating upon God’s Word, or sharing the gospel. My schedule is packed with my roles as a husband, father, employee, church volunteer, and more. But that’s all because having time and taking time are two very different things.

In order to have an impact on the neighbors next door, across the way, or beyond the alley, we have to take time from something else. Now, if you’re going to say there is nothing you can take time from in order to pour time into fulfilling the second greatest commandment Jesus gave us, I would be much less hesitant to agree. I recommend meditating upon your schedule as well as your daily and your weekly routine – including the weekends. What could you take time from in order to make time for this most important of activities?

The fear of what if…

“What if my neighbors don’t like me?” “What if it turns into a major commitment I’m not ready for?” “What if they’re like that neighbor I saw on the News the other night?” Exhausted yet? Who wouldn’t be after mentally living out 100 outcomes that haven’t happened? But what if your neighbors do like you? What if the Lord opens an opportunity for someone to hear the gospel next door? What if one of the best friendships you’ve ever had is a smile and friendly introduction away? Anticipating the positive instead of the negative can be very helpful and rewarding. But I think there is another tactic that can be even more helpful.

Instead of surrounding yourself with anxiety-driven “what-ifs”, consider swapping them for faith-filled “even ifs.” Here are some examples:

Even if my neighbor is non-responsive to my efforts, I know I am honoring God by seeking to live out His commands.

Even if my neighbor turns out to be unkind, I know God will use my efforts to impact him/her in some way that is for my good and His glory.

Even if my neighbor has no interest in the gospel when the opportunity opens to share it, I will thank God for the opportunity to be a faithful witness for Him and a potential stepping stone to their future salvation.

Misunderstanding the mission

When some Christians hear “love your neighbor as yourself” in regard to their actual neighborhood, they can immediately interpret it as “neighborhood evangelism.” It becomes a mission to find the neighbors who don’t seem to know Jesus and blaze the shortest possible path to a gospel presentation. This can cause us to pursue an ulterior motive instead of an ultimate motive. Here’s what I mean.

An ulterior motive is usually manipulative. It’s when we say or do something in the open but intend something else privately. In a neighborhood context, it could mean that we are sweet to our neighbors or seek to help them for a time – but in reality, we’re only looking for an opportunity to share the gospel. It’s a much nicer version of bait-and-switch.

An ultimate motive is different. It’s a longed-for destination. In a neighborhood context, it could mean that we truly seek to love, help, and bless our neighbors for their good. In doing so, as we have conversations and grow in fellowship, we look for natural opportunities to share the story of Jesus and His impact on our lives. However, your love as a neighbor is not hinged upon a gospel transaction. In short, we don’t love our neighbors to convert them. We love them because we are converted.

By taking these three points into consideration, I think we can take big steps toward loving our neighbors and opening new gospel opportunities that we never even considered:

Start an across-the-yard conversation.

Leave a baked good on a doorstep (with a note that it has been handled safely).

Offer to help with some yard work while socially distanced.

Download a neighborhood app (like NextDoor.com) and introduce yourself to neighbors.

Ask if anyone in the neighborhood is interested in starting a book club via ZOOM.

When you stop to think about it for a bit, the opportunities for simply getting to know your neighbors to extend the love of Jesus toward them are virtually endless.

Copyright © 2021 Brock Anderson, used with permission.",-1.062163326930518
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",-1.2661177199639044
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",1.4673825186838525
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",2.078043794709913
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",0.3999274859652054
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",-0.07502956658524372
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",0.6043741624300223
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",-0.24881083422838543
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",0.09676543244220559
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",0.5087094692135615
"The Christian Broadcasting Network

CBN is a global ministry committed to preparing the nations of the world for the coming of Jesus Christ through mass media. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages.

If you have an immediate prayer need, please call our 24-hour prayer line at 800-700-7000. CBN's ministry is made possible by the support of our CBN Partners.",-1.0171890624151143
Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told Daily Caller editorial director Vince Coglianese that the socio-economic shift among political parties that’s been impacted by immigration is the most important shift over the past few decades.,-1.3101731385723017
"Former President Donald Trump gave his thoughts on the future of the Republican party during a lengthy interview with Fox News contributor and podcast host Lisa Marie Boothe.

“We have a lot of young, good people,” Trump explained after Boothe asked about the party. “[Florida Gov.] Ron DeSantis is doing a really good job in Florida. I think [Missouri Sen.] Josh Hawley has shown some real courage in going after big tech.”

Trump spoke to Boothe for her new iHeartRadio podcast “The Truth with Lisa Boothe.” The episode, Boothe’s first, launched Monday morning and featured the former president diving into various topics, from giving advice to President Joe Biden to naming various options for a 2024 presidential run. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Lisa Boothe Interviews Donald Trump To Launch Her New Podcast)

“And you know somebody that’s been really terrific is Ted Cruz … And [Kentucky Sen.] Rand Paul has been great. A lot of people, I mean, really a lot of people have been terrific. [Former White House press secretary] Sarah Huckabee is going to do great in Arkansas. I think that [South Dakota Gov.] Kristi Noem has done a terrific job. A lot of – a lot of very good people, really very good people. The Republican party is stacked.”

Trump boasted about the effect his endorsements have on people running and suggested “some of the names” he mentioned above should run for president in 2024. Trump also said he’d “make that decision later” regarding his own potential run.

“There’s a pretty deep bench,” he told Boothe. “I’ll make that decision sometime later, but there’s a pretty deep bench. If you look at the polls, they love the job that I’ve done.”

While Trump praised various Republicans, he also slammed others – including those he named. The former president singled out Cruz, noting that the two “had it out for awhile” and complaining the fights “got rather violent and vicious.” Ultimately, Trump said he thinks Cruz has “been great.”

Of the lawmakers Trump named, some had publicly stood by him as he raised mass election fraud claims in 2020. Cruz and Hawley both objected to certifying the election, though Paul opposed the Republicans’ decision to do so. (RELATED: 11 Republican Senators – Led By Ted Cruz – Will Object To Electoral College Certification)

“My oath to the Constitution doesn’t allow me to disobey the law. I cannot vote to overturn the verdict of the states,” Paul said Jan. 6, according to a transcript. “Such a vote would be to overturn everything held dear by those of us who support the rights of states in this great system of federalism bequeathed to us by our founders.”",-0.5929418493919
"March Madness has been packed full of upsets through three days of games.

Entering the NCAA Tournament, I said limited capacity would likely help underdogs because without packed stands, the talent disparity isn’t as large as people think. Add in the chaos of restricted schedules because of coronavirus, and the formula was sitting there for upsets. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)

Well, that prediction turned out to be 100% correct.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Syracuse Men’s Basketball (@cuse_mbb)

Multiple underdogs didn’t just win first round games, but punched tickets to the Sweet 16. With one more day of Round of 32 action left, Loyola, Syracuse, Oral Roberts and Oregon State are already guaranteed to play this upcoming weekend.

Literally half of the Sweet 16 is made up of teams that weren’t supposed to be there. Given the fact we have eight more games Monday featuring underdogs who weren’t supposed to be here, I’m sure we’re not done sliding underdogs into the next round.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Oral Roberts Basketball (@orumbb)

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I called these exact upsets. I didn’t. I knew there’d be upsets, but I had no idea where they’d come from.

I 100% expected Illinois and Ohio State to make deep runs. Neither made it out of opening weekend.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ohio State Hoops (@ohiostatehoops)

The talent gap between a guy playing for Ohio State and a guy on Oral Robers is real, but it’s not nearly as big as your average fan thinks.

So, you remove the fans, make it five-on-five with no crowd noise to swing momentum and you’re going to find yourself with substantial upsets.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by UCLA Men’s Basketball (@uclambb)

That’s where we’re at as of Monday morning. It’s been a wild tournament and we’re not done yet. In fact, we’re just getting started!",0.9742386711448289
"A father was arrested Friday on suspicion of child abuse after he brought his two-year-old daughter into an elephant habitat at the San Diego Zoo to get a picture, according to reports.

Jose Navarrete, 25, managed to get around a series of barriers with his two-year-old daughter and into an elephant enclosure, authorities said, according to CNN.

As the pair tried to snap a picture, an elephant noticed Navarrete and his daughter and can be seen trotting toward them, video shows.

As the elephant stands feet away, Navarrete can be seen trying to escape from the enclosure. As he steps outside the fencing, Navarrete drops his daughter and quickly turns around to pick her up. He was able to make it out of the enclosure.

“There were no injuries to Navarette, his daughter, or the elephant,” a press release from the San Diego Police Department said, according to CNN.

Navarrete was held on $100,000 bail for investigation of child endangerment and has an arraignment scheduled for March 30, according to 6ABC.

Lori Ortale, who witnessed the event unfold, told Fox 5 San Diego she could hear people telling Navarette not to enter the enclosure. (RELATED: REPORT: Teen Looks For Lost Dog, Finds Tiger Instead)

“You hear this woman yelling, ‘Jose, stop. Jose, stop,'” she said, according to the report. “And he jumps the fence and then he goes through the elephant enclosure, and he’s got his little girl with him who, I don’t know, had to be under 2.”

The Daily Caller has reached out to the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Police Department but did not receive a response at the time of publication.",0.8773584629201734
"Democrats are sniffing glue and reading the New York Times again. How else can one explain their reduction of the deeply complex and innately subhuman act of slaughtering eight individuals to a run-of-the-mill “hate” crime, on par with screaming racial slurs at a passerby on the sidewalk? It is an explanation so sophomoric that it borders on irresponsibly stupid.

No act of mass murder is an ordinary crime, whether fueled by anger, passion or psychosis. Intentionally murdering innocent strangers requires a detachment from basic humanity that is not an attribute common to the vast majority of criminals. Comprehending how an individual arrives psychologically at such a dark depth is a key to preventing similar tragedies in the future.

Progress in understanding such horrific criminal behavior, however, grinds to a halt when a key stakeholder refuses to scratch even a micron below the surface of the overt acts. Worse still, in the case of last week’s murders at massage parlors in metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia, Democrats have displayed actual hostility toward those who delve beneath the surface, when facts and analysis begin to contradict their simplistic narrative. As cultural commentator Jon Stokes recently noted on Twitter, it “isn’t just the incuriosity, but the . . . anti-curiosity” that strikes him as particularly troublesome with the Democrats’ reaction to the Atlanta shootings. “You’re just supposed to say ‘amen’” and move on.

Consider Georgia’s newly elected, far-Left Sen. Raphael Warnock, who clapped back at the FBI last weekend when the agency suggested the Atlanta shooting did not appear to be racially motivated. Warnock’s un-inquisitive explanation for the murders was simply, “we all know hate when we see it.”

Which narrative is more likely to be played endlessly in the mainstream media echo chamber, thus filtering down to a population as lazy as the media when it comes to fact-finding? The one daring to suggest that America suffers from a deep and multi-faceted cultural sickness that generates far too many mass murderers, or the one that immediately goes off on the usual tangents about COVID, former President Donald Trump, and, of course, racism?

In this minimalist world view, police violence occurs because black lives don’t matter; mass shootings happen because of the Second Amendment; and bad schools are the result of insufficient funding. A high school debate club would have its way with congressional Democrats if this were the extent to which they are willing to go in penetrating America’s most troubling social and economic problems.

It does not stop with the quality of debate, either. The so-called “solutions” emerging from this superficial perspective are, and will remain, equally vacuous and counterproductive.

Consider how “defund the police” became a rallying cry of “woke” progressives last year following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Catchy as the slogan may have been with rioters, reframing justice reform behind such an insipid, irrational objective undermined years of coalition building between liberal and conservative stakeholders working for criminal justice reform; a hard-fought process that resulted in Trump signing the historic First Step Act in 2018.

Enacting similar bipartisan legislation today would be impossible for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that Democrat leaders assiduously avoid ruffling feathers of the progressive scolds within their ranks whose explanation for virtually every problem we face is “systemic racism.” We will be no closer to finding an answer to mass shootings if Democrats continue their identity politics chest-thumping in response to the Atlanta spa murders.

It is in a sense, understandable for people to seek neat, tidy and superficially logical explanations to illogical and inhuman behavior. Thus, “the shooter hated Asians” as answer to the question of how or why a young man would go on a killing rampage at an Asian spa because of alleged sex and pornography addiction, soothes the craving for simplicity. It is – or certainly should be — the responsibility of those in positions of power and knowledge to look beyond such assumptions, not repeat them mindlessly.

It matters little whether Democrat leaders deep down know this but choose to act contrarily or have dumbed themselves down to such a degree they no longer are able to separate fact from their own spin. Either explanation is equally unproductive and indeed, dangerous.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.",0.08334542570957297
"Suzanne Somers and her husband Alan Hamel apparently have lots of sex.

According to Page Six, the 74-year-old actress was appearing on the “Heather Dubrow’s World” podcast when she made a very bold comment. (SLIDESHOW: These Women On Instagram Hate Wearing Clothes)

At this stage of life, most people think that’s, you know, over the hill, too much information. But what time is it, like noon? I’ve had sex with him three times so far today,” Somers said about her sex life with her 84-year-old husband, according to the same Page Six report. (SLIDESHOW: 142 Times Josephine Skriver Barely Wore Anything)

She further added, “My girlfriends go, ‘You do not have sex twice a day.’ It’s no forced march. I’m in the mood. He’s in the mood. Sometimes it’s once a day. Sometimes later in the day, you’re in the mood again because what are you going to do during this pandemic?” (SLIDESHOW: 71 Times Samantha Hoopes Stripped Down)

I don’t want to call anyone a liar, but I’m just finding this hard to believe. It’s not that I find it hard to believe elderly people have sex. (SLIDESHOW: This Blonde Bombshell Might Be The Hottest Model On The Internet)

It’s the claim about the amount that seems a bit much. This is almost as absurd as the allegation that soccer star Mauro Icardi has sex with his wife 12 times a day. (SLIDESHOW: 60 Times Abigail Ratchford Wore Almost Nothing)

Star Athlete Allegedly Has Sex 12 Times A Day With His Wife https://t.co/ru2EW0Rolt — Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 21, 2021

I’m 28-years-old, and my body is broken down. I feel closer to 80 than I do 30, and it’s a tough life to live. Yet, Suzanne Somers is apparently out here getting it on like she’s in her prime.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Suzanne Somers (@suzannesomers)

Let us know in the comments what you think about Somers claim!",1.642557518810387
"A man stabbed a 12-year-old boy while standing in line at a McDonald’s restaurant Saturday afternoon in Pittsburgh, according to police.

The 51-year-old, Charles Edward Turner, stabbed the 12-year-old boy in the neck while standing behind him and his family in line at McDonald’s and was subsequently arrested by police, according to the press release from the Pittsburgh Police Department.

#BREAKING: Pittsburgh police arrested Charles Edward Turner, 51, in connection with the stabbing of a 12-year-old boy at McDonald’s Downtown this afternoon. He’s facing several charges, including criminal attempted homicide. See the full story tonight on @KDKA. pic.twitter.com/bZO9wSz2CM — Jessica Guay (@JessicaGuayTV) March 21, 2021



As police and emergency medical service (EMS) arrived at the scene, two employees assisted the young boy and his family, according to a local report about the incident from Pittsburgh Channel 4 Action News.

Pittsburgh police arrested Turner and charged him with criminal attempted homicide, two counts of simple assault, four counts of aggravated assault, and resisting arrest, according to the press release. He was booked at the Allegheny County Jail.

The young boy who was stabbed was sent to the hospital in critical condition where they were able to stabilize him. (RELATED: ‘Deal With The Monster You Created’: Proud Boys Leaders Charged With Conspiracy To Invade Capitol)

Detectives from the Pittsburgh Police Department are investigating this incident by reviewing video evidence and speaking with eyewitnesses at the scene of the crime.",0.3813953781754076
"Texas Roadhouse CEO and founder Kent Taylor died Thursday after he took his own life following a worsening battle with post-coronavirus symptoms.

“We will miss you, Kent. Because of you and your dream of Texas Roadhouse, we get to say we ❤️ our jobs every day,” a Facebook post from Texas Roadhouse read.

Greg Moore, Lead Director of Texas Roadhouse, said Taylor touched everyone he met in a statement on behalf of the Board of Directors.

“During this pandemic, he gave up his entire compensation package to help support his frontline workers,” Moore said. “This selfless act was no surprise to anyone who knew Kent and his strong belief in servant leadership. He was without a doubt, a people-first leader. His entrepreneurial spirit will live on in the company he built, the projects he supported and the lives he touched.”

Taylor gave up his base salary and bonus between March 18, 2020 and Jan. 7, 2021 to help pay his front-line workers.

In 2018, Taylor earned $1.3 million, of which $525,000 was his base salary, according to Louisville Business First.

Taylor died by suicide after his post-coronavirus symptoms worsened, a joint statement from Taylor’s family and Texas Roadhouse obtained by the Daily Caller said. Taylor was reportedly suffering from severe tinnitus, which causes ringing in the ear. The coronavirus can make this condition worse, according to the Associated Press. (RELATED: What Is A ‘Suicide Cluster,’ And Why Has COVID Increased Them?)

“Kent battled and fought hard like the former track champion that he was, but the suffering that greatly intensified in recent days became unbearable,” the joint statement said.

“We are saddened by the decision Kent felt he needed to make and want to emphasize more than ever the importance of reaching out for help if you or someone you love is suffering,” the statement continued.

Texas Roadhouse opened in Clarksville, Indiana in 1993 and is based in Taylor’s hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said Taylor was a “maverick entrepreneur” in a tweet.

“Kent’s kind and generous spirit was his constant driving force whether it was quietly helping a friend or building one of America’s great companies in Texas Roadhouse.”

Louisville lost a much loved and one-of-a-kind citizen with Kent Taylor’s passing today. Kent’s kind and generous spirit was his constant driving force whether it was quietly helping a friend or building one of America’s great companies in @texasroadhouse. 1/2 — Mayor Greg Fischer (@louisvillemayor) March 19, 2021

“He was a maverick entrepreneur who embodied the values of never giving up and putting others first.”",1.4069286459468475
"Georgia Republican Rep. Jody Hice announced an intraparty challenge Monday against Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Hice, who represents Georgia’s 10th congressional district, accused Raffensperger of undermining election confidence, and pledged to restore it if elected in 2022. The challenge follows President Joe Biden’s narrow victory in the state and Raffensperger’s repeated assertions that the election was free of voter fraud, despite former President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of election tampering.

“Free and fair elections are the foundation of our country,” Hice said in his announcement. “What Brad Raffensperger did was create cracks in the integrity of our elections, which I wholeheartedly believe individuals took advantage of in 2020.”

“If elected, I will instill confidence in our election process by upholding the Georgia Constitution, enforcing meaningful reform and aggressively pursuing those who commit voter fraud,” he added.

Hice, a member of the House Freedom Caucus and ally of Trump, partook in multiple efforts to overturn the presidential election. Hice and over 100 Republican lawmakers joined a Supreme Court lawsuit seeking to overturn Biden’s victories in multiple states, and voted to object to the electoral college results following the Capitol riot on Jan 6.

The Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit brought before them, and the objections to states’ results in January failed.

Raffensperger came under harsh Republican criticism following his reassurance that the state’s results were accurate and that Trump’s assertions of widespread fraud were factually wrong. He also suggested that the former president could face criminal charges after a phone call between the two surfaced where Trump pressured Raffensperger to “find” votes to overturn Biden’s victory. (RELATED: Georgia Election Official Gabriel Sterling Explodes On Trump For ‘Inspiring’ Violence With Election Claims)

Trump in January vowed to take political revenge against Raffensperger and Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who also acknowledged that Biden’s victory was free of any widespread fraud.

“I’ll be here in about a year and a half campaigning against your governor,” Trump said ahead of the Georgia Senate runoffs on Jan. 5. “I guarantee it.”

Trump endorsed Hice shortly after his announcement, calling him “a staunch ally of the America First agenda.”

“Unlike the current Georgia Secretary of State, Jody leads out front with integrity,” Trump said. “I have 100% confidence in Jody to fight for Free, Fair, and Secure Elections in Georgia, in line with our beloved U.S. Constitution.”

“Jody loves the people of Georgia, and has my Complete and Total Endorsement,” he concluded.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.",-2.3162764529259916
"The New England Patriots reportedly have Justin Fields high on the team’s draft board.

According to Outkick, NFL Network analyst Bucky Brooks was on the “Move The Sticks” podcast discussing what the Patriots might do at quarterback, and Fields’ name is high in their mind. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Justin Fields (@justnfields)

“Hear a lot of rumors out there that they are really high on Justin Fields out of Ohio State. So, they’d have to (trade up) quite a ways to get Justin Fields,” Brooks explained.

The Patriots are currently picking at 15, which means they’d 100% have to trade up to get him because there’s zero shot he falls out of the top 10.

I find it hard to believe that Fields falls outside of the top five.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Justin Fields (@justnfields)

First and foremost, I’m still holding out hope that the Lions are able to snag Fields as our quarterback of the future.

We desperately need someone not named Jared Goff to lead us for the next decade, and Fields is a guy I’m also high on.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Justin Fields (@justnfields)

Having said, it would be huge for the Patriots if they were able to sneak up and snag the former Ohio State star.

We all know what Belichick is capable of doing when he has a star quarterback. He wins Super Bowls. You give the Pats Justin Fields and they have their guy for the next 15 years.

It’s borderline scary to think about.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Justin Fields (@justnfields)

If you’re a fan of the Patriots, let us know in the comments what you think about the team potentially targeting the dual-threat star!",-0.9181196181923351
"Top Biden administration aides have not yet fully divested themselves of Big Tech stock they held in the corporations.

Multiple Biden officials were paid in cash or held stock in Big Tech companies like Microsoft and Facebook while working for them as consultants or board members, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. Three of those aides still hold stock in the companies they were employed by.

Susan Rice listed almost $638,000 in speaking fees earned during 2020, including more than $128,000 after Biden’s election.https://t.co/kzXqNTkujE — Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) March 21, 2021

National security adviser Jake Sullivan previously served on a Microsoft advisory board. He holds between $50,000 and $100,000 of Microsoft and Alphabet stock through a trust, according to disclosure forms obtained by the Wall Street Journal and Reuters. Sullivan also holds between $15,000 and $50,000 of Facebook stock. A White House official told the Wall Street Journal on Saturday that Sullivan will divest himself of those stock holdings.

The Microsoft Exchange email service was breached by foreign hackers earlier in 2021. Microsoft suspects that the Chinese government sponsored the hackers, WSJ reported on March 6. Due to his business connections with Microsoft, Sullivan will cede some of his responsibilities to deputy national security adviser Anne Neubergher on the investigation. (RELATED: Trump Admin Accuses China-Backed Hackers Of Trying To Steal Coronavirus Research)

Some new details: National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who served on a Microsoft advisory council thru last year and had stock in several tech companies, will divest all of his stock, per a WH official. Deputy NSA Anne Neubergher also taking lead on Microsoft Exchange hack — Chad Day (@ChadSDay) March 21, 2021

White House Domestic Policy Council head Susan Rice, who served as national security adviser to former President Barack Obama, holds stock in Netflix. Rice received the stocks as payment after she joined the company’s board of directors in 2018, WSJ reported.

Although Rice began selling her Netflix stock in August 2020 and resigned from the board in December, she still holds some options. She also holds stock in pharmaceutical companies Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer, both of which are producing coronavirus vaccines. A White House official told WSJ that Rice is not involved in the Biden administration’s decisions regarding vaccines.

Director of Legislative Affairs Louisa Terrell, who lobbied for Facebook and ran President Joe Biden’s family foundation, held between $250,000 and $500,000 in Facebook stock as of 2020. She has not divested all of that stock yet, according to a disclosure form obtained by WSJ. (RELATED: Facebook To Slap Safety Label On All COVID-19 Vaccine Posts)

White House press secretary Jen Psaki was paid $5,000 as a consultant for Lyft, according to WSJ.

In addition to hiring former people with links to Big Tech, Biden appointed Columbia University professor Tim Wu to the National Economic Council. Wu called for the federal government to break up Facebook in 2019. Biden appointed Lina Khan, who also teaches at Columbia, for a position on the Federal Trade Commission. Khan previously worked on a House Judiciary Committee antitrust probe into Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook.",1.0141882528011232
"MSNBC host Chuck Todd pressed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sunday over the crisis at the U.S. southern border.

While appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mayorkas cited the administration’s actions on handling migrants and claimed “the border is closed.” Todd disputed his claim, asking, “how can you say the border is closed?” (RELATED: Jonathan Swan Suggests Border Crisis Was ‘Foreseeable’ When Biden Reversed Trump Policies)

WATCH:

Todd began the discussion by reading a quote from Democratic Texas Rep. Vicente Gonzalez criticizing President Joe Biden’s administration for incentivizing people to cross the border illegally. He then asked Mayorkas if he was concerned a “market efficiency” has been created where people decide their children have a shot to get into the U.S. if they attempt to go alone.

“Our message has been straightforward and simple, and it’s true. The border is closed. We are expelling families, we are expelling single adults, and we’ve made a decision that we will not expel young, vulnerable children,” Mayorkas answered. “I think we are executing on our plans and, quite frankly, when we are finished doing so, the American public will look back on this and say we’ve secured our border and we upheld our values and our principles as a nation.”

“How can you say the border is closed if there is this, what some would look at as a loophole,” Todd asked. “I understand on humanitarian grounds, but if the goal is to get these asylum seekers to seek the asylum in home country, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, for instance, how do you get them to do that if our policy is to let them in at the border?”

Mayorkas explained the administration has short, medium, and long-term plans, but didn’t go into details as to what they are. He then asked Todd to remember that former President Donald Trump “dismantled” how the country allowed children to make asylum claims under U.S. law in their countries of origin. He concluded that the administration is “rebuilding” those processes, but will not expel children “into the Mexican desert” in the meantime.

The Biden administration has been heavily criticized for its handling of the crisis at the border, as well as its slow response in acknowledging the situation as “a crisis.”

DHS announced Mar. 13 that it was deploying FEMA to the border to assist with handling unaccompanied migrant children. Over 9,400 unaccompanied minors were detained in February with DHS saying they will not be expelled, despite the lack of housing space for them.",1.5025167328303908
"Thomas Middleditch is facing an accusation of sexual misconduct.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the “Silicon Valley” star has been accused by Hannah Harding of groping her at a 2019 party in Los Angeles at the Cloak & Dagger club. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)

The TV star, who is a known swinger, allegedly “made lewd sexual overtures” at Harding and then groped her in front of employees and friends, according to the same report.

Ten women allege that a popular, members-only goth venue’s leadership ignored sexual misconduct among members at the club and its festivals https://t.co/63Ylzpx8Mh — Los Angeles Times (@latimes) March 21, 2021

The event happened in back rooms of the Pig ‘N Whistle bar at an event the Los Angeles Times described as “an uninhibited, LGBTQ-friendly, members-only club where underground DJs, actors, rockers and adventurous partygoers could revel in safety and secrecy.”

The Los Angeles Times also reported that the outlet saw a message from Middleditch to Harding on Instagram stating, “Hannah I had no idea my actions were that weird for you … I know you probably want to just put me on blast as a monster … I don’t expect you to want to be my friend or anything … I am so ashamed I made you uncomfortable.”

Harding has accused club founders Adam Bravin and Michael Patterson of ignoring her complaints. A representative for Middleditch didn’t respond to the Los Angeles Times for comment. In total, ten women told the Los Angeles Times that ownership for Cloak & Dagger, which has since closed, ignored complaints about issues.

Among multiple women who have come forward, Hannah Harding claims “Silicon Valley” actor Thomas Middleditch groped her at the club in front of her friends and several employees https://t.co/63Ylzpx8Mh pic.twitter.com/t0Ny3NX7GE — Los Angeles Times (@latimes) March 21, 2021

Obviously this is a serious situation and accusing a man of groping a woman is about as serious as it gets when it comes to allegations found in clubs.

At the same time, Middleditch hasn’t been charged with anything and as far as we know isn’t even being investigated.

Let’s not burn a man before he has a chance to defend himself.

Its co-founders personally scouted members, who were welcomed with a robed ritual, and a tattoo artist inked regulars with a logo. But its codes of silence and practice of expulsion insulated those accused of harming women, according to staff and members https://t.co/63Ylzpx8Mh pic.twitter.com/dT3zgKgowv — Los Angeles Times (@latimes) March 21, 2021

We’ll have to wait and see what comes of it, but it looks like Middleditch, Bravin and Patterson might have some questions to answer.",0.21511452499149666
LOCKED DOWN AMERICANS NOW FOOTING HOTEL BILLS FOR ILLEGALS… Biden Administration To Spend $86 Million Housing Migrants In Hotels,-0.9996666436576269
"China’s new strategy for negotiating with the Biden administration is the diplomatic equivalent of the “reverse card” in the card game Uno, and was on full display Thursday during a summit between U.S. and Chinese diplomats in Alaska.",-0.7115520397177654
"Let’s face it. It’s 2021, and you need to update your kitchen gadgets to help you cook restaurant-quality meals. Since last year when many of us were essentially forced to learn how to cook, we’ve discovered that cooking and baking are fulfilling hobbies. Because of our collective newfound love for the kitchen, you have to check out some of the items we’ve selected below that will improve your culinary experience:

*List has been updated*

This BPA-free plastic container bundle comes with 14 containers of all sizes. Whether you are looking to store spaghetti noodles, dog treats, and anything in between, these storage containers have got you covered. All of the containers are stackable and are totally functional. Your purchase will also come with labels, a white chalk marker, and a bonus measuring spoon set.

Get it here for just $44.97!

This popcorn bowl is perfect for the ultimate movie night with friends and family. Embedded within the container are measurements for the correct amount of kernels you should be popping. Normal popcorn bags can be so greasy and salty. With this invention, you can control how much salt and butter is put on top of your favorite snack.

Get it here for just $10.97!

Whenever I cook pasta, having a sturdy strainer is essential. You wouldn’t want to risk your pasta falling into the sink! Therefore, we’re introducing you to the #1 best-selling Gizmo Strap N Strain! Made flexible as to fit on most pots and pans, simply clip the strainer to the side of your cookware and strain away. Really, it’s as easy as that! It will be a perfect small gift for any pasta connoisseur.

Get it here for only $15.99.

This all-in-one utensil set is perfect for those looking for a one-stop-shop. With your purchase, you’ll receive everything from measuring spoons to tongs and ladles. Don’t miss out on this incredible deal!

Get it here for only $20.99!

This #1 best seller provides the perfect solution every home-chef knows all too well. Made to accommodate all utensil types and sizes, this gadget keeps your counter clean, tidy, and drip-free. And for the low cost of under $10, why wouldn’t you purchase this product?!

Get it here for just $9.99!

Made from non-porous Borosilicate glass, your coffeemaker will not retain any odor or flavor residue from previous uses. All you have to do to brew the perfect cup of robust coffee is choose your favorite medium-coarse grinds, place the grinds into the Chemex Bonded Coffee Filter, pour the boiling water over the grinds and just let it brew! It can’t get simpler or tastier than this!

Get it here for only $45.09!

Instant Pots cook just about anything you can think of. Imagine a crockpot, but you can cook your food up to 70% faster. I have one of these myself, and your food will turn out tasty and cooked evenly just about every time! This version of the Instant Pot has the function of seven appliances in one; pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice cooker, steamer, sauce pan, yogurt machine and food warmer.

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I think we can all agree that one of the most annoying things in the kitchen is peeling garlic. It can be so sticky, stubborn, and hard to deal with. That’s where this tube peeler and press come in. These gadgets are simple to use. First, you get your garlic clove(s) and stick it in the peeler tube. Roll the tube a few times and voila! Your garlic will be peeled hassle-free. Now, to mince your garlic, just press the cloves back and forth with the metal presser. The final product will be perfectly minced garlic you can use in any dish.

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If you’re looking for a machine that does it all, this should be your next purchase! You have the ability to make hot or cold coffee, teas of all flavors, and specialty drinks! You’ll be able to choose from six different brew sizes. Brew your favorite beans or grinds, no pods required! My favorite part is the built-in milk frother!

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The Daily Caller is devoted to showing you things that you’ll like or find interesting. We do have partnerships with affiliates, so The Daily Caller may get a small share of the revenue from any purchase.",-1.7510465866140923
"Fox News contributor Lisa Marie Boothe is interviewing former President Donald Trump to launch her new podcast, she told the Daily Caller.

Boothe announced her iHeartRadio podcast “The Truth with Lisa Boothe” earlier in March. The podcast plans to “cut through the noise and get straight to the heart of what actually matters,” and its very first episode features an exclusive, lengthy interview with Trump – one of the few interviews he’s done since leaving office.

“I don’t think we’ve had a president that the media has lied about more … than President Trump,” Boothe told the Caller. “So it was an honor to speak with him. I talked to him at length about a variety of things – we got into the border crisis, he even gave [President] Joe Biden some advice on how to handle the border crisis.”

“We also got into some of the future players in the Republican Party who he is looking at … I talked to him about the Durham report – when we might see that – and also if he [Biden] was bought and paid for by China,” Boothe said in an exclusive preview of what to expect from the interview.

During one portion of the podcast, which airs Monday morning, Trump slammed multiple media publications and said that the U.S. no longer has “a free press.” He used the current border crisis as an example and suggested legacy outlets are not adequately covering the situation, according to a transcript obtained by the Caller.

“This is not a free press,” Trump told Boothe during one part of the podcast. “This is a press that we have to be very, very smart to get around, but they don’t cover bad things if it happens to be bad for Democrats. It’s pretty amazing. You take a look at some of the coverage and some of the travesty that’s taking place at the border, and the coverage is not commensurate.”

“If you look at NBC, ABC, CBS, and of course CNN and MSNBC, and see – if you look at some of those networks – it’s just not covered. It’s covered so little. It’s amazing. And it’s a massive story because it’s going to destroy – it’s going to destroy our country,” he added.

The lengthy Trump interview also dives into whether the former president plans to run for office again – but Americans will have to tune into Boothe’s podcast to find out more, she said.

“Everyone’s going to want to listen to this interview,” Boothe said.

Boothe’s nearly hour-long interview with Trump airs at 6 a.m. Monday morning. She told the Caller that she hopes her platform can “counter false narratives” and “stand up for the truth,” slamming the “group think” going on among the media. (RELATED: Trump Announces Interview Appearance On Fox News)

“One of my biggest concerns right now in our country is that leftists control basically all of our institutions,” Boothe explained. “They control the federal government, they control corporations … And with all that control, they’re able to dictate and to control the narrative and the information flow to the American people.”

“‘The Truth with Lisa Boothe’ would be a platform for those kinds of voices countering the false narratives that end up taking hold and that are driven,” she said.",-0.3831442468642897
"American media’s misleading framing of a police officer’s description about why a man shot up multiple massage parlors in Atlanta was used by China’s state-run media outlet Sunday.

The Xinhua News Agency, the official state-run press agency of the People’s Republic of China, repeated a misleading claim suggesting Cherokee County Sheriff Capt. Jay Baker made excuses for Robert Aaron Long, who stands accused of killing eight people in Atlanta. The misleading claim suggested Baker told reporters – in his view – that it “was a really bad day for” Long.

“8 lives taken, 6 of them Asian. And the killer was just ‘having a bad day’!” Xinhua News Agency tweeted Sunday. (RELATED: Media Spreads Misleading Context About Atlanta Police Officer’s Comments On Massage Parlor Shooter)

8 lives taken, 6 of them Asian. And the killer was just “having a bad day”! #StopAAPIHate #FightRacism pic.twitter.com/rL0DQ8AIK4 — China Xinhua News (@XHNews) March 21, 2021

The misleading context went viral after Vox’s Aaron Rupar tweeted out a short clip of Baker speaking.

“‘Yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did’ — a law enforcement official explains Robert Aaron Long’s decision to kill 8 people in a strange manner,” Rupar tweeted March 17.

WATCH:

“Yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did” — a law enforcement official explains Robert Aaron Long’s decision to kill 8 people in a strange manner pic.twitter.com/u0zFcqjbNK — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 17, 2021

In reality, Baker was explaining what Long apparently told investigators.

“He claims – and as the chief said, it’s still early – but he does claim that it was not racially motivated,” Baker noted in the video showing fuller context. “He apparently has an issue, what he considers a sex addiction, and sees these locations as something that allows him to go to these places. And it’s a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate. Like I said, it’s still early on, but those were comments that he made.”

Shortly after, a reporter asked if Baker felt Long “understood the gravity” of his actions.

“Um, when I spoke to investigators – they interviewed him this morning – and they got that impression, that yes, he understood the gravity of it and he was pretty much fed up and he kind of at the end of his rope and yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did,” Baker explained, indicating it was how the accused shooter explained what had happened.

Soon after Rupar’s tweet, the claim reached the larger media, with publications like CNN, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Daily Beast and others spreading the misleading context.

“If you watch the full video, it’s clear the police spokesperson is summarizing the suspect’s explanation of his own actions to investigators. Vox journalist Aaron Rupar framed this to make it sound like the cop was making excuses for him. Remarkable dishonesty,” Reason senior editor Robby Soave tweeted March 19.

Wow. If you watch the full video, it’s clear the police spokesperson is summarizing the suspect’s explanation of his own actions to investigators. Vox journalist Aaron Rupar framed this to make it sound like the cop was making excuses for him. Remarkable dishonesty. https://t.co/fxHaEWoMnp — Robby Soave (@robbysoave) March 19, 2021

Long is accused of a mass shooting that left eight people dead in Atlanta massage parlors. Police previously noted that the investigation is ongoing, but the suspect has claimed the attacks were not racially motivated.",0.5235981129209105
"Louisiana voters in the state’s 2nd and 5th Congressional Districts went to the polls Saturday in the first two federal elections since the Georgia Senate runoffs.

In the solidly-Democratic 2nd District, state Sens. Troy Carter and Karen Carter Peterson (no relation) had 36.1% and 23%, respectively, when the race was called and will advance to a runoff on April 24. In the state’s solidly-Republican 5th District, Julia Letlow won with over 62% of the vote, avoiding a runoff altogether.

The 2nd District’s vacancy resulted after former Democratic Rep. Cedric Richmond resigned his seat on Jan. 15 to join the Biden administration as the director of the Office of Public Engagement. The 5th District’s vacancy, however, came after Letlow’s late husband, Republican Representative-elect Luke Letkow, died from COVID-19 on Dec. 29.

Letlow announced her candidacy shortly after her husband’s death and received endorsements from Republican leadership and former President Donald Trump. Letlow told the National Journal that she intended to seek a full term in 2022, and if elected should have little problem doing so in a district that Trump won by 30 points. (RELATED: Julia Letlow To Run For Late Husband’s Seat)

Former President Trump has endorsed Julia Letlow in the #LA05 special election. By my count, this is Trump’s second House endorsement in 2021 (h/t @mattholt33) pic.twitter.com/nRB3mwWuKA — Kirk A. Bado (@kirk_bado) March 11, 2021

The next federal election is on May 1 in Texas, where voters in the state’s 6th Congressional District will decide who will fill the remainder of Republican Rep. Ron Wright’s term. Wright died of COVID-19 on Feb. 7, and following his death, his wife, Susan Wright, announced her campaign to succeed him.

New Mexico’s 1st District and Ohio’s 11th District — both solidly Democratic — are also vacant. Former New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland and former Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge joined the Biden administration in March as the secretaries of the Interior and Housing and Urban Development, respectively.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.",-0.28668727502411734
"A Chicago suburb will vote Monday to provide $10 million over the next 10 years to Black residents or their descendants who lived in the city between 1919 and 1969, according to Yahoo News.

During this time period, Black residents in Evanston, Ill. suffered from discriminatory housing practices enforced by local governments or banks, according to Yahoo News.

“This is a first step in Evanston – one that I’m really proud of,” Alderman Robin Simmons, who presented the initial reparations plan to Evanston City Council more than two years ago, told Yahoo News. “And I hope that we have continued to support.” (RELATED: ‘They Have Turned Racism Upside Down’: Leo Terrell Blasts ‘Reparations’ In COVID-19 Relief)

The reparation funds will be raised by incorporating a 3% tax on marijuana sales, Yahoo News reported. The first installment of $400,000 will be allotted to 16 Black families who will each receive $25,000.

Rose Cannon, 73-year-old lifelong Evanston resident who is black, said the City Council measure does not do enough to amend grievances.

“Somewhere along the line it changed from, [city officials saying] ‘I want cash money’ to ‘We’re going to offer you this housing program.’ … It’s broken the community apart,” she said.

Evanston Rejects Racist Reparations, a Facebook group that formed in March, posted that the reparations do not go far enough. The post states, “We reject racist reparations and demand a better, more responsive, more complete program that provides access to reparations acts of actual repair to Black folks.”

Edward Blum, president of the Austin-based nonprofit Project on Fair Representation, called the plan unconstitutional and said, “Past discrimination cannot be remedied by new discrimination.” Blum presented the 2015 federal complaints against Harvard University’s discriminatory admission standards against Asians and will provide legal counsel to those who do not qualify for Evanston’s program, according to Yahoo News.",0.9634182658059627
"The entire Georgetown team took a knee before their NCAA Tournament game against Colorado, then proceeded to get blown off of the court.

During the national anthem for the Saturday matchup, every member of the Hoyas took a knee while Colorado stood with pride. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)

Georgetown team taking a knee in unison for anthem: pic.twitter.com/Jf5k96nrG5 — Pat Forde (@ByPatForde) March 20, 2021

Georgetown takes a knee during the national anthem here at Hinkle. pic.twitter.com/yahgC3xCVt — Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) March 20, 2021

What happened next? The Buffaloes boat raced the Hoyas off of the court to the tune of 96-73. It wasn’t a basketball game.

It was a nationally televised butt kicking. Georgetown was humiliated from the opening tip through the final seconds.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Colorado Men’s Basketball (@cubuffsmbb)

You just hate to see it! You just hate to see athletes and coaches getting destroyed after trying to make sports political.

Maybe a little more time practicing and a little less time acting out political stunts during the largest sporting event of the year.

Colorado stood with pride and Georgetown took a knee during the anthem. The Buffaloes are now playing in the second round and the Hoyas are headed home.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Colorado Men’s Basketball (@cubuffsmbb)

To tell you just how absurd the kneeling situation has become and how much it has alienated fans, NBA commissioner Adam Silver has admitted himself that politics turns fans away.

If fans will turn away from the NBA, why the hell wouldn’t they turn away from Georgetown?

Entire Georgetown team, players and coaches, link arms and kneel during the national anthem. — Nancy Armour (@nrarmour) March 20, 2021

Next time you find yourself playing on the biggest stage in college basketball, focus on winning the game more than kneeling during the anthem.",-1.5408450314539803
"Some service members have questioned why the Pentagon did not address violence during racial injustice protests as harshly as it did the U.S. Capitol riot, and higher-ups are allegedly concerned.

During a training session, some military members said violence from widespread protests last summer should be treated equally t0 violence that occurred during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6th, McClatchy reported.

“This is coming from every echelon that we’re talking to … Some people may think that, ‘all right, so the events of 6 January happened. How come you’re not looking at the situation that was going on in Seattle prior to that?” said Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Ramón Colón-López, according to McClatchy.

Immediately after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6th, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered day-long training sessions that service members must complete by April 1, McClatchy reported.

Conversations within the training sessions aim “to make sure that military members understand the difference between Seattle and Washington, D.C.,” Colón-López said.

“We cannot confuse a First Amendment grievance because of social injustice organization and some of the criminals that latched on to go ahead and loot, destroy and commit other crimes. There’s two clear, distinct groups right there,” Colón-López said, according to McClatchy. (RELATED: BLM Linked To 91% Of Riots Over 3 Months Study Finds)

The Pentagon is concerned that portions of U.S. troops hold extremist views and is in talks about a method for soldiers to “confidentially report potential extremist behavior within their units,” according to McClatchy.

Support for Black Lives Matter and protests in general decreased after the violent protests in June.

A March Harvard/Harris poll found that 55% of Americans were more concerned about BLM violence than the Capitol Hill riot.",0.5053900408221861
"HBO host Bill Maher suggested that the United States is “entering an era of re-segregation that’s coming from the left” during a Friday night “Real Time” conversation with Democratic data scientist David Shor.

Shor, who worked on former President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign and is currently head of data science at progressive nonprofit OpenLabs, was making the case that since most Americans do not agree with leftist values, Democrats should instead focus on issues most people “agree with us on” in order to win elections.

“We seem to be entering an era of re-segregation that’s coming from the left,” Maher said, responding to a comment by Shor about the “geographic sorting” of liberals trending to urban areas. “I mean, on many college campuses, there are separate dorms, separate black dorms, graduation ceremonies, stuff like that. How will that affect elections in the future?”

WATCH:

Shor seemed to agree with Maher’s point, adding that “racially integrated schools make people more liberal.”

“I think just to go back, I think that the important thing is to just realize that most nonwhite voters are not liberal,” Shor said. “They don’t identify as liberal. We should take that really seriously, realizing that most voters don’t share our values means that we should instead we should try to meet people with the values that they actually hold and we should talk to them about issues that they care about.” (RELATED: JIM CROW: Segregation-Loving Ivy League Students Demand Separate-But-Equal Dorms)

In an interview with the Intelligencer last week, Shor warned Democrats that Hispanics’ liberal views on immigration may be exaggerated and that extreme views from the left could push more Hispanic voters away.",-1.541205498652347
"President Joe Biden’s White House press secretary Jen Psaki at long last acknowledged the “crisis” at the U.S.-Mexico border during an apparent slip-up at a Thursday press briefing, though she did almost immediately correct herself.",0.4040519474167625
"There aren’t a lot of people who tell the truth about voting rules. As the Senate takes up the bill the House just passed to drastically amend the rules that govern our elections, it seems like a good time to step back and examine what’s really going on. For some reason, the truth is missing from almost all the reporting, both in the liberal press and in conservative media.

Both Republicans and Democrats approach debates over the rules and systems for our elections with the same fundamental belief: Making voting easy helps Democrats, and making voting harder helps Republicans.

This premise is grounded in historical fact. For many years, older and higher-educated voters have turned out to vote in higher numbers on average than younger and lower-educated voters. Republicans used to be dominant with older and more educated people. This led to a common and still enduring belief among both Republicans and Democrats that Republican voters are more committed to getting their vote in and will therefore turn out in higher numbers, even in a strict system. The belief is the same on the other side: Democrats are less likely to turn out to vote on average, so systems that make voting easier are more likely to motivate marginally interested Democrats than Republicans. Again, there isn’t a ton of debate about this premise. Both parties believe it.

The first obvious point is that with all the voting realignment we are seeing, it’s no longer as clear that all these preconceived notions will hold true. Highly educated people are now voting Democrat more than they used to, and working people are voting Republican more than they used to. Many Republicans talk openly of becoming the party of the working class American. If they succeed, it could be Republicans who benefit from increasing voter turnout in the future. (RELATED: House Passes Partisan Election Bill With Zero Republican Votes)

The second point is that we like to pretend our debates about voting are detached from politics. If you want to understand just how politically motivated all politicians are when it comes to voting rules, just look at the shape of congressional districts. Politicians have drawn the lines in ways they think benefit their party, and they are the single most interested parties when it comes to our elections. Yet they get to make the rules. For some reason, the press plays along as we debate issues such as voter suppression and voter security. Those issues matter a lot, but every politician is thinking as much or more about getting more members of their own party elected as they are about the real merits of our voting policies. This is why Democrats openly push policies that will decrease the security of our elections. If your goal is more voters no matter what, then security is an afterthought, if it’s a thought at all. This is also partly why Republicans talk so much about security. Fewer voters helps Republicans. They know that.

The reality is we are going to change the way we vote as technology advances. For Republicans, constantly trying to impede this is not a good long-term strategy. Virtually every part of our country has been made more efficient through the use of technology, yet many of our counties still vote with hole punches through paper. That’s not going to last. Putting aside privacy concerns, there’s probably no more secure way to vote than with our phones and a biometric key such as a fingerprint or eye scan. That sort of thing is coming, and when it does, a lot more people will likely vote. Republicans should be prepared for that day.

Democrats’ desire to pretend security concerns don’t exist at all is fueling a total lack of confidence in our system. At a time when people are already showing a historic lack of trust in our leaders and our leading institutions, trust in our elections is paramount for our country’s stability. Huge numbers of Democrats did not trust the outcome of our 2016 election, and even more Republicans felt that way in 2020, yet Democrats in the House just passed a bill that would completely undercut whatever confidence currently exists in our election system. The bill is now in the Senate. It’s a disaster.

The problems with the Democrats’ partisan election “reform” bill are too numerous to go through here, but the Daily Caller and others have summarized them well. (RELATED: Congressional Democrats Want To Make Ballot Harvesting The National Standard, Regardless Of What States Want)

One provision in particular gives away their partisan motivations. The bill would ban states from requiring voters to show an ID when voting or even when requesting absentee or mail-in ballots. Thirty-six states have ID laws in place that this federal law would preempt. Even aside from the fact that our Constitution puts states in charge of these issues, why would you ever want to ban IDs for voting? Isn’t that an invitation for voter fraud? Proponents of the ban say ID requirements suppress the vote, especially in minority communities — but we require identification for so many things in our day-to-day lives that it would be impossible to get by without one. You couldn’t cash a check, rent a car, buy beer or wine or do hundreds of other tasks without one. To pretend that a simple security measure like identification is somehow voter suppression is to give away your partisan motivation.

We need a voting system that lets any eligible voter who wants to vote do so conveniently, and we need systems in place to assure voters that our elections are fair. The Democrats’ proposed partisan voting law misses this balance altogether.

Neil Patel co-founded The Daily Caller, one of America’s fastest-growing online news outlets, which regularly breaks news and distributes it to over 15 million monthly readers. Patel also co-founded The Daily Caller News Foundation, a nonprofit news company that trains journalists, produces fact-checks and conducts longer-term investigative reporting. The Daily Caller News Foundation licenses its content free of charge to over 300 news outlets, reaching potentially hundreds of millions of people per month. To find out more about Neil Patel and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com

COPYRIGHT 2021 CREATORS.COM",-1.020152507261758
"CNN’s Chris Cuomo asked Dr. Anthony Fauci whether he minded social media users calling the coronavirus vaccine the “Fauci ouchie” during a Thursday discussion of the pandemic.

“There are good signs that things are starting to go away,” Cuomo told Fauci. “Families are starting to get reunited again. People are doing it the right way. Mask culture is spreading.”

“So it allows me a little bit of leeway to ask something a little lighter,” he said. “Did you know that on social media, people are referring to the vaccine as the ‘Fauci ouchie’? Did you know that? Did you have anything to do with that?” (RELATED: Hospital Throws Away Nearly 600 Johnson & Johnson Vaccines After Doses Became Unfrozen)

WATCH:

Fauci laughed, saying that he had not heard that nickname for the vaccine, but that if it helped encourage people to get vaccinated, he was all for it.

“No, I did not,” Fauci said. “Chris, I can tell you, it was not my idea.”

Cuomo went on to ask whether Fauci had a problem with the vaccine being referred to by that name.

“Well, if it makes people more — more tendency to get vaccinated, you can call it Fauci ouchie any time you want, just go get vaccinated,” he responded.

“I have never had that picture of you, I’ve never had coming to mind when I think of you, pain,” Cuomo continued. “But as long as it’s protection, I guess it’s okay. Whatever gets people to take a step in the right direction. I want to put a smile on your face because otherwise, we’re crying all the time under these circumstances.”

Fauci has repeatedly urged Americans to get the coronavirus vaccine. Recent polls have shown that a significant number of people said that they will not take the vaccine, despite former President Donald Trump recently encouraging Americans to get vaccinated.",0.7750682141831161
"The Trump administration’s acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation’s Samantha Renck about the ongoing crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, how he thinks it’s impacting the United States’ relationship with Mexico and more.

“[The Biden administration has] delivered hope to these migrants,” Morgan said. “Everybody needs to understand what the definition of ‘hope’ is. The ‘hope’ that they’re providing is, once again, if you make it to our border illegally, we’re going to let you in, and then we’re going to protect you from lawful deportation.”

Morgan, who previously warned of a looming border crisis, also discussed how Biden’s policies are impacting the U.S.-Mexico relationship. (RELATED: Border Democrats Are Starting To Speak Up About Biden’s Immigration Policies)

“If I’m the government of Mexico,” he said, “I’m saying ‘what are you doing now, America? This is a self-inflicted wound. A self-inflicted crisis that you have created.'”

WATCH:

Check out more from the Daily Caller News Foundation:

‘They’re Exactly So-Called Cages’: Immigration Expert Explains What’s Happening At The Border

Unemployment Dropped Thanks To States Slowly Reopening, ‘Watchdog On Wall Street’ Host Says

‘Turned On The Spigot For Illegal Immigration:’ Former CBP Commissioner On Biden’s Immigration Plans

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.",0.35802704834913673
"The Archdiocese of Washington addressed $2 million given to retired Cardinal Donald Wuerl for “ministry activities” in a Thursday statement.

The 80-year-old cardinal resigned from his position in October 2018 after evidence of complicity in sexual abuse cover-ups in Pennsylvania.

The Daily Caller News Foundation repeatedly asked the Archdiocese of Washington on Wednesday and Thursday to address why Wuerl was allocated this increased sum, and what the retired cardinal has used the money for.

The Archdiocese of Washington addressed $2 million given to retired Cardinal Donald Wuerl for “ministry activities” in a Thursday statement, saying that the funds have “have accumulated over time” and were donated expressly for Wuerl.

The 80-year-old cardinal resigned from his position in October 2018 after evidence of complicity in sexual abuse cover-ups in Pennsylvania. But the cardinal has continued to receive large sums of money from the Archdiocese of Washington, The Pillar reported Wednesday.

The archdiocese designated $2,012,639 for the “continuing ministry activities for [the] Archbishop Emeritus” during the 2020 fiscal year, according to the archdiocese’s financial records — a 35% increase from the $1,488,059 sum that was allocated to Wuerl in the 2019 fiscal year report. (RELATED: Here’s Why Media Calls Biden A ‘Devout Catholic’ According To Theologians, Commentators)

2020 was the first year that Wuerl was entirely retired from his work with the diocese, the Pillar reported, since he served as apostolic administrator until Archbishop Wilton Gregory was installed in May 2019.

The Daily Caller News Foundation repeatedly asked the Archdiocese of Washington on Wednesday and Thursday to address why Wuerl was allocated this increased sum, and what the retired cardinal has used the money for.

“The funds in our Continuing Ministry Activities account are donations made by persons who want to cover Cardinal Wuerl’s expenses and ministerial needs, including living expenses, prior travel for business in Rome, as well as for charitable requests asked of the archbishop emeritus,” the archdiocese said in a Thursday statement after this story was posted.

The archdiocese said that the donations “have accumulated over time and were made by persons who did not want to have the Archdiocese burdened with these expenses,” noting that any of the remaining proceeds “will be used to support the general purposes of the Archdiocese.”

The funds were funds were allocated from “net assets without donor restrictions,” as the Pillar noted. The publication reported that this meant the money was not specifically given to the archdiocese for Wuerl.

Pressed on this point, the archdiocese’s manager of media relations Emma Restuccia told the DCNF that “some specific donors said that they wanted their donation to go to the support of Cardinal Wuerl’s ministry as archbishop emeritus.”

Though Wuerl was allocated over $2 million, the financial statement shows there was a 30% drop in funds that the archdiocese allocated for “Archdiocesan charitable giving” in the 2020 fiscal year as well as a drop in the amount allocated to “formation of priests.”

This sum allocated for “Archdiocesan charitable giving” decreased from $651,136 in 2019 to $401,136 in 2020, and the “formation of priests” sum declined from $1,102,500 in 2019 to $1,000,481 in 2020. (RELATED: Vigano Says He Received Complaints A High-Ranking Monsignor Molested Catholic University Students)

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has suggested that bishops in retirement be given a stipend of $1,650 per month. The guidance also notes that the diocese should provide the Bishop Emeritus with housing and board, health and welfare benefits, an office with secretarial assistance, a suitable funeral and burial, travel expenses, and the use of a car.

The USCCB did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment. Wuerl could not be reached for comment.

Sources reportedly told the Pillar that the cardinal has recently offered at least one retreat to a group of bishops.

The archdiocese’s allocation of funds to Wuerl bears similarities to the financial arrangements made for disgraced former archbishop Theodore McCarrick by the Archdiocese of Washington, according to the Pillar. McCarrick set up “The Archbishop’s Fund” when he became Archbishop of Washington in 2001 and retained control over this fund after he retired, the publication reported.

McCarrick reportedly used money from the fund to give senior Vatican officials gifts and to contribute to a sexual abuse settlement, the Pillar reported. After allegations against McCarrick were made public in 2018, he had to give the archdiocese control over the fund.

Washington’s new Archbishop Wilton Gregory has not made a number of documents and financial records related to McCarrick available to the public, despite his promise to “always tell you the truth,” according to the Pillar.

This post has been updated to include the Archdiocese of Washington’s statement, issued after this story was posted.",-1.9983922538519288
"Customs and Border Protection has held at least 800 unaccompanied migrant minors in custody for over 10 days, Axios reported

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) can legally hold unaccompanied minors for 72 hours, though over 3,300 were in custody over the limit as of Saturday, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security document obtained by Axios. Over 2,200 unaccompanied minors were held for more than five days and around 820 were in custody for over 10 days.

The number of unaccompanied minors in CBP custody for over 10 days has quadrupled in the last week, Axios reported. Only around 180 unaccompanied minors were in CBP custody for over 10 days as of last Monday.

Minors are required to be transferred from Border Patrol facilities within three days of arrival, however, the recent increase in encounters has overwhelmed processing capabilities.

NEW: Exclusive photos from inside a CBP temporary overflow facility taken over the weekend in Donna, Texas reveal the crowded, makeshift conditions at the border as the government’s longer term child shelters and family detention centers fill uphttps://t.co/uxdWO7cV7N — Stef Kight (@StefWKight) March 22, 2021

CBP is legally required to hold unaccompanied minors until the Department of Health and Human Services is able to place them in a shelter.

The Biden administration’s immigration policy combined with natural disasters and other factors in Central America have contributed to an increase in migrants arriving at the southern border, Axios reported.

The Biden administration has reopened other temporary facilities including hotel rooms as temporary sites to hold unaccompanied migrant children and family units, Axios reported. (RELATED: Border Patrol Apprehensions Of Migrant Children Skyrocketed In February)

CBP did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.",-2.4205773835908726
"Miami Beach police have arrested over 50 people and confiscated eight firearms since Friday after many violated the city’s curfew.

The curfew was originally imposed due to brawls, gunfire and destruction of property overwhelmed Miami police, ABC News reported. Miami Beach officials ordered a three-day emergency curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., after thousands of spring breakers trashed restaurants and packed streets without masks or social distancing, according to FOX News. The curfew forced restaurants to completely stop outdoor seating and encouraged other local businesses to voluntarily shut down, according to FOX news.

#YourMBPD is working hard to keep our community safe. Since Friday, we have made over 50 arrests and confiscated 8 firearms. We’d like to thank all of our partner law enforcement agencies for their efforts and support. #MBPDprotecting #CollaborationIsKey pic.twitter.com/Vrg9mOFcOy — Miami Beach Police (@MiamiBeachPD) March 21, 2021

Police officers struggled to control crowds on Saturday and by 8 p.m. many on Ocean Avenue were out past the curfew. A SWAT team arrived to assist but was reportedly out of the area by 8:45 p.m., according to FOX News. Shortly after 9 p.m. the police had broken up the crowd and cleared the main part of Ocean Avenue.

Eastbound traffic on the city’s three causeways was shut down from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. except for residents, hotel guests or people going to work, according to Miami’s WSVN. (RELATED: Miami Beach Mayor Criticizes Spring Breakers ‘Who Want To Let Loose’ During COVID-19 Pandemic)

The city unanimously voted during an emergency meeting on Sunday to extend curfews and closures to April 12, according to FOX News. The curfew seeks to “contain the overwhelming crowd of visitors and the potential for violence, disruption and damage to property,” city manager Raul Aguila told The Miami Herald.",0.28390154799438305
"Florida Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist, the former governor of Florida, is giving “serious consideration” to challenging current Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for his old job in 2022.

Crist, who switched from Republican to Independent in 2010 after he was about to lose a U.S. Senate primary race to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, then later became a self-described “Barack Obama Democrat,” told “CNN Newsroom’s” Pamela Brown on Saturday that he has not made a decision yet, but is “closer to it by the day.”

WATCH:

“Of course it’s premature,” Crist said, criticizing gatherings in Miami and the lack of restrictions in the state. “I’m an old football player and you don’t celebrate a touchdown until you get in the end zone. We’re not in the end zone on this thing yet.”

DeSantis, South Dakota’s Kristi Noem, and Tennessee’s Bill Lee are among just a few GOP governors to eschew a statewide mask mandate during the ongoing pandemic, instead leaving the decision to local authorities.

Brown pointed out Florida’s low unemployment rate and COVID mortality rates compared to other states, asking Crist if DeSantis “deserves any credit for the state’s handling of the pandemic?”

The Democratic congressman shifted credit to local authorities and blamed the current governor for “irresponsible leadership” before bringing up an ongoing controversy about vaccines distributed “in a mostly white Republican, mostly wealthy neighborhood.”

“Have you decided whether you are going to run for governor and challenge DeSantis next year?” Brown asked. (RELATED: CNN’s Brianna Keilar Scolds Ron DeSantis For Drinking A Beer And Having Fun In Daytona Beach)

“I have not made that decision or concluded that as yet, but I’m getting closer to it by the day,” Crist responded. “Where I stand today is that I’m giving it serious consideration and by getting closer to it by the day it’s like what I told you about an old football player. I’m about on the 10-yard line, probably gonna go in the end zone.”",-1.0231101481714628
"Oral Roberts has carved out their place in history after punching a ticket to the Sweet 16.

The Golden Eagles shocked Florida 81-78 Sunday, and that earned the program a highly-coveted spot in the second weekend of March Madness. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Oral Roberts Basketball (@orumbb)

How rare and monumental is the accomplishment for the 15 seed program? It’s only the second time it’s happened in college basketball history. The other 15 seed to make it to the Sweet 16 was Florida Gulf Coast in 2013.

The Golden Eagles opened the tournament by stunning Ohio State in round one.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Oral Roberts Basketball (@orumbb)

This is why we love March, folks. This is what it’s all about. I’ll be the first to admit that I expected Ohio State to crush the Golden Eagles.

I thought it’d be nothing more than a glorified scrimmage. I was so confident that I had the Buckeyes in my Final Four.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Oral Roberts Basketball (@orumbb)

Even after Oral Roberts controlled the game and won, I still bet on Florida to knock them out of the Round of 32.

Clearly, I greatly underestimate Oral Roberts and it cost me big time.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Oral Roberts Basketball (@orumbb)

I can’t wait to find out just how high the Golden Eagles can fly. They’re playing with nothing to lose, and you never want to face a team in that position.",-0.9990302255781878
"The phrase big things come in small boxes certainly applies to these noise-canceling earbuds from EarFun. They may be small, but they pack a punch when it comes to sound.

Despite being about as small as an earbud can be, they have some terrific noise-canceling capabilities. The outward-facing microphones on each earbud detect any outside noise, and then the dynamic drivers generate accurate anti-noise signals. All that is going on behind the scenes. All you need to know is that the sound in your ears — whether music, podcast, or phone conversation — is crystal clear.

EarFun allows you to experience pure sound by achieving up to 28dB noise-canceling effect.

So they cancel outside noise? What about the quality of the sound you do get? Thanks to Bluetooth 5.2 technology, you get a stable signal. There are no audio drops and no interruptions, just pure, steady sound.

There are a lot of features to like about these earbuds including voice and touch control and the voice assistant that allows you to connect to both Siri and Google Assistant.

These wireless earbuds also have a long-lasting battery, getting up to 32 hours of play between charges in the USB-C charging case. They also have an IPX5 rating, meaning they are resistant to sweat and water splashes.

Critics have had tons of praise for these earbuds, with CNET praising the clean, balanced sound and bass that has some kick to it. Forbes praised the long battery life and detailed sound, while iMore simply called them excellent and comfortable to wear,

When you do need to charge them, that doesn’t take much time at all. The earbuds can charge in just an hour, while the charging case takes just two hours via the USB port. These noise-canceling earbuds normally sell for $79, which is already a great price considering the high quality. But for a limited time, you can have them for just $59.99, a 25 percent savings. Prices subject to change.

The Daily Caller is devoted to showing you things that you’ll like or find interesting. We do have partnerships with affiliates, so The Daily Caller may get a small share of the revenue from any purchase.",0.5480022145229534
"Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton criticized Democratic senators who have reversed their positions on the Senate filibuster for engaging in “highly situational ethics” during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.”

With a narrow 50-50 majority, Democrats like Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, who once supported the filibuster, are now seeking to remove or modify it in order to be able to pass bills without a 60 vote threshold. Fox News anchor Chris Wallace asked Cotton about a proposal from President Joe Biden that would make filibusters more difficult by requiring senators to “stand up and command the floor.”

“Isn’t there something to be said for more legislating and less gridlock?” Wallace asked, pointing out that Republicans could be in the majority again and would want to pass laws.

WATCH:

“No, Chris, there’s something to be said for compromise and bipartisanship and respect for the rights of the minority in the Senate,” Cotton said. “These rules have been in place since the beginning of our republic, and the Democrats are engaged in pretty highly situational ethics.”

Cotton pointed out that 27 Democrats currently in the Senate “wrote a letter urging Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer to maintain these rules” four years ago, when Republicans were in charge. (RELATED: Elizabeth Warren Calls Filibuster Racist Months After Filibustering Tim Scott Police Reform Bill)

“Now most of those senators have flip-flopped simply because they have the barest of majorities,” he said. “Republicans refused to change those rules four years ago because we respect these traditions in the Senate and we know they’ve helped forge durable bipartisan consensus legislation.”",-1.4512024434572546
"The attorney representing the women suing Deshaun Watson wants a grand jury to look at the evidence.

Watson is now facing lawsuits from a dozen women alleging sexual misconduct and assault, and it doesn’t look like attorney Tony Buzbee will be slowing down anytime soon. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)

Deshaun Watson Is Being Sued Over An Alleged Sexual Assault. Here’s What Fans Need To Know https://t.co/iDXRP8nBga — Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 17, 2021

Watson has been accused of touching a woman with his erect penis and forcing another to perform oral sex. The Houston Texans star quarterback has denied ever treating a woman wrong.

According to a weekend Instagram post from Buzbee, affidavits from the women will be submitted to the Houston Police Department at some point at Monday, and he wants a grand jury put together “to consider the evidence” against the dual-threat quarterback.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Tony Buzbee (@tonybuzbee)

As I’ve said before, this situation doesn’t look like it’s going away. It looks like Buzbee plans on taking this as far as he can and the allegations are piling up by the day.

At this time, all the allegations are just civil, but with affidavits headed to the Houston Police Department, that could chance.

Of course, Watson has every right in the world to be presumed innocent until a court determines otherwise.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Tony Buzbee (@tonybuzbee)

We’ll see how it all shakes out, but expect this situation to only escalate as we proceed forward.",1.1663342525038378
"President Joe Biden told reporters Sunday night that he plans to visit the southern border but did not give a specific date for the trip.

“At some point, I will,” the president stated upon his arrival back at the White House following a weekend’s stay at Camp David. “Yes.”

POTUS said one week prior that he would not be visiting the border in the near future. White House press secretary Jen Psaki has also recently fended off inquiries about why the administration is continuing its national pandemic response tour but won’t send Biden to the border. (RELATED: ‘How Can You Say The Border Is Closed’?: MSNBC’s Chuck Todd Presses Biden DHS Secretary On Migrant Crisis)

“Because his focus is on action and taking actions and moving forward policies to ensure we are expediting the processing at the border, that we are opening more facilities, that we are putting in place policies that will move kids more quickly through the Border Patrol facilities, more quickly into safe and secure homes,” Psaki said in a briefing March 17. “That’s where his focus is.”

Biden said Sunday that his administration needs to be doing “a lot more” to explain to potential migrants they shouldn’t come to the United States “now.”

“We’re in the process of doing it now, including making sure that we reestablish what existed before, which was they can stay in place and make their case from their home country,” he remarked.

Former President Donald Trump claimed Sunday that Biden’s immigration policies are destroying the country.

“They are causing death and human tragedy. In addition to the obvious, drugs are pouring into our country at record levels from the Southern Border, not to mention human and sex trafficking,” Trump wrote in a lengthy statement. “This Administration’s reckless policies are enabling and encouraging crimes against humanity. Our Country is being destroyed!”",-0.08708623837402042
"Jason Miller, a senior advisor to former President Donald Trump, suggested Sunday that his boss may be returning soon to social media “on his own platform.”

During an appearance on Fox News’ “MediaBuzz,” anchor Howard Kurtz asked Miller about Trump’s plans for getting back on social media in some form after being banished from Twitter and other social media outlets.

WATCH:

“I do think we’re going to see President Trump returning to social media and probably about two or three months here with his own platform, and this is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media,” Miller responded. “It’s gonna completely redefine the game and everybody is gonna be waiting and watching to see what exactly President Trump does, but it will be his own platform.”

Kurtz asked for clarification as to whether the former president will “create” the platform himself.

“I can’t go much further than what I was able to just share, but I can say that it will be big once he starts, Miller said. “There’ve been a lot of high-powered meetings he’s been having at Mar-a-Lago with some teams of folks that have been coming in.” (RELATED: YouTube Says It Will Eventually Restore Trump’s Account)

The Trump advisor added that “numerous companies” have approached Trump about the topic.

“I think the president does know what direction he wants to head here and this new platform is gonna be big and everyone wants him,” he said, predicting that Trump would bring “millions and millions, tens of millions of people to this new platform.”",-2.3920031214499993
"North Carolina football coach Mack Brown has agreed to an extension with the program.

According to a Monday morning release from the Tar Heels, the legendary college football coach has agreed to an extension through the 2025 season. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)

Brown’s salary in 2020 was $3.5 million, and it doesn’t sound like that’ll change under the new deal.

Carolina agrees to extensions with Mack Brown, Assistant Coaches!! ???? “We’re receiving great support for our football program, which has made our staff one of the most stable in the nation.” — @CoachMackBrown ???? https://t.co/p6eWLHIn9l#CarolinaFootball ???? #BeTheOne pic.twitter.com/Ye9ABTLXcP — Carolina Football (@TarHeelFootball) March 22, 2021

This is a great call by UNC. For the first time in seemingly forever, the Tar Heels are finally relevant on the gridiron.

Behind Sam Howell’s majestic arm and under Brown’s leadership, the Tar Heels are rolling better than they have traditionally.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mack Brown (@coachmackbrown)

Brown also brings serious name recognition to the program. After all, he won a national title when he was coaching the Texas Longhorns.

It might be in the past, but Brown is still the biggest name the Tar Heels will be able to get. When you get a guy like him and he’s winning, then you don’t let him go.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mack Brown (@coachmackbrown)

With Howell back under center in 2021, you can bet UNC is in for another solid season.",-0.1390716943784902
"Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem on Saturday demanded that legislators pass a new bill banning biological males from competing in women’s sports.

“Since Nov, I’ve been exploring litigation to defend Title IX and fairness in girls’ sports at ALL levels,” Noem tweeted. “To pursue that strategy, I’m asking legislators to pass a new bill on Veto Day, or I will call a special session. Let’s protect girls’ sports & fix the concerns with 1217.”

Since Nov, I’ve been exploring litigation to defend Title IX and fairness in girls’ sports at ALL levels. To pursue that strategy, I’m asking legislators to pass a new bill on Veto Day, or I will call a special session. Let’s protect girls’ sports & fix the concerns with 1217. — Governor Kristi Noem (@govkristinoem) March 20, 2021

House Bill 1217 bans biological males from participating in women’s sports, establishes that there are only two sexes (male and female), and acknowledges that there are “inherent” differences between men and women, according to the legislation’s language. (RELATED: Mississippi Becomes First State To Ban Transgender Students From Women’s Sports)

On March 8, Gov. Noem tweeted about her excitement to sign HB 1217. But Noem sent the bill back to the state legislature due to its “vague and overly broad language,” according to a Friday press release.

“It could have significant unintended consequences,” the press release said.

“For example, Section 2 of House Bill 1217 requires a student athlete to verify, each year, that the student ‘is not taking and has not taken, during the preceding twelve months, any performance enhancing drugs, including anabolic steroids,’” it continued.

Part of the bill could foster an environment of lawsuits against educational institutions and athletes suspected of doping, and ultimately impose “an unworkable administrative burden on schools,” the governor’s office said.",0.7895032647602135
"Former President Donald Trump said in a statement Sunday that the Biden Administration must “immediately complete the wall” to stop the influx of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

“They must immediately complete the wall, which can be done in a matter of weeks – they should never have stopped it,” the statement said. “They are causing death and human tragedy. In addition to the obvious, drugs are pouring into our country at record levels from the Southern Border, not to mention human and sex trafficking. This Administration’s reckless policies are enabling and encouraging crimes against humanity. Our Country is being destroyed!”

Trump added that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ appearance on a Sunday news show was a “national disgrace.” (RELATED: ‘How Can You Say The Border Is Closed’?: MSNBC’s Chuck Todd Presses Biden DHS Secretary On Migrant Crisis)

“His self-satisfied presentation – in the middle of the massive crisis he helped engineer – is yet more proof he is incapable of leading DHS,” the press release stated. “Even someone of Mayorkas’ limited abilities should understand that if you provide Catch-and-Release to the world’s illegal aliens then the whole world will come.”

Last month, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered 100,441 people attempting entry along the southwest border, according to the agency.",0.9596673254363012
"The season has come to an end for Wisconsin after losing Sunday to Baylor 76-63 in the Round of 32.

We all knew coming into the game against the Bears that the Badgers had an uphill battle to make the Sweet 16, but I held the line as optimistically as I could. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)

I truly believed we had a great shot of upsetting Baylor after we crushed UNC to open the NCAA Tournament.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Wisconsin Basketball (@badgermbb)

The reality of the situation is that the better team won today. While we fought with grit and intensity, the Bears were simply better, especially in the first half.

When you turn the ball over and don’t defend well for a large chunk of a half, you’re going to have a tough time winning.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Wisconsin Basketball (@badgermbb)

Now, the Badgers have to take a long and hard look in the mirror and figure out where we go from here. It was a disappointing season, but we still saw flashes of greatness at times.

It’ll be interesting to see who returns and who doesn’t. The future is still bright in Madison. I just wish we could have taken this to next weekend.",-0.38152502126437127
"A White House spokeswoman said Friday that President Joe Biden was alright after he stumbled a few times as he boarded Air Force One, CNN reported.

Biden repeatedly stumbled and fell once on Friday while he was boarding Air Force One, video footage shows. Biden got up and proceeded onto Air Force One after tripping and falling. (RELATED: Scarborough Questions Trump’s Health: ‘Stumble For Stumble…Even Worse’ Than Biden)

“So, as you know, it’s pretty windy outside, it’s very windy. I almost fell coming up the steps myself,” White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters in the press pool on Air Force One bound for Atlanta, according to CNN. “He is doing 100% fine.”

WATCH:

President Biden stumbles while walking up the stairs to Air Force One

pic.twitter.com/t959EPMHpu — Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 19, 2021

The spokeswoman didn’t comment if the president hurt his foot that had previously been broken, CNN reported. The president slipped in November while he played with his dog, Major, resulting in a fractured foot, according to a February CNN report.

“He’s doing great. All I can tell you is he’s doing fine. He’s preparing for the trip today and he is doing just great,” Jean-Pierre said, according to CNN.

Jean-Pierre said again that Biden was alright when she was asked whether a doctor had inspected the president, CNN reported.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.",0.2982051134332523
"Loyola pulled off an insane 71-58 upset over Illinois Sunday afternoon in the Round 0f 32.

Entering the NCAA Tournament game, the belief was that the Ramblers might hang around for a minute or two but would ultimately be no match for the number one seed Fighting Illini. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)

Well, America got a reality check because Loyola absolutely dominated Illinois down the stretch.

What an absolute disaster for the B1G and the Fighting Illini. What a disaster on every single level. Illinois was a very popular pick to win the whole thing.

Now, they’re watching the rest of the tournament from home and the B1G is falling apart. It’s hard to see how this could get much worse.

Loyola has No. 1 seed Illinois on the ropes! (via @marchmadness)pic.twitter.com/Wwkh8RlVZg — Sports Illustrated (@SInow) March 21, 2021

Sister Jean did it again. I don’t understand it, but that’s not the point. She does her thing, Loyola wins and the Ramblers pull off absurd upsets time and time again.

Imagine how stupid you would have to be in order to have bet on Illinois today? Just think about what that kind of person might look like?

He’s probably got blue eyes, is over six feet tall, has great hair, is from Wisconsin and has the first name David. Yes, I took a bath on this game.

Never bet against Sister Jean and the Ramblers!",-0.8572282369053987
"The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) said Andrew Yang “suffers from a profound misunderstanding of public schools” after the Democratic New York City mayoral candidate said schools need to open faster.

Sally Goldenberg, Politico’s city hall bureau chief, tweeted UFT’s second response to their first article published Thursday.

“Thanks to his limited knowledge of education and government, along with the ideological partisanship of his advisors, Andrew Yang suffers from a profound misunderstanding of the importance of our public schools and the role of teachers and their union,” the union said.

After publication of this article @UFT issued 2nd statement:

“Thanks to his limited knowledge of education and government, along with the ideological partisanship of his advisors, Andrew Yang suffers from a profound misunderstanding of the importance of our public schools” 1/3 https://t.co/bXaz7rp0Vd — Sally Goldenberg (@SallyGold) March 21, 2021

Michael Mulgrew, the president of the city’s 190,000-member union, said in a statement Friday Yang should clarify his position if he wants to receive support in the mayoral election, according to Politico. (RELATED: Andrew Yang Announces Candidacy for New York City Mayor)

Yang has a 5-year-old son in a Manhattan public school, according to Politico.

“I will confess to being a parent that has been frustrated by how slow our schools have been to open, and I do believe that the UFT has been a significant reason why our schools have been slow to open,” Yang told Politico.

“I think it’s ridiculous that we’re tenuring teachers at like the two-year mark or something, and make it so you can’t be paid or you can’t be disciplined or fired,” Yang said.",-0.6032573420828414
"Democrats have a predictable path ahead in trying to defend their narrow congressional majority in 2022, but the Republican Party has a multitude of options to choose from in its attempt to regain power.",-1.7348614077258162
"Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner fired back at contributor Richard Fowler after he asserted that former Teen Vogue editor Alexi McCammond’s ouster was rooted in race.

Fowler argued on Friday’s broadcast of “The Faulkner Focus” that McCammond’s abrupt exit was proof “black girls aren’t given a chance to grow up” and learn from their mistakes. (RELATED: ‘Why Are We Doing This To Ourselves?’: Megyn Kelly Decries ‘Bulls**t’ Standard That Cost Teen Vogue Editor Her Job)

WATCH:

Fowler began by suggesting Teen Vogue had made its first misstep when McCammond was hired without input from the staff.

“They made an executive decision. They didn’t get staff buy-in. And as a result, Alexi has actually become a victim of real cancel culture. She sent out these tweets when she was 17 as a high schooler and never really basically what we’re saying is black girls don’t get a chance to grow up,” Fowler said, adding,” … black girls aren’t given a chance to grow up because you are blamed for a tweet you made when you were 17 years old.”

“Richard, I gotta slow you down. This is not just about people of color, though, right?” Faulkner pushed back. “This is not just about as you say, quoting someone else, ‘black girls don’t get a chance to grow up.’ Did you see the list of people that we told you about that have been canceled? I mean, this is part of our culture now.”

Fowler brought the topic back around to race a few moments later, comparing McCammond to Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, noting that even after a blackface scandal he was still holding elected office.

“That’s a double standard. It is not about party, though,” he said. “My point here is this. There are comments made by folks. We can go over numerous examples, Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, somebody who is still sitting in Congress after her ridiculous comments, and Alexi is not at Teen Vogue. Black girls can’t grow up is the point I’m making.”

“I think Joy Reid does a good job at what she does, in primetime as a pundit on MSNBC,” Faulkner said, noting that Reid allegedly made the offensive posts as an adult and still kept her job. “So when you say that this is all about race, that is one black girl who got to grow up,” she argued.

Fowler made one last connection to race, arguing that Teen Vogue — and beauty magazines in general — had “a history of excluding women of color from the conversations around beauty.”

“Let’s have a larger conversation of cancel culture and how it affects people of color and we can’t just look at it in a vacuum and say cancel culture overall is a problem,” he concluded.

“I want a larger conversation of cancel culture and how it affects Americans in general,” Faulkner replied.",-0.9569920624191124
"San Francisco school board Vice President Alison Collins is facing calls for her resignation for a series of 2016 tweets in which she compared successful Asian-Americans to white supremacists and used a racial slur.

Collins said in 2016 that she was seeking to combat “anti-black racism in the Asian community” by calling out Asian-Americans who use “white supremacist thinking to assimilate and ‘get ahead.'” Collins, who was elected in 2018, is now facing mounting pressure from civil rights leaders, parents, alumni, and political leaders to resign, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Despite her Twitter timeline now being filled with “anti-racism” rhetoric and claims of supporting the Asian-American community, Collins used a racial slur to refer to some Asians in the 2016 thread. “Being a house n****r is still being a n****r. You’re still considered ‘the help’,” Collins tweeted. The tweets have not been deleted as of Saturday morning. (RELATED: ‘It Has Been A Year Of Kids Suffering’: Latino Parents And Students Protest For San Francisco Schools To Reopen)

“Where are the vocal Asians speaking up against Trump? Don’t Asian Americans know they are on his list as well?” she tweeted in 2016. Collins, who is black, said many Asian students and teachers she knew wouldn’t “engage in critical race [conversations]” and buy into “model minority BS.”

In light of recent attacks against Asian-Americans, including a mass shooting in Georgia that left eight people dead, the Lowell Black Student Union removed Collins as a panelist at a Women in Leadership event slated for Thursday. “The Lowell Black Student Union stands with the Asian community and condemns all acts of anti-Asian hate,” the group said.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed did not go as far as to say Collins should resign, but did condemn her comments. “Asian people in this country have long faced very real racism, including here in San Francisco, and you can’t just broad brush their experience in a way that is so harmful and offensive,” she said.

The San Francisco school board tried earlier this year to rename 44 schools named after public figures, including former Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson.",0.9205263237062941
"Fox News host and Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson said Friday that the Chinese dismiss “white liberals” who are “woke” with a derogatory term: “baizuo.”

WATCH:

“The Chinese know our leaders very well. In fact, they have a name for our self-hating class. They call them ‘baizuo’ — the rough translation of the mandarin is ‘white liberal’ and it is definitely not a compliment,” Carlson said on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

“Here’s how Chinese state media describe baizuo,” Tucker began, quoting, “‘They are people who only care about topics such as immigration, minorities, LGBT and the environment, who have no sense of real problems in the real world, who only advocate for peace and equality to satisfy their own feelings of moral superiority and who are so obsessed with political correctness that they tolerate backward Islamic values for the sake of multiculturalism.'” (RELATED: China Targeting US Lawmakers As Part Of ‘Massive Influence Campaign’)

China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi said Thursday the United States should not criticize the way China conducts its domestic affairs because black Americans are “slaughtered” as part of U.S. policy. Yang delivered the rebuke to Secretary of State Antony Blinken in response to U.S. condemnation of China’s persecution of Uyghur Muslims.

“So there you have the Chinese government using Black Lives Matter as a weapon against the United States,” Carlson said, commenting on the exchange. “You have the Chinese lecturing us about human rights. You never thought you would see the day that happened. But the amazing thing is in 2021, it works.”

Carlson said that Chinese state media has criticized woke liberals in America because “they advocate inclusiveness and anti-discrimination but cannot tolerate different opinions. Baizuo political opinions are quote ‘so shallow that they tend to maintain social equality by embracing ideologies that run against the basic concept of equality.’ Amazing.” (RELATED: Report: Alleged Chinese Spy Raised Money For Eric Swalwell, Put Intern In His Office)

The Fox News host noted another description of baizuo as “phony and hypocritical and will make the situation in the West go from bad to worse.”

“Talk about insightful: they know our leaders well,” Carlson said. “So whatever you think of the Chinese, they’re definitely not stupid. And they’re on to something here,” he concluded.",-1.0090723056795845
"A coalition of parents at an elite Ohio private school are calling on the school’s leadership to address a “culture of intimidation” that has scared students and teachers into supporting a “progressive agenda,” or risk being academically and socially penalized.

Amy Gonzalez and Andrea Gross, the founder of the Pro-CA Coalition, told the Daily Caller that they enrolled their children in Columbus Academy because of its outstanding record for academic excellence, which comes at the price of nearly $30,000 per year in tuition.

However, in the past two years, that record has been tarnished by “intimidation, bullying, and intolerance” stemming from “antiracist” initiatives the administration and faculty have spearheaded, the two women said.

“This is the Midwest, the heartland, and cancel culture has arrived,” Gross said. “We’ve just seen a big change in the way the curriculum is going, and we feel that we are fighting a battle for the hearts and minds of our children.”

The two parents launched their group after a “civil disobedience walkout” in January, when they claim the school’s director of diversity and the head of the upper school, which consists of grades 9-12, told students to participate in an exercise where they walked to the school’s field house to show civil disobedience and screamed “silence is violence.” The two women told the Caller that students who weren’t participating in the walkout, which was held on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, would be called racists.

With faculty present at the exercise, students in the field house reportedly shouted “Malcolm X,” “Black Empowerment, and “You are racist,” the two women said.

Gonzelez and Gross said they demanded answers from the school, but didn’t receive meaningful responses. They weren’t the only parents with concerns, either. Soon, they began collecting sworn affidavits from parents and teachers detailing experiences at the school. The affidavits indicate that each individual who signed the document made the statement under oath. (RELATED: REPORT: Largest School District In North Carolina Urges Teachers To Ignore Parents’ Pushback And Teach ‘Antiracism’)

“There are kids so afraid to say anything, they feel they will be canceled by their friends or their teachers because they can’t speak freely,” Gonzalez said about a signed affidavit written on behalf of a student. “It’s not a good learning environment that cultivates critical thinking.”

One of the signed affidavits, dated Feb. 15, says that the school’s director of diversity and community life referred to the school’s history as “110 years of white supremacy” during a Zoom call held in July. “I was told on [the call], the Director of Diversity and Community Life stated we need to increase the black population of students and teachers at [Columbus Academy.] I was told the goal was to have no dominant race,” the document said.

The letter refers to the diversity officer’s claim that the school’s mascot, a Viking, should be removed because Vikings “were white and raped and pillaged.”

In another letter, signed Feb. 17, a parent describes how their daughter “writes papers against her own beliefs and opinions in order to get a good grade from her teachers.”

When the daughter, a sophomore, asked her teacher one day in class to show the conservative perspective on a topic being discussed so as to provide “the other side” of the issue, the teacher replied “you find it then,” according to the affidavit.

“I have been told by [student] that the Upper School teachers and faculty openly discuss their hatred for “Trump” in and out of class,” it continues.

Another student claimed that on the first day of school, an English teacher informed students that if any of them supported President Donald Trump, then the teacher preferred not knowing or else he didn’t believe he could speak with them.

Gonzalez and Gross said the school prioritized a narrow definition of diversity at the expense of students with backgrounds that don’t fit the administration’s vision, including neurodiverse students and Hispanic students.

Gross, who said her daughter has Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), said the school has not made an effort to train teachers to recognize a learning difference, but “they have the money to spend on training our teachers on the history of police.”

In an open letter to the school, the coalition notes an email the school’s diversity director allegedly sent to faculty in July containing a link to a page asking for donations to defund the police. In August, the school allegedly provided training to faculty that included materials by Ibram X. Kendi, who has been cited in numerous “antiracism” training sessions at public schools across the country.

“My child came home and asked about her Grandfather, who is a retired police officer,” one parent shared, according to the coalition letter. “My child asked if he did bad things to black people.”

An affidavit from another parent described the school’s lack of resources for students to learn about Hispanic-Americans, who are also underrepresented at the school, according to the document.

So far, Gonzalez and Gross said they collected between 70 to 100 signed statements describing incidents involving speech or thought suppression at the school, and they plan on collecting more. Their group has grown to hundreds of parents, alumni, teachers, and students. But they also say they’ve received backlash.

“The level of hatred that has come toward Amy and I in particular . . . I had to reach out to the board to make sure my youngest daughter is actually safe,” Gross told the Caller.

Both parents were able to read the signed affidavits in a virtual meeting with the school board, but said that weeks after confronting the school, it has yet to address their concerns.

Columbus Academy told the Daily Caller in a statement that it “strives for an atmosphere of inclusivity and candor that welcomes diverse viewpoints” and was taking the concerns of “these two parents” seriously.

“The school emphatically believes that no student or faculty member in our community should feel marginalized for any reason. As such, the Board of Trustees has taken seriously and reviewed the concerns regarding our school environment from these two parents and has shared the conclusions of its review with our school community.”

Gonzalez and Gross said that unless school leadership addresses their concerns with substantial change, the reputation that made them enthusiastic about being part of the Columbus Academy community could be permanently damaged.

“We need an atmosphere of true inclusion for all our students,” Gross said. “This is not a race thing, this is not a blue or red thing, this is a human thing. We are stripped down to political abstractions and immutable characteristics and we need all students to be valued. Academic excellence is a priority.”",0.7031707159956501
"A group of women have gone viral for all the wrong reasons.

In a video shared by WorldStar.com, a group of women brawled at a terminal in the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. (SLIDESHOW: These Women On Instagram Hate Wearing Clothes)

According to WSVN, the Wednesday fight started because some travelers refused to wear a mask, which resulted in a delay. (SLIDESHOW: 142 Times Josephine Skriver Barely Wore Anything)

Of all the videos you see on the internet today, this will almost certainly be the wildest. (SLIDESHOW: 71 Times Samantha Hoopes Stripped Down)

Folks, what are we doing? Seriously, is this where we’re now at as a society? I don’t care what your opinions are on masks. (SLIDESHOW: This Blonde Bombshell Might Be The Hottest Model On The Internet)

I truly don’t. What I do know is that airports suck. They’re terrible. In order for most of us to get through them, we have to have a steady beer buzz. (SLIDESHOW: 60 Times Abigail Ratchford Wore Almost Nothing)

So, the last thing travelers want to deal with is a gigantic brawl at the gate while we’re waiting to board and leave.

Sure, not wearing a mask and causing the plane to have to empty is absurd and stupid. Escalating the situation to the brawl is arguably much worse.

If you ever find yourself brawling in public as a full grown adult, then you 100% deserve to be thrown in a prison cell.

If you do it in an airport when everyone is already miserable enough, they probably just shouldn’t ever let you go.

Be better. Be much better.",1.039570718164144
"New York Republican Rep. Tom Reed apologized Sunday for inappropriate behavior towards a lobbyist in 2017 and said that he would not run for any elected office at the end of his term.

While Reed, the co-chair of the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus, had previously said that he would serve only a maximum of six terms before retiring, he had also expressed interest in running against embattled New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2022.

Reed’s decision follows a report from The Washington Post Friday where lobbyist Nicolette Davis alleged that the congressman, while drunk, touched her back, unhooked the clasp on a bra, and “inched” his hand up her thigh while in a Minneapolis pub in 2017.

“A drunk congressman is rubbing my back,” Davis texted a friend that evening, according to the Post, adding later, “HELP HELP.”

Reed originally said that her statement was “not accurate,” but said Sunday that he took “full responsibility” for his actions. (RELATED: Biden: Cuomo Should Resign If Sexual Misconduct Allegations Are Confirmed)

“I apologize to Nicolette Davis. Even though I am only hearing of this matter as stated by Ms. Davis in the article now, I hear her voice and will not dismiss her,” Reed said. “Simply put, my behavior caused her pain, showed her disrespect and was unprofessional. I was wrong, I am sorry, and I take full responsibility. I further apologize to my wife and kids, my family, the people of the 23rd District, my colleagues, and those who have supported me for the harm this caused them.”

Reed also said that he was an alcoholic at the time and had entered treatment that year.

“I want to share that this occurred at a time in my life in which I was struggling. Upon entering treatment in 2017, I recognized that I am powerless over alcohol,” Reed said. “I am now approaching four years of that personal lifelong journey of recovery. With the support of my wife, kids and loved ones, professional help, and trust in a higher power, I continue that journey day-by-day. This is in no way an excuse for anything I’ve done. Consistent with my recovery, I publicly take ownership of my past actions, offer this amends and humbly apologize again to Ms. Davis, my wife and kids, loved ones, and to all of you.”

Reed said that he would go forward with the goal of making amends for his past decisions, and encouraged those also struggling to seek help.

“I plan to dedicate my time and attention to making amends for my past actions,” Reed said. “To others who may be struggling the way I have, please know that by seeking help your life will be forever changed in an extremely positive way. Though the journey is hard please know the rewards are amazing and you are worth it.”

“As I go forward,” he added, “I will strive to be a better human being, continue to fight for what I believe in, and to make people’s lives better in any way I can. I hope this formal apology is just the start.”

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.",-0.7685301688471428
"Let’s put it this way: you can never be too prepared. Whether you’re going on your annual camping trip or in an emergency situation, it’s essential you have the right gear with you at all times. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of five survival must-haves. Plus, they’re all made right here in the USA! Be sure to check them out below:

This survival card is small enough to fit into your wallet, yet it contains 17 survival tools! Included with your purchase are items like fishing hooks, sewing needles, tweezers, mini harpoons, a dual-edge fine and medium saw, a pocket knife, and more. Made from stainless steel, you won’t have to worry about these tools corroding.

Get it here for just $21.97!

Handcrafted since 1989, this bushcraft survival kit has everything you need to start a fire. With your purchase, you’ll receive fatwood sticks and dust, a pocket knife, a ferro rod that will last for 1,000+ strikes, a bottle opener, a survival cable and more.

Get it here for only $16.95!

This firestarter allows you to strike up a warm, cozy fire in even the toughest conditions. Each rope can make up to 50 fires, each with approximately a 4.5 hour burn time. What’s awesome about this product is it never expires. That’s right, it has an infitinte shelf life! These firestarters are tested in the Rocky Mountains, some of the roughest conditions in the country. If it can start fires in these harsh conditions, then you’ll be all set!

Get it here for just $39.99!

This survival box includes emergency food and drinking rations just in case you find yourself without access to fresh food and water. This product provides three days worth of food for a single person and has a five year shelf life. Did I mention it’s used by the United States Coast Guard?

Get it here for just $14.53!

This is no ordinary men’s bracelet. While yes, it is quite fashionable, it is also an essential survival tool. Within the contents of this bracelet is a flat-tip, folding pocket knife. The knife can also act as a box opener, screw driver, and more. This product comes in three different colors: black, gold, and silver.

Get it here for only $39.00!

The Daily Caller is devoted to showing you things that you’ll like or find interesting. We do have partnerships with affiliates, so The Daily Caller may get a small share of the revenue from any purchase.",1.857700449765765
"Though cars are now the safest they’ve ever been, you still need to be prepared for the unpredictable. A car accident can happen in the blink of an eye. When panic and shock settle in, it can be difficult to make decisions. That’s why we’ve hand-selected five safety items that will give you peace of mind in stressful situations. Be sure to check them out below:

This car safety tool combines two gadgets in one: a seatbelt cutter and a window smasher. Say you get into a severe accident. Your car is damaged and you’re struggling to get out. This tool will act as a life-saving device. The bright orange color of the tool makes it easy to spot in a frenzy.

Get it here for just $8.80! But hurry, there’s only a few left!

This nine-piece set can be used on any type of car. Whether you have a van, car, or SUV, don’t worry. This kit has got you covered. If you’ve locked yourself out of your car with no way to get back in, there’s a chance you could wait hours for roadside assistance. Don’t wait, get this kit!

Get it here for only $45.99! Save an extra $5.00 when you click here.

This is no ordinary pepper gel. The pepper gel itself can travel 20% farther and is safer than your typical pepper spray. This device also includes a seatbelt cutter and a window breaker for your convenience! If you’re in a jam, this tool will give you peace of mind.

Get it here for just $14.73!

This product is a #1 best seller! Your purchase will come with three LED flares that are highly waterproof and ware-resistant. If you break down on the side of the road or need to signal for help, these lights will effectively do the job. The flares can be seen from up to one mile away so cars will know to slow down in your presence.

Get it here for only $20.99!

This product can easily be stored in a glove box or trunk, as it only weighs half a pound! This first-aid set comes with about 100 pieces of essential safety gear, including band-aids, alcohol pads, scissors, cotton swabs, etc.

Get it here for only $18.99! Hurry, there’s only a few left.

The Daily Caller is devoted to showing you things that you’ll like or find interesting. We do have partnerships with affiliates, so The Daily Caller may get a small share of the revenue from any purchase.",-0.08786612098629287
"Let’s put it this way. You can never be too prepared. Whether you’re simply going on your annual camping trip or in an emergency situation, it’s essential you have the right tools. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of seven survival must-haves. Be sure to check them out below:

This reliable Ferro rod provides up to 20,000 strikes. Listen to what one customer has to say about their purchase:

“This is one of the things in life that cost way more, but are worth it. If this is really needed in an emergency, it would be worth $100 or $1000, so $20+ is cheap in comparison. Worth it!”

Get it here for only $18!

This product is dual purpose. Not only does it act as an emergency blanket, but it can be transformed into a survival shelter! Since it’s made from extra-thick, puncture-proof material, you’ll be provided with the ultimate protection from outdoor elements. Weighing only 4.1 oz, simply store it in your glove box or trunk. Talk about a little product with a big purpose!

Get it here for only $19.95.

This #1 best seller works to restore the edges of dull and damaged pocket knives. This handy little tool can easily fit into your backpack or pocket and also acts as an emergency whistle and fire starter!

Get it here for just $9.95!

Sometimes you end up with wounds that are not deep enough to go to the hospital, but you’d still like to close them so they don’t get infected. That’s where these emergency wound closures come in! This product is designed to reduce scarring by 90% compared to your typical bandaid and is ideal for young children and the elderly.

Get it here for just $36.99!

Safety and protection are priceless. With your purchase, you’ll receive an emergency blanket, a window breaker, a 7-in-1 spork, a wire saw, a paracord bracelet, a tactical knife and pen, a fire starter, a water bottle clip, and a saber card. This kit is sturdy enough to be thrown into your car or stashed in your desk without any wear-and-tear.

Get yours when you click here for just $36.99! That’s a huge discount!

This lightweight sleeping mat is ideal for campers, hikers, and backpackers. Simply blow 10-15 times into the mat and it will be fully inflated! Its patented weld designed makes it durable and long-lasting.

Get it here for just $34.90!

LifeStraws function as a water filter for any after source in the wild. If you’re in an emergency situation, you absolutely need access to fresh, clean water. It’s an essential you cannot live without. This straw removes 99.99% of harmful bacteria from water sources that otherwise may be considered undrinkable. The water filter embedded within this gadget will provide you with 792 fresh gallons of water.

Get a pack of three life-saving straws here for only $49.95!

When you don’t have access to a proper kitchen, you have to make do. This #1 bestseller is perfect for camping, BBQs, tailgating, and any survival situation you can think of. This cooking set allows you to boil water or make a delicious soup! When you get home from your adventure, you can just throw it into the dishwasher since it’s completely dishwasher safe.

Get it here for just $14.97!

These glow sticks are a #1 bestseller. They are waterproof, non-toxic, and emit light up to 12 hours per glow stick! In times of emergency, you’ll be happy you have one of these.

Get it here for just $12.90!

This kit includes 299 pieces of essential first aid gear. This set includes everything from band-aids and ibuprofen to disposable gloves and thermometers.

Get it here for only $18.96!

Even if you’re on a camping trip with limited access to running water, that doesn’t mean you can’t stay clean. These mini soap sheets will definitely come in hand if you’re an avid outdoorsman. This Amazon Choice product can be used on your body, dishes, clothes, you name it! Staying clean while adventuring has never been easier.

Get it here for just $8.80!

To go with the product listed above, you’ll probably need a towel to wash effectively. This compressed hand towel will fully expand when put into water. After it’s expanded, feel free to use this towel to wash up, remove makeup, wash dishes, etc. You’ll be happy when you have this product at your disposal.

Get it here for only $11.99!

The Daily Caller is devoted to showing you things that you’ll like or find interesting. We do have partnerships with affiliates, so The Daily Caller may get a small share of the revenue from any purchase.",0.589443594222846
"Last year when many of the gyms around the country had closed their doors, many of us turned to an at-home workout routine. At-home workout routines can be just as effective as going to the gym if you have the proper gear. From weights to high-end equipment, we’ve rounded up a selection of five exercise products we think you’ll love. Check them out below:

This #1 best seller is resistant up to 2,200 pounds, making it one of the highest density exercise balls on the market. Whether you’re doing your daily exercising routine, stretching, or using this product as your office chair, this exercise is versatile and lightweight for your convenience.

Get it here for as low as $16.99!

Inversion tables are designed to stretch your back muscles in order to relieve pain and pressure. This inversion table, in particular, features a large backrest pad and foam handlebars, providing you with a sense of comfort and stability. If you’re prone to back pain and have not found an effective way to relieve it, you should definitely give this product a try.

Get it here for only $119.99!

Why spend an absurd amount of money on over-the-top exercise bikes when you can purchase the YOSUDA Indoor Stationary Cycling Bike for a fraction of the price? The 35-pound flywheel in the front of the machine will give you the feeling of riding a real bike outside. Plus, the brake pads in this bike are equipped with noise-reducing wool, so you you won’t have to worry about this machine making a ruckus.

Get it here for just $334.99! Save an extra $17 when you click here.

Dubbed “America’s best utility adjustable bench“, this product is made from thick commercial steel that will hold up to 620-pounds. When you’re lifting weights, you need someone thing is sturdy. A flimsy bench simply won’t cut it.

Get it here for only $159.99! That’s down 33% from the original listing price.

The FitBit Versa 3 is a health and fitness smart watch. This unique product has many functions. It monitors your heart rate 24/7, has a built-in GPS, tracks your sleep schedule, and more! This type of watch from FitBit is extremely useful if you, or someone you know, is an avid hiker, cyclist, or runner.

Get it here for $228.95!

The Daily Caller is devoted to showing you things that you’ll like or find interesting. We do have partnerships with affiliates, so The Daily Caller may get a small share of the revenue from any purchase.",-1.479797976897201
"Many of us treat our pets like family. In all honesty, there’s nothing we wouldn’t do to make our pets happy. That’s why we’ve rounded up items we think you and your pet alike will adore! From toys to treats, we’ve got you covered. Be sure to check them out below:

In this dog subscription box, your pup will receive two toys, two treat packages, and one chew treat according to the theme of the month. You’ll never have to run out to the store to get your pet a new toy or tasty treats ever again thanks to this box that gets delivered right to your doorstep!

Get it here for just $35/month!

If you take a look at your pup’s paws, you may notice they’re dry or cracked. Just like we get dry skin, so can dogs! This paw soother is the perfect solution to this issue. Made from a combination of mango butter, carnauba wax, vitamin E, rice bran oil, and sunflower oil, this moisturizing stick will heal your pet’s cracked paws in no time.

Get it here for just $17.95!

These #1 Veterinarian Recommended treats will help your pet stay healthy, thanks to their convenient pill pocket! Greenies understands that many dogs don’t like to take pills, just like some humans! That’s why concealing the pill in a little tiny pocket is a great way to get your pet to take their necessary medication. Plus, your pup will love the scrumptious hickory taste.

Get it here for only $14.98!

Approved for use on most airlines, this pet carrier is a convenient way to bring your pets along wherever you may go! With mesh lining for ventilation and a plush sherpa bed inside the carrier, your pet will surely travel in style with this carrier. Don’t forget, this carrier can only support dogs and cats up to 22 pounds! When I travel with my pup, I use this carry case and she doesn’t make a peep the whole ride! It makes them feel safe and secure while giving us peace of mind.

Get it here for just $55.89!

This #1 Best Seller is plush yet supportive, thanks to its medical-grade orthopedic foam layering. It will help soothe your pet for a deeper night’s sleep, all while increasing air-flow to keep them cool during their rest. This product is perfect for puppies and adult dogs alike.

Get it here for just $34.99!

This Amazon Choice Product will stop your pet from devouring their meals at unhealthy levels. Some dogs consume their meals so quickly, they become victims of obesity, regurgitation, and bloating. This bowl will help slow them down when eating their food. A healthy lifestyle is all about pacing yourself.

Get it here for only $10.76!

The Daily Caller is devoted to showing you things that you’ll like or find interesting. We do have partnerships with affiliates, so The Daily Caller may get a small share of the revenue from any purchase.",1.5400230906723638
"It’s a vital check on majoritarian excess

The Democrats’ campaign to destroy the legislative filibuster is predicated on three questionable claims.

The first is that allowing a 60-vote threshold in the Senate to cut off debate is antiquated, fundamentally undemocratic, and an impediment to progress that facilitates “minority rule” — by which Democrats mean “federalism.” Now that the Democrats have won a narrow, probably fleeting, majority, they want the unfettered ability to compel an entire nation to live under intrusive partisan generational “reform” bills. This brand of majoritarianism is objectively un-American, undermining the proper constitutional limits of the federal government to lord over states and localities. The filibuster …",1.8697753043524739
"It’s a vital check on majoritarian excess

The Democrats’ campaign to destroy the legislative filibuster is predicated on three questionable claims.

The first is that allowing a 60-vote threshold in the Senate to cut off debate is antiquated, fundamentally undemocratic, and an impediment to progress that facilitates “minority rule” — by which Democrats mean “federalism.” Now that the Democrats have won a narrow, probably fleeting, majority, they want the unfettered ability to compel an entire nation to live under intrusive partisan generational “reform” bills. This brand of majoritarianism is objectively un-American, undermining the proper constitutional limits of the federal government to lord over states and localities. The filibuster …",1.5694809693991572
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Rick and Luke examine how The Declaration of the Seneca Falls Convention changed the course of events to bring the principles of liberty to all Americans.,-1.9310398236286943
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",-0.9279810388710286
Rick and Luke examine how The Declaration of the Seneca Falls Convention changed the course of events to bring the principles of liberty to all Americans.,-0.5333541335432899
"(wildpixel/Getty Images)

And it’s getting worse. That’s why we’re asking for your help.

Though there’s no shortage of commentary from the political Left insisting that “cancel culture” is an invention of angry conservatives, the facts tell a different story. Here at National Review, we dedicate much of our work to ensuring that our readers are always up to date on the latest efforts to censor and censure controversial people and ideas — and we need your help so we can keep that work going.

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This calendar year alone, we’ve witnessed almost too many examples to count of prominent figures being “canceled.” Disney star Gina Carano was fired after being criticized for having shared a controversial social-media post. A prominent New York Times journalist — arguably the paper’s leading reporter on the COVID-19 pandemic — was forced to resign after a student accused him of having responded to a question about a racial slur by restating the slur itself.

Seemingly immune to irony, the host of The Bachelor “stepped back” from his position on the show after he came under fire for having suggested that, perhaps, we should hesitate before excommunicating from polite society anyone who has attended a gathering with a costume theme that many of us now find objectionable.

The phenomenon of “cancel culture” isn’t isolated to cases of public figures drawing criticism for controversial comments. Lately, the problem du jour has been books. Without any warning, Amazon ceased selling When Harry Became Sally, a scholarly book by Ryan T. Anderson critiquing the Left’s radical approach to sex, gender identity, and sex-reassignment procedures. Under pressure from senators, the group asserted it would no longer sell books that call those with gender dysphoria “mentally ill” — though Anderson’s book does no such thing.

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A few weeks later, progressives zeroed in on Theodor Seuss Geisel, the children’s author better known as Dr. Seuss, after a public-school district removed several of his books from the list for national Read Across America Day. At least one library chain relocated several of Seuss’s titles from the children’s section to the adult’s, afraid that kids might stumble across the books’ allegedly racially insensitive content.

We live in a time when an increasing number of powerful actors in our culture and our politics believe that free speech is dangerous, that ideas are literally violent, and that controversial or “backwards” notions ought to be silenced. Not only that, but these controlling culture warriors believe they should be the ones who get to determine which thoughts are good and which are bad, who gets to speak their mind in the public square, and who can sell their books in whichever marketplace they wish.

In such a climate, the mission and work of National Review are more valuable and necessary than ever. Even as our writers focus on the growing power of cancel culture in society at large, we are fighting a drawn-out, meritless libel lawsuit against us, aimed at forcing us to close our doors.

We need your help to keep the doors open and the lights on, to continue fending off efforts to silence conservative speech — and free speech at large. We’re immensely grateful for whatever you’re able to contribute.",0.10132092352618062
"Disney has shown, for three-quarters of a year, that it’s possible for Americans to come outside and have fun, even in large groups.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE I t takes only about 30 seconds of exposure to the happiest of viruses — the highly contagious Disney infection — to shed one’s wintry New York cynicism and welcome it. On the flight to Orlando, my older daughter — mature, wise, hilariously sarcastic, weeks away from becoming a teen — held her favorite stuffed animal up to the window so Daisy the deer could share the view. Disney World’s magic brings out the kid in all of us. It even works on kids.

Walt Disney World is a place where families wear matching, themed T-shirts, sullen high-school students take on expressions …",0.16763437130323153
"Dean Phillips (D., Minn.) speaks during a House Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., September 16, 2020. (Stefani Reynolds/Reuters)

Representative Dean Phillips (D., Minn.) has warned against overturning the election results in Iowa’s 2nd congressional district, in a break with House Democratic leadership.

Phillips said that the House should refrain from interfering in that election, where Republican Marianne Miller-Meeks defeated Democratic opponent Rita Hart by a mere six votes.

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“Losing a House election by six votes is painful for Democrats,” Phillips wrote on Twitter on Monday. “But overturning it in the House would be even more painful for America. Just because a majority can, does not mean a majority should.”

Losing a House election by six votes is painful for Democrats. But overturning it in the House would be even more painful for America. Just because a majority can, does not mean a majority should. https://t.co/pXaOYBIMue — Rep. Dean Phillips 🇺🇸 (@RepDeanPhillips) March 22, 2021

Under the Constitution, the House has the power to make the final determination in certain cases of contested elections. Hart appealed to the House to review the results of her race against Miller-Meeks, which was initially certified by the Iowa state board of elections. Hart contends that 22 ballots were improperly disqualified during the elections and that if those ballots were counted, she would win.

The effort to potentially overturn the result of the election is backed by House leadership, Politico reported on Monday. The House has considered 110 similar cases over the past 90 years, but only overturned the results in three instances. Overturning the results would require a vote by the full chamber, where Democrats hold a slim 219-211 majority.

Some Democrats, including Phillips and moderate North Carolina representative David Pryce, are skeptical of the move. Phillips was first elected in 2019 and is the first Democratic representative in his district since 1961.

The effort to overturn the results has also put Democrats in a rhetorical bind following former President Trump’s efforts to discredit the 2020 presidential election and to overturn his defeat. Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, a frequent target of Trump and his allies after certifying President Biden’s victory in the state, criticized Democrats for interfering in the Iowa election on Friday.

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“Georgia’s election workers…sacrificed much in pursuit of free and fair elections,” Raffensperger wrote in an open letter. “In light of what Georgia has gone through in the last few months…I am greatly alarmed that members of Congress would consider overturning the will of the voters as certified by the state, as narrow as it is.”

Send a tip to the news team at NR.",-1.3040976137273903
"More than 40 African American intellectuals are asking Smith College to end the “forced, accusatory ‘anti-bias’ training” that was mandated for campus service workers after a student falsely accused some workers of racially-profiling her.

The letter, obtained by National Review, was sent on Monday to Smith College president Kathleen McCartney by Bob Woodson, a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement and founder of “1776 Unites,” and 44 fellow black intellectuals. The signatories ask McCartney to “rethink how you have handled” the fallout over an alleged incident of racial profiling in the summer of 2018, and urge her to “publicly apologize” and …",-0.09745432485707332
"President Donald Trump holds a campaign event for Republican senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in Valdosta, Ga., December 5, 2020. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

Former President Donald Trump is reportedly planning to launch his own social media platform in the coming months, after being permanently banned from Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms following the Capitol riots in January, an adviser to the former president said Sunday.

Jason Miller, who served as a spokesperson for the 45th president’s 2020 campaign, told Fox News that Trump will be “returning to social media in probably about two or three months” with “his own platform” that will attract “tens of millions” of new users and “completely redefine the game.”

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“This is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media,” Miller told Howard Kurtz on MediaBuzz. “It’s going to completely redefine the game, and everybody is going to be waiting and watching to see what President Trump does, but it will be his own platform.”

Miller said several companies have approached Trump hoping to collaborate on the new platform and that the former president is in talks with teams.

“This new platform is going to be big,” Miller said. “Everyone wants him and he’s going to bring millions and millions — tens of millions — to this platform.”

After a group of pro-Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were all blasted by critics who said the tech companies could have done more to prevent the escalation of violence.

Twitter permanently banned Trump in January citing “the risk of further incitement of violence” after hundreds of Twitter employees demanded in a letter that the platform permanently suspend the account because of Trump’s posts about the Capitol riots.

A social media platform created by the former president could attract Republicans who have rebuked existing social media platforms for allegedly censoring conservative voices. A number of right-wing social media users have moved from mainstream platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to less censored platforms such as Parler and Gab.

Send a tip to the news team at NR.",0.0343568398291608
"Stacey Abrams’s indefensible attack on Georgia voting reforms.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE S tacey Abrams and like-minded progressives are dumbing down Jim Crow.

In a combination of rank demagoguery and misinformation, they accuse Georgia Republicans of instituting changes in election rules worthy of a hideous period of racial repression.

On CNN earlier this month, Abrams said of these changes, “I do absolutely agree that it’s racist. It is a redux of Jim Crow in a suit and tie.”

“The only connection that we can find,” she continued, “is that more people of color voted, and it changed the outcome of elections in a direction that Republicans do not like. And so, instead of celebrating better access …",-1.271882018808237
"Asking legislators to overturn elections is back in fashion again — if you’re a Democrat.

Democrat Rita Hart is petitioning House Democrats to reverse the election of Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks by the people of Iowa’s second district to represent them in the House. The party-line vote to hear Hart’s belated election contest is a revealing blot on the same caucus that just passed a massive expansion of federal power over voting, elections, and political speech, also on a party-line vote.

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Miller-Meeks led by 282 votes when the counting was done on Election Night, but Iowa law allowed mail-in ballots to arrive late if they were postmarked by Election Day, dropping her lead to 47. It shrank to just six votes after the recount was completed at the end of November. Close, but final results sometimes are — which is precisely why we should want elections to be secure and transparent.

Hart could then have gone to court in Iowa, but rather than use the proper legal channels, she decided to wait two months and go instead to the Democratic majority in the House to overrule the recount. She has been represented in this effort by Marc Elias, the Democratic Party’s chief election lawyer, who is essentially asking his own clients to rule in his current client’s favor. The Des Moines Register called in December for Hart to drop her challenge and concede once she refused to subject her challenges to the scrutiny of the Iowa courts.

This should all have ended four months ago, when Hart declined to present her case in court. Instead, taking a page from Donald Trump’s playbook, Hart and Elias want Congress to substitute its own political judgment for the rule of law. The House has the power to judge the election of its members, but Miller-Meeks’s lawyers argued that the House has traditionally required challengers contesting the seating of members to first go through their state’s legal process. Hart didn’t.

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Moreover, as Miller-Meeks notes, Hart’s complaint about the recount using differing standards for recounting ballots in different counties is largely the result of Hart’s own Al Gore-esque decision to consent to machine recounts in Republican-run parts of the state while insisting on hand recounts in Democrat-run areas.

Two months after Miller-Meeks was sworn in, Democrats on the House Administration Committee cast a 6-3 party-line vote to overrule her objections to the inquiry. Asked if she could foresee the Democrats handing the seat to Hart, Nancy Pelosi kept her options open: “I respect the work of the committee. . . . We’ll see where that takes us. There could be a scenario to that extent.”

The people of the second district deserve to be represented in Congress, and to have their choice respected once the legal process for state election contests has been exhausted. Democrats should be ashamed for even calling that into question.",0.28531671078182935
"The vast majority of Americans, including African Americans, support photo-ID requirements for voting.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE R ecently, I went to get my first COVID-19 vaccination. I was impressed by how quickly and efficiently the process in New York City worked.

I also noticed that I had to present my ID twice, verify my address twice, and verify my phone number once. Anyone signing up for the vaccine is warned in advance that he will have to present identification that includes “a driver’s license, passport, or any legal proof of your date of birth and residency.”

Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, also took note of that fact on Twitter: “Why is it …",-2.2779658485308714
"A healthcare worker receives a dose of the Moderna vaccine in San Diego, Calif., December 22, 2020. (Bing Guan/Reuters)

On the menu today: why the national media may not want to look too closely at which states rank at or near the bottom of the vaccination effort — by every measure; AstraZeneca unveils the results of its trial testing among Americans; and U.S. photographers have to go to Mexico to see how the U.S. Customs and Border Protection is treating migrants.

Which States’ Vaccination Programs Are Sputtering?

As I see it, there are three ways a state can say it’s doing a good job in vaccinating its residents in comparison to other states. The first is having a high percentage of the state population that is fully vaccinated — either two shots of either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines, or one shot of Johnson & Johnson. The second is what percentage of the population is partially vaccinated. There’s a school of thought that because the first shots of Moderna and Pfizer give more than half the benefits, it makes more sense to give more people the first shot and deprioritize the second shot until later. (Remember, the first and second shots are the same stuff.)

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The third measuring stick is what percentage of the shots they’ve been allocated have ended up in arms. Even if your state has a large population to work through, states and counties can efficiently get shots into arms as quickly as the doses get delivered and try to avoid backlogs.

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Keep in mind, how many total doses a state receives each week is based upon the state’s population. Yesterday, California governor Gavin Newsom tweeted that his state has administered “more than 14 million doses, nearly 5 more than any other state,” which is true, but California has also received more vaccines from manufacturers than any other state. In fact, California has received 18.8 million doses, so that “more than 14 million” doesn’t look quite so spectacular.

As of this writing, California ranks 30th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia in the percentage of population that has received one shot, at 24 percent. (Keep in mind that eight states are all right around that percentage, so a slight adjustment could get California’s ranking to climb in the low 20s.) They rank 41st out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia in the percentage of population that is fully vaccinated. And California ranks 35th out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia in the percentage of received vaccines that are in people’s arms. Those figures aren’t disastrous or ranking near the bottom, but they’re not particularly good numbers, either.

We should also remember that when measuring by percentage of population vaccinated, less-populated states will have an advantage over larger, more populated states. As I noted a few weeks ago, each time you put shots into the arms of 215,000 adults in Texas, you’ve increased the state’s vaccinated percentage of adults by one percentage point. Each time you put shots into the arms of 215,000 adults in Rhode Island, you’ve increased the state’s vaccinated percentage by 25 percentage points.

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As of this morning, the five states with the highest percentage of their adult populations fully vaccinated are:

Alaska New Mexico South Dakota North Dakota Connecticut

The five states with the lowest percentage of their adult populations fully vaccinated are:

Utah Washington, D.C. Texas Georgia Tennessee

(I included Washington, D.C., in these rankings, but not U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico or allied countries served by the CDC, because those territories’ figures are often way higher or way lower than the other states, suggesting anomalous advantages or disadvantages. For example, tiny Palau has given 46 percent of its population one shot . . . with just 11,804 shots administered. Puerto Rico has administered just 52 percent of its allocated doses, 16 percentage points behind the worst-performing state, Georgia.)

The five states with the highest percentage of their adult populations getting at least one shot:

New Mexico Alaska South Dakota Connecticut North Dakota

The five states with the lowest percentage of their adult populations getting at least one shot:

Georgia Alabama Washington, D.C. Utah Tennessee

The five states with the highest percentage of allocated doses administered:

North Dakota Wisconsin New Mexico Minnesota Massachusetts

The five states with the lowest percentage of allocated doses administered:

Arkansas Washington, D.C. Alabama Tennessee Georgia

You’ll notice that a lot of the states performing well in one category are performing well in others. As usual, this does not fit any partisan’s preferred narrative of red states or blue states uniformly performing better. (Note that some states usually thought of as Democratic, such as Massachusetts, have a Republican governor, and vice versa.) Red southern states such as Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia are ranking near the bottom, but red upper-Midwestern states such as South Dakota and North Dakota are doing well, as is Alaska.

We’re now three months into the vaccination process. Every state and county has had plenty of time to work out the kinks, spot trouble areas in the logistics chain, and get more familiar with the process. Excuses shouldn’t fly anymore.

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This morning, the Associated Press unveiled an analysis contending that states which broadened the eligibility for vaccines early on actually made things worse, because the vaccination programs didn’t have the capacity for the influx of appointment requests. There’s some logic to that argument.

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But there are also some glaring exceptions to that phenomenon. Alaska ranks among the country’s best, and they expanded vaccination eligibility to anyone over the age of 16 back on March 9. Alabama is doing poorly in all of the categories, and they just expanded to age 55 and up today.

That AP analysis contends that “states such as South Carolina, Florida and Missouri that raced ahead of others to offer the vaccine to ever-larger groups of people have vaccinated smaller shares of their population than those that moved more slowly and methodically, such as Hawaii and Connecticut.” None of those (red) states stand out as sterling examples of vaccination rollouts, but they’re not at the bottom, either. Florida ranks 36th in percentage of population with at least one shot, 35th in percentage of a fully vaccinated population, and 40th in percentage of shots used. South Carolina ranks 39th in one-shots and fully vaccinated, and 31st in percentage used. Missouri ranks 40th in one shots given, 43rd in fully vaccinated residents, and 41st in percentage of doses used.

Meanwhile, over at the left-of-center Washington Monthly, Tim Noah wonders if the biggest media institution in the District of Columbia is averting its eyes from a truly subpar vaccination effort.

When I look at the statistics about Covid vaccinations, I feel like we’re back in the Bad Old Days, and I wonder why the Washington Post, even granting its de-emphasis on local news under Jeff Bezos, isn’t reporting to its readers just how comprehensive a failure D.C.’s Covid vaccination effort has been compared to that of other jurisdictions. In many contexts, comparing D.C. to the 50 states puts D.C. at an unfair disadvantage. When looking at statistics about things like poverty and crime, D.C. should be compared to other cities, not states, because in geographic and demographic terms D.C. is a city. But when looking at statistics about Covid vaccinations, comparing D.C. to the states should put D.C. at an advantage. That’s because, compared to the states, D.C. is geographically small (69 square miles) and has a tiny population (about 700,000). By comparison, Rhode Island, the smallest state, is 1,214 square miles, or about 18 times bigger than D.C. Among the states, only Vermont and Wyoming have smaller populations than D.C., and they’re spread over much larger areas—9,623 square miles and 97,105 square miles, respectively. All this means that even when you take into account that D.C. lacks a vote in Congress—yes, I’m for D.C. statehood—it ought to be a lot easier to vaccinate D.C. residents than the residents of any state. Yet, D.C. is lagging almost every state.

The Washington Post recently wrote that statehood for the District of Columbia is now at “the center of the national Democratic agenda.” How likely is it that some D.C. residents and progressives don’t want to talk about the District’s bottom-of-the-rankings performance in vaccine rollout, lest the perception of an incompetent city government undermine the argument for statehood?

AstraZeneca: Hey, Our Vaccine Works Fine on Americans!

Great news from the U.S. trial of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine. Let’s get moving on this, FDA:

The AstraZeneca US Phase III trial of AZD1222 demonstrated statistically significant vaccine efficacy of 79% at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 and 100% efficacy at preventing severe disease and hospitalization. This interim safety and efficacy analysis was based on 32,449 participants accruing 141 symptomatic cases of COVID-19. The trial had a 2:1 randomization of vaccine to placebo. Vaccine efficacy was consistent across ethnicity and age. Notably, in participants aged 65 years and over, vaccine efficacy was 80%. The vaccine was well tolerated, and the independent data safety monitoring board (DSMB) identified no safety concerns related to the vaccine. The DSMB conducted a specific review of thrombotic events, as well as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) with the assistance of an independent neurologist. The DSMB found no increased risk of thrombosis or events characterized by thrombosis among the 21,583 participants receiving at least one dose of the vaccine. The specific search for CVST found no events in this trial.

You hear that, Europe? No increased risk. You guys just sacrificed a couple days’ worth of vaccinations over nothing.

‘Mask Up,’ the Vaccinated Public Officials Declared from Their Car

President Joe Biden is vaccinated. Vice President Kamala Harris is vaccinated.

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Why would they need to wear masks when sitting in a car together? Or is it that they’re sitting in a presidential limousine with an unvaccinated photographer?

“Several hundred” White House staffers were vaccinated in January, shortly after Biden took office. Was the presidential photographer not among them? If he (or she) is going to be in contact with the president and vice president, why not?

President-elect Joe Biden, December 3: “Just 100 days to mask, not forever. One hundred days.”

President Biden, March 15: “Get that vaccine, and even after that, until everyone is in fact vaccinated, to wear this mask.”

ADDENDUM: How thoroughly has the Biden administration cut off media access to Customs and Border Patrol operations? To get photographs of how migrants are being treated while in U.S. custody, American media photographers need to travel into Mexico and use long telephoto lenses from the other side! Getty Images photographer John Moore:

I respectfully ask US Customs and Border Protection to stop blocking media access to their border operations. I have photographed CBP under Bush, Obama and Trump but now — zero access is granted to media. These long lens images taken from the Mexican side.",0.34744768269571336
"Coronavirus vaccine vials displaying the Johnson & Johnson logo, February 9, 2021 (Dado Ruvic/Reuters)

Politico reports that three weeks after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, “2.3 million of the 4.3 million doses of the vaccine delivered have actually been administered.” That’s an abysmally disappointing 53.4 percent.

And, much like in the early weeks of the Moderna and Pfizer shots, no one is entirely sure what the holdup is.

Over the course of the last two weeks, senior Biden administration officials have met privately to try and determine what happened. Two senior administration officials believe states are conserving their J&J supplies until there’s enough to reach underserved communities and specific groups, like teachers or the disabled. But multiple state officials say they’re using whatever they get as soon as they get it.

The notion of “conserving their J&J supplies until there’s enough to reach underserved communities and specific groups, like teachers or the disabled” makes no sense. You don’t reach underserved communities, or anyone, if you’re not using the doses. If you want to vaccinate more teachers or the disabled, open up the vaccination appointments to teachers or the disabled. Open up more sites. Operate them longer hours. Figure out where your target population is most densely clustered and bring the vaccine to that spot.

There is absolutely no public-health advantage to waiting around and stockpiling vaccine doses to be used sometime down the road. Why is this so difficult to grasp?

Overall, as of this morning, the United States has administered 79 percent of the vaccines distributed to states. That’s not bad, but not great, either. It’s been as low as 74 percent and as high as 83.9 percent, and that’s just in a week’s span in late February. States are thankfully getting shots into arms faster — we’re close to averaging 2.5 million doses administered per day — but the vaccine manufacturers are going gangbusters in production and delivery: “The U.S. monthly output for the three authorized vaccines is expected to reach 132 million doses for March, nearly triple the 48 million in February.”

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Many conservatives will notice that the private sector, in charge of inventing and manufacturing the vaccines and delivering them to states, is doing a terrific job. The public sector, in charge of actually getting the vaccine doses into arms . . . is very hit-and-miss.",0.5024150403628236
"(Nastco/Getty Images)

The cause of National Review — and it is that, a cause — is a thing of true consequence and impact and meaning. But from the financial perspective, it is also a thing of great deficit. Many readers understand this is the fate of opinion magazines and websites. Many don’t. As things that produce and market controversy, opinion magazines are anathema to your typical advertiser. Minus the reliance on Sugar Daddies or billionaire owners, an institution such as ours must depend on the kindness, generosity, and selflessness of a broad base, of many people of good will.

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And so our current webathon — contrived, as these things are, to help alleviate the staggering annual deficit that is part and parcel of this journalistic mission and business of defending our principles, this being done through your participation — seeks to raise ample funds to offset these deficits.

Ample — what is that? We initially set a goal for this webathon of $250,000. It is not reflective of our reality — and the reality is seven figures, the kind that come with two commas, and all that before the decimal point. That is the annual fiscal difficulty with which we battle, and, with your help, surmount. Think about that problem, and then layer onto it the legal costs of this crazed suit from Michael Mann. It too has cost seven figures to our insurer, and many additional hundreds of thousands of dollars above and beyond that to NR. And there are still bills incoming. And, though we received wonderful news about this case on Friday, we are confident that there will be more bills to pay. There is, after all, a limit to insurance.

We have revised our goal to $350,000 — which sounds a speck more achievable than the daunting reality of $1,000,000, no? Our needs are more in line with the latter, but let us focus on the former — since this effort began on March 8, we have been the beneficiary of 2,325 donations, totaling $267,422. Which means in this campaign’s upcoming final week, we hope to raise an additional $87,000 or thereabouts. And if that happens, it will indeed be a great achievement — but it will also be nowhere near to NR’s real needs.

But let us admit: The kindness sent us these past two weeks means that this has already been a great achievement. The amount, yes, and also the love and inspiration that attend the gifts. Here are a few examples:

Tom makes kindly with $50 and utters: “NR was a favorite of mine in college, when Buckley was the face of U.S. conservatism. In those days, the 1960s, one could discuss differences, not just yell them. I could even study under a conservative professor (Morgenthau) and a liberal (Herman Finer) without being cast into the sea. I rarely agree with anyone on The Right these days but the freedom to say whatever you believe isn’t negotiable. Who knows, enough speech might produce something of lasting value.” Love this Tom, and thanks.

Jennifer finds 100 bucks for us, and tells a tale: “NR has been my intellectual lifeline ever since I found Up from Liberalism in my school library in the tenth grade. Sooooo many years ago. Keep up the fight and maybe (if not just now) somewhere down the road the same kind of resource may be available to high-school sophomores of another generation.” Amen, Amen. Thanks, Jennifer.

Ron sends along $100 and explains why: “Combat vet who fought a war 50 years ago to stop these kinds of people. Yet they are now in our Congress. The war isn’t over.” It’s an honor to fight it alongside you, Ron.

Betty offers a Twenty and explains her addiction: “I simply cannot manage without NR. My small contribution is but a cheer for the brilliance and hope I count on every day from your many sources. I also appreciate those who are the actual BIG contributors . . . thank you, thank you for your generosity, we must thwart vile censorship, we must live and speak free. WIN BIGLY! Betty you are one gracious lady.

Trent tenders $50, and anxiety: “I feel like I’m living in the time of the Spanish Inquisition, the Puritan witch trials; the Nazi book burnings, the Chinese ‘Cultural Revolution.’ What’s going on in our country is sheer insanity. There has to be a voice of reason.” You sound pretty reasonable yourself. It matches your selflessness.

Joshua offer a repeat $50, and encouragement: “Recently I contributed $50 towards your campaign to defend this outstanding publication. It is my hope that you will use this $50 to pursue Michael Mann, and his enablers, to recover all fees, costs, and expenses incurred in your defense of his baseless lawsuit. For nearly 30 years NR has enlightened and entertained me, and been a beacon of sanity in a world that seems to get less sane every day. God bless.” He has, with you!

Laurie donates a sweet $100 and gives a marketing perspective: “A lot of people CAN SELL the CANCEL culture but we don’t have to buy. Thank you NR for fighting the good fight! I’m very grateful and behind you all the way. I learn so much every day reading all the brilliant articles from your talented writers. Know that you are educating the world one day at a time!” None of that happens minus comrades like you, Laurie.

Charles spots us $100 and his sentiment reflects those of many others: “This Mann lawsuit is (near) the height of ridiculous. I am sorry for the trouble and encourage National Review to keep speaking loudly against incompetence and fraud and in favor of improving the lives of all peoples.” Damn straight, amigo. Thanks.

to keep speaking loudly against incompetence and fraud and in favor of improving the lives of all peoples.” Damn straight, amigo. Thanks. John spots us a C-Note and a rumination: “I thought I ought to close out the week and herald the arrival of the spring by reaffirming my support for the valuable work that National Review does. Thank you for keeping your pages open to all strains of right-leaning thought, at a time when so many other outlets have instituted a ‘you’re either with our guy or against us’ editorial attitude. If the GOP and other conservative institutions are going to survive in the present climate, it will be the big tent approach embodied by NR which will lead the way.” You are a blessing on us, John.

Please help us reach our goal, especially if you are a regular reader who has always walked up to the brink of donating but never hit the button. Betty is right: You’re only able to read NR today because many others donated before, selflessly, because they knew it was important for NR to survive and thrive, the economics be darned. If it’s your turn to step up, well, please step. Whatever you can afford, whether $20 or $50 or $100 or even $1,000, donate here. Many have sent donations by check, and if that suits you, then please make yours payable to “National Review” and mail it to: National Review, ATTN: Webathon, 19 West 44th Street, Suite 1701, New York, N.Y., 10036. Thanks so very much.",-1.8561979131535136
"(Matt Anderson/Getty Images)

Progressive complaints about the upper chamber fundamentally misunderstand the role it was meant to play in our constitutional order.

Frustrated by their narrow majority in Congress, progressives have begun to take their ire out on the legislative branch itself. They claim that the filibuster — the Senate rule that requires a three-fifths vote to end debate — has been abused by Republicans and is a vestige of racism. Never mind that Democrats have made ample use of the filibuster in recent years, most recently to block South Carolina senator Tim Scott’s police-reform legislation from even being considered.

Yet some progressives who get paid to write about politics are thinking bigger: The Senate itself is the problem! It is insufficiently democratic! Ezra Klein spoke for many on the left when he tweeted:

If Democrats won Senate seats roughly in proportion to how many people voted for Democrats to win Senate seats this would all look very different. The “center” of the Senate is well to the right of the center of the country. And today is the result.

Here, there is a temptation for conservative defenders of our constitutional order to roll their eyes and leave it at that. After all, the Left has been complaining about the Constitution since the Left as we know it came into being: Woodrow Wilson was lamenting that our system is insufficiently British all the way back in the 1880s. And whining about the Senate is especially idle, since the equal apportionment of senators is literally the one constitutional provision that cannot be changed by amendment.

What’s more, one might be forgiven for assuming progressives are upset that the Senate is insufficiently Democratic, rather than democratic. They did not, as far as I can recall, have any complaints about the upper chamber between 2011 and 2015, when Democrats controlled it. And there was certainly no talk of abolishing the filibuster in 2017 or 2018, when Republicans had control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, and the filibuster was the only toehold on power Democrats retained.

Nevertheless, there is a teachable moment here: The Senate does not really require us to defend it, but a defense nevertheless can remind us of some brilliant, and distinctly American, political ideas.

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At first glance, the American Congress appears to be indefensible on an intellectual level. Indeed, one can go back to the anti-Federalist writings of 1787 and 1788 to see opponents of the Constitution reject the partly federal, partly national nature of the institution. The dissenting delegates to the Pennsylvania ratifying convention of 1787 denounced Congress as a “solecism in politics” — a contradiction in terms. James Madison’s Federalist entries on the general subject of federalism are well argued, but his defense of equal apportionment in the Senate is a little forced, and for good reason — he vehemently opposed the idea at the Constitutional Convention. No delegate came into the Convention with a plan to build Congress as it was actually built, so the institution is reminiscent of the old saw that a camel is a horse designed by a committee.

But looks can be deceiving. A closer examination reveals colorful details about the Convention, especially the genius of the “small-state nationalists.” John Dickinson of Delaware and Oliver Ellsworth and Roger Sherman of Connecticut were as committed to a stronger national government as any of the delegates. Indeed, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Delaware all sent their best men to the meeting. They wanted the country to succeed. They knew that it was failing in that moment, and that only a new instrument of government would save it. But they were not willing to allow their states to be swallowed up by a potential Massachusetts-Pennsylvania-Virginia axis. Those three states were so large that they could essentially get whatever they wanted in a strictly democratic system of government.

Delegates from those states, especially Madison of Virginia and James Wilson of Pennsylvania, assured the small-state nationalists that they had nothing to fear: The large states were so diverse that they could never possibly agree on anything, and anyway, the only proper model of republican government is the rule of the majority. Yet the small-state delegates persisted, and who could blame them? They could not in good conscience go back home and present a constitution that threatened their constituents’ existences.

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Though the small-staters were unyielding in their demands, they did not abandon the constitutional project. They stayed and worked through their disagreements — despite the fact that they were increasingly angry, and it was very, very hot in Philadelphia that summer. Ultimately, they embraced the compromise first suggested by Sherman — a House apportioned by population and a Senate apportioned equally. And in so doing, they found something more noble than majority rule: a form of consensus that would become the great bulwark of the American union.

It is naïve to think the rule of a simple majority is not potentially dangerous. In a purely democratic system, there is nothing to stop a majority from doing whatever it wants, and if it wants to enrich itself at your expense, you are without recourse. There is no king to protect you, no House of Lords to temper the majority’s greed or avarice. Nothing. But what if a majority were broad, deep, and durable? What if it reflected the considered judgment of a large and diverse segment of the American population, rather than just over 50 percent of the people? Such a majority would represent the consensus view of the American people, a common sentiment that is shared by many. So long as the American people collectively possessed a measure of civic virtue, such a majority could safely govern. There would still be a chance, of course, that it could threaten the common interest or an individual’s natural rights, but the threat would no doubt be diminished.

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All of the deviations from direct democracy in the American system — Sherman’s representation scheme, the separation of powers across branches, federalism, bicameralism, the unelected judiciary, even the Bill of Rights — require us to forge consensus as a prelude to government action. They force we the people to pause before we act, to consider the views of others, and to try to find common ground.

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The United States Senate is perhaps the greatest institution of consensus ever designed. Part of this is due to the influence of the Roman republic on the minds of the Founders, which led them to envision the Senate as an elite body, separated from public passions, whose function was to give legislation a second look. But part of it is also due to the apparent obstinacy of Sherman et al. For in a continent-spanning republic, geographical place must be considered when forging consensus.

Madison’s rejection of the small-state argument was empirically accurate in 1787, when America was mainly a land filled with yeomen farmers, but history would vindicate the worries of Dickinson, Ellsworth, and Sherman. Though there was no conceivable alliance to be forged among the large states in 1787, the Industrial Revolution created new social and economic cleavages — urban versus rural, factory versus farm, city versus town — that set the large against the small. Sure, the small states of 1787 might not have been swallowed up by the large states, but could the same be said for the small states of 1817 or 1847 or 1877? Of course not. And why should we have expected western settlers to yield to a distant government into which they could provide no meaningful input, even on matters essential to their interests? After all, the American colonists in 1776 revolted against such a regime. Indeed, there were worries in the 1780s that settlers west of the Appalachian Mountains might be lured away by the Spanish or British.

Instead, we expanded rapidly westward before and after the Civil War, and our union held together because the interests of small states were incorporated into the decision-making process — thanks to the Senate. Therein lies the genius of the institution: By ensuring that the consensus has to take account of place, it facilitates the national republic that we enjoy today. It is easy to take that republic for granted. It is easy to imagine we could alter fundamental aspects of our system and still have the same country. But it is a dangerous fantasy. Were it not for the equal apportionment of senators, we would probably not even be a country today, and all the blessings of this union would be lost.

So, no, the Senate isn’t democratic. But thanks to Roger Sherman and the small-state nationalists, it is something much, much better: a force for consensus-building and national cohesion.",-0.6463362553815714
"Ranking Member Senator Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) questions Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett during her confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill, in Washington, D.C., October 14, 2020. (Bonnie Cash/Pool via Reuters)

On Thursday, as reported by John McCormack, California Senator Dianne Feinstein was holding firm in her support for the filibuster:

Despite being under constant pressure from the left, Feinstein has not yet changed her mind. Asked Thursday if she supports the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, Feinstein told National Review: “I do right now, yes.” Feinstein added that she’s “looking at” her Democratic colleagues’ proposals to change the filibuster and thinks the Democratic caucus’s “discussion is good. I think we’re all listening to one another.” “The Senate is an institution, and this is part of that institution,” Feinstein said of the filibuster. “It’s there and you deal with it, and you find you can deal with it. So, changing it, you have to think: What are the ramifications for the institution?” Is there anything Senate Republicans could do to get Feinstein to change the rule to 51 votes? “I haven’t gone that far in my thinking, because I just know that votes aren’t there to do it,” she replied.

Yet it appears that the pressure from the Left that John alluded to may finally be hitting pay dirt.

On Friday, just a day after her remarks to National Review, Feinstein released a statement saying she was open to changing the filibuster:

I have tried for years to pass legislation in these areas. This month the House passed bills to improve background checks for gun purchases and reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, among other key legislation. Ideally the Senate can reach bipartisan agreement on those issues, as well as on a voting rights bill. But if that proves impossible and Republicans continue to abuse the filibuster by requiring cloture votes, I’m open to changing the way the Senate filibuster rules are used. President Biden this week suggested returning to a talking filibuster so opponents of a bill must speak on the Senate floor and explain their opposition. That is an idea worth discussing. I don’t want to turn away from Senate traditions, but I also don’t believe one party should be able to prevent votes on important bills by abusing the filibuster.

It’s worth noting the broader context that Feinstein has been under fire from progressives for years as her party and home state have moved even further to the left. Just recently, she was forced to give up her post as the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee for the crime of being too nice to Amy Coney Barrett during last year’s confirmation hearing. Activists are itching for the 87-year-old senator to retire so they can replace her with somebody further to the Left who more closely reflects where California is at.",0.20787279925060323
"Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) holds a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., March 16, 2021. (Kevin Dietsch/Pool via Reuters)

Didn’t they learn their lesson the last time?

There’s nothing that ails Joe Biden’s agenda, we are supposed to believe, that ending the filibuster wouldn’t fix.

President Joe Biden showed a little leg on changing the filibuster in an ABC News interview, while almost every Senate Democrat wants to ditch it. Even Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who still supports the filibuster, said a couple of weeks ago that resorting to it should be more “painful.”

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Senate Democrats probably remain a few votes shy of really being able to trash the filibuster, which would require the support of every Democrat (plus Vice President Kamala Harris as the 51st vote), but they are steadily talking themselves into curtailing or abolishing the filibuster as a political and moral necessity.

This would be a mistake, both for the institution of the Senate and for the narrow partisan interests of the Democrats.

One would think that the experience the party had the last time it took a hatchet to the filibuster would warn it off any repeat.

In 2013, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blew up the filibuster for most presidential nominations. No longer would it take a cloture vote passed with the support of 60 senators to confirm nominees, rather a simple majority. Reid did this against the warnings of then-Minority Leader Mitch McConnell because he and the Democrats had worked themselves into a lather to confirm President Barack Obama’s nominees to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

It’s a cliché for senators who support the filibuster to say that control of the body inevitably changes, but it’s true. Today’s triumphant, inflamed majority tempted to ditch the filibuster is tomorrow’s embattled, desperate minority using it to wield influence that it otherwise wouldn’t have.

Three years after Reid’s move, McConnell was using it to render Democrats bystanders as he transformed the federal judiciary. President Donald Trump got about as many nominees on federal appellate courts in four years as Obama did in eight.

Democrats, including Chuck Schumer, said they regretted what Reid had done, although Schumer has now apparently gotten over it.

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If the rules around the filibuster have changed over time, the basic practice dates from the beginning of the Senate. The tactic got its name in the mid-19th century and has remained part of the identity of the Senate ever since.

There is now an effort to brand the filibuster as inherently an instrument of hatred and repression. The filibusters of civil-rights legislation in the mid-20th century are justly notorious, but the tactic has often been used to progressive ends, most recently thwarting as much of Trump’s legislative agenda as possible.

Back in 2017, more than 30 Senate Democrats, including Kamala Harris, signed a letter urging that the tactic be preserved. Of course, Biden himself has long favored it. As late as last year, he was saying that ending the filibuster would be “a very dangerous move.”

Democrats have changed their tune now, obviously, because they control the Senate. But the timing still isn’t propitious for them. It’s not as though the Democrats have a robust majority. They have the slightest advantage, thanks to Harris, in a 50-50 Senate. An unexpected retirement or illness could put their control in jeopardy, and it’s hardly a guarantee they will hold the majority after 2022.

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Even if they ended the filibuster tomorrow, it’s not clear that their most prized priorities, such as the H.R. 1 voting bill, could even get 50 votes to pass.

Biden and Manchin are flirting with the idea of restoring the “talking filibuster,” which would require senators to hold the floor to keep up a filibuster. This makes even less sense. A return to the talking filibuster would allow Republicans to eat up more of the Senate’s time and soak up cable-TV and social-media attention in the bargain.

Despite all of this, Democrats may eventually persuade themselves to move against the filibuster anyway — and, once again, experience momentary satisfaction and lasting regret.

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© 2021 by King Features Syndicate",0.14619344048718583
"U.S. soldiers conduct a joint foot patrol with Canadian and Afghan National Army troops in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, in 2009. (Omar Sobhani/Reuters)

A response to Bing West.

In his National Review article “Three Wars, No Victory — Why?” (February 18, 2021), Bing West, my former colleague at the Pentagon and the Naval War College, lays out a compelling case for why the U.S. — which he argues is the most powerful country in the history of the world — has lost the three major wars it has fought over the past 50 years: Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Bing divides blame for each of these losses among three hubs — namely, the military, the policy-makers, and the popular mood among the people of the country. He argues correctly that the policy hub, or the policy-makers, were primarily responsible for the failures.

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While I have some experience in each of these conflicts, having served in Vietnam and having visited Iraq three times and Afghanistan once, it does not match that of Bing, who is one of the bravest people I have ever known. However, I still believe that he presents a sometimes incomplete and misleading picture of why we lost these three wars.

For example, in analyzing the Vietnam disaster, he ignores the fact that the war was fought under false pretenses. President Johnson received congressional authorization in 1964 to begin the massive escalation in Vietnam in response to an alleged attack by the North Vietnamese on an American ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. But, even before the congressional investigation, it was clear to any experienced naval officer that what the administration claimed had happened was bogus. I remember my commanding officer in VP-1, who had flown combat missions in World War II and Korea, telling us that the attacks did not happen the way it was claimed. This was something that Vice Admiral James Stockdale, who was Bing’s and my boss at the War College and who received a medal of honor for his courage as a POW in Vietnam and who was in the area at the time, also affirmed. As did a naval officer who convinced Senator Wayne Morris (D., Ore.) to become one of the two senators who voted against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. (Both lost their next election.). When this came to light, it also increased opposition to the war among the American people.

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Another reason we failed in Vietnam is that the war was never winnable in the first place. Bing argues that our poor military strategy from 1965 to 1968, bad policy decisions, and the popular mood doomed the Vietnam War. These factors played a role, but in truth only heightened an already existing reality — a reality made clear to me in 1966, when my colleagues and I got lost coming back from a meeting with SWIFT-boat officers in the northern part of Cameron Bay, South Vietnam. As we rode around aimlessly trying to find our way back to our base, we came upon a Catholic monastery. A priest there gave us directions and fed us. But as we were leaving, one of the monks asked me in French (which I had studied in school) why we thought we were going to make out any better in Vietnam than the French. President Eisenhower was conscious of this when he refused to bail out the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, even though most of his national-security advisers, including then–Vice President Nixon and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Radford, recommended it. But Army chief of staff General Matthew Ridgway, who prevented us from losing in Korea, helped convince Eisenhower not to intervene, because he, like the monks I met, believed Vietnam was unwinnable.

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Similarly, the majority of the American people turned against the war in Vietnam not just because there was a draft, as Bing correctly points out, but because of how the privileged were able to avoid the draft, thus leaving it to the lower class to bear most of the burden. For example, the four most recent presidents who could have served in Vietnam avoided that war and the draft by dubious means. Bill Clinton pretended to join the Army ROTC; George W. Bush used political connections to get into the Air National Guard, when President Johnson made it clear that the reserve component would not be activated to fight the war; Donald Trump, of course, had his family physician claim he had bone spurs, (Trump himself cannot remember which foot); and Joe Biden claimed that the asthma he had in high school prevented him from serving even though he brags about his athletic exploits while in high school.

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Similarly, in his analysis of why we did not win in Iraq, Bing ignores the fact that the Bush administration got the U.S. into war falsely claiming that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, in criticizing the Obama administration for withdrawing from Iraq in 2011, Bing ignores the fact that Obama had no choice. He did this because in 2008 the Iraqi government, which we had helped install, made it clear to us that it would not sign a Status of Forces Agreement unless we agreed to withdraw completely by the end of 2011.

I saw this firsthand when I worked in the Obama campaign and in the summer of 2008 met with Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister. When I asked him about the agreement to withdraw, he told me it was a non-negotiable demand. When I relayed this to Denis McDonough, who was on the campaign trail with Obama and eventually became his chief of staff, he was surprised and asked me if I was certain about what I heard. In 2009, while on a visit to Iraq, I brought this up with several Iraqi government officials in the parliament and the executive branch and received the same answer. Finally, in December 2011, when Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki came to Washington to finalize the deal, I and several others, including Obama’s first national-security adviser General David Jones and future Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, met with him. I asked him directly if there was anything President Obama could have done to keep the troops in Iraq. He essentially said that Bush made an agreement and the U.S. must stick to it. At the meeting, Jones said Obama was willing to leave 10,000 troops.

Bing also ignores the fact that the Bush administration never publicly or privately praised Iran for its help in Afghanistan but actually publicly criticized that nation. I saw this myself. On 9/11, I was working at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. After the attacks, the Iranian ambassador to the U.N. invited me to dinner and told me to let our government know that Iran detested the Taliban and would be willing to help us in Afghanistan. I relayed this to the Bush administration, and Bush’s representative to the Bonn Conference in December 2001, which established the Karzai government, told me that the Bush administration would not have succeeded without the Iranians. Iran’s reward? In early 2002, Bush put the country on the axis of evil. It is an understatement to say that as a result Iran no longer played a positive role in the region.

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Finally, in his Afghanistan analysis, while Bing correctly points out that our military could never transform Afghanistan, he is wrong to argue that we should remain indefinitely in the country to avoid damaging our reputation. Many who fought in this 20-year war already believe our reputation is damaged and want us to leave before it is damaged further. Sunk-costs logic should not apply here.

How bad will it be if we agree to leave on May 1, as Trump agreed to, and the Taliban takes over, especially for women? When I visited Afghanistan in 2011, I asked a Taliban official how they would treat women if or when they took over. He told me not to worry — that they would not treat them any worse than our allies, the Saudis.

Bing’s article should be read by all those who believe that the U.S. can develop and sustain democracies by using military power. However, they should keep in mind that there are some other factors that also play into this decision.",-1.0185631133723685
"U.S. soldiers attend welcoming ceremony for NATO troops near Orzysz, Poland, in 2017. (Kacper Pempel/Reuters)

The accusation that the military is full of racists and extremists is false, and damaging.

During the 1960s and ’70s, those of us who fought in Vietnam became accustomed to having many of our fellow countrymen slander us as, at best, victims of a government that sent its poor to fight a criminal war and, at worst, war criminals ourselves, complicit in the routine commitment of atrocities. But the pendulum began to swing back the other way in the 1980s, and continued in the same direction through the Gulf War and 9/11 until, by the time of George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers had been elevated to the status of “secular saints.”

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My fellow Vietnam veterans and I would no doubt have preferred such reverence to the chilly reception we received after the war, but secular sainthood has created its own set of problems — isolation from American society at large, unequal burden sharing, and a belief in the moral superiority of those who serve over those who haven’t — that threaten to undermine the bond between service members and veterans on the one hand and American society at large on the other. After all, healthy civil-military relations depend on mutual trust between soldiers and the society they serve.

Now, the pendulum seems to be swinging back to the bad old days of slandering the military, as part of broader claims that Donald Trump normalized “white supremacy” and other forms of right-wing extremism. The fact that there were veterans among the rioters who unlawfully entered the Capitol on January 6, the persistent claim that Trump appealed to extremist groups, and Trump’s popularity with the military form the basis for proliferating allegations that the military has become a friend to racism and extremism.

Indeed, some have even raised the specter of active duty and National Guard troops constituting an “insider threat.” For example, Representative Steve Cohen (D., Tenn.) told CNN that:

The [National] Guard is 90-some-odd percent, I believe, male. Only about 20 percent of white males voted for Biden. You gotta figure that in the Guard, which is predominantly more conservative, and I see that on my social media . . . they’re probably not more than 25 percent of the people that are there protecting us who voted for Biden. . . . The other 75 percent are in the class that would be the large class of folks who might want to do something. And there were military people and police who took oaths to defend the Constitution and to protect and defend who didn’t do it who were in the insurrection. So, it does concern me.

Cohen added that people on social media had referenced and reminded him of the assassination of then-Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981.

Responding to a question about white supremacy during his CNN Town Hall on February 16, President Biden said:

I would make sure that my Justice Department and the Civil Rights Division is focused heavily on those very folks, and I would make sure that we, in fact, focus on how to deal with the rise of white supremacy. And you see what’s happening, the studies that are beginning to be done, maybe at your university as well, about the impact of former military, former police officers, on — on the growth of white supremacy in some of these groups.

To address concerns about extremism in the ranks of the military, Biden’s secretary of defense, retired Army general Lloyd Austin, has called for a “stand down” across the force to address the issue. “I really and truly believe that 99.9 percent of our servicemen and -women believe in [their] oath. They believe, embrace the values that we are focused on, and they’re doing the right things,” Secretary Austin said on February 19. “I expect for the numbers [of extremists in the ranks] to be small, but quite frankly, they’ll probably be a little bit larger than most of us would guess. . . . But I would just say that, you know, small numbers, in this case, can have an outsized impact.”

But Kash Patel, the former chief of staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, argued that the problem has been overstated. “They have self-admitted that the problem doesn’t exist, to their knowledge, and that’s because it doesn’t,” Patel said on Fox News:

White supremacy is not rampant throughout the Department of Defense. That is outrageous and offensive to our men and women in uniform. . . . The Biden Pentagon is trading in politics instead of logic and fact. . . . Their own spokesperson and their own secretary of defense, they have said they do not know the problem and whether it exists. They don’t have a name for it. They don’t have a solution for it. But they’re going to label it anyway.

There is indeed a “real problem”; it’s just not the one people are talking about. It is instead that political and military leaders have failed to define their terms.

Racism vs. Racial Prejudice

Let me be clear: There have been serious racial incidents involving military service members in the past, and military leaders were quick to deal with the perpetrators appropriately. But the idea that racism is somehow pervasive in the military is nonsense.

The problem with this latest campaign is that most of the recent claims about racism in the military conflate true racism and white supremacy on the one hand and racial prejudice on the other.

The former has traditionally referred to membership in, or sympathy with, the KKK, neo-Nazis, skinheads, or other groups that preach violence. The U.S. military has long been vigilant about the possibility of extremist groups taking advantage of military training to advance their own goals. Background checks have always been a part of the recruitment and enlistment processes. And the services have been quick to separate individuals whose background checks raise red flags.

The latter is a manifestation of what both Plato and Aristotle called “love of one’s own,” a feature of human nature. The Greeks preferred their ways to those of the Persians. The Athenians preferred their own laws to those of the Spartans. All humans prefer their own families and communities to others’.

Racial prejudice arises from generalizations about other racial groups, and is not unique to any one group. It has been my own experience that military service undermines such prejudice. Because service members learn to work toward a common goal with others from different backgrounds, the service often teaches them to rise above their preexisting prejudices.

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It is also the case that although the services reflect the racial attitudes of Americans at large, they have done well in overcoming racial problems. As the late military sociologist Charles Moskos observed a quarter-century ago, the United States Army is the only American institution in which black men routinely give orders to white men. The military is, by necessity, a meritocracy, which gives it a leg up on other institutions in grappling with the problem of prejudice.

Extremism

Although extremism and racism overlap in many cases, they are different phenomena. In the current debate, “extremism” apparently does not include the groups that instigated mayhem across America in the summer of 2020, rioting, looting, and committing arson. The media has persisted in representing those groups as “peaceful protesters,” and since peaceful protesters can’t be extremists, the term is reserved for right-wing militia groups and the like.

But even when one confines the discussion to one side of the political aisle, where does one draw the line? Is supporting the Second Amendment or advocating smaller and less intrusive government “extremist”? Is a service member or veteran who supported President Trump an extremist? Is it extremist to be skeptical of the single-minded quest for “diversity”? Ironically, the military’s attempts to address an alleged lack of diversity in the ranks, like all identity politics, risks dividing people rather than unifying them by suggesting that justice is a function of attributes such as skin color rather than individual character. In the military, where institutional effectiveness depends on cohesion born of trust between and among service members, this is a serious problem.

Undermining Trust

Thus, the claim that extremism and white supremacy are widespread in the military undermines trust on two levels: First, between the American people and the military as an institution; and second, between the military rank-and-file on the one hand and their leaders on the other.

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Americans hold the military in high regard, perhaps too high. But if civilians have tended to place members of the military on a pedestal, implying that extremism and white supremacy are rampant in the military can only engender civilian disrespect for the armed forces and lead to unjust condemnation. This, needless to say, does not bode well for healthy civil-military relations.

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Regarding trust within the force, what is the rank-and-file soldier to think when both politicians and especially senior officers seem to suggest that supporting President Trump or traditionally conservative ideas such as gun rights and smaller, less intrusive government might make him or her a threat to the country? What will be the consequences for morale and discipline if the ranks believe that senior leaders have sold them out by their apparent willingness to go along with such accusations?

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I am personally aware of increasing disillusionment on the part of service members who feel betrayed by their senior leadership. Individuals join the military for a variety of reasons, but a dominant one is a sense of patriotism, which is undermined if service members believe that senior officers are willing to sacrifice them to trendy political ideas.

It is disheartening to note that no senior officer to my knowledge has stepped forward to denounce this latest slander against the American soldier. While real instances of extremism and white supremacy must be identified and perpetrators separated from the service, as has been the practice in the past, suggesting that white supremacy and extremism are rampant in the military is a disservice to the force. Both political leaders and senior officers owe it to the country in general and the military in particular to define extremism, identify actual cases, and provide data supporting their claim that a real problem does in fact exist. To do otherwise is to contribute to a calumny against those they claim to lead.",-0.42205369027701456
"Tucker Carlson speaks with attendees at the 2018 Student Action Summit hosted by Turning Point USA at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Gage Skidmore)

‘Smiting’ Tucker Carlson advances the top brass’s progressive political agenda.

The U.S. military has turned its wrath inward on Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin expressed his “revulsion” after Carlson questioned the role of women in combat. Keeping women mostly out of combat had been the U.S. military’s centuries-long orthodoxy until just a few years ago.

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Pentagon spokesman John Kirby even compared Carlson to the Communist Chinese military.

“What we absolutely won’t do is take personnel advice from a talk show host or the Chinese military,” Kirby said.

The Department of Defense website further boasted in a headline, “Press Secretary Smites Fox Host.”

So what was the biblically smitten Carlson’s crime?

He objected to the military’s fixation on race and gender in high-profile appointments — and questioned whether standards were relaxed to permit women in combat units.

Carlson objected that the U.S. Capitol is currently militarized. More troops are on guard against purported American “insurrectionists” than are currently serving in war zones in Afghanistan. He noted that far too many defense secretaries — he singled out Austin — rotate between corporate defense-contractor boards and billets.

Carlson’s subtext is that too many of our retired top brass virtue-signal their wokeness while seeking to make a great deal of corporate money from their prior (and often future) government service and contacts.

Aside from the fact that the military usually does not use its top officials to react to journalists, the Pentagon should try to refute Carlson rather than comparing him to the hostile Chinese. The Pentagon might instead seek to reassure the public that no physical standards for combat troops have been lowered to accommodate frontline soldiers of any gender.

Spokesman Kirby also could attempt to reassure the public that defense secretaries and top-ranking Pentagon officials have not recently served on the boards of defense contractors before or after their tenures. He might contend that defense budgets are not soaring in part because of administrative bloat and social-welfare costs.

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The Pentagon might also try to explain the ubiquitous barbed wire and troop presence in Washington — the greatest militarization of the nation’s capital since Confederate general Jubal Early marched on Washington in July 1864.

No one arrested in the January 6 Capitol assault was found to have used a firearm. No ringleaders were discovered to have been planning a coup. The dangerous riot was more likely a one-time assault than an “armed insurrection.”

Last summer, during the civil unrest agitated in part by Antifa and Black Lives Matter, more than 280 retired military officials and diplomats signed a letter blasting the idea that Donald Trump might send in federal troops to restore calm. They claimed that the mere idea “risks sullying the reputation of our men and women in uniform in the eyes of their fellow Americans and of the world.”

Yet none of the signees voiced objections to the presence of some 30,000 National Guard troops in Washington, D.C.

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The military has announced it is now conducting an internal probe to root out American soldiers suspected of harboring supposedly dangerous ideas.

What is going on?

One, the Left now dotes on what it envisions will soon be a woke military. It believes that the chain of command can green-light progressive social changes — from women in combat units to timely displays of massive force on the streets of Washington — without bureaucratic red tape or opposition from Congress.

Two, federal agencies in therapeutic fashion now often dilute their traditional missions to accommodate social-awareness agendas — as NASA director, Charles Bolden, a retired Marine Corps major general, sought to reset the space agency under then-president Barack Obama.

“Perhaps foremost, he [Obama] wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering,” Bolden said.

“Feel good” does not ensure that rockets reach outer space.

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Three, there grows a new class rift between the rank-and-file military and the Pentagon’s top current and retired brass.

Increasingly, some brass spend extended tenures inside the Pentagon or within the Beltway, attached to the White House or Congress. They master the contours of the military-industrial complex and profit from them upon retirement. Many acquiesce to now-orthodox progressive ideology, which is omnipresent among federal bureaucracies and much of Congress.

Whereas all administrations used to prioritize traditional military preparedness, leftist administrations now see the military as a tool for accelerating their progressive domestic changes. The elite members of the military adjust, given that careers and promotions are either enhanced or sidetracked accordingly.

As a result, many of our top brass are far more politicized than in the past, and they can grow more ideologically distant from lower-ranking officers and enlisted personnel.

The extraordinary, thin-skinned Pentagon effort to lump Tucker Carlson in with foes such as the Chinese is an illustration of this larger — and increasingly dangerous — pathology.

© 2021 The Center for American Greatness",-0.11103660430605908
"A U.S. Border Patrol agent instructs asylum-seeking migrants as they line up along the border wall after crossing the Rio Grande river into the United States from Mexico on a raft, in Penitas, Texas, March 17, 2021. (Adrees Latif/Reuters)

Biden’s actions speak louder than his mixed messages to migrants.

On March 14, the day that Kevin McCarthy and twelve House Republicans went to Texas to visit the southern border, the El Paso Central Processing Center for migrants reached capacity. The Republicans heard heartbreaking stories of unaccompanied children, some less than six years old, crossing the border while holding hands. Border agents informed the congressmen that fentanyl traffickers are exploiting the surge in illegal immigration. One agent told John Katko, ranking member on the Homeland Security Committee, that a few of the apprehended migrants appear on the terrorist watch list. Border and immigration personnel are stretched thin. “They’ve never seen anything like this,” McCarthy told me.

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Indeed, Homeland secretary Alejandro Mayorkas projects that the United States faces its largest surge in illegal immigration in two decades. He’s ordered FEMA to assist in taking care of the hundreds of unaccompanied minors who show up daily asking for asylum. Mayorkas and President Joe Biden insist that the previous administration is responsible for a crisis that emerged weeks after Donald Trump left the White House. They couldn’t be more wrong.

What’s happening on the southern border is the most preventable emergency in years. And Joe Biden created it. No matter how often he tells asylum-seekers that now is not the time to enter the United States, migrants won’t listen. That’s because the policies he put into place incentivize the dangerous trek. At the same time, Biden has handed the Republicans an issue that will remain long after the $1,400 checks in the American Rescue Plan have been forgotten. And it hasn’t been 60 days since he took office.

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Biden’s contradictory messaging won’t relieve the pressure on the border. Sure, he told George Stephanopoulos that his message to migrants is, “Don’t leave your town or city or community.” Mayorkas echoed this sentiment in an interview with CBS. But then he added, “If they do, we will not expel that young child.” That includes tens of thousands of teenagers who may be looking for jobs rather than fleeing persecution.

So the White House says stay put, but if you don’t and Border Patrol apprehends you, you’ll be housed, clothed, fed, and released if you are under 18. And by the way, we’re laying the groundwork for providing legal status and a path to citizenship for the millions of illegal immigrants already here. That’s not a stop light to border crossers. It’s a yellow light: Proceed with caution.

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What did Biden expect? True, he’s maintained a Trump-era rule that allows for the swift removal of adults because of the coronavirus. But he exempted minors from the regulation, creating a massive loophole. And he’s torn up just about everything else that Trump did.

Rich Lowry has documented the rapid undoing of Trump’s successes. The most significant changes were ending the Migrant Protection Protocols — the so-called Remain in Mexico plan that kept asylum-seekers in Mexico while their claims were reviewed — and canceling the “safe-third-country” agreements that required migrants to apply for asylum in the first nation they entered on their way to the United States.

Then there’s the attitudinal difference between the two presidents. Whatever else can be said about Trump, his position on illegal immigration was no mystery. Biden, of course, wants to repudiate every aspect of the Trump presidency, especially its approach to immigration. His demeanor and actions send a dramatic signal that America will be more welcoming.

Even if he says otherwise. Kevin McCarthy, for example, recounted his time at an incomplete section of the border wall. Construction workers had only 17 miles left to finish — but were told to put down their tools as of midnight on January 20. Meanwhile the fence around the U.S. Capitol, complete with razor-wire, still stands. Biden’s position on the two walls delivers a message to both migrants and citizens. But it’s not a consistent message. Nor is it a republican one.

The border calamity is the starkest contrast of the transition from Trump to Biden. It’s also a weak spot for an otherwise popular president. A recent Ipsos poll has immigration tied with health care as the third most important issue in the country. The Engagious/Schlesinger focus group of Trump-Biden swing voters expressed reservations about the current approach to the border. And last week’s CBS News poll showed that Biden is vulnerable: Just 52 percent approved of his handling of immigration, versus 67 percent support on the coronavirus, 69 percent on the vaccine, and 60 percent on the economy.

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McCarthy downplays the partisan angle. But there’s no denying Republicans sense a political opportunity. House Republicans went on the offensive when Mayorkas testified before Congress Wednesday. Next week, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn will head to the border. Biden was helped by the absence of immigration from last year’s campaign. It allowed him to focus on the pandemic, the economy, and Trump’s personality. But now, on this subject at least, his luck has run out. And he has only himself to blame.

This column originally ran at the Washington Free Beacon.",-0.3506968925831456
"Asylum-seeking migrant families and unaccompanied minors from Central America take refuge in a makeshift Customs and Border Protection processing center under the Anzalduas International Bridge after crossing the Rio Grande river into the United States from Mexico in Granjeno, Texas, March 12, 2021. (Adrees Latif/Reuters)

The Biden administration has entered an $86 million contract to house members of migrant families in hotel rooms at the U.S.-Mexico border, Axios reported on Saturday.

The contract was awarded to Texas non-profit Endeavors for a period of six months, although it may be extended if the immigration crisis continues. The terms will allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to find hotels near the southern border to hold up to 1,200 migrant family members, officials at the Department of Homeland Security confirmed to Axios.

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ICE holds custody over migrant families and adults who enter the U.S. illegally and are allowed to remain following processing by Border Patrol agents. Almost 19,000 migrant family members made the crossing in February, up from 7,000 in January, according to the agency’s most recent data.

Around 13,000 family members have been allowed to remain in the U.S. since the beginning of January. Meanwhile, 42 percent of migrant families were expelled directly to Mexico in February, down from 64 percent in January.

Unaccompanied minors who cross the border illegally are required to be transferred to facilities run by the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Biden administration has refused to expel migrant children. A record number of over 4,500 migrant children are currently detained at Border Patrol facilities due to a backlog in processing, while an additional 9,500 are housed by HHS.

The Biden administration is struggling to contend with the influx of migrants at the border, with DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas predicting the current surge will break a 20-year record of illegal crossings. Earlier this month, Mayorkas ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to work in conjunction with HHS to provide shelter for migrant children.

Following an influx of over 2,000 migrants into a region of South Texas through Thursday night and Friday morning, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials reportedly requested planes to fly some of the migrants to states on the Canadian border for processing.

Send a tip to the news team at NR.",2.138800407588501
"And how Biden created a crisis by throwing it all away.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE I n a few months, if it hasn’t already, President Trump’s legacy at the border is going to look much better even to skeptical observers.

As the Biden administration unwinds Trump policies, and a new migrant crisis builds, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Trump team arrived at an approach that, after fits and starts, worked.

Counter to the image of the administration taking a blunderbuss approach to everything related to immigration, the push at the border was a thoughtful, creative, and well-coordinated effort across government agencies and between sovereign countries.

It is worth revisiting because understanding how it came about and the …",0.6143915334718489
"(Carlos Jasso/Reuters)

A federal judge has blocked a pro-life law in South Carolina that prohibits abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which usually takes place around six weeks into pregnancy.

Late last week, Judge Mary Geiger Lewis granted a preliminary injunction blocking the bill, siding with plaintiffs who challenged the law. Immediately after the law took effect, Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and a local South Carolina abortion clinic sued the state, arguing that the law violates women’s constitutional right to abortion.

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Shortly after Republican governor Henry McMaster signed the bill into law last month, the same judge issued a temporary restraining order to prevent it from taking effect while she reviewed the arguments from challengers. Now she has formally issued a preliminary injunction against it, a decision that the state is likely to appeal.

“This state is overwhelmingly in favor of that bill, and we will do whatever it takes — however long it takes — to see that the right to life is protected in South Carolina,” McMaster tweeted on Friday in response to the decision.

In her order blocking the bill, Lewis argued that the plaintiffs would likely succeed in claiming that the heartbeat bill is unconstitutional, and she asserted that “plaintiffs’ patients are likely to suffer irreparable injury absent a preliminary injunction.”

When South Carolina passed the bill in mid February, it became one of about a dozen states to prohibit abortion after the fetal heartbeat begins. In 2019, several pro-life states including Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee all enacted forms of a heartbeat bill.

Thus far, none of those bills have been allowed to stand, as challenges from abortion-rights groups have found support in federal courts from judges who argue that they conflict with existing abortion jurisprudence. Supporters of these laws believe that they might someday serve as a vehicle for challenging Roe v. Wade and subsequent abortion decisions at the Supreme Court.

In the meantime, pro-lifers hope that debates over heartbeat bills will bring public attention to the fact that an unborn child’s heartbeat begins, and can be detected, so early in pregnancy. In fact, some of the most interesting conflicts in the abortion debate over the last few years have emerged in response to heartbeat bills, as opponents of the legislation attempt to downplay the reality of fetal heartbeats.

In 2019, when a number of states enacted heartbeat bills, several major media outlets ran articles insisting that the bills “get the science of heartbeats wrong.” One abortionist insisted, in opposition to heartbeat bills, that is more technically correct to refer to the heartbeat in question as “fetal pole cardiac activity.”

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Other outlets preferred the dehumanizing phrase “embryonic pulsing,” dismissing the fetal heartbeat entirely on the advice of medical experts who pointed out that the fetus at that stage of gestation doesn’t have “any kind of cardiovascular system.”

While heartbeat bills will likely continue to meet with opposition in federal court, watching opponents try to explain away the reality of the unborn child as a distinct, living human being is a pro-life victory in itself.",0.6408297296250292
"(Jonathan Drake/Reuters)

The University of North Carolina is not content just to hire faculty who are expert in their fields (yes, a lot of those fields are academically bogus, but put that aside for now), but now insists on “training” them to support the administration’s leftist agenda.

In today’s Martin Center article, Jay Schalin exposes this linguistic deception. He focuses on a memo from system president Kevin Guskiewicz: “Guskiewicz says that his administration is starting a new training program, part of which is to ‘provide our community with a set of common terms.’ The message then informs that “subsequent required training’ scheduled for the summer of 2021 ‘will offer common language to better understand how the world shapes and informs our shared values and experiences and will use an interactive platform to explore such topics as identity, power, privilege, and communication.’“

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Of course, the terms “identity, power, privilege, and communication” mean that everyone will be subjected to a Marxist reeducation. UNC wants to radicalize as many faculty members as possible and intimidate dissenters into silence.

“The initial training session,” Schalin writes, “is titled ‘Managing Bias.’ The intent is to teach ‘participants . . . how biases affect their actions and impact others when left unchecked, including creating unhealthy work environments and reinforcing unjust practices.’ Again, this may sound reasonable, until it becomes apparent that, to the academic left, nonconforming opinions are usually due to bias.”

Nobody who gets through our education system to the point of being hired by a university system could possibly have any real “bias” against anyone, but under the new leftist definition, almost everyone has plenty of hidden biases that must be revealed through these kinds of “training.”

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Schalin concludes, “Perhaps there is some wiggle room in which a savvy professor can successfully maneuver the minefield of political correctness without destroying his or her career. But that is part of the problem: The new DEI guidelines create the sort of oppressive political environment in which one has to compromise or veil one’s beliefs in order to have high-level employment—the sort of situation that occurs in repressive regimes.”",-0.7706124856770565
"Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses members of parliament from his ruling AK Party (AKP) during a meeting at the Turkish parliament in Ankara, Turkey, October 16, 2018. (Umit Bektas/Reuters)

Turkey’s President Tayyip Recep Erdogan has done it again. Late last Friday, he ousted the governor of the Central Bank of Turkey, Naci Agbal, replacing him with Islamist Şahap Kavcıoglu. Agbal is the third governor who has been shown the door in the last two years. Just what was Governor Agbal’s sin? To stabilize the Turkish lira, he cautiously raised Turkey’s policy rate by 875 basis points to its present rate of 19 percent during his short tenure of just over three months. Even with these increases, the real, inflation-adjusted interest rate is in deep negative territory (approximately -10 percent).

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To understand the revolving door that faces Turkey’s central bank governors, we must understand what makes President Erdogan tick. And to do that, we have to understand Islamic finance, which is replete with theories about why interest rates should be avoided. Erdogan has made it clear that he embraces Islamic finance. Indeed, as he once clearly put it, interest rates are the “mother of all evil.” President Erdogan’s economic ideas are fundamentally rooted in charismatic, medieval texts that are far removed from the real world of today, or even yesterday.

Not surprisingly, on the first hours of trading since Governor Naci Agbal was axed, the lira plunged by 17 percent against the greenback, coming close to its all-time low of 8.52 TRY/USD. Lira instability and weakness and associated elevated inflation are nothing new for Turkey. Indeed, inflation has ravaged Turkey for decades. The average annual inflation rates for the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s were 22.4 percent, 49.6 percent, 76.7 percent, and 22.3 percent, respectively. Those horrendous numbers mask periodic lira routs. In 1994, 2000–01, and most recently since 2018, the lira has been torn to shreds.

Since Erdogan took over Turkey’s presidential reins in August 2014, the lira has shed 74 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar. And, since the first of this year, the lira has depreciated by 28.5 percent against the greenback. Today, inflation in Turkey is soaring at 29.14 percent per year by my measure. My measurement, which employs high-frequency data and the use of Purchasing Power Parity theory, is nearly double Turkey’s official annual inflation rate of 15.61 percent per year. The charts below depict the collapse of the lira and Turkey’s annual inflation rate since January 1, 2020, respectively.

Erdogan’s frequent changing of the guard at the Central Bank of Turkey won’t change the course of the lira or rein in surging inflation. To save the lira and Turkey’s economy, Erdogan must make a change to Turkey’s exchange-rate regime, not its bureaucratic personnel.

All Erdogan has to do is follow the instructions for establishing a gold-backed currency board that are contained in my book Gelişmekte Olan Ülkeler İçin Para Kurullari, which was published in Ankara in December 2019.

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A currency board is a monetary institution (or a set of laws that govern a central bank) that issues a domestic currency that is freely convertible at an absolutely fixed exchange rate with a foreign anchor currency. Under a currency-board arrangement, there are no capital controls. The domestic currency, which is issued by a currency board, is backed 100 percent with anchor currency reserves, so the local currency is simply a clone of its anchor currency.

For over 170 years, currency boards have had a perfect record. In total, there have been over 70 — none have failed. Even the North Russian currency board, which was designed by John Maynard Keynes in 1918 during the Russian Civil War, never faltered.

To make the Turkish lira as good as gold, Erdogan should announce that Turkey will install a gold-backed currency board. With a Turkish currency board, the lira would be tied to gold at a fixed exchange rate, and the lira would be fully backed by gold reserves. Gold is particularly attractive for countries such as Turkey because it is not issued by a sovereign and is highly revered by Turks. So, like gold, the lira would become an international currency that holds its purchasing power over time. Indeed, the lira would be as good as gold.

If Erdogan wants to save the Turkish lira and economy, he must dump Islamic finance and go for gold.",-0.2938764458333648
"It’s a vital check on majoritarian excess

The Democrats’ campaign to destroy the legislative filibuster is predicated on three questionable claims.

The first is that allowing a 60-vote threshold in the Senate to cut off debate is antiquated, fundamentally undemocratic, and an impediment to progress that facilitates “minority rule” — by which Democrats mean “federalism.” Now that the Democrats have won a narrow, probably fleeting, majority, they want the unfettered ability to compel an entire nation to live under intrusive partisan generational “reform” bills. This brand of majoritarianism is objectively un-American, undermining the proper constitutional limits of the federal government to lord over states and localities. The filibuster …",-1.0900588991889275
"In 1962 Carolyn Leigh and Cy Coleman wrote this song: “Pardon me, miss, but I’ve never done this with a real live girl. . . . Nothing can beat getting swept off your feet by a real live girl.” The lyric always puzzled me, as I could only interpret it as the testimony of a recovering necrophiliac.

I found another example of calm acceptance of the macabre in Rodgers and Hart’s “With a Song in My Heart,” where we find, in the break, “When the music swells I’m touching your hand. It tells me you’re standing near . . .” Unless …",-1.6137961531099807
"Ethiopia’s prime minister, a Nobel peace laureate, presides over a savage civil war

Every now and then, East Africa breaks into world consciousness. It happened in the mid 1980s, when Ethiopia underwent a terrible famine. Teams of pop stars made two hit “charity singles”: “We Are the World” and “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” The world again turned to East Africa in the mid 2000s, when the Sudanese dictatorship committed genocide against people in Darfur, a region in the west of the country. (That genocide has not quite ended.)

Today, Ethiopia is again in the news, for war in Tigray, a region in the country’s north. What is happening there is worse than war, …",-0.14668502417940824
"John J. Miller is joined by Dana Perino to discuss her book, Everything Will Be Okay.",-0.46587706689550795
"Migrants from Central America walk toward a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle after crossing to the United States to turn themselves in to request asylum in El Paso, Texas, February 5, 2021. (Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters)

Today on The McCarthy Report, Andy and Rich discuss Biden’s border crisis, the arrests connected to Officer Sicknick’s death, new difficulties in the Chauvin case, and another allegation which came out against Cuomo.",1.2431258165004369
"Sen. Martin Heinrich, (D., N.M.) questions Congresswoman Deb Haaland, (D., N.M.), during her hearing to be Interior Secretary on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., February 23, 2021. (Jim Watson/Reuters)

Senator Heinrich, of New Mexico, explained last night that he has no choice but to oppose the legislative filibuster because it is now so frequently being “abused”:

I cannot support the continued abuse of the filibuster in the United States Senate. pic.twitter.com/Q3QOAEr5A2 — Martin Heinrich (@MartinHeinrich) March 18, 2021

This talking point, which is growing in popularity within the Democratic caucus, is utterly fraudulent. Since 2014, in which year Republicans took control of the Senate, Heinrich has used the legislative filibuster nearly 350 times. In that period, the Republican Party has not used it once (because it had the majority); has explicitly declined to abolish it in order to break the Democratic blockade, despite serious pressure from President Trump to do so; and has gone so far as issue a bipartisan letter supporting the maintenance of all the “existing rules, practices, and traditions” that the filibuster represents. Just four years ago, Heinrich signed signed that letter. Since then, there has, by definition, been precisely no Republican “abuse.” Indeed, because Republicans held the majority, there can’t have been. Heinrich is simply making it up.

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When figures such as Tammy Duckworth contend that, “recently, the threat of filibuster has been used far too often and as a result political obstructionism in the United States Senate is now worse than it has ever been,” they are trying to create a history that simply does not exist, and to apply it to a party that is not guilty of the charge. The filibuster has indeed been used “recently” to stop reform. But it has been used by Democrats to block Republicans. Duckworth also signed the letter in 2017. In the interim, the only thing Republicans have done with the filibuster is to defend it — and against their immediate self-interest. In essence, Duckworth and Heinrich are complaining about themselves.

Dress it up as they might, the position that Duckworth and Heinrich are taking is that the filibuster was necessary while the Democratic Party remained in the minority, but that its use now that they have a majority of one would represent a crisis. This is untenable. In fact, it’s farcical, and it only becomes more so when one highlights the scale of the volte face in which many of the letter’s signatories are now engaged. Among those who are perpetrating this fraud are:

Ed Markey (D., Mass.), who now suggests that the filibuster is “rooted in a racist past, and it’s used today as a way of blocking the progressive agenda.”

Brian Schatz (D., Hawaii), who now claims that “the filibuster was never in the constitution, originated mostly by accident, and has historically been used to block civil rights. No legislatures on earth have a supermajority requirement because that’s stupid and paralyzing. It’s time to trash the Jim Crow filibuster.”

Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.), who now claims, “I would get rid of the filibuster. I have favored filibuster reform for a long time.” (She hasn’t.)

Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio), who now says, “We’ve got to eliminate the filibuster.”

Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.), a particularly impressive fraudster who argued in 2014 that “we need to change the filibuster rule in the Senate,” then, once Democrats had lost the majority, signed a letter affirming support for exactly that rule, and now opposes it again having been elevated to the majority.

Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.), who argued in 2019 that “if you don’t have 60 votes yet, it just means you haven’t done enough advocacy and you need to work a lot harder,” but now favors abolition.

Bob Casey (D., Pa.), who now says, “I’m certainly open to [ending filibusters] in ways that I would not have said I was two years ago.” (Which . . . well, yeah, because “two years ago” Casey was in the minority.)

Cory Booker (D., N.J.), who now says that the filibuster has to be “reformed.”

Kamala Harris (was D., Calif., now vice president), who now wants to alter the measure.

Tammy Duckworth (D., Ill.), who now claims, seven weeks into the first Democratic Senate majority in six years, that “recently, the threat of filibuster has been used far too often and as a result political obstructionism in the United States Senate is now worse than it has ever been.”

Irrespective of their politics, citizens of the United States should find this repugnant. Our institutions cannot switch from being vital to abominable the day after an election is held. And, if they do, we won’t have those institutions for long.",0.06793948177234045
"Coronavirus vaccine vials displaying the Johnson & Johnson logo, February 9, 2021 (Dado Ruvic/Reuters)

Politico reports that three weeks after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, “2.3 million of the 4.3 million doses of the vaccine delivered have actually been administered.” That’s an abysmally disappointing 53.4 percent.

And, much like in the early weeks of the Moderna and Pfizer shots, no one is entirely sure what the holdup is.

Over the course of the last two weeks, senior Biden administration officials have met privately to try and determine what happened. Two senior administration officials believe states are conserving their J&J supplies until there’s enough to reach underserved communities and specific groups, like teachers or the disabled. But multiple state officials say they’re using whatever they get as soon as they get it.

The notion of “conserving their J&J supplies until there’s enough to reach underserved communities and specific groups, like teachers or the disabled” makes no sense. You don’t reach underserved communities, or anyone, if you’re not using the doses. If you want to vaccinate more teachers or the disabled, open up the vaccination appointments to teachers or the disabled. Open up more sites. Operate them longer hours. Figure out where your target population is most densely clustered and bring the vaccine to that spot.

There is absolutely no public-health advantage to waiting around and stockpiling vaccine doses to be used sometime down the road. Why is this so difficult to grasp?

Overall, as of this morning, the United States has administered 79 percent of the vaccines distributed to states. That’s not bad, but not great, either. It’s been as low as 74 percent and as high as 83.9 percent, and that’s just in a week’s span in late February. States are thankfully getting shots into arms faster — we’re close to averaging 2.5 million doses administered per day — but the vaccine manufacturers are going gangbusters in production and delivery: “The U.S. monthly output for the three authorized vaccines is expected to reach 132 million doses for March, nearly triple the 48 million in February.”

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Many conservatives will notice that the private sector, in charge of inventing and manufacturing the vaccines and delivering them to states, is doing a terrific job. The public sector, in charge of actually getting the vaccine doses into arms . . . is very hit-and-miss.",1.1736698180171077
"The GOP cabinet official and wife of Mitch McConnell was essentially cleared, but she hardly received the Hunter Biden treatment.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE F or reasons I can’t possibly imagine, the media that wouldn’t cover the Hunter Biden scandals before the election have continued to ignore them in the months since his father, their candidate, was elected president. But just to recap a bewildering coincidence, it seems that whenever the Obama administration made then-vice president Joe Biden its point person on foreign policy related to a notoriously corrupt country — say, China, Russia, or Ukraine — people and entities in those countries, for some hard-to-fathom reason, found it expedient to pay Hunter Biden millions of dollars, his patent lack of experience and stability notwithstanding.

With …",1.2571632066133984
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"Alejandro Mayorkas, nominee to be Secretary of Homeland Security, testifies during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., January 19, 2021. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sunday underscored the Biden administration’s messaging to migrants that the southern border is closed, though he noted that it would not expel “vulnerable children.”

Mayorkas’s comments came in response to a question by Chuck Todd on NBC’s Meet the Press regarding whether the administration had created a “market efficiency” where migrants have decided that their children have the potential to enter the U.S. if they don’t accompany them.

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“Our message has been straightforward and simple and it’s true: The border is closed,” Mayorkas said. “We are expelling families, we are expelling single adults and we’ve made a decision that we will not expel young vulnerable children.”

“I think we are executing on our plans and quite frankly when we are finished doing so the American public will look back on this and say we secured our border and we upheld our values,” he added.

Mayorkas said that though the administration has warned migrants against seeking entry to the U.S. that border officials “will not expel into the Mexican desert, for example, three orphan children.”

“We are safely processing the children who do come to our border,” he said. “We strongly urge, and the message is clear, not to do so now. I cannot overstate the perils of the journey that they take.”

He argued that the Trump administration had caused a number of the problems currently affecting the border by dismantling “the orderly, humane and efficient way of allowing children to make their claims under United States law in their own country.”

“We are rebuilding those orderly systems both in Mexico, in close partnerships with the Mexican government, and in the countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador,” he said.

Mayorkas’ comments come as the administration struggles with a rapidly deteriorating situation at the border: as of Saturday, the Border Patrol had 5,049 unaccompanied children in its custody, according to NBC News.

On Tuesday, Mayorkas called the situation at the border “difficult” and noted that the U.S. is “on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years.”

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While the statement said “poverty, high levels of violence and corruption in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries” are to blame for the influx, and have “propelled migration to our southwest border for years,” Republicans have said it is Biden who is at fault for the surge, after he loosened immigration restrictions.

Biden rescinded the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) and reinstated “catch and release.” Experts say Biden’s plan to create a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants has served as an incentive for migrants to attempt to cross the border.

Send a tip to the news team at NR.",1.5250683782807903
"Asylum-seeking migrant families and unaccompanied minors from Central America take refuge in a makeshift Customs and Border Protection processing center under the Anzalduas International Bridge after crossing the Rio Grande river into the United States from Mexico in Granjeno, Texas, March 12, 2021. (Adrees Latif/Reuters)

The Biden administration has entered an $86 million contract to house members of migrant families in hotel rooms at the U.S.-Mexico border, Axios reported on Saturday.

The contract was awarded to Texas non-profit Endeavors for a period of six months, although it may be extended if the immigration crisis continues. The terms will allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to find hotels near the southern border to hold up to 1,200 migrant family members, officials at the Department of Homeland Security confirmed to Axios.

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ICE holds custody over migrant families and adults who enter the U.S. illegally and are allowed to remain following processing by Border Patrol agents. Almost 19,000 migrant family members made the crossing in February, up from 7,000 in January, according to the agency’s most recent data.

Around 13,000 family members have been allowed to remain in the U.S. since the beginning of January. Meanwhile, 42 percent of migrant families were expelled directly to Mexico in February, down from 64 percent in January.

Unaccompanied minors who cross the border illegally are required to be transferred to facilities run by the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Biden administration has refused to expel migrant children. A record number of over 4,500 migrant children are currently detained at Border Patrol facilities due to a backlog in processing, while an additional 9,500 are housed by HHS.

The Biden administration is struggling to contend with the influx of migrants at the border, with DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas predicting the current surge will break a 20-year record of illegal crossings. Earlier this month, Mayorkas ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to work in conjunction with HHS to provide shelter for migrant children.

Following an influx of over 2,000 migrants into a region of South Texas through Thursday night and Friday morning, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials reportedly requested planes to fly some of the migrants to states on the Canadian border for processing.

Send a tip to the news team at NR.",-2.0416195303751747
"A U.S. Border Patrol agent instructs asylum-seeking migrants as they line up along the border wall after crossing the Rio Grande river into the United States from Mexico on a raft, in Penitas, Texas, March 17, 2021. (Adrees Latif/Reuters)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have requested airplanes to fly migrants to the U.S.-Canadian border for processing amid a surge in illegal crossings at the southern border, the Washington Post reported on Friday.

Border officials asked CBP to make the request to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after 1,000 migrants, including unaccompanied minors, crossed the Rio Grande into South Texas on Friday morning, while another 1,000 who crossed on Thursday night were still waiting to be processed, according to an email reviewed by the Post.

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The agency has not determined which northern states would receive the migrants. Two Department of Homeland Security officials confirmed that the action was under consideration.

The influx of at least 2,000 migrants into the area through Thursday night and Friday morning came as CBP struggled to receive new arrivals, with many migrants waiting hours outdoors before processing.

A record number of over 4,500 unaccompanied minors are currently being held in Border Patrol detention facilities. As of Wednesday, over 9,500 migrant children were held in shelters run by the Department of Health and Human Services.

DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas traveled to the southern border on Friday with a bipartisan group of lawmakers to review the situation. One of those lawmakers, Senator Chris Murphy (D., Conn.), wrote on Twitter on Friday that the Biden administration “is trying their best to uphold the rule of law with humanity,” blaming the crisis in part on “the mess Trump left them.”

Senator Rob Portman (R., Ohio), another lawmaker on the trip, said that the surge of migrants began because of the Biden administration’s “dismantling of the previous administration’s policies with no consideration of the ramifications.”

President Biden has rescinded several Trump-era immigration restrictions, including the “Remain in Mexico” policy requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases are processed in the U.S. The Biden administration has also advocated a sweeping immigration reform bill that would establish a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants currently living in the U.S.

However, while Biden and other administration officials have warned migrants not to make the journey north, Mayorkas predicted earlier this week that the current influx will break a 20-year record.

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“Biden promised us that everything was going to change,” Gladys Oneida Pérez Cruz, a migrant from Honduras, told the New York Times on Sunday. “He hasn’t done it yet, but he is going to be a good president for migrants.” Pérez and her son, who has cerebral palsy, attempted to cross the border but were expelled back to Mexico.

Send a tip to the news team at NR.",0.5543382041688382
"A U.S. Border Patrol agent instructs asylum-seeking migrants as they line up along the border wall after crossing the Rio Grande river into the United States from Mexico on a raft, in Penitas, Texas, March 17, 2021. (Adrees Latif/Reuters)

Biden’s actions speak louder than his mixed messages to migrants.

On March 14, the day that Kevin McCarthy and twelve House Republicans went to Texas to visit the southern border, the El Paso Central Processing Center for migrants reached capacity. The Republicans heard heartbreaking stories of unaccompanied children, some less than six years old, crossing the border while holding hands. Border agents informed the congressmen that fentanyl traffickers are exploiting the surge in illegal immigration. One agent told John Katko, ranking member on the Homeland Security Committee, that a few of the apprehended migrants appear on the terrorist watch list. Border and immigration personnel are stretched thin. “They’ve never seen anything like this,” McCarthy told me.

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Indeed, Homeland secretary Alejandro Mayorkas projects that the United States faces its largest surge in illegal immigration in two decades. He’s ordered FEMA to assist in taking care of the hundreds of unaccompanied minors who show up daily asking for asylum. Mayorkas and President Joe Biden insist that the previous administration is responsible for a crisis that emerged weeks after Donald Trump left the White House. They couldn’t be more wrong.

What’s happening on the southern border is the most preventable emergency in years. And Joe Biden created it. No matter how often he tells asylum-seekers that now is not the time to enter the United States, migrants won’t listen. That’s because the policies he put into place incentivize the dangerous trek. At the same time, Biden has handed the Republicans an issue that will remain long after the $1,400 checks in the American Rescue Plan have been forgotten. And it hasn’t been 60 days since he took office.

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Biden’s contradictory messaging won’t relieve the pressure on the border. Sure, he told George Stephanopoulos that his message to migrants is, “Don’t leave your town or city or community.” Mayorkas echoed this sentiment in an interview with CBS. But then he added, “If they do, we will not expel that young child.” That includes tens of thousands of teenagers who may be looking for jobs rather than fleeing persecution.

So the White House says stay put, but if you don’t and Border Patrol apprehends you, you’ll be housed, clothed, fed, and released if you are under 18. And by the way, we’re laying the groundwork for providing legal status and a path to citizenship for the millions of illegal immigrants already here. That’s not a stop light to border crossers. It’s a yellow light: Proceed with caution.

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What did Biden expect? True, he’s maintained a Trump-era rule that allows for the swift removal of adults because of the coronavirus. But he exempted minors from the regulation, creating a massive loophole. And he’s torn up just about everything else that Trump did.

Rich Lowry has documented the rapid undoing of Trump’s successes. The most significant changes were ending the Migrant Protection Protocols — the so-called Remain in Mexico plan that kept asylum-seekers in Mexico while their claims were reviewed — and canceling the “safe-third-country” agreements that required migrants to apply for asylum in the first nation they entered on their way to the United States.

Then there’s the attitudinal difference between the two presidents. Whatever else can be said about Trump, his position on illegal immigration was no mystery. Biden, of course, wants to repudiate every aspect of the Trump presidency, especially its approach to immigration. His demeanor and actions send a dramatic signal that America will be more welcoming.

Even if he says otherwise. Kevin McCarthy, for example, recounted his time at an incomplete section of the border wall. Construction workers had only 17 miles left to finish — but were told to put down their tools as of midnight on January 20. Meanwhile the fence around the U.S. Capitol, complete with razor-wire, still stands. Biden’s position on the two walls delivers a message to both migrants and citizens. But it’s not a consistent message. Nor is it a republican one.

The border calamity is the starkest contrast of the transition from Trump to Biden. It’s also a weak spot for an otherwise popular president. A recent Ipsos poll has immigration tied with health care as the third most important issue in the country. The Engagious/Schlesinger focus group of Trump-Biden swing voters expressed reservations about the current approach to the border. And last week’s CBS News poll showed that Biden is vulnerable: Just 52 percent approved of his handling of immigration, versus 67 percent support on the coronavirus, 69 percent on the vaccine, and 60 percent on the economy.

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McCarthy downplays the partisan angle. But there’s no denying Republicans sense a political opportunity. House Republicans went on the offensive when Mayorkas testified before Congress Wednesday. Next week, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn will head to the border. Biden was helped by the absence of immigration from last year’s campaign. It allowed him to focus on the pandemic, the economy, and Trump’s personality. But now, on this subject at least, his luck has run out. And he has only himself to blame.

This column originally ran at the Washington Free Beacon.",-0.026885330323299265
"'Losing a House election by six votes is painful for Democrats,"" Phillips wrote. 'But overturning it in the House would be even more painful for America.'",1.1677237098940283
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) participates in a news conference on immigration at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., March 18, 2021. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

The House on Thursday passed a pair of immigration bills that would keep millions of illegal immigrants from being deported and offer them a pathway to remain in the U.S. permanently.

The Dream and Promise Act, which would help more than 3 million “Dreamers” and others gain legal status and a chance for citizenship, passed in a 228-197 vote. Nine Republicans joined with Democrats to back the bill, an increase from the seven GOP members who joined Democrats when the issue was first considered in 2019.

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Democrats have said the bill, which grants Dreamers conditional permanent resident status for ten years and cancels removal proceedings if they can pass a background check, pay fees and graduate from high school, is morally necessary for young immigrants who arrived in the U.S. illegally as children and in some cases do not even remember life in their birth country.

The young immigrants would become eligible for full green card status if they meet an additional set of criteria, including a college degree, military service or three years of employment.

The bill also protects immigrants with Temporary Protected Status or Deferred Enforced Departure from deportation and offers them an opportunity for lawful permanent resident status.

Republicans have argued the bill would serve as an incentive for migrants to attempt to enter the country amid an already-worsening crisis at the southern border.

“When you have a crisis at the border, the last thing you should do is make it worse,” GOP Whip Steve Scalie (R., La.) said. “That’s what this bill does.”

However, the Farm Workforce Modernization Act received more bipartisan support, passing in a 247-to-174 vote with the support of 30 Republicans and all but one Democrat. The bill would help an additional 1 million immigrant agriculture workers, their spouses, and minor children remain in the country legally.

Republicans have supported the bill as a way to stabilize the farming workforce and ultimately implement a mandatory nationwide E-verify system for all agricultural employment.

Representative Mike Simpson (R., Idaho), who supported the measure, said it is “not about what is happening on the border.”

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“This bill is not amnesty,” he said. “It does not grant anybody amnesty. It allows individuals to get right with the law and to become legal [workers] in the United States. It’s about providing a stable legal workforce for the people who put food on our table.”

Both bills will move to the Senate where they would need 60 votes to move forward.

Send a tip to the news team at NR.",-1.8542798158556002
"Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks as Attorney General William Barr listens during a joint briefing about an executive order from President Donald Trump on the International Criminal Court at the State Department in Washington, D.C., June 11, 2020. (Yuri Gripas/Pool via Reuters)

As the White House contends with a growing crisis on the southern border, it has heaped blame on the previous administration because, as Press Secretary Jen Psaki put it during the daily press briefing on March 10, “they intentionally made it worse.”

But in a wide-ranging conversation with National Review on Thursday, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo argued that it is in fact the Biden administration, by unraveling the Trump team’s policies, that caused the current crisis. “It is patently obvious,” he said, defending the “enormous diplomatic achievement” that he played a role in crafting.

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Pompeo has previously criticized the Biden administration’s border policy, including in recent appearances on Fox News. In a conversation with NR today, he elaborated on the diplomatic outreach that figured into the Trump administration’s work on border issues.

During that press briefing earlier this month, Psaki announced an end to the Migration Protection Protocols (MPP), a complex set of agreements with Mexico and Central American countries, where individuals seeking asylum in the United States would be kept in Mexico or other countries as their claims were processed. According to Pompeo, ending these arrangements was a mistake.

“This policy, or what has been come to be known as Remain in Mexico, was really good work by me and my team to make the case to the Mexican government that the right thing for them — these are often El Salvadorians, Guatemalans, Hondurans, who are transiting their country — that this is deeply inhumane, and that we’re not going to permit them to stay in the United States while the asylum claim was processed,” he told NR.

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Implementing the MPP, he continued, “with the cooperation of the Mexican government was to turn off the magnet,” and therefore to convince individuals without valid asylum claims not to make the trip to the U.S. border.

The Biden administration has argued that the Remain in Mexico policy was inhumane, as it made asylum seekers potentially wait years for their claims to be processed, and that it created unsafe environments in towns on the Mexican side of the southern U.S. border.

But former Trump administration officials have asserted that MPP deterred people from undertaking perilous journeys to the southern border in the first place. “The family-unit crisis was solved, I think, almost by the use of MPP,” a senior DOJ official told National Review’s Rich Lowry in an extensive report on the Trump administration’s border policy.

The former secretary of state, who is now a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute, elaborated on the State Department’s diplomatic outreach to strike these deals. “We worked with the Guatemalans, the Hondurans, the El Salvadorians to deliver a set of outcomes that work for each of our countries and prevented what you see happening at the border today,” he said.

The border policies implemented by the previous administration, which were “so intricately laid down . . . along with our partners and these other four countries, have now been undone,” Pompeo added. “And you see the tragedies taking place, you see the horrors that are being inflicted upon these people who are in very, very difficult situations.”",0.03187305371835512
"The vast majority of Americans, including African Americans, support photo-ID requirements for voting.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE R ecently, I went to get my first COVID-19 vaccination. I was impressed by how quickly and efficiently the process in New York City worked.

I also noticed that I had to present my ID twice, verify my address twice, and verify my phone number once. Anyone signing up for the vaccine is warned in advance that he will have to present identification that includes “a driver’s license, passport, or any legal proof of your date of birth and residency.”

Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, also took note of that fact on Twitter: “Why is it …",-0.365403682341744
"(PartTime Portraits/Unsplash)

Republican Julia Letlow won a special election to replace her late husband Luke Letlow in Congress on Saturday after he died from COVID complications in December.

Luke Letlow, a Republican, was elected in a special race in December but died on December 29 at age 41, five days before he was set to be sworn in.

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Julia Letlow defeated eleven candidates to become the first Republican congresswoman from Louisiana.

“This is an incredible moment, and it is truly hard to put into words,” Letlow said in a statement after her win. “What was born out of the terrible tragedy of losing my husband, Luke, has become my mission in his honor to carry the torch and serve the good people of Louisiana’s 5th District.”

Letlow won 65 percent of the vote to represent the 5th District, which covers all or part of 24 parishes, including the cities of Alexandria and Monroe. Democrat Sandra “Candy” Christophe received roughly 27 percent of the vote — candidates of all parties compete against each other in Louisiana primaries, with a runoff election held if no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote.

Letlow had received the endorsement of former President Donald Trump and the state GOP. She raised more than $680,000 for the race, more money than all of the other candidates combined.

On Saturday as voters cast their ballots, Trump called Letlow “outstanding and so necessary to help save our Second Amendment, at the border, and for our military and vets.”

“Louisiana, get out and vote today — she will never disappoint! Julia has my complete and total endorsement,” he said.

House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.,) congratulated the congresswoman-elect, saying in a statement she “offered a message that united Louisiana voters and defied predictions by winning this special election outright with a clear majority — a remarkable accomplishment among a field of 12 candidates.

“As Julia succeeds her late husband and our friend, Luke, we look forward to welcoming her to Congress, where her expertise in higher education will help us continue to deliver solutions for America,” he added.

Send a tip to the news team at NR.",2.305981828856503
"There’s an enormously crowded field of candidates so far for this fall’s race to replace the universally mocked and reviled Bill de Blasio as New York City’s mayor, including such familiar names as former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and, on the Republican side, Guardian Angels founder and radio talk show host Curtis Sliwa. The big wild card in this race, however, is whether anybody can get New York’s apathetic voters interested in their governance again.

New York City has, according to the Census Bureau’s pre-pandemic estimates, 8.34 million people, of whom about 6.6 million are age 18 or older. It’s …",-0.049729297999320424
"Asking legislators to overturn elections is back in fashion again — if you’re a Democrat.

Democrat Rita Hart is petitioning House Democrats to reverse the election of Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks by the people of Iowa’s second district to represent them in the House. The party-line vote to hear Hart’s belated election contest is a revealing blot on the same caucus that just passed a massive expansion of federal power over voting, elections, and political speech, also on a party-line vote.

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Miller-Meeks led by 282 votes when the counting was done on Election Night, but Iowa law allowed mail-in ballots to arrive late if they were postmarked by Election Day, dropping her lead to 47. It shrank to just six votes after the recount was completed at the end of November. Close, but final results sometimes are — which is precisely why we should want elections to be secure and transparent.

Hart could then have gone to court in Iowa, but rather than use the proper legal channels, she decided to wait two months and go instead to the Democratic majority in the House to overrule the recount. She has been represented in this effort by Marc Elias, the Democratic Party’s chief election lawyer, who is essentially asking his own clients to rule in his current client’s favor. The Des Moines Register called in December for Hart to drop her challenge and concede once she refused to subject her challenges to the scrutiny of the Iowa courts.

This should all have ended four months ago, when Hart declined to present her case in court. Instead, taking a page from Donald Trump’s playbook, Hart and Elias want Congress to substitute its own political judgment for the rule of law. The House has the power to judge the election of its members, but Miller-Meeks’s lawyers argued that the House has traditionally required challengers contesting the seating of members to first go through their state’s legal process. Hart didn’t.

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Moreover, as Miller-Meeks notes, Hart’s complaint about the recount using differing standards for recounting ballots in different counties is largely the result of Hart’s own Al Gore-esque decision to consent to machine recounts in Republican-run parts of the state while insisting on hand recounts in Democrat-run areas.

Two months after Miller-Meeks was sworn in, Democrats on the House Administration Committee cast a 6-3 party-line vote to overrule her objections to the inquiry. Asked if she could foresee the Democrats handing the seat to Hart, Nancy Pelosi kept her options open: “I respect the work of the committee. . . . We’ll see where that takes us. There could be a scenario to that extent.”

The people of the second district deserve to be represented in Congress, and to have their choice respected once the legal process for state election contests has been exhausted. Democrats should be ashamed for even calling that into question.",-0.2808761459789504
"Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger gives an update on the state of the election at the State Capitol in Atlanta, Ga., November 6, 2020. (Dustin Chambers/Reuters)

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger criticized House Democrats’ attempt to overturn the victory of Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R., Iowa).

Iowa’s board of elections certified Miller-Meeks’s victory by just six votes over opponent Rita Hart. However, the House has final say over contested elections according to the Constitution, so Democrats are currently conducting a review of the close election that could end with Hart being declared the winner.

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Raffensperger called on Georgia’s congressional delegation, including Democratic senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, to speak out against the House’s maneuver.

“Georgia’s election workers…sacrificed much in pursuit of free and fair elections,” Raffensperger wrote in a letter. “I received threats and required constant security….My wife received sexualized threats. My grandchildren’s homes were broken into. Poll workers were followed home, threatened online, and even had to go into hiding for simply delivering a free and fair election.”

Raffensperger continued, “In light of what Georgia has gone through in the last few months…I am greatly alarmed that members of Congress would consider overturning the will of the voters as certified by the state, as narrow as it is.”

Raffensperger was a frequent target of criticism by former President Trump, who alleged that Georgia’s elections were conducted fraudulently. Trump and allies have not been able to prove claims of widespread fraud.

Democrats have insisted that their effort to overturn Miller-Meeks’s victory is not comparable to Trump’s allegations of fraud. Hart’s campaign argues that there are 22 ballots cast legally, but allegedly improperly rejected, that if counted would giver her a victory.

“We can’t be concerned about optics,” Representative G.K. Butterfield (D., N.C.), who sits on the House panel reviewing the election, told CNN. “We’ve got to review the evidence and see where it leads us.”

Send a tip to the news team at NR.",-1.0908424036656845
"We should not lightly disregard this as simply harmless academic scribbling.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE R emember that brief moment between November and January when Democrats and their voices in the media told us that asking legislators to overturn elections and attacking the legitimacy of the results of elections was a bad thing? Well, Democrats’ old tricks of rejecting outcomes, attacking legitimacy, arguing that it is rigged when their side loses, and spinning conspiracy theories are never far from hand. The latest example comes from Democrat Rita Hart’s ongoing effort to get House Democrats to reverse the election of Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks by the people of Iowa’s second district to represent them in the House.

It is …",-0.05962621039154261
"I have a feeling we’re going to really miss Rob Portman. Ohio Republican Josh Mandel, who has already launched his campaign to succeed Portman in the Senate, has been . . . active on social media of late. He’s clearly trying to prove to the GOP base that he’s conservative enough to represent them, but all he’s succeeded in proving is that he’s kind of a jerk. Take this post from earlier today, which was taken down by Twitter:

It’s gross and unbecoming. It also speaks to just how much contempt Mandel has for the base he’s trying so very hard to appeal to. If he thinks that posting garbage like this is what conservatism is about, I suspect he’s in for a rude awakening come primary season.",0.03782903271274421
"U.S. soldiers conduct a joint foot patrol with Canadian and Afghan National Army troops in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, in 2009. (Omar Sobhani/Reuters)

A response to Bing West.

In his National Review article “Three Wars, No Victory — Why?” (February 18, 2021), Bing West, my former colleague at the Pentagon and the Naval War College, lays out a compelling case for why the U.S. — which he argues is the most powerful country in the history of the world — has lost the three major wars it has fought over the past 50 years: Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Bing divides blame for each of these losses among three hubs — namely, the military, the policy-makers, and the popular mood among the people of the country. He argues correctly that the policy hub, or the policy-makers, were primarily responsible for the failures.

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While I have some experience in each of these conflicts, having served in Vietnam and having visited Iraq three times and Afghanistan once, it does not match that of Bing, who is one of the bravest people I have ever known. However, I still believe that he presents a sometimes incomplete and misleading picture of why we lost these three wars.

For example, in analyzing the Vietnam disaster, he ignores the fact that the war was fought under false pretenses. President Johnson received congressional authorization in 1964 to begin the massive escalation in Vietnam in response to an alleged attack by the North Vietnamese on an American ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. But, even before the congressional investigation, it was clear to any experienced naval officer that what the administration claimed had happened was bogus. I remember my commanding officer in VP-1, who had flown combat missions in World War II and Korea, telling us that the attacks did not happen the way it was claimed. This was something that Vice Admiral James Stockdale, who was Bing’s and my boss at the War College and who received a medal of honor for his courage as a POW in Vietnam and who was in the area at the time, also affirmed. As did a naval officer who convinced Senator Wayne Morris (D., Ore.) to become one of the two senators who voted against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. (Both lost their next election.). When this came to light, it also increased opposition to the war among the American people.

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Another reason we failed in Vietnam is that the war was never winnable in the first place. Bing argues that our poor military strategy from 1965 to 1968, bad policy decisions, and the popular mood doomed the Vietnam War. These factors played a role, but in truth only heightened an already existing reality — a reality made clear to me in 1966, when my colleagues and I got lost coming back from a meeting with SWIFT-boat officers in the northern part of Cameron Bay, South Vietnam. As we rode around aimlessly trying to find our way back to our base, we came upon a Catholic monastery. A priest there gave us directions and fed us. But as we were leaving, one of the monks asked me in French (which I had studied in school) why we thought we were going to make out any better in Vietnam than the French. President Eisenhower was conscious of this when he refused to bail out the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, even though most of his national-security advisers, including then–Vice President Nixon and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Radford, recommended it. But Army chief of staff General Matthew Ridgway, who prevented us from losing in Korea, helped convince Eisenhower not to intervene, because he, like the monks I met, believed Vietnam was unwinnable.

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Similarly, the majority of the American people turned against the war in Vietnam not just because there was a draft, as Bing correctly points out, but because of how the privileged were able to avoid the draft, thus leaving it to the lower class to bear most of the burden. For example, the four most recent presidents who could have served in Vietnam avoided that war and the draft by dubious means. Bill Clinton pretended to join the Army ROTC; George W. Bush used political connections to get into the Air National Guard, when President Johnson made it clear that the reserve component would not be activated to fight the war; Donald Trump, of course, had his family physician claim he had bone spurs, (Trump himself cannot remember which foot); and Joe Biden claimed that the asthma he had in high school prevented him from serving even though he brags about his athletic exploits while in high school.

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Similarly, in his analysis of why we did not win in Iraq, Bing ignores the fact that the Bush administration got the U.S. into war falsely claiming that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, in criticizing the Obama administration for withdrawing from Iraq in 2011, Bing ignores the fact that Obama had no choice. He did this because in 2008 the Iraqi government, which we had helped install, made it clear to us that it would not sign a Status of Forces Agreement unless we agreed to withdraw completely by the end of 2011.

I saw this firsthand when I worked in the Obama campaign and in the summer of 2008 met with Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister. When I asked him about the agreement to withdraw, he told me it was a non-negotiable demand. When I relayed this to Denis McDonough, who was on the campaign trail with Obama and eventually became his chief of staff, he was surprised and asked me if I was certain about what I heard. In 2009, while on a visit to Iraq, I brought this up with several Iraqi government officials in the parliament and the executive branch and received the same answer. Finally, in December 2011, when Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki came to Washington to finalize the deal, I and several others, including Obama’s first national-security adviser General David Jones and future Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, met with him. I asked him directly if there was anything President Obama could have done to keep the troops in Iraq. He essentially said that Bush made an agreement and the U.S. must stick to it. At the meeting, Jones said Obama was willing to leave 10,000 troops.

Bing also ignores the fact that the Bush administration never publicly or privately praised Iran for its help in Afghanistan but actually publicly criticized that nation. I saw this myself. On 9/11, I was working at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. After the attacks, the Iranian ambassador to the U.N. invited me to dinner and told me to let our government know that Iran detested the Taliban and would be willing to help us in Afghanistan. I relayed this to the Bush administration, and Bush’s representative to the Bonn Conference in December 2001, which established the Karzai government, told me that the Bush administration would not have succeeded without the Iranians. Iran’s reward? In early 2002, Bush put the country on the axis of evil. It is an understatement to say that as a result Iran no longer played a positive role in the region.

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Finally, in his Afghanistan analysis, while Bing correctly points out that our military could never transform Afghanistan, he is wrong to argue that we should remain indefinitely in the country to avoid damaging our reputation. Many who fought in this 20-year war already believe our reputation is damaged and want us to leave before it is damaged further. Sunk-costs logic should not apply here.

How bad will it be if we agree to leave on May 1, as Trump agreed to, and the Taliban takes over, especially for women? When I visited Afghanistan in 2011, I asked a Taliban official how they would treat women if or when they took over. He told me not to worry — that they would not treat them any worse than our allies, the Saudis.

Bing’s article should be read by all those who believe that the U.S. can develop and sustain democracies by using military power. However, they should keep in mind that there are some other factors that also play into this decision.",0.6592908166327244
"(utah778/Getty Images)

On his personal blog, Professor Thomas Smith of the University of San Diego Law School wrote a post that was sharply critical of Chinese government policies. Shortly thereafter, the academic mob accused him of ethnic bias against Chinese people.

You would think that law students should be able to distinguish between the two, but either their previous education has left them incapable of making such distinctions or they are so intent on finding a pretext to attack a non-woke professor that they will say any foolish thing.

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So, the dean of the law school, Robert Shapiro, has to decide what to do — tell the students that their claims about Smith are ridiculous or appease them with a promise to investigate him for thought crimes. If you guessed the latter, you understand the nature of higher education in America today.

Writing on Legal Insurrection, Bill Jacobson has the story (and links to many similar ones). He notes, “It is [reminiscent] of the worst days of the Maoist Cultural Revolution, in which students were the most aggressive in demanding ideological obedience from professors, with public shaming one of the tools used to humiliate the target and scare others into silence.”

He’s right. The great “progressive” project of turning our education system into one for indoctrinating young people so they’ll unthinkingly do what the revolution requires is far along.",0.18148701263236897
"Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson speaks during a news conference held by the National Rifle Association (NRA) in Washington, D.C., December 21, 2012. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters )

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, said Sunday that vaccine hesitancy among supporters of former President Trump is the result of a “natural resistance to government,” calling the reluctance to get the vaccine “worrisome.”

On CNN’s State of the Union, host Dana Bash asked Hutchinson what he believes is causing the hesitancy seen among Trump voters, noting that half of the 45th president’s supporters have said they do not plan on receiving a coronavirus vaccine.

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“Well I’ve thought a lot about that and I think it’s a natural resistance to government and skepticism of it,” Hutchinson said. “But you look at the breadth of support here in Arkansas for President Trump, and you have rural voters, you have minority voters and their hesitancy is worrisome, not just here but all across the country.”

“And I expect, as a country, we’ll get the 50 percent vaccination rate of the population, but we’re going to have a harder time getting from 50 percent to 70 percent, and it’s about overcoming the skepticism,” he added.

However, as National Review‘s Jim Geraghty noted earlier this week, while a recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey showed that nearly half of Republican men said they wouldn’t choose to be vaccinated if a vaccine was made available to them, that same survey also showed 24 percent of all self-identified Republicans 20 percent of all self-identified Republican men had already received the vaccine.

“Self-identified Republican men made up 13 percent of the sample,” Geraghty writes. “So if slightly less than half of this demographic really does turn down the vaccine when offered, we’re looking at 6 to 7 percent of the overall adult population.”

Asked if Trump should be more proactive in encouraging his supporters to receive the vaccine, Hutchinson said he is “delighted” that the president recently indicated that his supporters should get the vaccine.

While Trump did not participate in a public service announcement with other former U.S. presidents that encouraged Americans to get vaccinated, Trump did support vaccination in an interview last week.

“I don’t know the story behind as to why he wasn’t in the PSA with the other presidents,” Hutchinson said. “Any message is helpful and I think we have to have our leaders, we have to have sports figures, we have to have different representatives of our community, including our political leaders, say [the] vaccine is important.”

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Hutchinson also reiterated his plans to lift his state’s mask mandate by the end of March.

He defended the decision to Bash, who asked why the mandate would be rescinded in light of evidence that has showed the efficacy of mask use in mitigating the spread of the virus.

“We’re a year into this and we know so much more today than we did a year ago,” he said. “And so we had to educate people understand the importance of the mask, and I expect even though we take the mask mandate away that people will continue to use the mask when you cannot safely distance.”

Send a tip to the news team at NR.",-1.3201480335419007
"A man receives a COVID-19 vaccination in Los Angeles, Calif., March 17, 2021. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

Writing in The Atlantic this past week, Brown University economist Emily Oster did what she does best by using data and research to reassure parents. She made an obvious point: By the summer, adults will have been able to get vaccinated and the number of COVID-19 cases will likely be low. Thus, parents should feel okay about taking children on vacation even though the vaccine won’t be available for younger ages yet.

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Given how low-risk children are of developing severe COVID-19, Oster advised that parents should view unvaccinated children as they would vaccinated grandparents. She wrote that, “the best available research indicates that families with young children don’t, in fact, have to live like it’s 2020 until 2022. Parents can go ahead and plan on barbecues and even vacations.”

Naturally, when the story was tweeted out, the mob pounced. Replies accused Oster of being a “monster” and said the article was “irresponsible” and “dangerous” — and that it could even get people killed.

She attempted to patiently respond to her critics, but of course, it was to no avail. Eventually she was forced to throw in the towel and announced, “I’ll be taking a break from Twitter for a week or two.”

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Oster first gained notoriety for her book Expecting Better, in which she harnessed data to push back against decades of alarmism about what behaviors are risky during pregnancy. During the pandemic, she’s been indispensable in compiling data showing that opening schools does not increase spread of the coronavirus in communities. (Typically, the case load in schools has been about the same as, or less than, the surrounding community.)

The angry reaction to her latest completely reasonable article is another demonstration of just how distorted some people’s thinking has become during the pandemic. From the start, it was important to strike a balance between the risks associated with catching or spreading COVID-19 and the risks of sustained lockdowns and social isolation.

The availability of vaccines for adults has greatly reduced the risks stemming from the coronavirus, so there is much less reason to perpetuate an attitude that has deprived children of school, camp, playdates, sports, seeing their extended family, and vacations with their families.

No segment of the population has sacrificed more for this virus relative to their risk than children, and this has had serious emotional consequences for them.

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It was one thing to argue that keeping them cooped up could save grandma. But when grandma has access to a vaccine that is virtually 100 percent effective at preventing hospitalization and death, then the calculus changes. Oster was simply explaining this new reality.",0.10377546943244394
"The vast majority of Americans, including African Americans, support photo-ID requirements for voting.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE R ecently, I went to get my first COVID-19 vaccination. I was impressed by how quickly and efficiently the process in New York City worked.

I also noticed that I had to present my ID twice, verify my address twice, and verify my phone number once. Anyone signing up for the vaccine is warned in advance that he will have to present identification that includes “a driver’s license, passport, or any legal proof of your date of birth and residency.”

Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, also took note of that fact on Twitter: “Why is it …",0.31699548008413225
"(smolaw11/Getty Images)

If anything, he looks set to make a centuries-old trend worse.

For over a half century, from Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society to Barack Obama’s Race to the Top to the new education package within the COVID stimulus bill under Joe Biden, well-meaning presidents have tried in vain to remake America’s public schools. Why have all their efforts failed? We blame a history of ever-increasing bureaucracy that began with Napoleon and has had no end in sight since.

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President Lyndon Johnson signed a Great Society bill — the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 — to assure educational equity by funding and formalizing federal intervention into public education. ESEA has been reauthorized and amended multiple times, each creating new offices, bureaucrats, and practices, but not necessarily serving kids.

In 2002, President George W. Bush signed No Child Left Behind — ESEA’s seventh reauthorization — into law to change public education as we know it, forcing schools to test students annually and reform or close unless they taught all students. Postmortems a decade later found that few failing schools reformed and fewer still closed. Instead, schools became ever more enamored with mindless test prep.

Less than a decade later, President Obama’s Race to the Top (RTT) — another ESEA-related initiative — promised a near-national curriculum, the Common Core, in part to help increasingly mobile students who had to start over every time they changed schools. RTT also paid states to consider whether students actually learned anything when principals evaluated teachers, infusing some consideration of performance into pay systems previously set by seniority and whether teachers had an extra degree.

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None of this changed schools. The politically toxic Common Core united strange bedfellows such as teachers’ unions distrusting any national testing and conservatives distrusting any national curricula. At best, the RTT replaced teacher-evaluation schemes that had found 99 percent of teachers effective with more-rigorous schemes that found 98 percent of teachers effective.

The public-school system enjoys the status of being the most layered, centralized, and massive bureaucracies in America, and federal intervention has only made things worse.

As two education analysts with a combined 70 years of studying — and studying in — U.S. public schools, we see historic explanations for the past 60 years of bipartisan school-reform failure to fundamentally change school bureaucracies. This same history also suggests that the Biden administration will get schools to hire more bureaucrats, but not to actually better serve children.

This bureaucratic behemoth was not created on purpose, at least not in its current form. Back in the early 19th century, America had small public schools that were run by local school committees, often located in houses of worship. It was a sensible arrangement when government was small and churches were the dominant social organizations.

That dynamic began to change when, in 1843, Massachusetts state education secretary Horace Mann visited Prussia. After suffering repeated invasions by Napoleon, Prussian leaders remade their schools to instill military discipline and patriotism so that students would grow up ready to fight off foreign incursions. To do this, Prussia bureaucratized schooling, with national control of schools and teacher training. Prussia’s example inspired Mann and other American reformers. Through the mid to late 1800s, American states increasingly regulated and standardized schools, paving the way for even more bureaucratic 20th-century reforms.

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The district system became essential to controlling schools. Gradually spreading across the country, first informally and finally through state constitutions, school districts essentially forced the majority of students to remain in the public school to which they were assigned by virtue of their zip code. Apart from all other educational considerations, this gave schools captive consumers whom bureaucrats could now often ignore. Later state and federal governments would seek to control these monopolistic local districts to get them to pay attention, sadly compounding the problem.

In the early 1900s, to copy American manufacturing, teachers’ colleges, state governments, and district-school boards began to adopt the theory of scientific management. They thus began to transform small, often female-led schools stressing academics into large education factories in which male principals bossed female teachers, who in turn batch-processed children. As Kate Rousmaniere writes in The Principal’s Office, by mid century, “it seemed to be the natural order of things that women taught and men managed” in schools. Most male principals and superintendents are former coaches, with athletic coaching providing the traditional male path for promotion into educational administration. They often stress loyalty and teamwork over academic quality.

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Like factories, schools exalt specialization and division of labor. Indeed, professional administrators manage teachers and children much like factories process widgets. Through the mid and late 20th century, American education developed new professions such as curriculum specialists, counselors, and school psychologists, as well as specialized teachers for special education, English as second language, and gifted and talented students. Each new profession had its own specialized bureaucracy, imposed by federal legislation such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Federal intervention thus fostered and expanded bureaucratization.

Here, we come full-circle. Many of the new specialists have come with their own specialized bureaucracies authorized by federal legislation such as ESEA Title I, Bilingual Education, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the Carl Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. In fact, as one of us notes in the forthcoming “Rise of a Centropoly: Good Intentions, Distorted Incentives, and the Cloaked Costs of Top-Down Reform in U.S. Public Education,” federal intervention into schools turned out to be a powerful driver of one thing: school bureaucracy and its employees.

Kennesaw State University professor Benjamin Scafidi documents the public-education-staffing surge from 1950 to 2015, when the number of teachers grew more than twice as fast as student enrollments did, and the ranks of administrators and support staff rose nearly three times as fast as teachers did. From 1950 to 2006 the number of students for each school staffer fell from 19.3 to eight. With ever larger staffs, education budgets soared, but teacher pay stagnated, encouraging teachers to make more money by leaving the classroom. For men, athletic coaching offered a direct path into high-paying administrative jobs above the unglamorous work of classroom teaching. For women, new education bureaucratic professions such as “curriculum specialist” offered similar upward mobility.

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Now the Biden administration promises no big changes, just more bureaucrats, more mental-health counselors, and more summer-school days. The K–12 money offered in the third COVID-relief package — almost $123 billion — goes toward a laundry list of programs and services. These include addressing learning loss through summer school, after-school, or extended-day programs, or responding to students’ academic, social, and emotional needs, and any activity allowed through existing programs including Title I of ESEA, IDEA, the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, and the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. For years, word on the street has been that big sums of money, such as those coming from the feds, go to hiring new staff. In other words, the money simply goes toward funding more boots on the same ground. Both students and staff are chewed up by a bureaucratic machine that favors ever larger budgets, not to mention fads from self-esteem building to personalized learning that are adopted and then discarded on a regular basis, doing little other than to pad administrator resumes.

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Along with eroding students’ dreams and teachers’ status, over-bureaucratization has had two pernicious consequences. First, as any parent of a student with a special-education label can attest, in today’s public schools, a single child is the responsibility of multiple education professionals who do not always talk with each other, let alone with the parents. Not all focus on whether students advance academically. This may explain research findings that special education, for example, may not help students over the long term. Other vulnerable students have similar outcomes.

Second, bureaucratization means that principals have little control over the other professionals working inside their buildings. In Smarter Budgets, Smarter Schools, former school superintendent Nate Levenson grouses that when coordinators of specialized programs within schools claim that federal or state statutes require a particular practice or expenditure, few know enough to argue back. With dozens or even hundreds of spending categories, it is rare that a principal understands their school budget, much less how to shift resources from what fails to what works.

This machine — bureaucratization layered atop a set of government monopolies — makes it nearly impossible to change schools in order to advance academics, or anything else. That is except for one thing: the bureaucracy itself.

Martha Bradley-Dorsey is a distinguished doctoral fellow in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, where Robert Maranto is the 21st Century Chair in Leadership. Mr. Maranto served on his local school board from 2015–20.",-0.3461922294751721
"(maroke/Getty Images)

Today, Kevin Williamson has written a column arguing that we actually could use a Department of Education — among other reasons, to combat the rising threat from China.

I would advise reading his whole piece to consider his argument. But to be clear, Kevin acknowledges that, “The actual Department of Education we have exists primarily to service the interests of the largely unionized public-school personnel who do irreplaceable work funding and staffing Democratic political campaigns. It also maintains a sideline interest in Kulturkampf.” And he laments that it has devolved into a jobs program rather than one that actually invests in educating children.

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Yet all of those things that Williamson imagines we could remove from the department are endemic to any large federal agency. Saying we need a Department of Education, but a less wasteful and more effective one, reminds me of the old argument that communism was a great theory, but just wouldn’t work in practice. (Not that I am accusing Kevin of being a closet commie.)

The problem with the Department of Education — aside from the fact that it goes well beyond the founding vision for the role of the federal government — is that it removes too many decisions from the local level, where parents can have more influence and where they retain the ability to move to if they don’t like the decisions of their local governments. Under the current model, taxpayers send money to Washington, which then squanders it, and sends a smaller amount back to states, often with directives.

Because it is federal, as the administration changes, the personnel have the ability to impose their vision on the whole country. That means that liberals had to (from their perspective) suffer for four years when Betsy DeVos was leading the department, and now conservatives are bracing for whatever the Biden administration is going to cook up. Even if the department could be completely reformed in the way Kevin suggests, there is no way that new model would survive one term of liberal governance.

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In reality, the Department of Education should have never existed, it should have been abolished decades ago, and there is no plausible way to turn it into something useful.",-0.3068455882543424
"Ranking Member Senator Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) questions Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett during her confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill, in Washington, D.C., October 14, 2020. (Bonnie Cash/Pool via Reuters)

On Thursday, as reported by John McCormack, California Senator Dianne Feinstein was holding firm in her support for the filibuster:

Despite being under constant pressure from the left, Feinstein has not yet changed her mind. Asked Thursday if she supports the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, Feinstein told National Review: “I do right now, yes.” Feinstein added that she’s “looking at” her Democratic colleagues’ proposals to change the filibuster and thinks the Democratic caucus’s “discussion is good. I think we’re all listening to one another.” “The Senate is an institution, and this is part of that institution,” Feinstein said of the filibuster. “It’s there and you deal with it, and you find you can deal with it. So, changing it, you have to think: What are the ramifications for the institution?” Is there anything Senate Republicans could do to get Feinstein to change the rule to 51 votes? “I haven’t gone that far in my thinking, because I just know that votes aren’t there to do it,” she replied.

Yet it appears that the pressure from the Left that John alluded to may finally be hitting pay dirt.

On Friday, just a day after her remarks to National Review, Feinstein released a statement saying she was open to changing the filibuster:

I have tried for years to pass legislation in these areas. This month the House passed bills to improve background checks for gun purchases and reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, among other key legislation. Ideally the Senate can reach bipartisan agreement on those issues, as well as on a voting rights bill. But if that proves impossible and Republicans continue to abuse the filibuster by requiring cloture votes, I’m open to changing the way the Senate filibuster rules are used. President Biden this week suggested returning to a talking filibuster so opponents of a bill must speak on the Senate floor and explain their opposition. That is an idea worth discussing. I don’t want to turn away from Senate traditions, but I also don’t believe one party should be able to prevent votes on important bills by abusing the filibuster.

It’s worth noting the broader context that Feinstein has been under fire from progressives for years as her party and home state have moved even further to the left. Just recently, she was forced to give up her post as the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee for the crime of being too nice to Amy Coney Barrett during last year’s confirmation hearing. Activists are itching for the 87-year-old senator to retire so they can replace her with somebody further to the Left who more closely reflects where California is at.",-0.6788522614528768
"(simpson33/iStock/Getty Images Plus)

California growers Cedar Point Nursery and Fowler Packing Company pride themselves on treating their employees with dignity and respect. Neither company’s employees wanted to unionize. Perhaps that is why the United Farm Workers invoked a California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) regulation that grants union organizers the right to access the property of agricultural employers for three hours per day for 120 days per year for the purpose of encouraging employees to unionize.

At Cedar Point, the union organized a protest at 5 a.m. during the peak of harvest season, invading the property with bullhorns and disrupting work. Because the union organizers were there under authority of the ALRB, the employer could do little to stop them — other than filing a lawsuit. That case reached the Supreme Court of the United States, where argument is being heard today.

The growers’ theory of the case is quite simple. The Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause prohibits California from taking property without just compensation. Long ago, the Supreme Court confirmed that the clause not only applies to traditional takings through the eminent-domain power, but also instances where the government physically invades private property in such a way as to effectively take an interest in the land for itself.

Early on, these cases involved situations like government-induced periodic flooding and overflights by low-flying military planes, where the Court recognized that the government had asserted an easement and must pay for it. It later applied the same logic where the government asserted the right to take an easement for the benefit of the public without paying for it. As the Court held in Kaiser Aetna, Inc. v. United States, “even if the government physically invades only an easement in property, it must nonetheless pay just compensation.”

The ALRB’s access regulation gives union organizers the right to invade growers’ private property for three hours per day, 120 days per year to solicit support for the union. As Ninth Circuit judge Sandra Ikuta explained in her dissent in that court, “the right to enter onto the land of another to take some action is the epitome of an easement.” Since the appropriation of an easement is a physical taking, the growers say, that means compensation is categorically required, even if the economic impact is minimal. Since California did not provide for compensation here, the regulation is invalid.

California argues that the access granted by the regulation is too minimal to qualify as a taking automatically, and that it must instead be assessed under the Supreme Court’s multifactor test from Penn Central Transportation Co. v. City of New York, which considers the economic impact of the regulation and the property owner’s “investment-backed expectations.” The problem with this is it fails to recognize the difference between regulations which permit the physical invasion of private property, such as an easement, and those that regulate how a property owner can use the property. The former are always takings without respect to other factors. That is true even when the easement — like most easements — contains time, place, and manner restrictions on access.

Ultimately, the Court must determine whether an easement is an easement, no matter how small. A ruling in favor of California would open the door to significant impingements on property rights, potentially allowing governments to decree public access to desirable private property limited to certain times to avoid takings liability. On the other hand, a ruling in favor of the growers would protect a fundamental element of the property right — the right to exclude trespassers from private property — and lay down a clear, workable rule governing the taking of access easements. The Court’s resolution of this question will shape the nature of property rights for years to come.",-0.017448475958749547
"Ed Whelan has responded to John Finnis’s argument that abortion is unconstitutional—that the Fourteenth Amendment included the unborn in its original meaning and thus protects unborn persons from abortion—with three doubts and criticisms. Whelan and Finnis agree on many underlying issues, namely the moral horror of abortion and the constitutional abomination of Roe and Casey. But Whelan, like the late Justice Antonin Scalia, believes that, as an originalist matter, the question of abortion must be determined through the democratic process in the states. Having recently debated Whelan on this topic, I think none of his three objections to Finnis withstand close scrutiny.

Whelan’s first criticism: Finnis observes that by the end of 1868, thirty of the thirty-seven states prohibited abortion, and twenty-seven of these banned it even before quickening; Whelan objects that if the Fourteenth Amendment included the preborn in its original meaning, we would expect the remaining ten American jurisdictions to have recognized their obligation to prohibit abortion from conception after the Amendment’s passage. But the post-ratification pattern matches what Whelan says we would expect to see if the Fourteenth Amendment recognized preborn personhood. By 1883, seven more states joined those thirty that prohibited abortion at all stages by statute, irrespective of quickening—Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Minnesota, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Furthermore, even if a small minority of states retained the common-law quickening distinction, it may not pose the dilemma that Whelan suggests. The common-law quickening rule was evidentiary in nature; its principle was that where human life could be shown to exist, legal personhood existed also.

Whelan imposes an unreasonably high burden of proof that originalists do not apply to any other question. For instance, many states continued to segregate education and prohibit racial intermarriage following the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification. Rep. John Lynch, a black representative from Mississippi, assured the House that the Civil Rights Act of 1875—an act designed to instantiate the Fourteenth Amendment’s civil rights guarantees—would not require states to racially integrate schools. And Sen. Lyman Trumbull assured his colleagues that nothing in the Fourteenth Amendment would upset state laws prohibiting marriage across racial lines. Applying Whelan’s argument to the racial context would suggest that an originalist interpretation of the Amendment cannot support the decisions in Brown v. Board of Education and Loving v. Virginia. But Whelan has defended originalist justifications of Brown, and has written favorably about originalist justifications of Loving. Why then does he apply a different and much higher standard of proof in the abortion context than in the context of school segregation and interracial marriage?

The higher standard Whelan applies in the abortion context is all the more unreasonable given that historical evidence shows that the legislators who passed state anti-abortion statutes referred to the preborn as “children,” spoke of abortion as “murder,” and classified abortion among the criminal acts “against the person.” Whelan suggests that, to prove his case, Finnis must uncover legislative history showing that the legislators who enacted anti-abortion statutes did so self-consciously in response to their obligations under the Amendment. Certainly, a legislator’s statement explicitly tying anti-abortion statutes to state obligations under the Fourteenth Amendment would be superb evidence to add to the mountain of other historical evidence supporting constitutional personhood. But the absence of such a statement does not show “that those who adopted these Amendments addressed only the rights of those who had been born,” as Judge Bork believed. One cannot help but remark upon the oddity of an originalist who disregards substantial evidence about the original public meaning of an enacted text for lack of a clear statement in legislative history.

Whelan's second objection is this: If the Fourteenth Amendment required the states to protect preborn human beings from abortion, then the Fifth Amendment would have imposed a similar requirement on the federal government from 1791 onward (assuming that the original public meaning of “person” in 1868 was coextensive with the original public meaning of that term in 1791). Whelan writes that Congress did not act to ban abortion from conception in the District of Columbia “over the several decades before 1868” or “in 1866” or “in the proximate aftermath of ratification.” On Whelan’s reading, because D.C. did not act “until 1901,” then like the ten states, the federal government must not have understood such a law to be required.

As a matter of historical fact, however, the opposite is true. The District of Columbia at all times from its establishment in 1800 to 1872 recognized the common-law prohibition on abortion. In 1855, Congress proposed a code to be approved by District residents that would have included a statutory prohibition on abortion both prior to and after quickening, but the code was never adopted. In 1872, the Legislative Assembly for the District of Columbia, acting under the authority of Congress, enacted a comprehensive ban on abortion that abolished the common law quickening distinction to prohibit abortion “in any stage of pregnancy.” The law deemed abortion homicide, rendered abortionists guilty of criminal manslaughter, and imposed additional penalties for accessory liability. This statute remained in effect until 1901, when all previous D.C. statutes were superseded by Congress’s Code of Law for the District of Columbia. The 1901 Code that Whelan refers to also prohibited abortion from conception.

Whelan’s final criticism regards Finnis’s claims about the Supreme Court’s role in supervising state laws. Whelan suggests that “under Finnis’s theory,” the Supreme “Court would be in some way requiring the states (or Congress) to affirmatively enact criminal laws prohibiting abortion.” Only Finnis can elaborate on his argument, but this reading is improbable. Presumably, Finnis has in mind nothing more than the continued judicial review of state laws concerning homicide and abortion to ensure their compliance with the Fourteenth Amendment. Just as the Supreme Court “supervised” the task of school desegregation in the aftermath of its Brown II decision, so too would the Supreme Court continue to address the cases and controversies that would inevitably arise after an initial decision to acknowledge the equal constitutional personhood of the preborn. In context, Finnis simply seems to envision that the contours of that jurisprudence would resemble the “regulative regime” on which the country settled between 1820 and 1880.

There is no reason to suppose that the Court would require states or Congress to enact criminal laws prohibiting abortion, or hold legislators in contempt should they fail to do so. The Court would simply resolve equal protection claims as it always does, following its precedent in Yick Wo v. Hopkins. Where the protections of state homicide laws are wrongfully withheld from preborn persons, the Court would issue rulings requiring states to extend equal protection to preborn persons with respect to those homicide laws before they could be enforced. This would in practice operate no differently than when the Court enjoins a state from continuing in effect any other discriminatory policy violative of equal protection (for example, a law criminalizing only the murder of a white person).

The historical evidence for constitutional personhood is more than simply plausible, or even probable. It is clear and convincing. Legal conservatives and originalists should adjust their views in response to the evidence rather than insist that the question of abortion be returned to the states. As a matter of political morality, the states-rights view on abortion is nothing other than an echo of Stephen Douglas’s arguments. Lincoln rightly rejected Douglas’s “popular sovereignty” with respect to slavery, and understood that America could not endure “half slave and half free.” So too with abortion.

Josh Craddock is an affiliated scholar with the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding.

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"A pregnant woman receives an ultrasound. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

1972—Who knew that contraception had such generative power? A mere seven years after Justice Douglas’s majority opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut (see This Day for June 7, 1965) holds that married persons have a right to contraception hidden in the “penumbras” and “emanations” surrounding a right to marital privacy, Justice Brennan’s majority opinion in Eisenstadt v. Baird extends that right to unmarried persons. Dismissing as immaterial the marital relationship that Douglas had posited to be pivotal, Brennan, in a wondrous bit of bootstrapping, uses the Griswold holding as the basis for an equal-protection ruling (“whatever the rights of the individual to access to contraceptives may be, the rights must be the same for the unmarried and the married alike”) that undermines the very foundation of Griswold.

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Brennan’s hijinx don’t end there. With Roe v. Wade already pending (it was first argued in December 1971), Brennan smuggles into his Eisenstadt opinion this assertion: “If the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.” One year later, Justice Blackmun’s majority opinion in Roe quotes this passage immediately before declaring that “[t]hat right necessarily includes the right of a woman to decide whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.”",0.8160303956569512
"(Michał Chodyra/Getty Images)

2011—In Amnesty International v. Clapper, a Second Circuit panel rules that attorneys, journalists, and labor, legal, media, and human rights organizations have standing to bring an action facially challenging the constitutionality of a provision of federal law that creates new procedures for authorizing foreign electronic surveillance. The plaintiffs have standing, the panel rules, because the new procedures “cause them to fear that their communications will be monitored, and thus force them to undertake costly and burdensome measures to protect the confidentiality of international communications necessary to carrying out their jobs.”

As surveillance expert Orin Kerr puts it, “If this new decision is right, then challenging secret surveillance statutes would seem to be pretty easy—in stark contrast with the previous understanding that it was extremely difficult.”

In September 2011, the Second Circuit will deny rehearing en banc on an evenly divided 6-6 vote. The dissenters condemn the panel’s rule as contrary to Supreme Court precedent, and Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs adds:

“As best I can see, the only purpose of this litigation is for counsel and plaintiffs to act out their fantasy of persecution, to validate their pretensions to policy expertise, to make themselves consequential rather than marginal, and to raise funds for self-sustaining litigation.”

Two years later, the Supreme Court, by a 5-to-4 vote, will reverse the panel ruling on the ground that plaintiffs’ theory of future injury “relies on a highly attenuated chain of possibilities” and was thus too speculative to satisfy Article III’s standing requirement.

2012—By a vote of five to four, the Supreme Court rules in Lafler v. Cooper that a habeas petitioner who received a full and fair trial may nonetheless pursue a claim that his attorney’s allegedly incompetent advice regarding a plea-bargaining offer deprived him of his (supposed) Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel. Never mind (among other things) that assurance of a fair trial is what the right to effective assistance of counsel had been thought to protect and that the petitioner, having received a fair trial, therefore did not suffer any constitutional injury.

The majority’s “squeamishness in fashioning a remedy, and the incoherence of what it comes up with,” argues Justice Scalia in dissent, signal “its realization, deep down, that there is no real constitutional violation here anyway.”

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2014—After encouraging plaintiffs, a same-sex couple, to recast their challenge to state adoption laws as a challenge to state marriage laws, federal district judge Bernard A. Friedman rules (in DeBoer v. Snyder) that the Michigan constitutional amendment that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman is not “rationally related to any conceivable legitimate governmental interest.” Despite the fact that the Supreme Court, in the preceding month, had intervened to block a similar ruling against another state’s marriage laws from taking effect during the appellate process, Friedman refuses even to stay his own ruling pending appeal. (The Sixth Circuit, one day later, will stay Friedman’s ruling.)",1.6482701710035539
"Rep. Deb Haaland holds a Transgender Pride flag beside democratic colleagues on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C, February 25, 2021. (Tom Brenner/Reuters)

The issues raised by the Equality Act are serious and need open, honest debate. But the March 17 hearing on this bill in the Senate Judiciary Committee showed that serious legislative consideration is impossible unless we are honest about what, on its face, the Equality Act would do.

During the hearing, Alfonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, claimed that while the Equality Act would grant the right not to be discriminated against, it would not take any rights away from anyone. No one who has read the Equality Act could possibly believe that, let alone say so under oath.

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To see why, we must first consider another relevant federal statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). It provides that a person whose exercise of religion has been substantially burdened by government action may go to court and “obtain appropriate relief.” The government must show that its action burdening the person’s religious exercise is “the least restrictive means of furthering [a] compelling government interest.”

Each of us, therefore, has the right to be free from all but the most necessary government burdens on our religious freedom. RFRA even states that “[f]ederal statutory law” adopted after RFRA’s enactment “is subject to this chapter unless such law excludes application by reference to this chapter.” We have this right to defend against government action that interferes with religious exercise unless Congress explicitly takes it away when enacting another statute.

Enter the Equality Act. It states that the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act…shall not…provide a basis for challenging the application or enforcement of” the Equality Act’s provisions. In other words, if the Equality Act became law, no one would be allowed to claim that its application or enforcement substantially burdens their exercise of religion. RFRA gave us that right, the Equality Act would take it away.

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This is significant in several different ways. First, versions of the Equality Act dating back to 1994 included at least some language that protected religious freedom. Some of those versions even had a blanket exception for religious organizations. The current version not only drops any recognition of anyone’s religious freedom, but would deliberately prohibit any protection for that fundamental right whatsoever.

Second, this would be the first time in history that Congress expressly rejected RFRA’s application. Third, that rejection would extend to every area that the Equality Act covers: employment, housing, public education, government programs, credit, jury service, public accommodations, and public facilities.

To be clear, RFRA applies only when a burden on the exercise of religion is caused by government action and that burden is substantial. At that point, it’s up to the courts to apply the RFRA standard to resolve the conflict. RFRA, therefore, does not automatically exempt anyone from obeying the law. Nor does it always shield any particular religious practice or insulate any government action. It simply says that government may not burden the right to exercise religion any more than absolutely necessary. RFRA allows each of us to challenge the government when we believe it has crossed that line.

By contrast, the Equality Act would do what RFRA does not. It would deny even the opportunity to say that government action burdens the exercise of religion. It’s the very heads-I-win-tails-you-lose, all-or-nothing approach that Congress chose not to follow in RFRA. Congress is known to enact vague, confusing, and just generally messed-up statutes, but neither RFRA nor the Equality Act are among them on this point. What RFRA gaveth, the Equality Act would taketh away.

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The meaning, application, and broader implications of the Equality Act are profound. Anyone, of course, is free to believe that it should always trounce the constitutional right to exercise religion and, of course, has the obligation to defend that position. But as we debate the Equality Act, we must at least tell the truth that this is what’s at stake.",0.3716806160548211
"(Wikimedia Commons)

1981—By a vote of 4 to 2, the California supreme court rules (in Committee to Defend Reproductive Rights v. Myers) that the state constitution forbids California from placing restrictions on the Medicaid funding of abortions when it fully funds the childbirth expenses of indigent women.",-0.029330072670855575
"(Erin Schaff/Reuters)

1954—The Senate, by voice vote, confirms President Eisenhower’s nomination of former California governor Earl Warren to serve as Chief Justice. Warren was already serving as Chief Justice pursuant to a recess appointment by Eisenhower in October 1953.

Years later, Eisenhower will call his appointment of Warren “the biggest damned-fool mistake I ever made.” That’s a highly dubious assessment, as Eisenhower also appointed Justice William Brennan. (To be fair to Eisenhower, his death in 1969, just months before the end of Warren’s time as Chief Justice but not much more than one-third of the way through Brennan’s tenure, prevented him from fully comparing what he accurately labeled his two biggest mistakes.)

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2005—Relying on “international opinion,” the Supreme Court, by a vote of 5 to 4, overturns its own precedent and rules in Roper v. Simmons that execution of offenders who were 17 at the time of their offense violates the Eighth Amendment. Roper starkly illustrates how the same justices who bow to the views of foreigners are disdainfully dismissive of the rights of American citizens to engage in self-governance in this country. Here’s a summary:

When he was 17, Christopher Simmons planned a brutal murder. He assured his friends they could ‘get away with it’ because they were minors. In the middle of the night, Simmons and a friend broke into a woman’s home, awakened her, covered her eyes and mouth with duct tape, bound her hands, put her in her minivan, drove to a state park, walked her to a railroad trestle spanning a river, tied her hands and feet together with electrical wire, wrapped her whole face in duct tape, and threw her from the bridge. Exactly as Simmons planned, his victim drowned an unspeakably cruel death in the waters below.

Simmons confessed to the murder. At the death-penalty phase of his trial, the judge instructed the jurors that they could consider Simmons’s age as a mitigating factor, and the defense relied heavily on that factor. The jury recommended, and the trial judge imposed, the death penalty.

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In his majority opinion (joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer), Justice Kennedy aims to discern “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” Kennedy looks to the 12 states that have no death penalty and the 18 states that, “by express provision or judicial interpretation, exclude juveniles from its reach” to conclude that a majority of states—30 in total—reject the death penalty for 16- and 17-year-olds. In dissent, Scalia counters that it makes no sense to count states that have no death penalty: “Consulting States that bar the death penalty concerning the necessity of making an exception to the penalty for offenders under 18 is rather like including old-order Amishmen in a consumer-preference poll on the electric car.”

Kennedy then finds “respected and significant confirmation” for his ruling in “the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty.” According to Kennedy, the fact that the United States, alone with Somalia in the world, has not ratified Article 37 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child—which contains an express prohibition on capital punishment for crimes committed by juveniles—supports his conclusion that the juvenile death penalty is unconstitutional. But as Justice Scalia observes in dissent, “Unless the Court has added to its arsenal the power to join and ratify treaties on behalf of the United States,” the United States’ non-ratification of Article 37 undercuts the majority’s position. Scalia also points out that the justices in the majority would never aim to conform American law to the rest of the world on matters like the exclusionary rule, church-state relations, and abortion.",0.8281511112344702
"Sen. Ben Sasse on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., September 27, 2018 (Andrew Harnik/Reuters)

Senator Ben Sasse is calling out Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on his latest fit of paranoia. On the heels of the spectacle of a subcommittee hearing last week to showcase the Rhode Island Democrat’s dark-money theories, Whitehouse is asking Attorney General Merrick Garland to look into what he says may have been a “fake” investigation by the FBI of Brett Kavanaugh during his 2018 Supreme Court nomination.

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Recall that in addition to the half a dozen previous background checks done on Kavanaugh throughout his career, the FBI investigated the scurrilous allegations of misconduct made by Christine Blasey Ford and others at the eleventh hour in a desperate attempt to sink his nomination. Now, Whitehouse is going after the FBI for supposedly failing to conduct a thorough investigation.

But really his target is Justice Kavanaugh, and Sasse made that clear in comments to National Review. “A United States Senator who once peddled lies about a Supreme Court nominee is now trying to weaponize the DOJ against a sitting Supreme Court Justice,” Sasse asserted. “This kind of paranoid obsession is Nixonian poison to public trust.”

In the Nebraska Republican’s words, “If senators want to join conspiracy theory book clubs, wear tinfoil hats, and talk about Roswell, that’s their prerogative, but this is something more sinister.”

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Read Brittany Bernstein’s NRO reports on this here and here.",1.0358931917881753
"Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Washington, D.C., September 27, 2018 (Tom Williams/Pool via Reuters)

One of the spectacles that comes with a Democratic Senate is a platform for Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights, to hold a hearing on his favorite subject: dark money. Yesterday’s was entitled “What’s Wrong with the Supreme Court: The Big-Money Assault on Our Judiciary.” A more self-aware senator would have picked a name that did less to conjure the memory of his notorious amicus brief in 2019 in which he threatened the justices with Court-packing if they did not rule his way: “The Supreme Court is not well. . . . Perhaps the Court can heal itself before the public demands it be ‘restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics.’” But self-awareness is not one of the senator’s strong suits, and that allowed Republican senators and witnesses to expose yesterday’s hearing for the dark comedy that it was.

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To make his case against what he called the “tsunami of slime” that is “dark money,” Whitehouse called three witnesses who were from the very world he condemned:

Lisa Graves is president of the board of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), which has received large anonymous donations and gets a significant share of funds from groups that are used to hide the identity of donors. (This despite her statement to Senator Mike Lee that “there was no dark money that I received or that the Center for Media and Democracy received.”)

Ben Jealous is president of People for the American Way (PFAW) and used to be president of the NAACP. Both are dark-money groups. In fact, PFAW was a pioneer in this category. It was founded as a project of the Tides Foundation, a group that funnels money to numerous left-wing organizations while helping to obscure individual donors. Anonymously funded judicial-nomination campaigns were a recurring theme of the hearing, but it was PFAW that paved the way for today’s dark money spending in judicial fights, with its smear campaign against Robert Bork in 1987.

Professor Michael Klarman sits on the board of Take Back the Court, a left-wing dark-money group founded as an effort to eliminate the legislative filibuster and pack the Supreme Court.

Those witnesses were usually on board with the Supreme Court–disparaging theme of the hearing, but their testimony recounted decisions, laws, and organizations with which they disagreed without articulating any theory as to how the justices were corruptly influenced. Republican senators on the subcommittee saw through this and made sure their audience did as well. Senator John Kennedy, the subcommittee’s ranking member, asked over a dozen questions in an attempt to get from witnesses a cogent theory of bribery or other corrupt conduct, but they had none to offer.

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One of the Democratic witnesses, Klarman, undermined the premise of the hearing when he stated that conservative groups are “trying to promote people onto the Court who they’re pretty confident think about the world the same way they do. I don’t think that’s insidious. I think . . . Democrats also try to put people on the Supreme Court to do the things that they want them to do.” If Whitehouse has a follow-up hearing, I don’t expect Klarman to be invited back.

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The Republican senators made mincemeat of Whitehouse’s argument. On this occasion, the chairman did not bring any of his trademark charts adorned with the names of groups he disagrees with, but Senator Thom Tillis displayed his own stash of charts, with one after another displaying the liberal dominance of dark money, the labyrinthine Arabella Advisors empire, and associate attorney general nominee Vanita Gupta’s place in that empire.

Senator Ted Cruz drove home that “Democrats thunder against dark money, and yet Democrats dominate dark money.” That includes 14 of the top 20 organizations giving virtually all their money in 2016 to support Democrats and eight of the top ten donors to super PACs being Democrats. That dominance only increased, with Democratic dark money in 2020 outnumbering Republican dark money by a ratio of six to one. Cruz ran through several examples with Scott Walter of the Capital Research Center, who displayed his encyclopedic knowledge of the landscape and mainstream media’s lack of interest in giving attention to liberal groups that “use more opaque funding methods” for their advocacy than do conservative groups.

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By the time the hearing was over, it was as hard to figure out what Whitehouse got out of it as it was to see through Arabella’s balance sheets. Kudos to Senators Kennedy, Lee, Cruz, and Tillis for shining a light on the Left’s dark money machine. For decades, organizations like Arabella Advisors, PFAW, CMD, and many others worked in the shadows to intimidate and influence our courts, but they are finally being exposed.",0.33301392999642637
"Then-nominee Brett Kavanaugh testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C., September 27, 2018. (Michael Reynolds/Reuters)

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) is asking Attorney General Merrick Garland to help facilitate “proper oversight” into the FBI’s 2018 background check of Brett Kavanaugh during the Supreme Court justice’s confirmation hearing, suggesting that the investigation may have been “fake.”

Kavanaugh faced a tumultuous confirmation process in 2018 after Christine Blasey Ford claimed he had sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers. Kavanaugh denied the claims.

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The FBI investigated Ford’s allegations, as well as other allegations of misconduct that arose. However, some Democratic senators claimed the bureau had not performed a thorough background check. They criticized the FBI’s decision not to interview Ford or Kavanaugh as part of the probe.

In a letter to Garland, Whitehouse expresses concern that some witnesses who wanted to share their accounts with the FBI allegedly could not find anyone at the bureau to accept their testimony and that no one had been assigned to accept or gather evidence.

“This was unique behavior in my experience, as the Bureau is usually amenable to information and evidence; but in this matter the shutters were closed, the drawbridge drawn up, and there was no point of entry by which members of the public or Congress could provide information to the FBI,” Whitehouse said.

The senator noted that after the FBI created a tip line, lawmakers were not offered any insight into how or whether new allegations were being processed and evaluated.

He said the senators had been made aware a “stack” of information had come in through the tip line, but were given no further explanation on how the information had been reviewed.

“This ‘tip line’ appears to have operated more like a garbage chute, with everything that came down the chute consigned without review to the figurative dumpster,” he said.

He also rebuked FBI director Chris Wray, who has stayed on in his role under the Biden administration, for not responding to questions regarding the investigation.

Whitehouse said he wants information about “how, why, and at whose behest” the FBI conducted a “fake” investigation.

Send a tip to the news team at NR.",1.209672022821191
"Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., May 5, 2020. (Andrew Harnik/Reuters)

Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) on Tuesday criticized Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D., R.I.) claim that the FBI’s 2018 background check of Brett Kavanaugh during the Supreme Court justice’s confirmation hearing may have been “fake.”

“If senators want to join conspiracy theory book clubs, wear tinfoil hats, and talk about Roswell, that’s their prerogative, but this is something more sinister,” Sasse, who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a comment to National Review.

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“A United States Senator who once peddled lies about a Supreme Court nominee is now trying to weaponize the DOJ against a sitting Supreme Court Justice,” the Nebraska Republican added. “This kind of paranoid obsession is Nixonian poison to public trust.”

Whitehouse wrote a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking him to help facilitate “proper oversight” into the bureau’s investigation during Kavanaugh’s tumultuous confirmation process in which the judge was accused of having sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford when they were teenagers. Kavanaugh denied the claims.

The FBI investigated Ford’s allegations, as well as other allegations of misconduct that arose. However, some Democratic senators claimed the bureau had not performed a thorough background check. They criticized the FBI’s decision not to interview Ford or Kavanaugh as part of the probe.

Whitehouse expresses concern in the letter that some witnesses who wanted to share their accounts with the FBI allegedly could not find anyone at the bureau to accept their testimony and that no one had been assigned to accept or gather evidence.

“This was unique behavior in my experience, as the Bureau is usually amenable to information and evidence; but in this matter the shutters were closed, the drawbridge drawn up, and there was no point of entry by which members of the public or Congress could provide information to the FBI,” Whitehouse said.

The senator noted that after the FBI created a tip line, lawmakers were not offered any insight into how or whether new allegations were being processed and evaluated.

He said the senators had been made aware a “stack” of information had come in through the tip line, but were given no further explanation on how the information had been reviewed.

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“This ‘tip line’ appears to have operated more like a garbage chute, with everything that came down the chute consigned without review to the figurative dumpster,” he said.

He also rebuked FBI director Chris Wray, who has stayed on in his role under the Biden administration, for not responding to questions regarding the investigation.

Whitehouse said he wants information about “how, why, and at whose behest” the FBI conducted a “fake” investigation.

Send a tip to the news team at NR.",-0.7245696049584904
"The term “the War Between the States” is reasonably—but, as we shall see, not always rightly—seen as a Confederate-friendly shorthand for the Civil War, as it obscures that the southern states seceded from the Union. From the end of the Civil War through the 1960s, that shorthand appeared in a grand total of 15 Supreme Court cases as a shorthand for the Civil War, with the latest instance occurring in 1958. But in a surprising resurgence, in the barely two decades from 1971 to 1992, 16 Supreme Court opinions used the term “the War Between the States.” It hasn’t appeared in a Supreme Court opinion since then. (I’m relying on a quick database search by my trusted research assistant.)

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Before reading further, try to guess which Supreme Court justice was responsible for nearly all the recent uses of “the War Between the States.”

Wrong!

The answer, it turns out, is Harry Blackmun, who used the shorthand in eleven separate opinions (in one instance, quoting his previous use of it) during his tenure from 1970 to 1994 and whose use was quoted in two other of the 16 instances. Having done the research, I figure that I might as well lay it out:

In Blackmun’s very first term, in his majority opinion in Rogers v. Bellei (1971): “In any event, although one might have expected a definition of citizenship in constitutional terms, none was embraced in the original document, or, indeed, in any of the amendments adopted prior to the War Between the States.”

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In his majority opinion in Roe v. Wade (1973): “It was not until after the War Between the States that legislation began generally to replace the common law.” (Like so many of Blackmun’s historical assertions in Roe, this statement appears to be wrong. According to this essay by John Finnis, 27 of the 36 states had enacted anti-abortion statutes by 1864. By the way, it was Finnis’s use of this Blackmun quote that led to my further inquiry into Blackmun’s use of the shorthand.)

In his unanimous opinion in United States v. John (1978): “The War Between the States interrupted the payment of this Senate award, and, after the war, the Choctaws found themselves forced to prove their claims once again, this time in the federal courts.”

In his majority opinion in Rose v. Mitchell (1979): “Discrimination on account of race was the primary evil at which the Amendments adopted after the War Between the States, including the Fourteenth Amendment, were aimed.”

In his majority opinion in United States v. Sioux Nation (1980): “Klein was the administrator of the estate of V. F. Wilson, the deceased owner of property that had been sold by agents of the Government during the War Between the States.”

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In his majority opinion in McCarty v. McCarty (1981): “Although disability pensions have been provided to military veterans from the Revolutionary War period to the present, it was not until the War Between the States that Congress enacted the first comprehensive nondisability military retirement legislation.”

In his unanimous opinion in United States v. Louisiana (1985): “During the War Between the States, the fort was occupied alternately by Union and Confederate troops.”

In his dissent in McCleskey v. Kemp (1987): Quoting his statement in Rose v. Mitchell.

In his majority opinion in Ngiraingas v. Sanchez (1990): “After the War Between the States, race relations in the Southern States were troubled.”

In a unanimous portion of his opinion in Georgia v. South Carolina (1990): “Except for the placement of a battery on the islands by Confederate forces during the War Between the States, there never was any resident on the islands and no schools, roads, or other public improvements.”

And in his opinion concurring in the judgment in Ankenbrandt v. Richards (1992): “I am confident, nonetheless, that the unbroken and unchallenged practice of the federal courts since before the War Between the States of declining to hear certain domestic relations cases provides the very rare justification for continuing to do so.”

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I point this out not to suggest that Blackmun himself had any sympathy for the Confederate account of the Civil War. Rather, it would seem that, in the course of his education in Minnesota and later at Harvard, he had somehow become accustomed to the term “the War Between the States” and was blind to its connotations.

In addition to joining many of Blackmun’s opinions cited above, other Supreme Court justices used “the War Between the States” five times in their opinions in those same two decades. Perhaps most surprisingly, Justice William Brennan used the shorthand twice:

In his dissent in National League of Cities v. Usery (1976): During the tenure of Mr. Chief Justice Chase, the War Between the States, fought to preserve the supremacy of the Union, was won….”

In his dissent in Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd. (1975): “After the War Between the States, ‘nationalism dominated political thought, and brought with it congressional investiture of the federal judiciary with enormously increased powers.’”

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Justice Thurgood Marshall twice quoted Blackmun’s passage from Rose v. Mitchell—in his opinions in Vasquez v. Hillery (1986) and Batson v. Kentucky (1986).

Justice Lewis Powell used the term in his dissent in EEOC v. Wyoming (1983): “Thirty years later, Jefferson and Madison’s views were expanded by John C. Calhoun in his nullification doctrine—the extreme view that eventually led to the War Between the States.”",-0.13163521722882843
"Vindicating my own skepticism about claims that many new appellate judgeships need to be created, the Judicial Conference of the United States has just issued its recommendation for only two new appellate judgeships, both in the Ninth Circuit.

That’s down from the Judicial Conference’s recommendation two years ago for five new Ninth Circuit judgeships. On this trend, if we wait two more years, the Judicial Conference will recommend reducing the Ninth Circuit by a seat.

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Further, I’m reliably informed (though I can’t find the information online yet) that the Judicial Conference has recommended that, due to light workload, one of the twelve active judgeships on the Tenth Circuit should be left vacant. (There are currently two vacancies on that court.)",0.6694198932028549
"Last month, a House Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing on whether Congress should create new lower-court judgeships. In its most recent recommendation, the Judicial Conference of the United States sought five new appellate judgeships, all in the Ninth Circuit. By contrast, in her testimony Duke law professor Marin K. Levy suggested that the increase in the appellate caseload of approximately 20% since 1990 (when Congress last created new federal appellate judgeships) warrants adding a much higher number of new judgeships.

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Let me explain why I am very skeptical of Levy’s caseload benchmark.

For starters, I’ll note that total filings in the federal appellate courts fell 9.9% from 2011 to 2020, according to data from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. (See this year-by-year chart.) In order to assess whether this trend will continue, it would be useful to understand why it has occurred. If this trend does continue, we might soon need fewer judges, not more.

Second, Levy’s comparison of filings from 1990 to now assumes that a filing is a filing is a filing—that is, that on average a volume of X filings in 1990 would impose the same burden as a volume of X filings now. That’s a sensible, and perhaps inevitable, starting-point assumption. But is it accurate? Or is it reasonable to explore whether the composition of a court’s caseload has changed over thirty years, perhaps giving it a lighter average case (but perhaps, of course, giving it a heavier one)?

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Third, judicial productivity ought to have increased dramatically over the past thirty years, as a result of technological advances. When I was a Ninth Circuit law clerk thirty-five years ago, my fellow law clerks and I all used typewriters, and I doubt that any judge on the court prior to Judge Alex Kozinski used a word processor. It’s much, much easier to compose judicial opinions and to work from home or on travel than it used to be. Is it unreasonable to expect the average judge to be at least twice as productive as a result?

Fourth, the metric of filings per judgeship is really a metric of filing per authorized active judgeship and thus ignores the important contribution that senior judges play. There are various reasons—increased lifespans, judges taking senior status at a younger average age—why there might be more senior judges freely adopting a larger caseload. One data point I’ve looked at indicates that senior judges now account for the equivalent of 55 active judgeships, versus only about 35 some two decades ago.* Given that there are only 179 authorized active judgeships, it seems a large mistake to exclude senior judges from the calculus. (That said, I recognize that it’s also fair to consider whether too much is being asked of senior judges.)

* Senior judges accounted for 22.8% of the case participations in 2020, and active judges accounted for 74.1%. (Visiting judges accounted for the remaining 3.1%.) The ratio between the two numbers is roughly the same as the ratio between 55 and 179. I did a similar calculation for 1997 data.",-2.0646184712240037
"(Diego M. Radzinschi)

Two personnel moves of interest to those who practice before or write about the U.S. Supreme Court: Mara Silver is the court’s new emergency applications clerk, and Kate Shaw will help ABC News cover the court and legal issues.

Mara Silver: The former counsel to Sen. Dick Durbin on the Judiciary Committee is the court’s new emergency applications clerk, a position also known in shorthand as the “death clerk.”

That means she will handle last-minute applications to halt executions, staying in touch with state officials and defense lawyers in pending cases, as well as keeping justices informed about upcoming execution dates. She replaces Jordan “Danny” Bickell, who was promoted last year to the position of deputy clerk for practice and procedure.",0.43679575262380793
"I held off on drafting this annual overview post until after the Georgia run-off elections, so that we would know which party will have control of the Senate. By making the run-offs a referendum on his crazed claims about the presidential election, Donald Trump managed to hand the Senate over to the Democrats. As a result, Republicans will be in a much weaker position to stop judicial nominations made by soon-to-be President Biden.

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Here are the big questions as I see them:

1. Will another Supreme Court vacancy arise?

There is a lot of pressure on Justice Breyer to step down, and I think that he will succumb to that pressure, either this year or next year. If Biden replaces him, the ideological composition of the Court won’t change much. By contrast, if a vacancy unexpectedly arises on the conservative side of the Court, Biden will have the opportunity to add a fourth liberal justice.

Joe Biden has promised that his first Supreme Court nominee will be a black woman. The 50-50 Senate means that he can’t take a lot of risks, so if he seeks a candidate who meets the conventional criteria, the frontrunners will be California supreme court justice Leondra Kruger and D.C. federal district judge Ketanji Brown Jackson (who is a leading candidate for the D.C. Circuit seat that Merrick Garland is vacating). Either candidate would probably have a fairly smooth—if tight—path to confirmation.

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2. Will many new vacancies open up on the federal appellate courts?

There are some 40 or so federal appellate judges who were appointed by Democratic presidents who are “senior eligible”—that is, who could fully retire or take senior status and continue to receive their annual salary. (See the list I compiled in November 2019.) I’d expect most of these 40 to exercise that option early this year. [Clarification (10:30 p.m.): I’m focusing here on the vacancies that will open up for nominations, so for this purpose I include a judge’s decision to take senior status immediately as well as a decision to take senior status effective upon the confirmation of the judge’s successor. I would expect the latter option to predominate.]

Donald Trump appointed 9 federal appellate judges in the first year of his presidency. Thanks to Trump’s botching the Georgia Senate races, Biden should be able to double or triple that total in his first year.

3. Will the Biden White House make nominations expeditiously?

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Judicial nominations are a priority for the Left, Biden’s chief of staff Ron Klain is very talented and deeply experienced in judicial confirmations, and the White House Counsel’s office will be full of talented lawyers. So there is plenty of reason to expect the White House to make nominations expeditiously.

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The White House faces two obstacles. One is ideological infighting on the Left. Some progressives, for example, object to the nomination of any corporate lawyers and prefer so-called public-interest lawyers and activists. But many of the best credentialed candidates will be from Big Law. Ironically, the Democratic takeover of the Senate will magnify this problem, as the White House will have a tougher time telling progressives that it won’t nominate a particular candidate because of too much risk that the candidate won’t be confirmed.

The second obstacle is the Left’s diversity bean-counting. It will be relatively easy for the White House to find diverse candidates to nominate. But it will be a lot trickier to satisfy the Left’s demands for some ill-defined mix of diverse candidates. Look for some groups to complain that they’re underrepresented among the nominees.",0.21087053940297293
"U.S. soldiers conduct a joint foot patrol with Canadian and Afghan National Army troops in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, in 2009. (Omar Sobhani/Reuters)

A response to Bing West.

In his National Review article “Three Wars, No Victory — Why?” (February 18, 2021), Bing West, my former colleague at the Pentagon and the Naval War College, lays out a compelling case for why the U.S. — which he argues is the most powerful country in the history of the world — has lost the three major wars it has fought over the past 50 years: Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Bing divides blame for each of these losses among three hubs — namely, the military, the policy-makers, and the popular mood among the people of the country. He argues correctly that the policy hub, or the policy-makers, were primarily responsible for the failures.

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While I have some experience in each of these conflicts, having served in Vietnam and having visited Iraq three times and Afghanistan once, it does not match that of Bing, who is one of the bravest people I have ever known. However, I still believe that he presents a sometimes incomplete and misleading picture of why we lost these three wars.

For example, in analyzing the Vietnam disaster, he ignores the fact that the war was fought under false pretenses. President Johnson received congressional authorization in 1964 to begin the massive escalation in Vietnam in response to an alleged attack by the North Vietnamese on an American ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. But, even before the congressional investigation, it was clear to any experienced naval officer that what the administration claimed had happened was bogus. I remember my commanding officer in VP-1, who had flown combat missions in World War II and Korea, telling us that the attacks did not happen the way it was claimed. This was something that Vice Admiral James Stockdale, who was Bing’s and my boss at the War College and who received a medal of honor for his courage as a POW in Vietnam and who was in the area at the time, also affirmed. As did a naval officer who convinced Senator Wayne Morris (D., Ore.) to become one of the two senators who voted against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. (Both lost their next election.). When this came to light, it also increased opposition to the war among the American people.

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Another reason we failed in Vietnam is that the war was never winnable in the first place. Bing argues that our poor military strategy from 1965 to 1968, bad policy decisions, and the popular mood doomed the Vietnam War. These factors played a role, but in truth only heightened an already existing reality — a reality made clear to me in 1966, when my colleagues and I got lost coming back from a meeting with SWIFT-boat officers in the northern part of Cameron Bay, South Vietnam. As we rode around aimlessly trying to find our way back to our base, we came upon a Catholic monastery. A priest there gave us directions and fed us. But as we were leaving, one of the monks asked me in French (which I had studied in school) why we thought we were going to make out any better in Vietnam than the French. President Eisenhower was conscious of this when he refused to bail out the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, even though most of his national-security advisers, including then–Vice President Nixon and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Radford, recommended it. But Army chief of staff General Matthew Ridgway, who prevented us from losing in Korea, helped convince Eisenhower not to intervene, because he, like the monks I met, believed Vietnam was unwinnable.

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Similarly, the majority of the American people turned against the war in Vietnam not just because there was a draft, as Bing correctly points out, but because of how the privileged were able to avoid the draft, thus leaving it to the lower class to bear most of the burden. For example, the four most recent presidents who could have served in Vietnam avoided that war and the draft by dubious means. Bill Clinton pretended to join the Army ROTC; George W. Bush used political connections to get into the Air National Guard, when President Johnson made it clear that the reserve component would not be activated to fight the war; Donald Trump, of course, had his family physician claim he had bone spurs, (Trump himself cannot remember which foot); and Joe Biden claimed that the asthma he had in high school prevented him from serving even though he brags about his athletic exploits while in high school.

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Similarly, in his analysis of why we did not win in Iraq, Bing ignores the fact that the Bush administration got the U.S. into war falsely claiming that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, in criticizing the Obama administration for withdrawing from Iraq in 2011, Bing ignores the fact that Obama had no choice. He did this because in 2008 the Iraqi government, which we had helped install, made it clear to us that it would not sign a Status of Forces Agreement unless we agreed to withdraw completely by the end of 2011.

I saw this firsthand when I worked in the Obama campaign and in the summer of 2008 met with Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister. When I asked him about the agreement to withdraw, he told me it was a non-negotiable demand. When I relayed this to Denis McDonough, who was on the campaign trail with Obama and eventually became his chief of staff, he was surprised and asked me if I was certain about what I heard. In 2009, while on a visit to Iraq, I brought this up with several Iraqi government officials in the parliament and the executive branch and received the same answer. Finally, in December 2011, when Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki came to Washington to finalize the deal, I and several others, including Obama’s first national-security adviser General David Jones and future Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, met with him. I asked him directly if there was anything President Obama could have done to keep the troops in Iraq. He essentially said that Bush made an agreement and the U.S. must stick to it. At the meeting, Jones said Obama was willing to leave 10,000 troops.

Bing also ignores the fact that the Bush administration never publicly or privately praised Iran for its help in Afghanistan but actually publicly criticized that nation. I saw this myself. On 9/11, I was working at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. After the attacks, the Iranian ambassador to the U.N. invited me to dinner and told me to let our government know that Iran detested the Taliban and would be willing to help us in Afghanistan. I relayed this to the Bush administration, and Bush’s representative to the Bonn Conference in December 2001, which established the Karzai government, told me that the Bush administration would not have succeeded without the Iranians. Iran’s reward? In early 2002, Bush put the country on the axis of evil. It is an understatement to say that as a result Iran no longer played a positive role in the region.

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Finally, in his Afghanistan analysis, while Bing correctly points out that our military could never transform Afghanistan, he is wrong to argue that we should remain indefinitely in the country to avoid damaging our reputation. Many who fought in this 20-year war already believe our reputation is damaged and want us to leave before it is damaged further. Sunk-costs logic should not apply here.

How bad will it be if we agree to leave on May 1, as Trump agreed to, and the Taliban takes over, especially for women? When I visited Afghanistan in 2011, I asked a Taliban official how they would treat women if or when they took over. He told me not to worry — that they would not treat them any worse than our allies, the Saudis.

Bing’s article should be read by all those who believe that the U.S. can develop and sustain democracies by using military power. However, they should keep in mind that there are some other factors that also play into this decision.",-0.41649598556913875
"U.S. soldiers conduct a joint foot patrol with Canadian and Afghan National Army troops in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, in 2009. (Omar Sobhani/Reuters)

A response to Bing West.

In his National Review article “Three Wars, No Victory — Why?” (February 18, 2021), Bing West, my former colleague at the Pentagon and the Naval War College, lays out a compelling case for why the U.S. — which he argues is the most powerful country in the history of the world — has lost the three major wars it has fought over the past 50 years: Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Bing divides blame for each of these losses among three hubs — namely, the military, the policy-makers, and the popular mood among the people of the country. He argues correctly that the policy hub, or the policy-makers, were primarily responsible for the failures.

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While I have some experience in each of these conflicts, having served in Vietnam and having visited Iraq three times and Afghanistan once, it does not match that of Bing, who is one of the bravest people I have ever known. However, I still believe that he presents a sometimes incomplete and misleading picture of why we lost these three wars.

For example, in analyzing the Vietnam disaster, he ignores the fact that the war was fought under false pretenses. President Johnson received congressional authorization in 1964 to begin the massive escalation in Vietnam in response to an alleged attack by the North Vietnamese on an American ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. But, even before the congressional investigation, it was clear to any experienced naval officer that what the administration claimed had happened was bogus. I remember my commanding officer in VP-1, who had flown combat missions in World War II and Korea, telling us that the attacks did not happen the way it was claimed. This was something that Vice Admiral James Stockdale, who was Bing’s and my boss at the War College and who received a medal of honor for his courage as a POW in Vietnam and who was in the area at the time, also affirmed. As did a naval officer who convinced Senator Wayne Morris (D., Ore.) to become one of the two senators who voted against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. (Both lost their next election.). When this came to light, it also increased opposition to the war among the American people.

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Another reason we failed in Vietnam is that the war was never winnable in the first place. Bing argues that our poor military strategy from 1965 to 1968, bad policy decisions, and the popular mood doomed the Vietnam War. These factors played a role, but in truth only heightened an already existing reality — a reality made clear to me in 1966, when my colleagues and I got lost coming back from a meeting with SWIFT-boat officers in the northern part of Cameron Bay, South Vietnam. As we rode around aimlessly trying to find our way back to our base, we came upon a Catholic monastery. A priest there gave us directions and fed us. But as we were leaving, one of the monks asked me in French (which I had studied in school) why we thought we were going to make out any better in Vietnam than the French. President Eisenhower was conscious of this when he refused to bail out the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, even though most of his national-security advisers, including then–Vice President Nixon and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Radford, recommended it. But Army chief of staff General Matthew Ridgway, who prevented us from losing in Korea, helped convince Eisenhower not to intervene, because he, like the monks I met, believed Vietnam was unwinnable.

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Similarly, the majority of the American people turned against the war in Vietnam not just because there was a draft, as Bing correctly points out, but because of how the privileged were able to avoid the draft, thus leaving it to the lower class to bear most of the burden. For example, the four most recent presidents who could have served in Vietnam avoided that war and the draft by dubious means. Bill Clinton pretended to join the Army ROTC; George W. Bush used political connections to get into the Air National Guard, when President Johnson made it clear that the reserve component would not be activated to fight the war; Donald Trump, of course, had his family physician claim he had bone spurs, (Trump himself cannot remember which foot); and Joe Biden claimed that the asthma he had in high school prevented him from serving even though he brags about his athletic exploits while in high school.

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Similarly, in his analysis of why we did not win in Iraq, Bing ignores the fact that the Bush administration got the U.S. into war falsely claiming that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, in criticizing the Obama administration for withdrawing from Iraq in 2011, Bing ignores the fact that Obama had no choice. He did this because in 2008 the Iraqi government, which we had helped install, made it clear to us that it would not sign a Status of Forces Agreement unless we agreed to withdraw completely by the end of 2011.

I saw this firsthand when I worked in the Obama campaign and in the summer of 2008 met with Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister. When I asked him about the agreement to withdraw, he told me it was a non-negotiable demand. When I relayed this to Denis McDonough, who was on the campaign trail with Obama and eventually became his chief of staff, he was surprised and asked me if I was certain about what I heard. In 2009, while on a visit to Iraq, I brought this up with several Iraqi government officials in the parliament and the executive branch and received the same answer. Finally, in December 2011, when Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki came to Washington to finalize the deal, I and several others, including Obama’s first national-security adviser General David Jones and future Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, met with him. I asked him directly if there was anything President Obama could have done to keep the troops in Iraq. He essentially said that Bush made an agreement and the U.S. must stick to it. At the meeting, Jones said Obama was willing to leave 10,000 troops.

Bing also ignores the fact that the Bush administration never publicly or privately praised Iran for its help in Afghanistan but actually publicly criticized that nation. I saw this myself. On 9/11, I was working at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. After the attacks, the Iranian ambassador to the U.N. invited me to dinner and told me to let our government know that Iran detested the Taliban and would be willing to help us in Afghanistan. I relayed this to the Bush administration, and Bush’s representative to the Bonn Conference in December 2001, which established the Karzai government, told me that the Bush administration would not have succeeded without the Iranians. Iran’s reward? In early 2002, Bush put the country on the axis of evil. It is an understatement to say that as a result Iran no longer played a positive role in the region.

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Finally, in his Afghanistan analysis, while Bing correctly points out that our military could never transform Afghanistan, he is wrong to argue that we should remain indefinitely in the country to avoid damaging our reputation. Many who fought in this 20-year war already believe our reputation is damaged and want us to leave before it is damaged further. Sunk-costs logic should not apply here.

How bad will it be if we agree to leave on May 1, as Trump agreed to, and the Taliban takes over, especially for women? When I visited Afghanistan in 2011, I asked a Taliban official how they would treat women if or when they took over. He told me not to worry — that they would not treat them any worse than our allies, the Saudis.

Bing’s article should be read by all those who believe that the U.S. can develop and sustain democracies by using military power. However, they should keep in mind that there are some other factors that also play into this decision.",-1.6242437391786613
"U.S. soldiers attend welcoming ceremony for NATO troops near Orzysz, Poland, in 2017. (Kacper Pempel/Reuters)

The accusation that the military is full of racists and extremists is false, and damaging.

During the 1960s and ’70s, those of us who fought in Vietnam became accustomed to having many of our fellow countrymen slander us as, at best, victims of a government that sent its poor to fight a criminal war and, at worst, war criminals ourselves, complicit in the routine commitment of atrocities. But the pendulum began to swing back the other way in the 1980s, and continued in the same direction through the Gulf War and 9/11 until, by the time of George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers had been elevated to the status of “secular saints.”

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My fellow Vietnam veterans and I would no doubt have preferred such reverence to the chilly reception we received after the war, but secular sainthood has created its own set of problems — isolation from American society at large, unequal burden sharing, and a belief in the moral superiority of those who serve over those who haven’t — that threaten to undermine the bond between service members and veterans on the one hand and American society at large on the other. After all, healthy civil-military relations depend on mutual trust between soldiers and the society they serve.

Now, the pendulum seems to be swinging back to the bad old days of slandering the military, as part of broader claims that Donald Trump normalized “white supremacy” and other forms of right-wing extremism. The fact that there were veterans among the rioters who unlawfully entered the Capitol on January 6, the persistent claim that Trump appealed to extremist groups, and Trump’s popularity with the military form the basis for proliferating allegations that the military has become a friend to racism and extremism.

Indeed, some have even raised the specter of active duty and National Guard troops constituting an “insider threat.” For example, Representative Steve Cohen (D., Tenn.) told CNN that:

The [National] Guard is 90-some-odd percent, I believe, male. Only about 20 percent of white males voted for Biden. You gotta figure that in the Guard, which is predominantly more conservative, and I see that on my social media . . . they’re probably not more than 25 percent of the people that are there protecting us who voted for Biden. . . . The other 75 percent are in the class that would be the large class of folks who might want to do something. And there were military people and police who took oaths to defend the Constitution and to protect and defend who didn’t do it who were in the insurrection. So, it does concern me.

Cohen added that people on social media had referenced and reminded him of the assassination of then-Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981.

Responding to a question about white supremacy during his CNN Town Hall on February 16, President Biden said:

I would make sure that my Justice Department and the Civil Rights Division is focused heavily on those very folks, and I would make sure that we, in fact, focus on how to deal with the rise of white supremacy. And you see what’s happening, the studies that are beginning to be done, maybe at your university as well, about the impact of former military, former police officers, on — on the growth of white supremacy in some of these groups.

To address concerns about extremism in the ranks of the military, Biden’s secretary of defense, retired Army general Lloyd Austin, has called for a “stand down” across the force to address the issue. “I really and truly believe that 99.9 percent of our servicemen and -women believe in [their] oath. They believe, embrace the values that we are focused on, and they’re doing the right things,” Secretary Austin said on February 19. “I expect for the numbers [of extremists in the ranks] to be small, but quite frankly, they’ll probably be a little bit larger than most of us would guess. . . . But I would just say that, you know, small numbers, in this case, can have an outsized impact.”

But Kash Patel, the former chief of staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, argued that the problem has been overstated. “They have self-admitted that the problem doesn’t exist, to their knowledge, and that’s because it doesn’t,” Patel said on Fox News:

White supremacy is not rampant throughout the Department of Defense. That is outrageous and offensive to our men and women in uniform. . . . The Biden Pentagon is trading in politics instead of logic and fact. . . . Their own spokesperson and their own secretary of defense, they have said they do not know the problem and whether it exists. They don’t have a name for it. They don’t have a solution for it. But they’re going to label it anyway.

There is indeed a “real problem”; it’s just not the one people are talking about. It is instead that political and military leaders have failed to define their terms.

Racism vs. Racial Prejudice

Let me be clear: There have been serious racial incidents involving military service members in the past, and military leaders were quick to deal with the perpetrators appropriately. But the idea that racism is somehow pervasive in the military is nonsense.

The problem with this latest campaign is that most of the recent claims about racism in the military conflate true racism and white supremacy on the one hand and racial prejudice on the other.

The former has traditionally referred to membership in, or sympathy with, the KKK, neo-Nazis, skinheads, or other groups that preach violence. The U.S. military has long been vigilant about the possibility of extremist groups taking advantage of military training to advance their own goals. Background checks have always been a part of the recruitment and enlistment processes. And the services have been quick to separate individuals whose background checks raise red flags.

The latter is a manifestation of what both Plato and Aristotle called “love of one’s own,” a feature of human nature. The Greeks preferred their ways to those of the Persians. The Athenians preferred their own laws to those of the Spartans. All humans prefer their own families and communities to others’.

Racial prejudice arises from generalizations about other racial groups, and is not unique to any one group. It has been my own experience that military service undermines such prejudice. Because service members learn to work toward a common goal with others from different backgrounds, the service often teaches them to rise above their preexisting prejudices.

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It is also the case that although the services reflect the racial attitudes of Americans at large, they have done well in overcoming racial problems. As the late military sociologist Charles Moskos observed a quarter-century ago, the United States Army is the only American institution in which black men routinely give orders to white men. The military is, by necessity, a meritocracy, which gives it a leg up on other institutions in grappling with the problem of prejudice.

Extremism

Although extremism and racism overlap in many cases, they are different phenomena. In the current debate, “extremism” apparently does not include the groups that instigated mayhem across America in the summer of 2020, rioting, looting, and committing arson. The media has persisted in representing those groups as “peaceful protesters,” and since peaceful protesters can’t be extremists, the term is reserved for right-wing militia groups and the like.

But even when one confines the discussion to one side of the political aisle, where does one draw the line? Is supporting the Second Amendment or advocating smaller and less intrusive government “extremist”? Is a service member or veteran who supported President Trump an extremist? Is it extremist to be skeptical of the single-minded quest for “diversity”? Ironically, the military’s attempts to address an alleged lack of diversity in the ranks, like all identity politics, risks dividing people rather than unifying them by suggesting that justice is a function of attributes such as skin color rather than individual character. In the military, where institutional effectiveness depends on cohesion born of trust between and among service members, this is a serious problem.

Undermining Trust

Thus, the claim that extremism and white supremacy are widespread in the military undermines trust on two levels: First, between the American people and the military as an institution; and second, between the military rank-and-file on the one hand and their leaders on the other.

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Americans hold the military in high regard, perhaps too high. But if civilians have tended to place members of the military on a pedestal, implying that extremism and white supremacy are rampant in the military can only engender civilian disrespect for the armed forces and lead to unjust condemnation. This, needless to say, does not bode well for healthy civil-military relations.

Advertisement

Regarding trust within the force, what is the rank-and-file soldier to think when both politicians and especially senior officers seem to suggest that supporting President Trump or traditionally conservative ideas such as gun rights and smaller, less intrusive government might make him or her a threat to the country? What will be the consequences for morale and discipline if the ranks believe that senior leaders have sold them out by their apparent willingness to go along with such accusations?

Advertisement

I am personally aware of increasing disillusionment on the part of service members who feel betrayed by their senior leadership. Individuals join the military for a variety of reasons, but a dominant one is a sense of patriotism, which is undermined if service members believe that senior officers are willing to sacrifice them to trendy political ideas.

It is disheartening to note that no senior officer to my knowledge has stepped forward to denounce this latest slander against the American soldier. While real instances of extremism and white supremacy must be identified and perpetrators separated from the service, as has been the practice in the past, suggesting that white supremacy and extremism are rampant in the military is a disservice to the force. Both political leaders and senior officers owe it to the country in general and the military in particular to define extremism, identify actual cases, and provide data supporting their claim that a real problem does in fact exist. To do otherwise is to contribute to a calumny against those they claim to lead.",-1.4413268142978681
"U.S. soldiers attend welcoming ceremony for NATO troops near Orzysz, Poland, in 2017. (Kacper Pempel/Reuters)

The accusation that the military is full of racists and extremists is false, and damaging.

During the 1960s and ’70s, those of us who fought in Vietnam became accustomed to having many of our fellow countrymen slander us as, at best, victims of a government that sent its poor to fight a criminal war and, at worst, war criminals ourselves, complicit in the routine commitment of atrocities. But the pendulum began to swing back the other way in the 1980s, and continued in the same direction through the Gulf War and 9/11 until, by the time of George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers had been elevated to the status of “secular saints.”

Advertisement

My fellow Vietnam veterans and I would no doubt have preferred such reverence to the chilly reception we received after the war, but secular sainthood has created its own set of problems — isolation from American society at large, unequal burden sharing, and a belief in the moral superiority of those who serve over those who haven’t — that threaten to undermine the bond between service members and veterans on the one hand and American society at large on the other. After all, healthy civil-military relations depend on mutual trust between soldiers and the society they serve.

Now, the pendulum seems to be swinging back to the bad old days of slandering the military, as part of broader claims that Donald Trump normalized “white supremacy” and other forms of right-wing extremism. The fact that there were veterans among the rioters who unlawfully entered the Capitol on January 6, the persistent claim that Trump appealed to extremist groups, and Trump’s popularity with the military form the basis for proliferating allegations that the military has become a friend to racism and extremism.

Indeed, some have even raised the specter of active duty and National Guard troops constituting an “insider threat.” For example, Representative Steve Cohen (D., Tenn.) told CNN that:

The [National] Guard is 90-some-odd percent, I believe, male. Only about 20 percent of white males voted for Biden. You gotta figure that in the Guard, which is predominantly more conservative, and I see that on my social media . . . they’re probably not more than 25 percent of the people that are there protecting us who voted for Biden. . . . The other 75 percent are in the class that would be the large class of folks who might want to do something. And there were military people and police who took oaths to defend the Constitution and to protect and defend who didn’t do it who were in the insurrection. So, it does concern me.

Cohen added that people on social media had referenced and reminded him of the assassination of then-Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981.

Responding to a question about white supremacy during his CNN Town Hall on February 16, President Biden said:

I would make sure that my Justice Department and the Civil Rights Division is focused heavily on those very folks, and I would make sure that we, in fact, focus on how to deal with the rise of white supremacy. And you see what’s happening, the studies that are beginning to be done, maybe at your university as well, about the impact of former military, former police officers, on — on the growth of white supremacy in some of these groups.

To address concerns about extremism in the ranks of the military, Biden’s secretary of defense, retired Army general Lloyd Austin, has called for a “stand down” across the force to address the issue. “I really and truly believe that 99.9 percent of our servicemen and -women believe in [their] oath. They believe, embrace the values that we are focused on, and they’re doing the right things,” Secretary Austin said on February 19. “I expect for the numbers [of extremists in the ranks] to be small, but quite frankly, they’ll probably be a little bit larger than most of us would guess. . . . But I would just say that, you know, small numbers, in this case, can have an outsized impact.”

But Kash Patel, the former chief of staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, argued that the problem has been overstated. “They have self-admitted that the problem doesn’t exist, to their knowledge, and that’s because it doesn’t,” Patel said on Fox News:

White supremacy is not rampant throughout the Department of Defense. That is outrageous and offensive to our men and women in uniform. . . . The Biden Pentagon is trading in politics instead of logic and fact. . . . Their own spokesperson and their own secretary of defense, they have said they do not know the problem and whether it exists. They don’t have a name for it. They don’t have a solution for it. But they’re going to label it anyway.

There is indeed a “real problem”; it’s just not the one people are talking about. It is instead that political and military leaders have failed to define their terms.

Racism vs. Racial Prejudice

Let me be clear: There have been serious racial incidents involving military service members in the past, and military leaders were quick to deal with the perpetrators appropriately. But the idea that racism is somehow pervasive in the military is nonsense.

The problem with this latest campaign is that most of the recent claims about racism in the military conflate true racism and white supremacy on the one hand and racial prejudice on the other.

The former has traditionally referred to membership in, or sympathy with, the KKK, neo-Nazis, skinheads, or other groups that preach violence. The U.S. military has long been vigilant about the possibility of extremist groups taking advantage of military training to advance their own goals. Background checks have always been a part of the recruitment and enlistment processes. And the services have been quick to separate individuals whose background checks raise red flags.

The latter is a manifestation of what both Plato and Aristotle called “love of one’s own,” a feature of human nature. The Greeks preferred their ways to those of the Persians. The Athenians preferred their own laws to those of the Spartans. All humans prefer their own families and communities to others’.

Racial prejudice arises from generalizations about other racial groups, and is not unique to any one group. It has been my own experience that military service undermines such prejudice. Because service members learn to work toward a common goal with others from different backgrounds, the service often teaches them to rise above their preexisting prejudices.

Advertisement

It is also the case that although the services reflect the racial attitudes of Americans at large, they have done well in overcoming racial problems. As the late military sociologist Charles Moskos observed a quarter-century ago, the United States Army is the only American institution in which black men routinely give orders to white men. The military is, by necessity, a meritocracy, which gives it a leg up on other institutions in grappling with the problem of prejudice.

Extremism

Although extremism and racism overlap in many cases, they are different phenomena. In the current debate, “extremism” apparently does not include the groups that instigated mayhem across America in the summer of 2020, rioting, looting, and committing arson. The media has persisted in representing those groups as “peaceful protesters,” and since peaceful protesters can’t be extremists, the term is reserved for right-wing militia groups and the like.

But even when one confines the discussion to one side of the political aisle, where does one draw the line? Is supporting the Second Amendment or advocating smaller and less intrusive government “extremist”? Is a service member or veteran who supported President Trump an extremist? Is it extremist to be skeptical of the single-minded quest for “diversity”? Ironically, the military’s attempts to address an alleged lack of diversity in the ranks, like all identity politics, risks dividing people rather than unifying them by suggesting that justice is a function of attributes such as skin color rather than individual character. In the military, where institutional effectiveness depends on cohesion born of trust between and among service members, this is a serious problem.

Undermining Trust

Thus, the claim that extremism and white supremacy are widespread in the military undermines trust on two levels: First, between the American people and the military as an institution; and second, between the military rank-and-file on the one hand and their leaders on the other.

Advertisement

Americans hold the military in high regard, perhaps too high. But if civilians have tended to place members of the military on a pedestal, implying that extremism and white supremacy are rampant in the military can only engender civilian disrespect for the armed forces and lead to unjust condemnation. This, needless to say, does not bode well for healthy civil-military relations.

Advertisement

Regarding trust within the force, what is the rank-and-file soldier to think when both politicians and especially senior officers seem to suggest that supporting President Trump or traditionally conservative ideas such as gun rights and smaller, less intrusive government might make him or her a threat to the country? What will be the consequences for morale and discipline if the ranks believe that senior leaders have sold them out by their apparent willingness to go along with such accusations?

Advertisement

I am personally aware of increasing disillusionment on the part of service members who feel betrayed by their senior leadership. Individuals join the military for a variety of reasons, but a dominant one is a sense of patriotism, which is undermined if service members believe that senior officers are willing to sacrifice them to trendy political ideas.

It is disheartening to note that no senior officer to my knowledge has stepped forward to denounce this latest slander against the American soldier. While real instances of extremism and white supremacy must be identified and perpetrators separated from the service, as has been the practice in the past, suggesting that white supremacy and extremism are rampant in the military is a disservice to the force. Both political leaders and senior officers owe it to the country in general and the military in particular to define extremism, identify actual cases, and provide data supporting their claim that a real problem does in fact exist. To do otherwise is to contribute to a calumny against those they claim to lead.",0.2006461961377578
"(utah778/Getty Images)

On his personal blog, Professor Thomas Smith of the University of San Diego Law School wrote a post that was sharply critical of Chinese government policies. Shortly thereafter, the academic mob accused him of ethnic bias against Chinese people.

You would think that law students should be able to distinguish between the two, but either their previous education has left them incapable of making such distinctions or they are so intent on finding a pretext to attack a non-woke professor that they will say any foolish thing.

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So, the dean of the law school, Robert Shapiro, has to decide what to do — tell the students that their claims about Smith are ridiculous or appease them with a promise to investigate him for thought crimes. If you guessed the latter, you understand the nature of higher education in America today.

Writing on Legal Insurrection, Bill Jacobson has the story (and links to many similar ones). He notes, “It is [reminiscent] of the worst days of the Maoist Cultural Revolution, in which students were the most aggressive in demanding ideological obedience from professors, with public shaming one of the tools used to humiliate the target and scare others into silence.”

He’s right. The great “progressive” project of turning our education system into one for indoctrinating young people so they’ll unthinkingly do what the revolution requires is far along.",0.8688767978653577
"(utah778/Getty Images)

On his personal blog, Professor Thomas Smith of the University of San Diego Law School wrote a post that was sharply critical of Chinese government policies. Shortly thereafter, the academic mob accused him of ethnic bias against Chinese people.

You would think that law students should be able to distinguish between the two, but either their previous education has left them incapable of making such distinctions or they are so intent on finding a pretext to attack a non-woke professor that they will say any foolish thing.

Advertisement

So, the dean of the law school, Robert Shapiro, has to decide what to do — tell the students that their claims about Smith are ridiculous or appease them with a promise to investigate him for thought crimes. If you guessed the latter, you understand the nature of higher education in America today.

Writing on Legal Insurrection, Bill Jacobson has the story (and links to many similar ones). He notes, “It is [reminiscent] of the worst days of the Maoist Cultural Revolution, in which students were the most aggressive in demanding ideological obedience from professors, with public shaming one of the tools used to humiliate the target and scare others into silence.”

He’s right. The great “progressive” project of turning our education system into one for indoctrinating young people so they’ll unthinkingly do what the revolution requires is far along.",-0.18810590518123665
"Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister of Ethiopia, in Addis Ababa on November 30, 2020 (Tiksa Negeri/Reuters)

The case of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed

Editor’s Note: Below is an expanded version of a piece we have published in the current issue of National Review.

Every now and then, East Africa breaks into world consciousness. It happened in the mid 1980s, when Ethiopia underwent a terrible famine. Teams of pop stars made two hit “charity singles”: “We Are the World” and “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” The world again turned to East Africa in the mid 2000s, when the Sudanese dictatorship committed genocide against people in Darfur, a region in the west of the country. (That genocide has not quite ended.)

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Today, Ethiopia is again in the news, for war in Tigray, a region in the country’s north. What is happening there is worse than war, if such a thing is possible: Tigray is a theater for war crimes and crimes against humanity. To make it all the more interesting — if that is the word — Ethiopia’s head of state is the 2019 Nobel peace laureate: Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

Ethiopia is a challenge to govern, no doubt. With 112 million people, it is the second-most populous country in Africa, after Nigeria. There are more than 80 ethnic groups, and as many languages. Abiy Ahmed speaks the handful of major languages in the country. In many ways, he would seem unusually well suited to national leadership.

Born in 1976, he is the son of a Muslim and a Christian. Both of his parents — now deceased — were of the Oromo people. His father, a farmer, spoke only Oromo; his mother spoke both Oromo and Amharic. Abiy himself married an Amhara woman. He is a Pentecostal Christian, said to be devout.

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When a teenager, he fought against the regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam, known as “the Stalin of East Africa.” Later, in the Ethiopian military, he fought in the Eritrean–Ethiopian War. He served as a U.N. peacekeeper in Rwanda, after the genocide in that country. Abiy was educated — extensively — in Addis Ababa and London. He rose in the military, and intelligence, and business. In 2010, he was elected to parliament.

After Mengistu was toppled in 1991, Ethiopia was ruled by a coalition called “the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front” (EPRDF). It was composed of four parties, based on ethnicity. The dominant party was Tigrayan: the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). A Tigrayan, Meles Zenawi, was boss of the country from 1991 until his death in 2012.

Though Tigray has just 6 percent of the Ethiopian population, it long had outsize influence in national affairs.

In 2018, after mass popular protests, particularly in the Oromo and Amhara regions, the coalition elected Abiy Ahmed to serve as prime minister. He quickly established himself as a new kind of leader. It is “high time for us to learn from our past mistakes,” he said, “and to make up for all the wrongs that have been done.” He apologized for the brutality and corruption of the EPRDF.

Indeed, he established a new party — the Prosperity Party — to replace the old coalition. Three of the four parties of the EPRDF joined Prosperity; so did a slew of lesser parties. The Tigrayans — the TPLF — declined to join.

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Abiy released and pardoned thousands of political prisoners. Many had been labeled “terrorists” simply for opposing the government. He dismissed officials who had been thought “untouchable.” He invited exiled media outlets to return to the country.

What’s more, he at last ended the Eritrean–Ethiopian War. Formally speaking, the war lasted from 1998 to 2000. The two sides signed a peace agreement in December 2000. One of the things they agreed to was that an international commission would decide the boundary between Eritrea and Ethiopia. When the commission drew its boundary, it placed the town of Badme on the Eritrean side. At this, Ethiopia — the EPRDF — balked. The Ethiopians had control of Badme, and they would not let it go.

Badme was important. In fact, another name for the Eritrean–Ethiopian War is “the War of Badme.”

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For 18 years, there existed a condition between the two countries known as “no peace, no war.” Then Abiy agreed to hand over Badme. He and his Eritrean counterpart signed a joint declaration, officially ending the war, once and for all. They restored full diplomatic relations between their countries. And they threw open the border. Families, long split by the conflict, were joyously reunited.

Nor was Abiy through with his peace efforts. There are various conflicts in the Horn of Africa: between Eritrea and Djibouti; between Somalia and Kenya; etc. Abiy Ahmed offered his services, usefully.

Given all of the above — especially a resolution to the Eritrean–Ethiopian War — it was no surprise that the Norwegian Nobel Committee made Abiy its laureate in 2019. In a press release, the committee said it was doing so “with the provisions of Alfred Nobel’s will firmly in mind.”

What did they mean by those words?

Though few know it, Alfred Nobel directed that his prizes — all of them, not just the peace prize — go to work done “during the preceding year.” The Nobel prizes are not supposed to be lifetime-achievement awards. They are to reward and encourage people relatively early in their labors. Sometimes, Nobel committees have abided by the will, sometimes — often — not.

The principal criterion for the peace prize, by the way, is “fraternity between nations.”

In announcing its selection of Abiy, the Norwegian committee issued a caveat: “No doubt some people will think this year’s prize is being awarded too early. The Norwegian Nobel Committee believes it is now that Abiy Ahmed’s efforts deserve recognition and need encouragement.”

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A university student in Addis Ababa, Tsege Afrassa, was quoted in the New York Times: “It is great that he won the prize when I think of what it means for the country.” She added, “But he has a lot more to do to restore full peace in the country. The prize brings more responsibility with it.”

That is a common sentiment, when it comes to the Nobel Peace Prize.

At the ceremony on December 10, 2019, Abiy Ahmed gave one of the most beautiful, poetic, and moving speeches in Nobel history. (I have read them all.) Here is a taste — a passage on the hell of war, an old theme, and one that will ever recur:

War is the epitome of hell for all involved. I know because I have been there and back. I have seen brothers slaughtering brothers on the battlefield. I have seen older men, women, and children trembling in terror under the deadly shower of bullets and artillery shells. You see, I was not only a combatant in war. I was also a witness to its cruelty and what it can do to people. War makes for bitter men. Heartless and savage men.

Then, Abiy told a story:

Twenty years ago, I was a radio operator attached to an Ethiopian army unit in the border town of Badme. The town was the flashpoint of the war between the two countries. I briefly left the foxhole in the hopes of getting a good antenna reception. It took only but a few minutes. Yet, upon my return, I was horrified to discover that my entire unit had been wiped out in an artillery attack. I still remember my young comrades-in-arms who died on that ill-fated day. I think of their families too.

Three months after the Nobel prize ceremony, the pandemic set in. A general election scheduled for August, Abiy Ahmed postponed till the middle of 2021. Up in Tigray, the TPLF was furious. The Tigrayans thought Abiy was acting dictatorially. In defiance of Addis Ababa, the TPLF held regional elections in September. In retaliation, Abiy redirected federal funds from the TPLF — the regional leadership — to local governments. Tensions between the TPLF and the federal government were boiling. This was a contest of wills.

Be aware that the TPLF is armed. That is, they have some 250,000 men under arms, while the federal government has some 350,000.

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The terrible moment came on November 4 — the moment that an American might think of as the Fort Sumter moment. As near as can be determined, TPLF forces attacked the headquarters of the federal government’s Northern Command. Abiy Ahmed then swept the Ethiopian National Defense Force into Tigray. He and his government have referred to the war in euphemisms: “law-enforcement operations”; “rule-of-law operations.”

Talk about “the epitome of hell”: This war has been a shocking spasm of bombings, massacres, and rape. I will spare the details, except for a few.

In the second week of November, Tigrayan forces committed a massacre in the town of Mai Kadra. Chief among the victims were migrant workers from Amhara. The killers hacked their victims — hundreds of them — to death.

In late November, Ethiopian and Eritrean forces — working together — shelled the town of Aksum. This was apparently indiscriminate shelling, killing unarmed civilians. Then, Eritrean forces massacred hundreds of Tigrayans within Aksum.

Rape has long been a weapon of war — in Sudan, the Balkans, Burma, and any number of other places. Rape in Tigray is on a mass, horrific scale. On January 21, a U.N. official, Pramila Patten, issued a statement. She is the U.N. “special representative” on the subject of “sexual violence in conflict.” I will quote just the first two sentences of her statement:

I am greatly concerned by serious allegations of sexual violence in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, including a high number of alleged rapes in the capital, Mekelle. There are also disturbing reports of individuals allegedly forced to rape members of their own family, under threats of imminent violence.

Who is responsible for the hell in Tigray? The prime minister, the Nobel peace laureate? The assignment of blame would take many pages of analysis. Suffice it to say, Abiy Ahmed is to blame for a lot, including the cut-off of communication between Tigray and the outside world, and the delay of humanitarian aid — desperately needed — to the region. Many are calling for the revocation of Abiy’s Nobel Peace Prize.

As it happens, the Nobel Peace Prize is neither revokable nor returnable. I will offer a page or two on Nobel history.

There was never a time when the Nobel Peace Prize was uncontroversial. The first award ever given — in 1901, when the committee divided the prize between Henry Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross, and Frédéric Passy, a veteran peace campaigner — was very controversial. Almost no Nobel selection meets with universal acclaim. This includes the 1979 prize to Mother Teresa.

The most controversial Nobel prize ever awarded — in any field — was the peace prize to Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, in 1973. They received the prize for the Paris Agreement, which they had negotiated. It was signed in January 1973. The Paris Agreement was a ceasefire in the Vietnam War. The Nobel committee hoped that the parties would “feel a moral responsibility” to abide by the agreement and, ultimately, end the war. North Vietnam, of course, shot the agreement to hell.

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In 1975, after the fall of Saigon, Kissinger tried to return his share of the prize. He said he felt “honor-bound” to do so, given the fate of Vietnam. The committee explained that Nobel prizes are not returnable. They further reminded Kissinger that he had been honored for certain work. Events in Vietnam, they said, did not negate his “sincere efforts to get a ceasefire agreement put into force in 1973.”

One way to put this is: A Nobel prize is not conditional.

In 1950, the committee honored Ralph Bunche, the American diplomat working for the United Nations. The year before, on the isle of Rhodes, he had negotiated a series of armistice agreements between the new state of Israel and four of its enemies. Those enemies, of course, blew the agreements to hell.

While we are on the Arab–Israeli conflict: The award to Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin was given in 1978, for the Camp David Accords. Those were preliminary accords, not a peace treaty. The treaty was not consummated until March 1979. But the Nobel committee wanted to put the parties on the hook, so to speak.

Sadat did not attend the ceremony in December 1978. His stated reason: A final treaty had yet to be negotiated. The real reason, almost certainly: The Arab world was already inflamed at him, for his peacemaking with Israel; a personal appearance in Oslo, with Begin, would have fanned the flames. Two and a half years after the peace treaty was signed, Sadat was assassinated.

As was Yitzhak Rabin, in 1995, less than a year after he received the prize. The Israeli prime minister received it along with the foreign minister, Shimon Peres, and the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. The three were awarded for the Oslo Accords, which had their origin in the Nobel committee’s hometown. The committee wanted to hold the parties to the accords. Arafat was not to be held.

The peace prize to Barack Obama, the American president, in 2009 was very controversial—and not just among his critics at home. Many people, including past honorees, decried the award, especially when, less than two weeks before the Nobel ceremony, the president announced a “surge” of 30,000 additional troops in Afghanistan.

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In recent years, many people have wanted the Nobel prize of Aung San Suu Kyi revoked. She won it in 1991. By 2016, she was the leader — or the civilian leader, sharing power uneasily with the military — of her country, Burma. She seemed shockingly indifferent to the genocide of the Rohingya people. But did she deserve her prize in 1991? Few have deserved the prize more.

Today, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has egg on its face. Aung San Suu Kyi aside, the committee’s 2019 laureate is presiding over this murderous, monstrous mayhem in Tigray. But the 2019 award made sense, on Nobel terms. Classically, a committee asks itself, “Who has done the most or best work for fraternity between nations during the preceding year?”

The hell in Tigray may go on and on. It may spread, making Ethiopia a failed state. The leader of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, Debretsion Gebremichael, speaks in clear separatist and secessionist terms: “Give in? You have to understand, we will continue fighting as long as they are in our land.”

Ethiopia is complicated, but I have advice for any Ethiopia-watchers, or watchers in general. It is not my advice, but the advice that Elie Kedourie, the great British historian, born and raised in Baghdad, gave to David Pryce-Jones: “Keep your eye on the corpses.”",-2.1474339479629854
"Rep. Deb Haaland holds a Transgender Pride flag beside democratic colleagues on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C, February 25, 2021. (Tom Brenner/Reuters)

We would all do well to give Ryan T. Anderson a listen. If only Amazon hadn’t banned his book.

‘Imagine feeling so alienated from your body that you would consider taking cross-sex hormones and removing your genitals. That’s the tragic situation that many people with gender dysphoria experience. They aren’t faking it, and they didn’t actively choose it.”

That’s how a recent op-ed from Ryan T. Anderson began. And it is in the compassionate spirit of his book When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment, which has been recently banned at Amazon. In the postscript to the paperback edition, Anderson recalls an event he hosted while at the Heritage Foundation, his home until his recent move to the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he serves as president. It was in January 2019 — “The Inequality of the Equality Act: Concerns from the Left.”

You may be quite familiar with the fact that Heritage is not a think tank of the Left, but quite conservative. And the truth is that this issue of gender dysphoria is uniting people of all political stripes. As it should. I recently watched on Twitter as people on the Left expressed regret that they had to link to a post, by my courageous and tenacious colleague Madeleine Kearns, on National Review’s website because no one else will write about these issues honestly. Maddy was writing about the Senate confirmation hearings for Department of Health and Human Services official Rachel Levine. Rand Paul asked Levine some very basic questions about children and gender transitioning. Should the government intervene against the wishes of parents when a child wants to change genders? Levine refused to answer. That’s a pretty shocking question to refuse to answer. And Paul was characterized widely as transphobic for the line of questioning. No, he was being a responsible representative of the American people, asking a critical question. And surely the reason he was accused of being transphobic was not simply that he questioned a nominee who was born as a man and now identifies as a woman?

In the case of Anderson’s forum, he had been asked to host it because no one on the left would. As he writes in the postscript of the paperback edition of When Harry Became Sally:

One of the organizers needed to remain anonymous, because she has a teenage daughter who was four years into the process of transitioning. Throughout that time, she’s been trying to get left-leaning media and think tanks and professional associations to take seriously the concerns coming from the left about transgender policy, and instead she’s found herself and her colleagues essentially deplatformed.

As Ryan noted, “we likely disagree about abortion, gay marriage, taxes, trade, foreign policy — just to name a few. And that’s OK.” He continued: “Just because we disagree about some things, even many things, that does not mean we disagree about everything. And where we do agree, we can and should work together. Addition and multiplication. Not division and distraction.”

There’s room for common ground here. Consider the very name of the Equality Act, which would add “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” to the classes protected under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While I have no interest in discriminating against anyone, we’re at a moment when the media and so much of the Democratic Party, corporate world, and popular culture consider affirming transgender ideology a tenet of secular faith. Specifically, with respect to the media, Anderson writes:

They don’t care about the damage being done to young people’s bodies and minds — in fact they celebrate it as a civil right. They don’t care about the privacy and safety and equality of girls when boys who identify as girls can share female-only spaces — like showers and locker rooms and bathrooms — or when boys who identity as girls can participate in female athletic competitions. They don’t care about the ability of doctors to practice good medicine when bad medicine becomes mandated as a civil right, while good medicine becomes outlawed as a civil wrong. And they don’t care about the rights of parents to find the best care for their kids.

People on the right are often disparaged as anti-science on, for example, abortion. That always seems to be quite bizarre and outright dishonest, since we can see on a sonogram what we are dealing with in a pregnancy — a developing human. But since the sexual revolution and the expectation that women live more like men, the “unplanned” pregnancies that are an inevitable result of that meant that some solution had to be found. So we convince all the young women — many of them black, by the way — that they are not mothers when they are pregnant, and the law and the social pressure they feel gives them permission and even encouragement not to think about the reality of what they are doing. Activists insist they shout their abortion instead of offering them help and healing, as the Sisters of Life do — who want to help you have your baby and be a mother, but also love you after you’ve had an abortion and are looking for reconciliation with God once you’ve confronted and suffered what that abortion was: the death of your child. Culture says it’s a choice. Freedom. Health care. For too many, it is none of those things.

And now we are talking about mutilating children. My heart breaks for those who are legitimately suffering gender dysphoria. As with many hardships I don’t suffer, I well know that there but by the grace of God go I. But when we glamorize transitioning and encourage children to do so, we are talking child abuse. Biological boys playing on girls’ teams? Foster-care and adoption services banished for having traditional views that Barack Obama and Joe Biden and all of mainstream America believed about ten seconds ago, relatively speaking? Can we please unite together against ideological tyranny here? Care about Ryan T. Anderson’s book being banned on Amazon, because it’s going to be you not submitting in some way or some form soon if this Equality Act passes.

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.",-0.3858685540316716
"(smolaw11/Getty Images)

If anything, he looks set to make a centuries-old trend worse.

For over a half century, from Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society to Barack Obama’s Race to the Top to the new education package within the COVID stimulus bill under Joe Biden, well-meaning presidents have tried in vain to remake America’s public schools. Why have all their efforts failed? We blame a history of ever-increasing bureaucracy that began with Napoleon and has had no end in sight since.

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President Lyndon Johnson signed a Great Society bill — the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 — to assure educational equity by funding and formalizing federal intervention into public education. ESEA has been reauthorized and amended multiple times, each creating new offices, bureaucrats, and practices, but not necessarily serving kids.

In 2002, President George W. Bush signed No Child Left Behind — ESEA’s seventh reauthorization — into law to change public education as we know it, forcing schools to test students annually and reform or close unless they taught all students. Postmortems a decade later found that few failing schools reformed and fewer still closed. Instead, schools became ever more enamored with mindless test prep.

Less than a decade later, President Obama’s Race to the Top (RTT) — another ESEA-related initiative — promised a near-national curriculum, the Common Core, in part to help increasingly mobile students who had to start over every time they changed schools. RTT also paid states to consider whether students actually learned anything when principals evaluated teachers, infusing some consideration of performance into pay systems previously set by seniority and whether teachers had an extra degree.

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None of this changed schools. The politically toxic Common Core united strange bedfellows such as teachers’ unions distrusting any national testing and conservatives distrusting any national curricula. At best, the RTT replaced teacher-evaluation schemes that had found 99 percent of teachers effective with more-rigorous schemes that found 98 percent of teachers effective.

The public-school system enjoys the status of being the most layered, centralized, and massive bureaucracies in America, and federal intervention has only made things worse.

As two education analysts with a combined 70 years of studying — and studying in — U.S. public schools, we see historic explanations for the past 60 years of bipartisan school-reform failure to fundamentally change school bureaucracies. This same history also suggests that the Biden administration will get schools to hire more bureaucrats, but not to actually better serve children.

This bureaucratic behemoth was not created on purpose, at least not in its current form. Back in the early 19th century, America had small public schools that were run by local school committees, often located in houses of worship. It was a sensible arrangement when government was small and churches were the dominant social organizations.

That dynamic began to change when, in 1843, Massachusetts state education secretary Horace Mann visited Prussia. After suffering repeated invasions by Napoleon, Prussian leaders remade their schools to instill military discipline and patriotism so that students would grow up ready to fight off foreign incursions. To do this, Prussia bureaucratized schooling, with national control of schools and teacher training. Prussia’s example inspired Mann and other American reformers. Through the mid to late 1800s, American states increasingly regulated and standardized schools, paving the way for even more bureaucratic 20th-century reforms.

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The district system became essential to controlling schools. Gradually spreading across the country, first informally and finally through state constitutions, school districts essentially forced the majority of students to remain in the public school to which they were assigned by virtue of their zip code. Apart from all other educational considerations, this gave schools captive consumers whom bureaucrats could now often ignore. Later state and federal governments would seek to control these monopolistic local districts to get them to pay attention, sadly compounding the problem.

In the early 1900s, to copy American manufacturing, teachers’ colleges, state governments, and district-school boards began to adopt the theory of scientific management. They thus began to transform small, often female-led schools stressing academics into large education factories in which male principals bossed female teachers, who in turn batch-processed children. As Kate Rousmaniere writes in The Principal’s Office, by mid century, “it seemed to be the natural order of things that women taught and men managed” in schools. Most male principals and superintendents are former coaches, with athletic coaching providing the traditional male path for promotion into educational administration. They often stress loyalty and teamwork over academic quality.

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Like factories, schools exalt specialization and division of labor. Indeed, professional administrators manage teachers and children much like factories process widgets. Through the mid and late 20th century, American education developed new professions such as curriculum specialists, counselors, and school psychologists, as well as specialized teachers for special education, English as second language, and gifted and talented students. Each new profession had its own specialized bureaucracy, imposed by federal legislation such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Federal intervention thus fostered and expanded bureaucratization.

Here, we come full-circle. Many of the new specialists have come with their own specialized bureaucracies authorized by federal legislation such as ESEA Title I, Bilingual Education, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the Carl Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. In fact, as one of us notes in the forthcoming “Rise of a Centropoly: Good Intentions, Distorted Incentives, and the Cloaked Costs of Top-Down Reform in U.S. Public Education,” federal intervention into schools turned out to be a powerful driver of one thing: school bureaucracy and its employees.

Kennesaw State University professor Benjamin Scafidi documents the public-education-staffing surge from 1950 to 2015, when the number of teachers grew more than twice as fast as student enrollments did, and the ranks of administrators and support staff rose nearly three times as fast as teachers did. From 1950 to 2006 the number of students for each school staffer fell from 19.3 to eight. With ever larger staffs, education budgets soared, but teacher pay stagnated, encouraging teachers to make more money by leaving the classroom. For men, athletic coaching offered a direct path into high-paying administrative jobs above the unglamorous work of classroom teaching. For women, new education bureaucratic professions such as “curriculum specialist” offered similar upward mobility.

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Now the Biden administration promises no big changes, just more bureaucrats, more mental-health counselors, and more summer-school days. The K–12 money offered in the third COVID-relief package — almost $123 billion — goes toward a laundry list of programs and services. These include addressing learning loss through summer school, after-school, or extended-day programs, or responding to students’ academic, social, and emotional needs, and any activity allowed through existing programs including Title I of ESEA, IDEA, the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, and the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. For years, word on the street has been that big sums of money, such as those coming from the feds, go to hiring new staff. In other words, the money simply goes toward funding more boots on the same ground. Both students and staff are chewed up by a bureaucratic machine that favors ever larger budgets, not to mention fads from self-esteem building to personalized learning that are adopted and then discarded on a regular basis, doing little other than to pad administrator resumes.

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Along with eroding students’ dreams and teachers’ status, over-bureaucratization has had two pernicious consequences. First, as any parent of a student with a special-education label can attest, in today’s public schools, a single child is the responsibility of multiple education professionals who do not always talk with each other, let alone with the parents. Not all focus on whether students advance academically. This may explain research findings that special education, for example, may not help students over the long term. Other vulnerable students have similar outcomes.

Second, bureaucratization means that principals have little control over the other professionals working inside their buildings. In Smarter Budgets, Smarter Schools, former school superintendent Nate Levenson grouses that when coordinators of specialized programs within schools claim that federal or state statutes require a particular practice or expenditure, few know enough to argue back. With dozens or even hundreds of spending categories, it is rare that a principal understands their school budget, much less how to shift resources from what fails to what works.

This machine — bureaucratization layered atop a set of government monopolies — makes it nearly impossible to change schools in order to advance academics, or anything else. That is except for one thing: the bureaucracy itself.

Martha Bradley-Dorsey is a distinguished doctoral fellow in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, where Robert Maranto is the 21st Century Chair in Leadership. Mr. Maranto served on his local school board from 2015–20.",0.6345442661889191
"U.S. soldiers conduct a joint foot patrol with Canadian and Afghan National Army troops in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, in 2009. (Omar Sobhani/Reuters)

A response to Bing West.

In his National Review article “Three Wars, No Victory — Why?” (February 18, 2021), Bing West, my former colleague at the Pentagon and the Naval War College, lays out a compelling case for why the U.S. — which he argues is the most powerful country in the history of the world — has lost the three major wars it has fought over the past 50 years: Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Bing divides blame for each of these losses among three hubs — namely, the military, the policy-makers, and the popular mood among the people of the country. He argues correctly that the policy hub, or the policy-makers, were primarily responsible for the failures.

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While I have some experience in each of these conflicts, having served in Vietnam and having visited Iraq three times and Afghanistan once, it does not match that of Bing, who is one of the bravest people I have ever known. However, I still believe that he presents a sometimes incomplete and misleading picture of why we lost these three wars.

For example, in analyzing the Vietnam disaster, he ignores the fact that the war was fought under false pretenses. President Johnson received congressional authorization in 1964 to begin the massive escalation in Vietnam in response to an alleged attack by the North Vietnamese on an American ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. But, even before the congressional investigation, it was clear to any experienced naval officer that what the administration claimed had happened was bogus. I remember my commanding officer in VP-1, who had flown combat missions in World War II and Korea, telling us that the attacks did not happen the way it was claimed. This was something that Vice Admiral James Stockdale, who was Bing’s and my boss at the War College and who received a medal of honor for his courage as a POW in Vietnam and who was in the area at the time, also affirmed. As did a naval officer who convinced Senator Wayne Morris (D., Ore.) to become one of the two senators who voted against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. (Both lost their next election.). When this came to light, it also increased opposition to the war among the American people.

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Another reason we failed in Vietnam is that the war was never winnable in the first place. Bing argues that our poor military strategy from 1965 to 1968, bad policy decisions, and the popular mood doomed the Vietnam War. These factors played a role, but in truth only heightened an already existing reality — a reality made clear to me in 1966, when my colleagues and I got lost coming back from a meeting with SWIFT-boat officers in the northern part of Cameron Bay, South Vietnam. As we rode around aimlessly trying to find our way back to our base, we came upon a Catholic monastery. A priest there gave us directions and fed us. But as we were leaving, one of the monks asked me in French (which I had studied in school) why we thought we were going to make out any better in Vietnam than the French. President Eisenhower was conscious of this when he refused to bail out the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, even though most of his national-security advisers, including then–Vice President Nixon and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Radford, recommended it. But Army chief of staff General Matthew Ridgway, who prevented us from losing in Korea, helped convince Eisenhower not to intervene, because he, like the monks I met, believed Vietnam was unwinnable.

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Similarly, the majority of the American people turned against the war in Vietnam not just because there was a draft, as Bing correctly points out, but because of how the privileged were able to avoid the draft, thus leaving it to the lower class to bear most of the burden. For example, the four most recent presidents who could have served in Vietnam avoided that war and the draft by dubious means. Bill Clinton pretended to join the Army ROTC; George W. Bush used political connections to get into the Air National Guard, when President Johnson made it clear that the reserve component would not be activated to fight the war; Donald Trump, of course, had his family physician claim he had bone spurs, (Trump himself cannot remember which foot); and Joe Biden claimed that the asthma he had in high school prevented him from serving even though he brags about his athletic exploits while in high school.

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Similarly, in his analysis of why we did not win in Iraq, Bing ignores the fact that the Bush administration got the U.S. into war falsely claiming that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, in criticizing the Obama administration for withdrawing from Iraq in 2011, Bing ignores the fact that Obama had no choice. He did this because in 2008 the Iraqi government, which we had helped install, made it clear to us that it would not sign a Status of Forces Agreement unless we agreed to withdraw completely by the end of 2011.

I saw this firsthand when I worked in the Obama campaign and in the summer of 2008 met with Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister. When I asked him about the agreement to withdraw, he told me it was a non-negotiable demand. When I relayed this to Denis McDonough, who was on the campaign trail with Obama and eventually became his chief of staff, he was surprised and asked me if I was certain about what I heard. In 2009, while on a visit to Iraq, I brought this up with several Iraqi government officials in the parliament and the executive branch and received the same answer. Finally, in December 2011, when Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki came to Washington to finalize the deal, I and several others, including Obama’s first national-security adviser General David Jones and future Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, met with him. I asked him directly if there was anything President Obama could have done to keep the troops in Iraq. He essentially said that Bush made an agreement and the U.S. must stick to it. At the meeting, Jones said Obama was willing to leave 10,000 troops.

Bing also ignores the fact that the Bush administration never publicly or privately praised Iran for its help in Afghanistan but actually publicly criticized that nation. I saw this myself. On 9/11, I was working at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. After the attacks, the Iranian ambassador to the U.N. invited me to dinner and told me to let our government know that Iran detested the Taliban and would be willing to help us in Afghanistan. I relayed this to the Bush administration, and Bush’s representative to the Bonn Conference in December 2001, which established the Karzai government, told me that the Bush administration would not have succeeded without the Iranians. Iran’s reward? In early 2002, Bush put the country on the axis of evil. It is an understatement to say that as a result Iran no longer played a positive role in the region.

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Finally, in his Afghanistan analysis, while Bing correctly points out that our military could never transform Afghanistan, he is wrong to argue that we should remain indefinitely in the country to avoid damaging our reputation. Many who fought in this 20-year war already believe our reputation is damaged and want us to leave before it is damaged further. Sunk-costs logic should not apply here.

How bad will it be if we agree to leave on May 1, as Trump agreed to, and the Taliban takes over, especially for women? When I visited Afghanistan in 2011, I asked a Taliban official how they would treat women if or when they took over. He told me not to worry — that they would not treat them any worse than our allies, the Saudis.

Bing’s article should be read by all those who believe that the U.S. can develop and sustain democracies by using military power. However, they should keep in mind that there are some other factors that also play into this decision.",-1.3422710455018299
"An American flag flies outside a church in Queens, N.Y. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)

No political ‘emergency’ justifies abandoning classical liberalism, and no temporal emergency could ever justify rejecting the eternal truth.

Yesterday, New York Post op-ed editor Sohrab Ahmari published a lengthy essay with the rather eye-catching title, “Against David French-ism.” While the essay takes rather direct aim at me personally, it also uses me as a kind of proxy for two competing visions of American life.

Ahmari’s desire, he says, is “to fight the culture war with the aim of defeating the enemy and enjoying the spoils in the form of a public square re-ordered to the common good and ultimately the Highest Good.” By contrast, he says, I believe “that the institutions of a technocratic market society are neutral zones that should, in theory, accommodate both traditional Christianity and the libertine ways and paganized ideology of the other side.” Thus, he constructs a dichotomy between people like him, who understand “politics as war and enmity,” and people like me, who possess an “earnest and insistently polite quality” that is “unsuitable to the depth of the present crisis facing religious conservatives.”

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What is singularly curious about this, and Ahmari’s essay on the whole, is the extent to which it depends on the creation of two fictional people: a fictional David French far weaker than I think I’ve shown myself to be over many years of fighting for conservative causes, and a fictional version of Donald Trump as an avatar of a philosophy that Trump wouldn’t recognize. It is within the framework of these two fictional people that my approach is allegedly doomed to fail and Trump’s approach has a chance to prevail.

First, let’s deal with the fictional version of me. While Ahmari is kind enough to acknowledge my record defending individual liberty in courtrooms across the land, he flat-out misrepresents my approach to politics and my role in key public controversies.

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For example, he writes, “How do we counter ideological mono-thought in universities, workplaces, and other institutions? Try promoting better work-life balance, says French.” This is complete nonsense. Just months before I joined National Review full-time after many years as a contributor, I won what I believe is the first-ever jury verdict on behalf of a conservative Christian professor who was denied promotion because of his faith. The litigation took seven years, involved a trip to the Fourth Circuit — where we established a leading precedent in support of professors’ free-speech rights — and ended in a week-long jury trial and a judgment that granted the professor his promotion and back pay and my firm almost $700,000 in legal fees.

And that’s just one case. I literally can’t count the number of cases I’ve filed to preserve and protect conservative Christian voices on campus. I’ve also written, spoken, and advocated for significant federal reforms designed to deter and punish university illiberalism, and while Ahmari says I have an “airy above-it-all mentality,” I didn’t feel “above” anything on that night at Tufts University when I literally placed my body between a small group of Christian students and a collection of roughly 100 protesters who were trying to intimidate them in a darkened hallway.

Here’s what Ahmari doesn’t recognize: Time and again, I and lawyers I was proud to work with didn’t just win these court cases, we persuaded left-dominated institutions to turn back from repressive illiberalism and recommit to religious pluralism. I’ve spent more time in conference rooms and meeting halls persuading the libs than I’ve spent in court owning the libs, and I’ve found that persuasion works. Not always, of course — nothing always works — but far more often than you might think.

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I could spend this entire essay debunking Ahmari’s misrepresentations.

To hear him tell it, I “spent two years promoting the now-discredited Russian ‘collusion’ theory; moralizing and pretending we don’t face enemies who seek our personal destruction (just ask Justice Kavanaugh); and haranguing his fellow evangelical Protestants for supporting Trump, as if they were the only American voting bloc ever forced to compromise.”

The first claim, that I spent years promoting the “now-discredited Russian ‘collusion’ theory,” is rebutted by the very articles he links to in support of it. For example, in the principal article he cites, I specifically say that I do not buy the collusion story peddled in left-wing media. I do not believe the theory that “collusion represented the marriage of a sophisticated Russian intelligence operation with a near-treasonous Trump campaign.” Instead, I posit something different, something supported by actual court filings and actual evidence: The Trump campaign “had in its orbit and near-orbit a collection of comically inept crooks and grifters who were looking to gain any advantage they could — without regard for morality, law, or common sense.”

Sorry, Trump fans, but this is true.

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And what about Justice Kavanaugh? As my colleague Charlie Cooke points out, we won the Kavanaugh fight, and we didn’t win by insulting or owning the libs but by appealing to “classically liberal values such as cross-examination, hard evidence, and the presumption of innocence.” That’s what pushed Susan Collins to tip the scales in Kavanaugh’s favor, not punch-them-in-the-face populism.

As for my supposed “haranguing” of my fellow Evangelicals, Ahmari is wrong there, too. I didn’t vote for Trump or Hillary Clinton, and I stated my reasons and urged others to abstain as I did. But I don’t criticize my fellow believers for making a different choice. What I have done is to point out the moral failure and hypocrisy of those of the movement’s leaders who abandoned their clearly stated, long-held principles for the sake of continuing to defend a man they’d unequivocally condemn if he was a member of the opposing party. There are receipts here. There are Evangelical statements, like the Southern Baptist Convention’s 1998 Resolution on Moral Character of Public Officials, that were supposed to describe enduring Christian principles, including the rules of Christian engagement in the public square. Too many Christians are tossing them aside, and I continue to ask: For what?

Here’s where we leave the fictional David French and meet the fictional Donald Trump. See if you recognize this person as the 45th President of the United States:

With a kind of animal instinct, Trump understood what was missing from mainstream (more or less French-ian) conservatism. His instinct has been to shift the cultural and political mix, ever so slightly, away from autonomy-above-all toward order, continuity, and social cohesion. He believes that the political community — and not just the church, family, and individual — has its own legitimate scope for action. He believes it can help protect the citizen from transnational forces beyond his control.

Donald Trump wouldn’t even fully grasp what this paragraph means, much less recognize it as a governing philosophy. He is a man of prodigious personal appetites. A man who proudly hangs a Playboy cover on the wall of his office. A man who marries and then marries again and again, yet still feels compelled to find porn stars to bed. In his essay, Ahmari condemns the man who craves autonomy above all else. He is, without knowing it, condemning Trump.

So, there you have it. To Ahmari, the alignment of forces looks like this: In one corner is the nice milquetoast libertarian, David French. In the other corner is the strong instrument of social cohesion, Donald Trump.

If this were a real binary conflict and I had to choose, I’d go with Trump, too. Ahmari’s version of me sounds useless. But of course, Ahmari has stacked the deck, grossly misrepresenting both me and Trump to make his case.

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“Frenchism” (is that a thing now?) contains two main components: zealous defense of the classical-liberal order (with a special emphasis on civil liberties) and zealous advocacy of fundamentally Christian and Burkean conservative principles. It’s not one or the other. It’s both. It’s the formulation that renders the government primarily responsible for safeguarding liberty, and the people primarily responsible for exercising that liberty for virtuous purposes. As John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Moreover, I firmly believe that the defense of these political and cultural values must be conducted in accordance with scriptural admonitions to love your enemies, to bless those who persecute you, with full knowledge that the “Lord’s servant” must be “kind to everyone, able to teach, and patiently endure evil.”

I’m a deeply flawed person in daily (or even hourly) need of God’s grace, so I don’t always live up to those ideals. But I see them for what they are: commands to God’s people, not tactics to try until they fail. Ahmari does not wrestle with these dictates in his essay. He should have.

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It is mystifying to me that my critics seem to believe that I don’t understand the nature and intentions of the enemies of American liberalism. They think me naïve, as if I wasn’t shouted down at Harvard, as if I don’t know what it’s like to be the only social-conservative faculty member at Cornell Law School, as if I don’t speak at events from coast to coast about the immense threat to Christian liberties and livelihoods. Still, they say, I just don’t understand.

Ben Domenech, in a Federalist essay supporting Ahmari, compares the radical forces of the illiberal Left to the white walkers from Game of Thrones, “bent on utter and total destruction of everything American Christians hold dear.” He paints with too broad a brush, though there are of course radicals who would like to stamp out Christian liberty. But the Valyrian steel that stops the cultural white walker is pluralism buttressed by classical liberalism, not a kind of Christian statism of undetermined nature, strength, power, or endurance.

Here is the absolute, blunt truth: America will always be a nation of competing worldviews and competing, deeply held values. We can forsake a commitment to liberty and launch the political version of the Battle of Verdun, seeking the ruin of our foes, or we can recommit to our shared citizenship and preserve a space for all American voices, even as we compete against those voices in politics and the marketplace of ideas.

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One solution is grounded in the wisdom of the Founders. The other refutes the fundamental firm insistence of the Declaration of Independence that “governments are instituted among men” to secure our “unalienable rights.” While governments should of course seek the common good, they do not and should not have the brute coercive force to “re-order” the public square to achieve that good as they define it.

The triggering event for Ahmari’s first attack on me was a tweet announcing a “drag-queen storytime” at a public library in Sacramento. For whatever reason, his initial instinct was to blame me as, in his mind, an example of a conservatism too “nice” to prevent such a thing from happening. It is curious, however, that he never got around to proposing a concrete course of action that would have achieved the desired result. Does re-ordering the common good mean using the power of the state to prohibit that form of freedom of association? And if the state assumes for itself the power to stop such an event and perhaps fire the librarian who organized it, why does anyone think that the forces of Christian statism will continue to prevail and prevent, say, a radical member of a President Kamala Harris administration from wielding the same power against a public reading of The Screwtape Letters?

Nowhere in Ahmari’s essay does he offer answers to any of these questions.

If one rejects kindness because the stakes are so high and our opponents allegedly so terrible, he’s apt to find that there is no inherent power in cruelty. Do Trump’s insults deter his opponents or motivate them? In a time of peace and prosperity, has he expanded his coalition, or, as his reelection campaign kicks off, does he face immense peril in spite of a roaring economy? If he’s allegedly a force for social cohesion, where is that cohesion now?

A core tenet of Frenchism (I still can’t believe that’s a thing) is the consistent and unyielding defense of civil liberties, including the civil liberties of your political opponents — both in law and in culture. That means defending the legal rights of a radical leftist professor with the same vigor that you defend an embattled Christian conservative. And if you despise corporate censorship and corporate efforts to punish dissent, that means supporting not just libertarian Googlers who question Silicon Valley orthodoxy but also kneeling football players who use the national anthem as an occasion for public protest.

So, yes, I do want neutral spaces where Christians and pagans can work side by side. I’ve helped create those spaces, and lived in them alongside Christians and atheists, traditionalists and LGBT Americans alike. In fact, those spaces are the rule, not the exception, everywhere in this nation, and thank God for that.

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I’m already going on too long, but let me close with an important point of agreement with Ahmari. He says I don’t see “politics as war and enmity,” and he’s right about that much: I do not see politics as war, and while enmity exists, I seek to lessen it, not fan the flames.

But it was not always so. Many years ago, before I deployed to an actual war, I gave a speech at a conservative gathering in which I actually said these words: “I believe the two greatest threats to the United States are university leftists at home and jihadists abroad.” Looking back, I’m ashamed I said it. It was fundamentally wrong, as I quickly learned during my deployment. In the course of almost a year in Diyala Province, Iraq, I saw the most dreadful things, sights that haunt me today. Eastern Diyala under al-Qaeda’s thumb was one of the deadliest places on Earth. And as much as I disagree with university radicals, I lived a happy life in law school in deep-blue Cambridge, Mass. My son was born in deep-blue Ithaca, N.Y. I served as president of FIRE while living comfortably on the outskirts of Philadelphia’s so-called “gayborhood.”

My political opponents are my fellow citizens. When I wore the uniform of my country, I was willing to die for them. Why would I think I’m at war with them now? I disagree with the Left and much of the populist Right, vigorously. If and when any of my political opponents seek to undermine our fundamental freedoms, I’ll be there to pick a legal, political, and cultural fight with them. I won’t yield. I won’t stop. I won’t be weak. But I also won’t turn my back on the truths of scripture. I won’t stop seeking justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly. There is no political “emergency” that justifies abandoning classical liberalism, and there will never be a temporal emergency that justifies rejecting the eternal truth.

Something to Consider If you liked this article, you can support National Review by donating to our webathon . Your contribution helps fund our hard-hitting conservative reporting as we continue to push back against the tyrannical Left. If you enjoyed this article, you can support NR by giving to our webathon . Your donation helps fund our reporting as we work tirelessly to push back against the tyrannical Left. GIVE NOW",1.1198963202249272
"Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh speaks at a ceremonial swearing-in at the White House, October 8, 2018. (Jim Bourg/Reuters)

One of my biggest problems with the worldview that Sohrab Ahmari outlines in the course of criticizing David French — and, for that matter, with the general tenor of the Deneen-inspired “anti-liberalism” that First Things is presently indulging — is that it gets extremely fuzzy when it reaches the questions, “What do we actually want?” and “How do we intend to get there?” Ahmari says he wants to “fight the culture war with the aim of defeating the enemy and enjoying the spoils in the form of a public square re-ordered to the common good and ultimately the Highest Good.” Okay. But what does that actually mean in practice? What does a “defeated enemy” look like? By what mechanism is the “public square re-ordered to the common good and ultimately the Highest Good”? Which “public square”? — there are many in America. And what is the “common good and ultimately the Highest Good”? Who decides? Ahmari? The Pope? Nicolás Maduro?

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I must confess that I am not entirely sure that Ahmari and his compatriots know. And this justification for his present approach — provided by Ahmari on Twitter yesterday — has deepened that suspicion:

https://twitter.com/sohrabahmari/status/1133937203892105217

I have heard from a lot of people that the Kavanaugh affair “snapped something in” them. That’s understandable. Indeed, if you look back at my writing at the time, I was absolutely outraged by what happened — and how. But the thing is, we won the Kavanaugh fight. And, crucially, the supposedly supine David French was unsparing in his defense of Kavanaugh. If that was the moment that Ahmari resolved to don a pith helmet and run to the barricades, he shouldn’t have shunned David French for his uselessness, but immediately linked arms with him. I can’t think of an incident that provoked behavior in David that was further from Ahmari’s straw man. He was unblenching.

Moreover, I struggle to remember an incident that better highlighted the need for (classical) liberalism. Ultimately, it was precisely the insistence upon classically liberal values such as cross-examination, hard evidence, and the presumption of innocence that won the day for Kavanaugh, against the sort of ends-oriented illiberalism that Ahmari seems increasingly to admire. The person who secured Kavanaugh’s confirmation, remember, was . . . Susan Collins, and the (correct) reason she gave for her vote was that nothing had been proven and that that was unacceptable to her. She said:

But certain fundamental legal principles—about due process, the presumption of innocence, and fairness—do bear on my thinking, and I cannot abandon them. In evaluating any given claim of misconduct, we will be ill served in the long run if we abandon the presumption of innocence and fairness, tempting though it may be. We must always remember that it is when passions are most inflamed that fairness is most in jeopardy. The presumption of innocence is relevant to the advice and consent function when an accusation departs from a nominee’s otherwise exemplary record. I worry that departing from this presumption could lead to a lack of public faith in the judiciary and would be hugely damaging to the confirmation process moving forward.

This is a David French argument. It is not a Sohrab Ahmari argument.

Or is it? In his essay, Ahmari knocks David for his focus on individualism. But was it not precisely a belief in individual rights that angered so many people at the Kavanaugh hearing — and, dare I say, led them to snap? Those leading the attack against Kavanaugh asked, cynically, “why not just pick another judge?” And the answer was because a man’s reputation was at stake, and because in our culture — our “tradition,” in Ahmari’s formulation — that matters. If the aim were purely to advance the ball on questions that are important to him, Ahmari wouldn’t have cared much about Kavanaugh. Instead, he’d have recommended dropping him and picking another justice who was acceptable to the editors at First Things. But he didn’t. He “snapped” at the injustice of it all.

Why?",1.5239570347741163
"The 2016 election laid bare profound but long-hidden ideological divisions among America’s conservative intellectuals.

Some of us heartily supported the Trumpian insurgency. Others reluctantly pulled the lever for Trump. Still others opposed his candidacy, adopted the label “Never Trump,” or even endorsed Hillary Clinton.

Yet more than two years later, we speak with one voice: There is no returning to the pre-Trump conservative consensus that collapsed in 2016. Any attempt to revive the failed conservative consensus that preceded Trump would be misguided and harmful to the right.

We give credit where it is due: Consensus conservatism played a heroic role in defeating Communism in the last century, by promoting prosperity at home and the expansion of a rules-based international order. At its best, the old consensus defended the natural rights of Americans and the “transcendent dignity of the human person, as the visible image of the invisible God” (Pope John Paul II, Centesimus Annus) against the depredations of totalitarian regimes.

But even during the Cold War, this conservatism too often tracked the same lodestar liberalism did—namely, individual autonomy. The fetishizing of autonomy paradoxically yielded the very tyranny that consensus conservatives claim most to detest.

America’s public philosophy now puts great stock in “the right to define one’s own concept of . . . the mystery of human life,” as Justice Anthony Kennedy, the libertarian conservative par excellence, wrote while upholding the constitutional “right” to abortion. But this vast leeway to discover the meaning of existence extends to destroying the freedom and lives of others (the unborn child’s, in the case of abortion).

Yes, the old conservative consensus paid lip service to traditional values. But it failed to retard, much less reverse, the eclipse of permanent truths, family stability, communal solidarity, and much else. It surrendered to the pornographization of daily life, to the culture of death, to the cult of competitiveness. It too often bowed to a poisonous and censorious multiculturalism.

Faced with voters’ resounding “No!” to these centrifugal forces, consensus conservatives have grown only more rigid in their certainties. They have elevated prudential judgments and policies into sacred dogmas. These dogmas—free trade on every front, free movement through every boundary, small government as an end in itself, technological advancement as a cure-all—foreclose debate about the nature and purpose of our common life.

Consensus conservatism long ago ceased to inquire into the first things. But we will not.

We oppose the soulless society of individual affluence.

Our society must not prioritize the needs of the childless, the healthy, and the intellectually competitive. Our policy must accommodate the messy demands of authentic human attachments: family, faith, and the political community. We welcome allies who oppose dehumanizing attempts at “liberation” such as pornography, “designer babies,” wombs for rent, and the severing of the link between sex and gender.

We stand with the American citizen.

In recent years, some have argued for immigration by saying that working-class Americans are less hard-working, less fertile, in some sense less worthy than potential immigrants. We oppose attempts to displace American citizens. Advancing the common good requires standing with, rather than abandoning, our countrymen. They are our fellow citizens, not interchangeable economic units. And as Americans we owe each other a distinct allegiance and must put each other first.

We reject attempts to compromise on human dignity.

In 2013, the Republican National Committee released an “autopsy report” that proposed compromising on social issues in order to appeal to young voters. In fact, millennials are the most pro-life generation in America, while economic libertarianism isn’t nearly as popular as its Beltway proponents imagine. We affirm the nonnegotiable dignity of every unborn life and oppose the transhumanist project of radical self-identification.

We resist a tyrannical liberalism.

We seek to revive the virtues of liberality and neighborliness that many people describe as “liberalism.” But we oppose any attempt to conflate American interests with liberal ideology. When an ideological liberalism seeks to dictate our foreign policy and dominate our religious and charitable institutions, tyranny is the result, at home and abroad.

We want a country that works for workers.

The Republican Party has for too long held investors and “job creators” above workers and citizens, dismissing vast swaths of Americans as takers unworthy of its time. Trump’s victory, driven in part by his appeal to working-class voters, shows the potential of a political movement that heeds the cries of the working class as much as the demands of capital. Americans take more pride in their identity as workers than their identity as consumers. Economic and welfare policy should prioritize work over consumption.

We believe home matters.

For those who enjoy the upsides, a borderless world brings intoxicating new liberties. They can go anywhere, work anywhere. They can call themselves “citizens” of the world. But the jet-setters’ vision clashes with the human need for a common life. And it has bred resentments that are only beginning to surface. We embrace the new nationalism insofar as it stands against the utopian ideal of a borderless world that, in practice, leads to universal tyranny.

Whatever else might be said about it, the Trump phenomenon has opened up space in which to pose these questions anew. We will guard that space jealously. And we respectfully decline to join with those who would resurrect warmed-over Reaganism and foreclose honest debate.

Sohrab Ahmari

New York Post

Jeffrey Blehar



Patrick Deneen

University of Notre Dame

Rod Dreher

The American Conservative

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry

Ethics and Public Policy Center

Darel Paul

Williams College

C. C. Pecknold

The Catholic University of America

Matthew Peterson

The Claremont Institute

James Poulos

The American Mind

Mark Regnerus

University of Texas at Austin

Matthew Schmitz

First Things

Kevin E. Stuart

Austin Institute

David Upham

University of Dallas

Matthew Walther

The Week

Julia Yost

First Things

Institutional affiliations are for identification purposes only and do not represent institutional endorsement.

Become a fan of First Things on Facebook, subscribe to First Things via RSS, and follow First Things on Twitter.",-0.47609652436600874
"Why did this happen?

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"""I expect ridicule for my indiscretion,"" Landis said, noting he hoped it would only be directed at him and not those around him.

Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}}

He was set to go to court on the charge in June, but he said he has applied for diversion for his case and will ""carry out the compensatory responsibilities assigned me.""

A city misdemeanor carries a sentence of up to six months in jail and a $500 fine.

Mayor Chris Beutler appointed Landis to the position soon after taking office in May 2007.

The two had served together in the Legislature, where Landis represented Lincoln's District 46 for seven terms from 1979 to 2007 until term limits kept him from the ballot.

Landis serves as the at-large member on the Lower Platte South Natural Resource District board. He was elected to a four-year term last year.

In a statement Wednesday afternoon, Beutler said he reluctantly accepted this resignation because Landis insisted.

""Despite this recent lapse in judgment, I did not want to accept that resignation, as he has done admirable work for the city for 12 successful years and only five days remain in my administration,"" Beutler said.",-0.4386515042151882
"Fish can band together, sometimes in the millions, to form a school or shoal. They will move as one, like a flock of birds, so long as each fish stays in line with the fish that surround it.

Modern fish, as well as other kinds of animals, already know how to move as one. But unraveling when in Earth’s deep past this behavior evolved has been a tough fish to fry for scientists.

It’s difficult, for instance, to find evidence of schooling fish in the fossil record. You need just the right circumstances to fossilize something like a school of fish in place within a rock. Then, that rock has to survive intact long enough for a paleontologist to discover it and study it.

But that is just what may have happened.

[Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.]",0.15470342328270878
"Now that the legend’s wills have been discovered, it’s up to the courts and her sons to decipher them. Photo: Angello Picco/REX/Shutterstock

When Aretha Franklin died in 2018 at the age of 76, her family believed she hadn’t left behind a will. That would have made things fairly easy for her four sons — Clarence, Edward, Teddy, and Kecalf — as Michigan law declares that each of them would inherit a quarter of the estate, leaving them to decide the particulars among themselves.

But then, in a mid-May plot twist, Franklin’s family discovered three wills handwritten by the Queen of Soul: Two dating from 2010 were locked away in a cabinet, and another from 2014 was found in a spiral notebook left under a couch cushion. Though fairly detailed and seemingly fair to each of her sons, the wills are now headed to court over questions about their validity and details, some of which contradict each other or are too difficult to decipher because of Franklin’s scribbled penmanship.

It appears that Franklin’s estate won’t be nearly as complicated as the mess Prince left behind (with all of his sibling drama and extremely convoluted finances, which included hefty tax bills and a trove of unreleased recordings), but there are still plenty of questions. Just as we did with the Purple One’s complex legacy, Vulture is attempting to break down what Franklin’s wills mean for her estate, how any of this might get settled in or out of court, and what the last testaments reveal about her life — such as the paternity of one of her children and which employees she felt the need to take a few digs at.

The Wills

Both newly discovered wills have a few things in common. Aretha says she’s of “sound mind,” though she notes in her 2010 will that she wasn’t completely of sound “body,” having high blood pressure and a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor that caused her to cancel tour dates that year and ultimately proved fatal. Another document included with that will states that a different handwritten will from “1972-1973ish” was either stolen or went missing and is “no good today.”

All three documents — viewable here, here, and here via the Detroit Free Press as well as a petition for the courts to validate the 2014 will brought by Franklin’s youngest son, Kecalf — include a lot of underlining and strike-throughs, additions above and below the lines of text, and notes in the margins. The 2014 will includes a line that first names her third son, Teddy, as the executor of her estate, but then his name is crossed out, leaving “Kecalf + _______??” on the page with a note reading “Fill in” written next to it. At the end of this document, Franklin drew a smiley face next to her last name, which one can assume is meant to be her official signature.

Without the aid of an attorney or another representative having drawn this up in an editable digital format, Franklin’s will sometimes reads like stream of consciousness with occasionally illegible notes added in bolder ink. Still, it’s clear Franklin had a good grasp of her estate, including her properties, possessions, record contracts, tax bills, and more, many elements of which are very detailed. Why she never had her will professionally done remains a mystery, though her mentions of inept employees — her “primary but grossly inefficient attorney” and an accountant who forgot to remind her about a tax payment that ended up costing her $90,000 — suggest she was wary of letting anyone else handle the task.

The Heirs

While Prince’s estate was set to be divided among his sister Tyka and his five half-siblings with nothing slated for his deceased brother’s children, Franklin’s will accounts for her sons. According to the New York Times, two of them, Kecalf and Edward, favor abiding by the 2014 will, while Teddy and Clarence don’t. Eldest child Clarence, whom Aretha had when she was 12 years old, is the only son not to receive one of her three houses in the will, leaving him out of any money his brothers would gain from their sale.

It’s unclear why Franklin left Clarence out of any financial gains from the homes, but it is apparent why she didn’t leave him a house — because of unspecified special needs, the 64-year-old lives in a Detroit group home. While the 2014 will says his brothers and other representatives of the estate are to look after him, the 2010 version is more specific, giving Clarence $150 per week and leaving instructions to provide him with seasonal clothing. Franklin also included a note to herself to transfer guardianship of Clarence to her niece, Sabrina Owens.

Another surprise in the 2010 will is Franklin’s naming of Edward Jordan Sr. as Clarence’s father. He was already known as the father of her second son, Edward, but many had speculated that Clarence’s father was Franklin’s school friend, Donald Burke. Either way, Franklin stipulated that Jordan should “never receive or handle any money or property belonging to Clarence” because “he has never made any contribution to [Clarence’s] welfare, future or past.” She underlined “never” for emphasis.

Owens’s role in the estate is now unclear. After Franklin’s death, the four brothers unanimously approved of her becoming executor, while the 2014 will says Kecalf should fill that role; instead, Owens would receive $200,000, with $50,000 going to Franklin’s now-deceased half-sister, Carl Ellan Kelley. Owens has already served the estate well, spearheading the release of the critically acclaimed Franklin documentary Amazing Grace.

The Possessions and Funds

Franklin’s wills include provisions to distribute her finances to her children, grandchildren, and other family members, with the sons inheriting most of her possessions and contracts related to song royalties and upcoming projects, including a biopic that will reportedly star Jennifer Hudson. The financials are a bit murky, as at times they are said to be distributed equally but it is also specified that Clarence’s situation be handled separately. The 2010 will says Kecalf and Edward must take classes in business administration and earn a degree or certificate in order to receive the “aforementioned things” in the will, including the properties and shares of her estate.

Franklin specifically willed her gold records and CDs, awards, cars, and piano to her children as well as her “papers,” which she wanted to see donated to a college music department. Her gowns, shoes, and other clothing items were also left to them to be sold at auction by Sotheby’s or given to the Smithsonian or other museums of their choice.

The Next Steps

Initial court documents filed over the wills seek to have Franklin’s catalogue and likeness be appraised by Shot Tower Capital, which has handled the cases of Prince and Michael Jackson. On June 17, a Michigan judge is set to rule on whether the 2014 will is admissible, but Franklin’s heirs will still have to decide many of the next steps in managing her legacy and business matters and agree upon all the vagaries of the document. The estate is currently represented by David J. Bennett, the same lawyer Franklin called “grossly inefficient” in 2010, and he hopes the four brothers and their attorneys will, with the help of a mediator, come to an agreement on all matters before ending up in court like Prince’s family.

Update, August 21: According to a New York Times report, the drama over the validity of Franklin’s handwritten wills and which of her four sons — Clarence, Kecalf, Edward, and Teddy Jr. — gets what has, indeed, spilled over into court. The court-appointed guardian for her eldest son, Clarence, has argued in court that the wills cannot be authenticated. Kecalf is still arguing that the 2014 will be recognized and has challenged Franklin’s niece, Sabrina Owens, as executor of the estate, requesting that he be appointed executor instead. In recent court docs, he accused Owens of mismanaging Franklin’s estate and taking her Mercedes-Benz for personal use, which Owens denied; she claims that Kecalf asked permission for his son to use the car. Edward remains sided with Kecalf in advocating for the 2014 will. Meanwhile, Teddy has asked that all three wills be recognized as a summation of Franklin’s wishes, and that he be added as executor alongside Owens.

David J. Bennett, the lawyer for Franklin’s estate, has come out against Kecalf’s petition for executor, saying he lacks “the capability to be a personal representative.” The judge in the case is asking that the family find a mediator to settle their differences out of court. Per the Times, under Michigan law, “the family could bypass questions of the validity of the wills if all heirs can come to an agreement.” In the interim, a lack of control over the estate has put its business interests on hold: The Times reports that an MGM Aretha Franklin biopic starring Jennifer Hudson will move forward without the estate’s permission, claiming to have secured the necessary rights and Franklin’s blessing while she was alive, as will a NatGeo season of Genius dedicated to the singer. Another revelation from the report: Even Barack Obama is caught up in the drama. At a recent hearing where a judge considered distributing some personal keepsakes to her sons, Bennett claimed that Obama has asked to be given the iconic silver-bow hat she wore to his first inauguration.",-0.21108696603585458
"In 1961 US president John F. Kennedy announced his ambition to land an astronaut on the moon before the decade was out. Among the huge challenges to overcome was manufacturing a spacesuit which could protect the human body from the dangers of space.

Playtex were a small firm whose expertise lay in latex moulding bras and girdles. Kassia St Clair

In The Golden Thread, Kassia St Clair describes the scale of the problem NASA faced.

She writes: ""Space is the most alien environment in which a human being has survived... In space, temperatures fluctuate between -157°C in the shade and as high as 154° in a sunny spot... there is a great deal of ultraviolet radiation from the sun, which is harmful to our eyes and skin. There is no breathable air.""

The company appointed to manufacture the spacesuit was, on the surface, an unusual choice.

St Clair reports: ""[Playtex] were a small firm - no more than 50 employees in 1962 - whose expertise lay in latex moulding bras and girdles.... The making of what was to become known as the A7-L Omega suit was much more akin to making girdles than anyone at the space agency would have cared to admit. Each suit was fashioned by hand on a sewing floor populated entirely by women - seamstresses, pattern-cutters and makers - using adapted Singer sewing machines, standard pattern templates and the skills both inherent and honed from years of making women's underwear.""",-0.48147242195101536
"The following essay is derived from The Making of Measure and the Promise of Sameness.

If you didn’t notice, it’s OK, but Monday marked an important shift in the sciences, one that has taken decades to implement. Last November, scientists at an international conference in Versailles, France, finally agreed that all the measurement standards employed around the world—the meter, the second, the ampere, the kelvin and so on—would acquire new definitions based on physical constants. (A constant, as its name makes clear, is a quantity that physicists take as fixed and usually retrieve in the atomic world, such as the mass of a proton, or the charge of an electron.) That shift happened Monday, May 20. The new era is upon us. But again, you probably missed it—in fact, you were supposed to miss it.

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Before getting into the reasons why our collective failure to notice means the transition was a success, let me briefly recap what this whole business is about.

Since the 18th century, many scientists and international traders have been frustrated by the need to convert dimensions every time they crossed a national border. It was not just that every country was using different systems, but many cities within the same country employed different standards, one for each activity (land was not measured with the same rulers employed for cloth, for example). So, in 1875 (on May 20, not a coincidence), a group of 17 countries that included Italy, the Dominican Republic, Russia, and the United States agreed to adopt the same measurement standards as a way to boost commerce and facilitate technological cooperation.* They decided on the metric system, which had been created in France in the late 1790s ( more on that later) and aggressively promoted across the globe.

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At the 1875 conference, each adopting country was rewarded with a platinum bar that measured one meter and a cylinder whose mass corresponded to one kilogram. Other countries followed suit (Japan in 1885, Mexico in 1890, Thailand in 1912, I could go on). Members of this metric covenant felt reassured as more and more countries subscribed to it. Yet, over time, scientific advancements also continued to redefine what the meter meant. In 1960, for instance, at the meeting in which Indonesia joined the group, the participants agreed that it was too risky to have the world’s standard of length embodied by only one metal bar. What would have happened if, despite all the precautions, such a bar were damaged or went missing? How to deal with the countless disputes regarding the replication of an object that was, by its very definition, irreplaceable? The bar had to go, and the length of one meter was defined as a multiple of the wavelength of the orange spectral line so that any laboratory could retrieve it.

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But soon after, in 1983, scientists made such progress in measuring the frequency of radiations that they had to redefine the speed of light, and the meter with it. The other standards didn’t receive the same treatment, though. Until Monday, for instance, the kilogram was still defined in relation to the 19th-century cylinder that is still preserved in a suburb of Paris. And this is why the representatives of 85 countries agreed that on May 20, 2019, all standards would switch to definitions based on physical constants, constants that could be derived anywhere, rather than replicas of a literal object.

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It’s the paradox of the gesture—changing a few things so that everything can stay the same—that I find intriguing.

And yet, while many of the world’s scientists regard this moment as the epochal transformation it rightly is, they are quick to tell everyone that nothing is changing. Press releases celebrate the change but minimize its significance, stressing that it’s only the definitions of the standards that have been corrected—that is, the instructions as to how to create and replicate them—not their dimensions. We can continue measuring our morning jogs or weighing baking ingredients as we have always done: Everything will stay the same.

It’s the paradox of the gesture—changing a few things so that everything can stay the same—that I find intriguing. And after having researched the history of measurements for 15 years, I can also tell you that this paradox is not circumstantial, but an expression of the ambiguity that gives measurements their exceptional power.

You see: Measurements are strange objects. They occupy a unique place in cultural history as a whole. To start, measurements are ambivalent entities that exist between physical objects and ideal ratios. When we talk about measurements, we simultaneously refer to two things: both the plastic ruler that we may hold in our hands, and the dimension that the ruler represents. The physical object is thought to be a mere representation of a ratio, but things are more complicated than that. Before Monday, many measurement standards were in fact like the pre-1960 meter, for which the ratio did not really exist outside of the physical object that was supposed to simply represent it.

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Let’s go back to the creation of the meter. When, in the late 18th century, the members of the Academy of Science in Paris worked to make it a reality, they defined it as one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator. They believed that taking the size of the Earth as the starting point would make the new standard eternally retrievable. Even if the object were lost, such a standard could be found again by remeasuring the earth, which, moreover, made the meter appear universal: a tool that all humans would recognize as deduced from their own planet. Yet, when the French went to measure the meridian, they selected the one crossing Paris without realizing (actually, deliberately ignoring) that not all meridians are identical, since the Earth is not the perfect sphere that we see in the solar systems hanging over cribs. Which means that the final metal bar that the French produced was a peculiar object, related to one specific dimension of the earth. (It’s because of this distinctness that the London parliament refused to adopt it.) And yet, when promoting it, the French omitted this peculiarity and described the standard as a universal, utterly constant ratio.

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It was not, however, only the French that played this game. Measurements have always existed in suspension between the material and the ideal. In medieval Italy, for instance, standards of length were not hidden in safes protected by guards, as it is the case today. They were instead incised in the façades of cathedrals for everyone to see (and for everyone to guard). The very officers in charge of the incisions, however, were the first ones to say that the standard was not the incised slab itself, which was regularly substituted, but the ratio that it visualized. Critics further objected that if someone went to chip the rut with a chisel, even the abstract dimension that the wall incision supposedly represented would change. But those voices mattered little, in part because measurements are not just technical tools of quantification, but distinct cultural objects that, like all cultural objects, exist amid the discourse that validate them. Measuring requires instructions: Someone needs to tell you where to start and where to end, how to read an edge that falls between two divisions. Discussing measurements is never just technical: They pose questions about frameworks of reference, theories of knowledge, and the stuff that shapes our beliefs.

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Measurements derive their efficacy from an idea of incorruptibility that does not belong to the human world.

Measurement standards are as artificial as anything else produced by humans. Over the centuries they have been chipped, weathered, and destroyed by fires (that is what happened to the 15th-century measurements standards of England, engulfed in the blaze that destroyed the London Parliament in 1834, after which: chaos). Yet, measurements are routinely presented as if their material existence is secondary to their abstract reality. This is because measurements derive their efficacy from an idea of incorruptibility that does not belong to the human world. The moment measurement standards are physically constructed, they are immediately said not to matter as objects, but as transfers to something abstract. It is only as abstract forms that they maintain that promise of incorruptibility that lends them validity. I would also add: It is only through ideals that the various incarnations of measurements (such as your ruler not being exactly like mine) can overcome their differences, regardless of how inconspicuous they may be.

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This notion explains why scientists changed the definitions of the standards while insisting that nothing changed. Their anxiety is the same that has seized all scientists of the past three centuries: how to improve the tools employed to describe the laws of nature without disrupting everyone else’s life? (Can you imagine what would happen if people started questioning measurements? If at every visit to the supermarket, every shopper would inspect the calibration of each scale?) It’s better to say that there is nothing to see while scientists continue in their pursuit and skew the oscillation of measurements more toward the abstract than the physical. Which is precisely what happened on Monday: an attempt to erase the last traces of the bodies of measurements to finally turn them into utterly incorruptible dimensions. Or this is, at least, what we are told.

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I may be cynical, but May 20 seems to be less a step forward than a reiteration of the very paradox of human life in which measurements participate: the effort to produce something absolute, eternally stable, and utterly uncompromisable in an ever-changing universe while having only human-made, imperfect tools at hand. By recurring to physical constants, scientists can claim to have equipped themselves with definitions that allow them to retrieve standards forever. Yet, such confidence evaporates once they leave their laboratories. For who can measure the mass of a proton or the speed of light outside of scientists? Most of us did not notice what happened because May 20 marks the day when measurements became a scientific appanage.

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Correction, May 23, 2019: An earlier version of this article misidentified Russia as the Soviet Union.

Slate has relationships with various online retailers. If you buy something through our links, Slate may earn an affiliate commission. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change. All prices were up to date at the time of publication.",-0.5958758537958184
"When Voyager II flew past Neptune in August of 1989 it revealed a complex system of 13 moons, six of which had never been seen before.

Thirty years later, scientists say the space probe missed one.

Using data from the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered an elusive seventh ice moon around the ice giant that fell just out of Voyager’s field of view. Its new name is Hippocamp.

“Voyager was a little bit unlucky,” said Mark Showalter, a planetary astronomer at the SETI Institute and lead author of a paper describing the moon published Wednesday in Nature. “There was a number of times when Voyager’s camera came pretty close to seeing it, but missed it, sometimes by as little as 100 pixels.”

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After the flyby, Voyager II did take images of the entire Neptune system, but Hippocamp was too small and faint to be detectable in those pictures, he said.

Neptune is the eighth planet in the solar system and orbits the sun at the staggering distance of 2.8 billion miles. That’s roughly 30 times farther from the sun than the Earth.

It is so far away that our best space-based telescopes struggle to make out its smaller satellites. Hippocamp does not appear in Hubble images of the Neptune system, even in a lengthy five-minute exposure.

“We overexpose Neptune by a factor of 50 and even then Hippocamp is below our detection threshold,” Showalter said.

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This 2016 image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, led astronomers to the discovery of Hippocamp. The moon is visible inside the red box; an enlarged version is inset at upper right. (Mark R. Showalter, SETI Institute)

To find Hippocamp, scientists used a complex and time-consuming process that allowed them to stack eight Hubble images on top of each other, essentially creating a single, 40-minute exposure.

They originally invented the process to study the faint arcs, or incomplete rings, around Neptune, but then realized it could be used to detect small, hidden moons as well.

“We reapplied the analysis to the whole image, and that’s when Hippocamp showed up,” Showatler said.

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This is the earliest image of Hippocamp, obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2004. Hippocamp is shown inside the red box, and an enlarged version is inset at upper right. (Mark R. Showalter, SETI Institute)

The research team first announced that it had probably found a new moon around Neptune in 2013. Three years later the team was granted some more time on the Hubble Space Telescope to determine its orbit and get a better idea of its size.

“When you make a discovery like this you announce it as promptly as possible so the scientific community knows, but that’s really the beginning of the process, not the end,” Showalter said.

So far, the researchers have determined that if Hippocamp reflects 9% of the sunlight it receives, like Neptune’s other inner moons, then it is probably 20 miles in diameter. They have also concluded that based on its orbit, it was once much closer to Neptune’s much larger moon Proteus, which has been slowly spiraling away from its host planet.

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That may not sound that helpful, but to the scientists, those two data points suggest an origin story for the small moon.

Voyager II revealed an enormous impact crater on Proteus that suggests that the moon suffered a powerful collision that almost tore it apart 4 billion years ago. That impact would have raised a big cloud of debris, some of which spiraled away into space, and some of which might have formed Hippocamp.

But this is currently just a guess.

“Whether Hippocamp formed in place from material that did not originate from Proteus or was born of Proteus remains to be determined,” wrote Anne Verbiscer, an astronomer at the University of Virginia, in an essay accompanying the paper.

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The seven inner moons of Neptune are shown to scale, alongside with the planet’s bluish outer edge. (Mark R. Showalter, SETI Institute)

Showalter is an expert at finding small, faint objects that lie great distances from Earth. Over the course of his career he’s discovered six moons in the solar system — one at Saturn, two at Uranus, two at Pluto and now Hippocamp.

However, he thinks it is unlikely that any other hidden objects will emerge at Neptune. The technique he used to find Hippocamp should have revealed any objects at least half as bright as the moon.

But if we could send a spacecraft out to Neptune, who knows what we might find.

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“There are no instruments other than Hubble that are capable of doing these kinds of observations,” he said. “But if we could get an orbiter mission to the outer planets, everything we’ve ever done could be improved on in just a few days.”

deborah.netburn@latimes.com

Do you love science? I do! Follow me @DeborahNetburn and “like” Los Angeles Times Science & Health on Facebook.

MORE IN SCIENCE",-0.51369343039381
"LeBron James. Photo: Al Bello/Getty Images

LeBron James may be one of the greatest athletes around, but it turns out he has another … well, you might say … burning passion outside of the sport of basketball: He loves candles. And I do mean LOVES.

The extent of the Los Angeles Lakers star’s love of candles was revealed thanks to a new interview with GQ. When discussing his travel must-haves, James started out by explaining how he packs his “size 15, 16” (!!!!!!!) shoes, before going on to list some other essential items, which notably included a casual reference to “my candles.” He told GQ:

“I have to light a candle in my room on every road trip while I’m in my room. It has a lot to do with the energy of the universe. I’m very high on that — I actually get that from my wife. But I also just love the smell of candles.”

But lest you think that’s all he has to say on the matter, James continued:

“You know, hotel rooms can have a stagnant smell. I think a candle gives it a fresher smell. I can bring some home with me, it makes me very comfortable. So the energy, the essence, behind a candle, and also the smell quality of just keeping me as comfortable away as I am when I’m home.”

James’s candle discussion didn’t stop there. He explained that Diptyque is one of his favorite candle brands. And if he happens to run out of candles when he travels, well, he just goes out and gets more at the hotel gift shop. Hot tip: apparently the Four Seasons carries a great candle line. (“I don’t know the brand that they work with, but they have great selections of candles,” he said.)

While all this may have prompted the New York Post to (rudely) declare that James’s candle obsession is “out of control,” I just absolutely love everything about his nice and wonderful passion. I hope he’s burning a peaceful candle right now!

Stay in touch. Get the Cut newsletter delivered daily Email This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Terms & Privacy Notice By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us.",1.5702286414949413
"It was another chapter in a dismal saga of Nimbyist urban mismanagement that is crushing American cities. Not-in-my-backyardism is a bipartisan sentiment, but because the largest American cities are populated and run by Democrats — many in states under complete Democratic control — this sort of nakedly exclusionary urban restrictionism is a particular shame of the left.

There are many threads in the story of America’s increasingly unlivable cities. One continuing tragedy is the decimation of local media and the rise of nationalized politics in its place. In America the “local” problems plaguing cities are systematically sidelined by the structure of the national media and government, in which the presidency, the Senate and the Supreme Court are all constitutionally tilted in favor of places where no one lives. (There are more than twice as many people in my midsize suburban county, Santa Clara, as there are in the entire state of North Dakota, with its two United States senators.)

That’s why, aside from Elizabeth Warren — who has a plan for housing, as she has a plan for everything — Democrats on the 2020 presidential trail rarely mention their ideas for housing affordability, an issue eating American cities alive. I watched Joe Biden’s campaign kick off the other day; the only house he mentioned was the White House.

Then there is the refusal on the part of wealthy progressives to live by the values they profess to support at the national level. Creating dense, economically and socially diverse urban environments ought to be a paramount goal of progressivism. Cities are the standard geographical unit of the global economy. Dense urban areas are quite literally the “real America” — the cities are where two-thirds of Americans live, and they account for almost all national economic output. Urban areas are the most environmentally friendly way we know of housing lots of people. We can’t solve the climate crisis without vastly improving public transportation and increasing urban density. More than that, metropolises are good for the psyche and the soul; density fosters tolerance, diversity, creativity and progress.",0.5929315651993435
"New York City mayor Bill de Blasio attends the dedication of the new Statue of Liberty Museum on Liberty Island, May 16, 2019. (Mike Segar/Reuters)

De Blasio seems to think he’s running to be the ringleader in a heist movie, but he’s really a sad sack trying to catch up with the cool crowd.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is Jonah Goldberg’s weekly “news”letter, the G-File. Subscribe here to get the G-File delivered to your inbox on Fridays.

Dear Reader (Including all of the Democrats not running for president. Let’s have lunch),

And then there were 24.

Of course, you normally don’t say “And then there were X” when the number increases. You’re supposed to say it in such situations as when your softball team has been kidnapped by a Moldovan blood-sport ring. You sit in your dank holding cell beneath the streets of Chisinau, watching as your buddies are taken away in ones and twos to fight to the death with tire irons and shovels for the amusement of the Moldovan illuminati until it’s just you and a once-pudgy, urine-soaked accountant who’s become a lean, death-dealing gladiator and has decided the only way to survive is to accept that this is the only life he knows. You hear the outer door open and see burly men drag in the bloodied corpses of both your former first baseman and your centerfielder and dump them in the corner. Then one of them comes to the gate of your cell and says “Si apoi au fost doi” — Romanian for “And then there were two.” A macabre grin appears on the accountant’s face.

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Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. There are now 24 Democratic presidential contenders, give or take any who may have announced since I emailed this to NRHQ.

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One of the things I find amusing is how each candidate must come up with some unique qualification for why they should be president that sets them off from the others. Some are just platitudinous — Joe Biden’s experience — but some are awfully niche:

Cory “Almost Spartacus” Booker says he’s “the only senator who goes home to a low-income, inner-city community” in Newark.

Michael Bennet says, “I have a tendency to tell the truth to the people I represent in Colorado and I want a chance to do that with the American people.”

Kirsten Gillibrand explains that what sets her apart is the fact that “as a young mom, I’m going to fight for other people’s kids as hard as I would fight for my own.” She’s 52, by the way.

John Hickenlooper is going for the crucial magical-realism bloc. “I’m running for president because we need dreamers in Washington, but we also need to get things done.”

At this rate, I think the 30th candidate will say “I’m running for president because I rarely wear underwear, and when I do, it’s usually something unusual.”

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Oh, I left out Bill de Blasio, who says that his unique contribution is his bully-fighting superpower. Of course, that’s not his only superpower, he also has the ability to make evidence of his superpowers invisible to the general public. It’s a very niche superpower.

De Blah-sio

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I have a fair amount of confidence that after today, I won’t need to write about Bill de Blasio again, save perhaps in passing, à la: “The overflow from the Biden event was so large, the crowd butted up against the dunk tank, where another 2020 hopeful sat, unable even to persuade the locals to throw the ball at the target. After an hour, he remained dry, save for the heavy coating of sweat drawn from the beating midwestern sun and more than a few of his own tears drawn from anticipation of the political beating to come.”

Now, I don’t want to get locked-in; he could say or do something so spectacularly dumb that I will be compelled to comment — occupational hazards of the pundit trade and all that — but that will be a judgement call, not a necessity. As I suggest in my column today, I think he’s a remarkably unserious candidate. Yes, that’s been said in this space about other candidates, one of whom is currently in the Oval Office, but say what you will about Donald Trump, he had a gift for drawing contrasts with other candidates.

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(Before I continue, I love sentences like that. Years ago, a friend of mine came up with a bunch of statements one could say about the GOP that would sound positive to people who wanted to hear something positive and negative to people who wanted to hear something negative. One example he offered: “With Ted Cruz, the GOP finally has the leadership it deserves.” I’m not a Cruz basher, but I still find that funny. “Donald Trump has a gift for drawing contrasts” makes me chuckle, too.)

The reason it is very unlikely that de Blasio will replicate the success of Donald Trump in the Democratic primaries is that he cannot offer any contrasts that matter. He isn’t entertaining, he’s tiresome. He isn’t charismatic, he’s unctuous. He talks like the president of a small liberal-arts college, spouting clichés plucked from a flier on an assistant professor of Peace Studies’ door. He seems convinced that the glassy expression on the faces of the students and faculty in the audience is awe, not a soul-numbing tedium that is a few desperate heartbeats away from resorting to self-harm just to feel something again.

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That’s not to say there aren’t interesting things about the man. His habit of sleeping late is amusing, even charming. The possibly unfounded rumors that every day is 4/20 at Gracie Mansion are fun. His honeymoon in Castro’s Cuba is so on the nose that Tom Wolfe would have cut it from an updated version of Bonfire of the Vanities (perhaps renamed Bonfire of the Chronic). The fact that he married a lesbian is legitimately fascinating, though I’m not sure how it will play in certain quarters of the left given that converting gay people to heterosexuality is not as popular as it once was.

Stork v. Ferris

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But the most interesting — and disturbing — thing about de Blasio is that he is such a conventional politician. In my column, I argue that he’s a Ferris Bueller — someone who jumps in front of an existing parade and thinks he’s actually leading it. I’ve used this analogy before, and I have a longtime reader who always emails me — including this morning — to say I’m getting my movies confused. He thinks I’m talking about Animal House, specifically this scene with Stork (played by Douglas Clark Francis Kenney, one of the co-founders of National Lampoon):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1v0jB3OswM&feature=youtu.be

But this is wrong. When Stork takes over the parade, he actually does take it over, leading the entire marching band into a dead-end alley. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, I know Stork, sir. And Bill de Blasio is no Stork. De Blasio is a Bueller because all he does is lip-sync the words to someone else’s song and dances for the crowd.

And that’s what I mean about what’s disturbing about de Blasio. There is not an original bone in his body. He’s a sponge of woke platitudes, acquired over a lifetime of shared pleasantries with disgruntled left-wing academics, activists, red diaper babies, and rent-control Maoists. The sponge is boring. But what he’s soaking up is more than a little terrifying, because it reveals what’s in the atmosphere around him. After all, the conventional wisdom is that de Blasio is frustrated that the Democratic party has moved leftward toward his worldview, and he’s not getting credit for being there first.

The very first words of his presidential announcement video — i.e. the central message of his campaign — are: “There’s plenty of money in this world, there’s plenty of money in this country, it’s just in the wrong hands.”

Let that sink in, like a cliché through the blood-brain barrier in de Blasio’s skull.

Bumper-sticker socialism

When Proudhon said that “property is theft,” he had something of a point. He wasn’t talking about all property, but land specifically in the tradition of Roman law. And if you check the video of history, you could find more than enough evidence to make the case that the land owned by aristocrats and royals was taken from somebody else at some point.

Marxists took the phrase “property is theft” — which Marx himself criticized — and turned it into “capitalism is theft.” This incredibly stupid aphorism — no doubt tattooed between the shoulder blades of some Antifa thug (the irony that it was paid for with the red blood cells of capitalism, money, was probably lost on him) — is predicated on the Marxist idea of the “surplus value of labor.” This potted notion holds that all of the value in a widget comes from the workers on the widget assembly line. The inventor of the widget, the investor in the inventor’s idea, the managers and engineers who figure out how to make the factory cost effective, and the salesmen who hawk the widgets add no value. So all of the profit from each widget sale is theft from the laborer.

I don’t want to get even deeper in the weeds (“Did someone say ‘weed’?” —Hizzoner). But among the myriad ways this idea is ridiculous is that the ultimate value of a widget is determined by the price it can fetch on the market. Without a market, it has no real price. And without a price, there is no possibility of profit, or even compensation for labor — unless the state decides to take resources from someplace and reward unproductive labor. That’s how real socialism works, which is why socialism is theft.

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Which brings me back to de Blasio’s spongey sputum. The idea that there’s “plenty of money” to do the stuff we want and it’s just in the wrong hands is literally the logic of the bank robber. Its pernicious radicalism is stunning on the merits, but it’s all the more gobsmacking that a banal political opportunist sees political opportunity in spouting it. I know I keep quoting Wayne Booth’s definition of rhetoric — “the art of probing what men believe they ought to believe.” But the idea that this is something a conventional Democratic pol should say is incredibly disheartening. When Bill Clinton admitted that the government could return the budget surplus to taxpayers, but that this would run the risk of taxpayers spending the money the wrong way, it was considered a modest gaffe. It worked on the same assumption of de Blasio’s — that “the money” out there belongs to the government, and what you get to keep is a question left to the politicians. But de Blasio takes it further. Because at least Clinton was talking about money that was already in the treasury. De Blasio seems to think he’s running to be the ringleader in a heist movie.

That de Blasio is seen not as a radical fringe candidate but a sad sack trying to catch up with the cool crowd is a damning indictment of the Democrats, but also of defenders of the free market for being unable to foster a climate where such statements would be seen as the insipid prattle of an irrelevant stoner.I would be more impressed with de Blasio if he were a Stork, but I find him more worrisome because he’s a Ferris.

Various & Sundry

Canine Update: Not much to report this week. The struggle to keep the beasts clean amidst all the rain has been particularly intense. The mud and surging creeks are just too much to resist, particularly for the spaniel. This means going to the hose more often and occasionally the full shampoo job. The main problem here is that there’s a little-known rule in the Human-Canine Compact of 12,000 b.c. (subsequently modified and amended) that if you over-bathe dogs, they will punish you by rolling around in extra awful stuff, like deer poop, dead things, etc. Both Zoë and Pippa have exercised their rights under this clause this week, and they made no apologies for it. As I think I said last week, I am heartened by the fact that some folks on Twitter are confessing that they are actually on #TeamZoë. I mean, the dogs don’t care. One of the defining features of doggy goodness is that they don’t care about such things. Still, I sometimes feel bad for Zoë, who in many ways is a vastly more interesting creature than Pippa. I love them both, but Pippa is a girl of very simple tastes, emotional states, and desires. Zoë is full of mystery and contemplation But what’s very weird for the Fair Jessica and me is how so many people now think Zoë is so “chill” and “mellow.” I understand why folks think that, but it’s just funny, because for the first few years Zoë was easily the most difficult dog we ever had or even knew. It took years of training and mellowing to get to the point where she reliably comes when called and doesn’t get into trouble. I sometimes miss the wild child, until the memories come flooding back in. And then I realize how much better off we are now.

ICYMI

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Last week’s G-File

A follow-up to my G-File

Bill Barr didn’t break the law

My appearance on the Acton Institute podcast

This week’s first Remnant, from and about Chicago

The second Remnant with incoming AEI president Robert Doar.

The latest GLoP Culture podcast

On Bill de Blasio’s presidential campaign

And now, the weird stuff.

Debby’s Monday links

Debby’s Friday links

Wow!

Concrete explosion

Best places to find Bigfoot

Cool find

Kids these days

Awesome

Barr’s bagpipes

And I found you, flightless bird…

Black ball mystery

The words people look up on Mothers’ Day

Dr. Strange and Medieval alchemy

What color is a tennis ball?

Doris Day heroics

Penis probe

Stress balls being destroyed

Endgame behind the scenes

How starfish walk

Stories from the set of Mad Max 2

And from The Mask

Free cats

Misplaced Uranium

Getting your citizenship at McDonald’s

Dnieper River from space",-1.6746689749356365
"Cyrus the Great (Wikimedia)

Is America going to war with Iran? What is John Bolton up to? What does Cyrus the Great have to do with it? AEI scholar Ken Pollack joins The Remnant to answer these and other questions.",-0.1852826325513692
"If you’ve ever wondered if farts were strong enough to propel you in space, you’re not alone.

And that question has now been answered by someone who would know: retired U.S. astronaut Terry Virts, who has served as commander of the International Space Station and pilot of the space shuttle Endeavour during his two trips into space.

The bad news?

Well ― they aren’t. Sorry.",-1.7785892331553508
"Robot dogs have come along way from the days of being tipped over by humans.

A surprising new video shows off just how advanced the four-legged droids have become, as a 'HyQReal' robo-dog can be seen dragging an airplane that weighs a whopping 3 tons across the Geneva Airport in Italy.

HyQReal was created by researchers at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) as a device designed to support humans in emergency situations.

Luckily, as the video shows, the robot dog would almost certainly be capable of lifting a heavy human.

The robot dog drags the heavy airplane with apparent ease across approximately 33 feet before a researcher with a game controller makes it stop.

It's an amazing feat, considering the HyQReal weighs just over 280lbs and is roughly 4ft long.

IIT explained that the robot has 'custom-made' feet with special rubber grips attached so that it has strong traction on the ground.

This particular HyQReal is the latest iteration of the robot dog, which researchers have developed since 2007.

A new video shows off how advanced four-legged droids have become, as a 'HyQReal' robo-dog can be seen dragging an airplane that weighs 3 tons across the Geneva Airport in Italy

HyQReal was created by researchers at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) as a device designed to support humans in emergency situations and disaster relief

Ultimately, researchers hope to be able to use these four-legged machines for disaster response, agriculture, inspection and other uses.

'Pulling a plane allowed us to demonstrate the robot's strength, power-autonomy and the optimized design,' Claudio Semini, project leader at IIT's Dynamic Legged Systems Lab, said in a statement.

'We wanted to achieve something that has never been done before, and we succeeded last week.'

Last month, SoftBank-owned Boston Dynamics showed off its Spotpower robot dogs pulling a truck across a parking lot.

The robots were able to haul the truck at an approximately 1 degree angle uphill.

Boston Dynamics has said it hopes to have the Spotpower available for purchase by sometime this year.",-0.8449124522414753
"He spoke about how he was taken in secret to have a vasectomy. He was then given a sterilisation certificate, to allow him to carry on working, and he had to sign an agreement saying he would not marry or have sex with people ""with German blood"".",0.001206314002754446
"Read: Wait, so how much of the ocean is actually fished?

Human appetites and needs are indisputably transforming ecosystems and wildlife in the modern world. But the more clues archaeologists uncover from the European past, the more they understand how dramatically these same influences have been shaping fish populations for hundreds of years.

Richard Hoffmann, an environmental historian, has been studying the complex interplay between humans and the aquatic environment for most of his career. He’s read a medico-dietary analysis of the Catholic saint Hildegard that names 37 fish taxa; he’s found tax records for the price of fish; and he’s reviewed zooarchaeological analyses on the rise and fall of fish populations across Europe. All these details help him reconstruct which fish were on the menu for different social classes, how big those fish grew, and when they disappeared.

Asking those questions often means confronting myths. “Some people think everyone in the past was rapacious,” Hoffmann says. “You also get the opposite myths of hyper-abundance.” One false tale that originated in the 17th century alleged that salmon and sturgeon were so abundant during the Middle Ages that servants had contracts stipulating they wouldn’t be served those fish more than a few times a week.

The reality is more complicated. In Europe, aquatic animals have been traded at least since the days of the Roman Empire. But it was during the early Middle Ages, with the arrival of widespread Christianity, that the animals became a popular source of protein. That’s partially due to the roughly 130 days a year when the faithful were exhorted not to eat meat, because fish didn’t count in that category.

At the same time, expanding agrarian populations were cutting down forests to create fields and diverting rivers to fill defensive moats around castles and towns, Hoffmann writes in one paper. From the ninth century A.D. to the 11th, the number of grain mills built along rivers in England exploded from about 200 to 5,624. Species that came into fresh water to spawn, such as salmon and sturgeon, began declining. New regulations, such as King Philip’s, were put into place to manage fish populations. A Scottish statute from 1214 required all dams to include an opening for fish and barrier nets to be lifted every Saturday, for instance. Soon highly sophisticated aquaculture ponds stocked with carp also provided regular access to fish for the landed elite.

This decline in freshwater populations coincided with a sudden, commercial-scale boom in sea fishing, which began around A.D. 1000 and is known as the “fish event horizon.” In one study, archaeologists collected cod bones in London from 95 Roman, medieval, and postmedieval sites. The number of bones jumped circa the year 1000, and isotopic sampling showed that in the following centuries, fish came from farther and farther away, indicating long-distance trade. In the southern English town of Southampton, the remains of marine species (such as cod) began to outnumber freshwater species (such as eel) by 1030.",0.7014903519771634
"New York City mayor Bill de Blasio attends the dedication of the new Statue of Liberty Museum on Liberty Island, May 16, 2019. (Mike Segar/Reuters)

Could the unimpressive mayor of New York City stumble to the front of the parade?

The most rational response to the news that New York City mayor Bill de Blasio wants to be president is to ask, “Of what?”

When informed that he wants to be president of the United States and not of, say, the local organic-hemp co-op, perhaps the next best response would be to take a page from the South and say, “Bless his heart.”

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One of the more charming things about de Blasio is his amiable lack of self-awareness. He seems to have no idea that he doesn’t impress anybody. The obliviousness is somewhat understandable. He did get elected — twice. But his victories have more to do with the dysfunction of New York City politics than with any strength on his part. In 2013 he won the Democratic primary — which assured victory in the fall — in the lowest election turnout in decades. After 3 percent of New Yorkers voted for him, he saw a landslide.

He must bring a similar perspective to his poll numbers. According to a Quinnipiac survey released this month, 76 percent of New Yorkers don’t think de Blasio should run for president — and it’s not because they’re desperate to keep him on the job.

It was famously said of George H. W. Bush that he was the kind of guy who was born on third base and thought he’d hit a triple. This was always more than a little unfair to the elder President Bush, given that at 17 he signed up to become one of the youngest combat pilots in the Pacific during World War II and went on to work harder at politics and public service than arguably any president since (with the possible exception of Jimmy Carter). But the barb drew blood because it sounded clever and exploited the always reliable American resentment against affluent political dynasties.

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The same dynamic isn’t at work with de Blasio. He didn’t grow up poor, but he didn’t grow up rich either. Politically, he is the consummate example of someone born — or in this case elected — on home plate who can’t understand why no one in the stands is cheering his home run. When he was poised to win reelection, he was asked by New York magazine why he wasn’t more popular. He admitted that he was somewhat mystified. Given the strength of the economy and the low crime rate, “You’d assume they’d be having parades out in the streets” in his honor, he said.

They’re not, because he is a Ferris Bueller. In the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Ferris (Matthew Broderick) jumps out in front of a parade and acts like he’s leading it. De Blasio inherited the successes of Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, two mayors who wrestled the city back from the brink of social and economic collapse.

“De Blasio’s record as mayor doesn’t have a policy theme,” writes Nicole Gelinas in City & State New York. “It’s just a mishmash of half-executed ideas that add up to a city little different than it was before he got here. Even his biggest accomplishments, rather than striking out in a bold new direction, are building on existing trends.”

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Worse, de Blasio takes credit for the successes of his predecessors on crime, poverty, and the economy but refuses to take responsibility for the growing problems on his watch, from abysmal mass transit to an exploding homeless population.

And that points to the real problem with de Blasio: He’s lazy. He’s famous for being asleep on the job — literally. He often oversleeps, arriving late for important events such as funerals or, in one case, an event in his own residence. “Some voters have a perception that he has an up-at-the-crack-of-noon attitude,” political strategist Gerry O’Brien told the New York Post.

This laziness isn’t just physical but intellectual. Like the president of a college chapter of the Young Socialists, de Blasio is the sort of politician who thinks rolling out of bed and announcing something is the same thing as doing something, that boldness in rhetoric is a substitute for boldness of action. New Yorkers — even very liberal New Yorkers — see that.

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Still, it makes sense that de Blasio is running, because in a field of 24 (and counting) contenders, and with no future political prospects in his home state, he’s got little to lose. He can raise money from rubes who haven’t been burned already, get on a bunch of TV shows, and — who knows? — he lucked out before. Maybe he’ll stumble to the front of another parade.

© 2019 Tribune Content Agency LLC",0.23519138928181682
"(Aly Song/Reuters)

In last week’s G-File I tackled the issue of “deplatforming” on social media. I got a lot of heated and angry feedback from a lot of folks for it. While I don’t retract or regret anything I wrote, I do regret something I didn’t write.

I think there are legitimate areas for concern about the way Google, Facebook, and Twitter have a double standard about what voices they want to silence. The recent effort by Google to deny the Claremont Institute the ability to advertise its gala was ridiculous. Facebook’s blocking of Prager University videos was absurd. And I’m glad Facebook apologized.

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But the fact that they apologized points to the fact that while many of these platforms clearly have biases — often encoded in bad algorithms — points to the possibility that these behemoths aren’t actually conspiring to “silence” all conservatives. They’re just making boneheaded mistakes based in groupthink, bias, and ignorance.

The argument from many on my friends on the right about this issue often just boils down to argumentum ad slippery slopum. Social-media companies must allow every reprehensible figure out there to spew garbage because if we don’t they’ll come for us next. It’s not necessarily a ridiculous argument, allowing maximum freedom is one way to protect vital freedoms. This used to be the ACLU’s argument for allowing Nazis to march past Holocaust victims. It’s still the argument for Second Amendment defenders, who say any additional regulations are just an excuse to move the ball downfield toward gun bans and the like.

But the NRA’s argument always struck me as more empirically grounded than the old ACLU’s. We know that large swaths of gun-control proponents want to get to the Australian model — because they say so all the time.

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I just don’t think efforts at censorship work the same way. Sometimes censoring A does not lead to censoring B or C or D, never mind Z. The slippery slope isn’t a hidden teleological or dialectical force, it’s a function of practical political combat. And that means meaningful distinctions can be made. Conservatives and libertarians (as do many liberals) often fall into the habit of arguing that every expansion of government power yields an equal reduction in liberty. It can work like that, in some specific areas it obviously does. But in others it simply doesn’t. For instance, the Federal Government has grown massively in size and scope over the last century and half. In that time, slavery was ended, Jim Crow laws repealed, women granted the vote and countless industries deregulated or de-monopolized.

Similarly, First Amendment freedoms have greatly expanded over the last 50 — never mind 200 — years. Obscenity laws have all but vanished in the name of free expression (prompting the famous line from Irving Kristol: “The liberal paradigm of regulation and license has led to a society where an 18-year-old girl has the right to public fornication in a pornographic movie — but only if she is paid the minimum wage.”).

But the expansion of free-expression rights in one sphere didn’t protect free-speech rights in other spheres. Indeed, efforts to regulate political speech often increased even as restrictions on peripheral speech decreased. We got a lot more freedom of expression for strippers and flag burners but got a lot less for political parties.

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In other words, there is no mystical transitive property that guarantees that when the censoring of some speech leads to a cancer-like spread of more censorship. Germany bans Nazi propagandizing, this hasn’t led to a Teutonic Fahrenheit 451. In America we aggressively censor child pornography without triggering a slippery slope. I for one find the argument “First they came for the pedophiles free-speech rights, but I did nothing for I am not a fan of kiddie porn . . . ” to be utterly ridiculous.

One angry critic lectured me about how censorship based on “ideas” is always terrible regardless of the idea. That might be true when it comes to the government, it’s nonsense when it comes to the private sector. Rich Lowry has unilateral authority to “censor” anyone from the pages of National Review. Facebook, Twitter, and Google are far more capacious of what they will tolerate on their platforms, in part because they have a very different business model. But they still have a right to refuse service to people using their gizmos and microphones to spew stuff they don’t like. Apple has always banned porn from its platforms, porn freedoms have hardly been curtailed.

More to the point, people like Alex Jones and Laura Loomer aren’t trafficking in ideas so much as monetizable lies. Calling the Sandy Hook shooting a “false-flag operation” for clicks is grotesque. I am at a loss as to why I must man the parapets to defend their right to spread lies. The greatest of all defenses for any statement is truth. That’s true in philosophy and libel law alike. Now what constitutes the truth is often a debatable thing, which is why a wide tolerance for different opinions and ideas is desirable. Tolerance for bad ideas does not require support for deliberate lies. And even if you disagree with that, the argument that the solution to the problems with Facebook et al is to make government the de facto content editor strikes me as batty.

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That said, I very much like David French’s argument for having social-media platforms adopt a policy rooted in First Amendment standards in making these decisions. I’m not sure I would agree with all of the results from such a policy, but it would be better than what we have now.",-1.0679706829480213
"Seconds after the Handel and Haydn Society stopped playing Mozart's ""Masonic Funeral Music"" at the Boston Symphony Hall on Sunday, 9-year-old Ronan Mattin was so swept away by the music that he loudly exclaimed — for the whole auditorium to hear — ""Wow!""

After a beat, as Ronan's awe-filled ""Wow!"" echoed throughout the hall, the audience burst into laughter and cheers. So charmed were the Handel and Haydn Society by the child's exclamation that they asked the public to help find him, hoping to reward the sweet sentiment with a trip to meet the artistic director. Audio of the concert was recorded by WCRB, Boston's classical radio station (and part of the WGBH Foundation).

Ronan didn't mean to be disruptive, said his grandfather, Stephen Mattin, who took Ronan to the concert. His grandson, Mattin explained, is on the autism spectrum, and often expresses himself differently than other people.

""I can count on one hand the number of times that [he's] spontaneously ever come out with some expression of how he's feeling,"" Mattin said.

Mattin said that his sister-in-law saw on television that the Handel and Haydn Society was searching for the ""wow kid,"" and the family, who lives in Kensington, New Hampshire, reached out soon after. The Society has invited them to meet the artistic director, and they are figuring out a date.

Ronan is a huge music fan, his grandfather said. He took the 9-year-old to another concert in Boston a few months ago, and he ""talked about nothing else for weeks,"" he said. Ronan loves taking trips to visit the Museum of Science and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Mattin said, and he was excited for Sunday's concert.

Mozart makes us feel that way, too! Help @handelandhaydn find this child: https://t.co/TsjEQmeSYX pic.twitter.com/FYpXmOT8hl — 99.5 WCRB, Classical Radio Boston (@995WCRB) May 8, 2019

Mattin said he certainly wasn't expecting his grandson's exclamation, but was glad the Society were tickled by it and wanted to connect.

""I had told several people because I thought it was a funny story,"" Mattin said with a laugh. ""About how he was expressing his admiration for the performance and put everybody in stitches.""

David Snead, the president and CEO of the Handel and Haydn Society, wrote in a Facebook post that it was ""one of the most wonderful moments [he's] experienced in the concert hall.""

Ronan's parents, who live about a mile down the road from Mattin, got a kick out of the story, too.

""They weren't too surprised that he should do something to crack everybody up because he's a pretty funny guy,"" Mattin said.

Mattin said he was touched by the kindness of the other audience members and performers after the ""wow"" moment, and that the Society reached out.

""You know, everybody's different. Everybody has different ways of expressing themselves,"" Mattin said. ""I think people in general, society's becoming more tolerant or understanding of the differences between people.""",1.5024882980590555
"For the absolute best chance of spotting Bigfoot, head to Washington state. With a whopping 2,032 sightings and counting, this is the world’s most active region. The most popular places to catch a glimpse include the Blue Mountains, Okanogan County - or better yet, Ape Canyon - the locale of one of the most aggressive Bigfoot encounters ever recorded. In 1924, a group of miners reported being attacked by multiple sasquatch, which allegedly threw rocks at their cabin and tried to break in. Years after the notorious attacks, an experienced skier vanished near the very same locale. Making these events even more intriguing is the fact that native legend has long told of a species of ape-men living on nearby Mount St. Helens.",0.7261371815739072
"When the discovery of a well-preserved royal gravesite is being compared to finding the tomb of King Tutankhamun, it’s obviously a big deal. When it’s in the UK and the remains may be from a 6th century Anglo-Saxon prince, it’s definitely a significant find. When the richly-appointed ancient royal tomb is discovered between an Aldi’s and a pub, it’s the height of irony. The tomb was once believed to belong to Sæberht of Essex, the first East Saxon king to have been converted to Christianity, but new evidence points to it belonging to his brother, Saexa.

“In 2003 archaeologists from MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) excavated a small plot of land in Prittlewell, Essex, for Southend-on-Sea Borough Council. They were astounded to discover an intact Anglo-Saxon burial chamber.”

According to its website, when the team from MOLA opened what would have been a 13-foot (4 meters) square timber tomb about five feet high Prittlewell, near Southend, Essex, they found over 40 well-preserved artifacts, including a lyre (a harp-like instrument), gold coins, a gold belt buckle, drinking vessels, a sword trimmed with gold, a flagon from Syria and decorative glass beakers, all placed carefully in such a way that they knew it was the tomb of royalty. Unfortunately, what they didn’t find was the royalty – the only human remains in the tomb were tooth enamel fragments. (Photos of the artifacts here.)

“The team left no stone unturned, using a range of techniques – from soil micromorphology and CT scans to Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and mass spectrometry – in their quest to reconstruct and understand the chamber as it would have been on the day of the funeral.”

After the site was excavated and the artifacts taken to MOLA, 15 years of research at first pointed to the tomb belonging to Sæberht, who ruled over the Kingdom of Essex from 604 to 616 CE. Sæberht was the first East Saxon king to have been converted to Christianity and gold crosses found in the tomb which would have been placed over the eyes confirmed this was a Christian burial, making this the earliest known Christian tomb ever found in the UK. However, further study showed the tomb being built somewhere between 575 and 605 – too soon for Sæberht.

The artifacts have been stored and displayed at the Museum of London Archaeology, but now a number of them are being moved back to Southend to go on permanent display for the first time at the Central Museum. In conjunction with the move, MOLA archeologists are now stating that the tomb most likely belonged to Saexa, Sæberht’s brother who died earlier and never ruled Essex. Not much else is known about Saexa or how he died, according to Sophie Jackson, MOLA’s director of research and engagement.

“There’s a lot of debate about whether he was a fully-fledged hairy beast Saxon warrior, or younger. Had he died before he could really prove himself?”

Nonetheless, Jackson joins in with those who call the discovery between a pub and an Aldi’s “our equivalent of Tutankhamun’s tomb.” If you can’t make it to the museum, MOLA has an outstanding recreation of the tomb on its website.

“A fully-fledged hairy beast Saxon warrior”? That doesn’t sound much like Tut.",-0.3918743942052169
"Photo by Thomas Peter / Reuters

It seemed like an easy question.

The query came from a Twitter poll I spotted on my news feed, from user @cgpgrey. “Please help resolve a marital dispute,” @cgpgrey wrote. “You would describe the color of a tennis ball as:” green, yellow, or other.

Yellow, obviously, I thought, and voted. When the results appeared, my jaw dropped with cartoonish effect. Of nearly 30,000 participants, 52 percent said a tennis ball is green, 42 percent said it’s yellow, and 6 percent went with “other.”

I was stunned. I’d gone from being so sure of myself to second-guessing my sanity in a matter of seconds. More than that, I could never have imagined the question of the color of a tennis ball—surely something we could all agree on, even in these times—would be so divisive.

I dropped the tweet into my team’s Slack channel, which includes The Atlantic’s science, technology, and health reporters and editors. The long conversation that followed can only be described as a bloodbath.

The seemingly trivial question tore apart our usually congenial group. Lines were quickly and fiercely drawn, team green against team yellow, as my colleagues debated the very definition of color itself. Swords were brandished in the form of links to HTML color codes or the paint selection at Sherwin-Williams. Attempts to broker a cease-fire, to consider that maybe tennis balls are actually yellow-green—or green-yellow, or chartreuse—were brushed aside. At one point, I lashed out at a colleague who then reminded me we were on the same side.

The battle cries eventually subsided, but the war wasn’t over. The next morning, I arrived at the office to find a tube of tennis balls sitting on my desk in a mafia-style warning. They looked green.

When I voted in the Twitter poll, using only my memory of a tennis ball, tennis balls were yellow. Now, they were green. I wasn’t sure anymore. I wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

An investigation was in order. It began with the most obvious first stop, Wikipedia. “Tennis balls are fluorescent yellow at major sporting events, but in recreational play can be virtually any color,” the page for tennis balls said. And it’s true. A quick spin through Amazon shows that tennis balls, at least according to the labels, come in yellow and green and purple and even pink with Hello Kitty’s face on them.

Next, I turned to the official governing body of tennis around the world, the International Tennis Federation. According to the ITF, tennis balls were once actually white or black. The arrival of television changed that. Viewers had trouble seeing tennis balls as they hurled across the court in televised matches, so the ITF instructed tournaments to start using yellow ones in 1972 (though white ones were still allowed). The new rule said “the ball shall have a uniform outer surface consisting of a fabric cover and shall be white or yellow in color.” Cool history, but it didn’t help explain why we all felt completely unmoored from reason and reality.

Surely the suppliers of tennis balls could help. I reached out to a number of popular tennis-ball manufacturers, including Penn, Wilson, Dunlop, Gamma Sports, and Slazenger, as well as the sporting-goods stores Modell’s and Dick’s. Only Gamma Sports took my query seriously and responded. They put their answer in all caps: “OPTIC YELLOW!” (My colleagues who played tennis or had worked at tennis clubs—the ones with the most experience in actually looking at tennis balls—also thought they were yellow.)

It was time to consult the experts, so I emailed Bevil Conway, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health’s National Eye Institute who studies color perception.

“I’m not looking at any tennis balls now, but I think they are yellow,” Conway replied.

He then dove into the science behind his decision, taking our little investigation from the tennis aisle at Modell’s and plunging it into the ever mysterious realm of human cognition and perception.

“I make this decision as much on the basis of what I think I know about tennis balls—that they are yellow—as I do on what color I recall that they looked when I last saw one,” he said. “In other words, like the color of a lot of objects, how we label [a tennis ball] is determined both by perceptual and cognitive factors: the actual physical light entering your eye and ... knowledge about what people have typically labeled the objects.”

Conway pointed to bananas as an example of this phenomenon. Bananas can be a number of colors—green when they’re not yet ripe, brown when we’ve let them sit out for too long. But we label bananas yellow, and we do it because “this is their state when we care about them,” Conway said. “It is canonical among most people to call bananas yellow.”

By this logic, some people have internalized what they’ve seen at major tournament events and on labels from tennis manufacturers and come to associate tennis balls with the color yellow. Sure, we understand that tennis balls could be made in other colors, but the state of tennis balls when we care about them—such as when we watch a match on TV—is yellow, so when we’re asked to ascribe one color to them all, we go with that. As for why we haven’t agreed on the color of tennis balls as we have for bananas, “maybe they haven’t been around long enough, or the color of them has actually changed,” Conway said. This makes sense. Bananas have been around far longer than tennis balls.

The tennis gods picked yellow for the color of tennis balls because they thought yellow was bright enough for people to see it with ease. And that’s true, but just because something is highly visible to the eye doesn’t mean it’s easy for us to describe it. Red, green, blue, and yellow are “unique hues,” colors that human vision perceives as pure, rather than a mix of two or more. Among these hues, “yellow is the most precisely identified across people,” Conway said. “If you ask people to pick out ‘yellow’ in the spectrum (a color that is neither red nor green), pretty much everyone identifies the same wavelength.”

This shows that people can easily distinguish yellow from other colors. But how that yellow should be described is another question. “Yellow presents an interesting paradox: It is easy to discriminate, but we don’t name it as well as we name other colors like red and orange,” Conway said.

In other words, humans are good at pointing at a yellow paint chip in a line of colorful chips and saying, that’s yellow. But if we’re shown a yellow paint chip alone and asked what color it is, we become less certain about calling it yellow. In a recent study Conway coauthored that surveyed people who speak three different languages—American English, Bolivian Spanish, and an Amazonian language called Tsimane—researchers found that “language systems of people in cultures with little exposure to industrialization are pretty poor at communicating yellow.”

And what about green? “We are generally really bad, across all cultures, in communicating green,” Conway said.

Great.

“I can think of many more orange or red objects—apples, tomatoes, cherries, most fruit, faces, etc. So it might not be surprising that there is some disagreement about the color of tennis balls,” he said. “They are an odd color, designed to be odd so that they are especially visible on the court. But because they are odd, we haven’t resolved how to label them.”

The discussion over tennis balls began to resemble another color-related debate: the question of The Dress. You know the one. For what felt like months in 2015, the picture of a dress bitterly divided the internet. In one camp were the people who saw the dress as black and blue, in the other those who saw it as gold and white. Could there be a connection between the way some people perceive the color of tennis balls and the color of The Dress?

Back in 2015, Conway and other experts explained that the difference of opinion about The Dress stemmed from the way the human brain evolved to perceive light (they’ve since fleshed out the theory in a recent paper). We experience all kinds of warm and cool light throughout the day. We get warm light from sunsets and incandescent bulbs, and blue light from overcast skies and computer screens, to name a few.

When we’re looking at a given object in different types of light, our brains make substantial color corrections that allow us to see the object in a stable color over most lighting conditions. Conway’s theory is that some people discount cool colors in their perception, while others discount warm colors, in order to view objects consistently as the light changes around them. When people discount the blue—a cool color—of The Dress, they end up seeing white and gold. When they discount the gold—a warm color—they see blue and black.

If the same effect is true for our perception of tennis balls, then the people who see the dress as white and gold, because they are predisposed to discounting cool colors, should see the ball as yellow. Meanwhile, those who see the dress and blue and black, because they discount warm colors, should see the ball as green.

And that’s exactly the effect we found, according to a quick, very informal survey of my Slack team. Aside from one or two outliers, those who believe a tennis ball is yellow saw the dress as gold and white, while those who believe a tennis ball is green saw the dress as black and blue. Minds blown.

Conway took it a step further, suggesting that the way people see tennis balls could reveal something about their lifestyles. Night owls, for example, spend most of their time under artificial, warm light, which means they’d discount warm colors and see a tennis ball as green. Early birds, on the other hand, get plenty of exposure to blue daylight, which means they would discount cool colors and see a tennis ball as yellow. “I’d emphasize that this is just a theory, and we’d need lots of data to support it before I’d believe it were true,” Conway said.

This is where my investigation ends, and I turn the question to you, dear reader. What color is a tennis ball? We’ve reported, now you decide. I must warn you that pondering this may lead you, as it did us, toward an existential cliff where we were reminded, once more, though we all live in the same world, it can look completely different to different people. “The reason color is so compelling is that it is a computation of the brain, but one that is so good that we think it is an objective property of the world,” Conway said. “Experiences that make it impossible to ignore the role of the brain in how we compute color are therefore very disconcerting.”

Here at The Atlantic, the great tennis-ball debate eventually tapered off. We lowered our weapons and sort of calmed down. But there would be no consensus. Yes, we would move on, continue working alongside each other, but we would hold onto our allegiances, team green and team yellow, like coats of armor. The color of a tennis ball is, and would remain, in the eye of the beholder.

My colleague Julie Beck summed up the ordeal with a sentiment we could all agree with. “It is truly horrifying every time it gets pointed out that we’re all walking around thinking we share the same reality,” she said. “And we just are not.”",0.2511357024008117
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The late record producer Terry Melcher's connection to Charles Manson is explored in the book Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy

Did Doris Day Save Her Son from Being Killed by Charles Manson?

Doris Day may have singlehandedly saved her son from death at the hands of one of America’s most notorious serial killers, according to a bombshell book.

The Hollywood icon — who died on Monday at the age of 97 — made her only child, the late record producer Terry Melcher, vacate his rental home in Benedict Canyon, California, not long before Manson’s “family” committed the Tate murders there in 1969, Beach Boys frontman Mike Love wrote in his 2016 memoir.

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Love detailed friend Melcher’s connection to Manson in Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy.

According to Love, bandmate Dennis Wilson’s “inexplicable” friendship with Manson introduced the latter to many of the Beach Boys’ comrades — including Melcher. Soon, Manson began to accompany Melcher and Wilson on many of their club outings.

Doris Day & Charles Manson Image zoom Doris Day and Charles Manson | Credit: CBS Photo Archive/Getty; Bettmann/Getty

“Manson was also in the car one day when Dennis dropped Terry off at his rented home at 10050 Cielo Drive, at the top of a steep hill in the Benedict Canyon area,” Love wrote, noting that Melcher was living in the property with his then-girlfriend, actress Candice Bergen.

In 1969, Melcher began visiting wannabe rock star Manson at his ramshackle dwelling, the Spahn Ranch — likely, Love wrote, as a favor to Wilson.

Unimpressed by Manson’s singing abilities after his second trip, though, Melcher made it clear he wouldn’t aid in the now-81-year-old’s quest for stardom.

“Manson wouldn’t stand for it,” Love revealed in his memoir. “Consumed by rage and seeking revenge against a corrupt society, he convinced his followers that the apocalypse was coming in a bloody race war, at the end of which he and his disciples would take over.”

Charles Manson Image zoom Charles Manson | Credit: AP

Manson picked the occupants of 10050 Cielo Drive as his first victims. But Melcher had relocated from the home in January 1969 to live in a home owned by mom Day, famous for classic films like Calamity Jane and Pillow Talk.

Wrote Love, “The move was no accident. Terry, Doris’ only child, was extremely close to his mom. He had told her about Manson – and about some of his scary antics, his brandishing of knives, his zombie followers — and that Manson had been to the house on Cielo and she insisted he move out.”

Seven months later, on Aug. 9, 1969, several Manson “family” members murdered 8-months-pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four other victims at 10050 Cielo Drive. The following night, they killed Rosemary and Leno LaBianca at their home a few miles away.

Of Day’s insistence that Melcher move, Love said, “A mother’s intuition, perhaps, and it may have saved his life.”

Good Vibrations is available for purchase now.

Day’s rep confirmed to PEOPLE that the actress died at 1:00 a.m. on Monday at her home in California.",-0.7102820730801255
"Screenshot : Destroying Giant Stress Balls ( YouTube

We live in stressful times. Whether it’s because of the toxic political discourse, the impending threat of environmental disasters, or the rapidly declining quality of our favorite fantasy show, we could all use a big, relaxing squeeze of a gigantic stress ball. However, as we recently discovered in a new video from the product-testers at Vat19, it may actually be more satisfying to run those stress balls over with a car, drop them from atop a two-story building, or shoot them with crossbows.



With a little help from a DIY vacuum chamber, hosts Danny and Jon are out here creating their own giant balloons filled with everything from chili to gelatin to Rice Krispies to, of course, smaller stress balls. Each resulting monstrosity has its own density and weight, and reacts completely differently to excessive force, but each individual destruction is satisfying as hell. If watching this video doesn’t give you at least some sense of relief, try this clip of a Furby getting smashed in a hydraulic press. That should do it.

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Send Great Job, Internet tips to gji@theonion.com",-0.1556470927964456
"Photo : Twitter

[Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame below.]



The directors and producers of Avengers: Endgame worked hard to ensure that no details of the film’s plot leaked before or even after its release. The filmmakers even went as far as to institute a “spoiler ban” for members of the cast doing interviews, and to ban filming with phones on set. The former measure mostly worked, excluding for Mark Ruffalo, whose Hulk-like desire to give away plot points of these movies simply cannot be contained. The latter measure, however, was less successful, as it seems like basically everyone wanted mementos of their time on set, including directors Joe and Anthony Russo themselves. We’d previously seen some “illegal” behind-the-scenes footage from Chris Pratt, but now that the aforementioned spoiler ban has been lifted, more and more clips and photos are popping up online.

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Here’s Ruffalo and Chris Hemsworth showing off some new hairdos, with Ruffalo giving off strong Robert Smith vibes.

And here’s Hemsworth feeling the rhythm at a mariachi party thrown by Robert Downey Jr. for whatever reason.



The Russos gave us some footage of archery training down at the ol’ Barton ranch.

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While Robert Downey Jr. shared an unused reunion scene between Tony Stark and Tom Holland’s Peter Parker.

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It appears, however, that no one shot as much footage as Chris Evans, who definitely seems like he was savoring his time on set with the gusto of someone who knew this was the last time he’d be doing this.

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That this was quite probably the last time this particular collection of Avengers will ever assemble does not seem lost on the cast. Though Marvel might not love the fact that basically no one in the cast had any respect at all for their filming ban, the resulting footage is a whole lot of fun to watch.



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Send Great Job, Internet tips to gji@theonion.com",0.013684951663565672
"The Mask type Movie

His vertical leap rivals Michael Jordan’s, and he can make spectacular midair catches, but Max McCarter will end up best known for holding his own with — and , maybe even stealing the show from — Jim Carrey in The Mask. Max plays Milo, Stanley Ipkiss’ intelligent and dependable sidekick who dons the mask to save Edge City from evil gangsters. His nose for criminal activity and dogged heroism should come as no surprise: Max is a pooch.

The proud new father of five month-old puppies by his longtime companion, Sadie, this Jack Russell terrier — the current showbiz breed of choice, featured in NBC’s series Frasier and this spring’s movie Clean Slate — has spent most of his 5 1/2 years (that’s 38 human years) in show business, because his owner, Joe McCarter, works as an animal trainer. Max got his start accompanying another working dog on sets before landing his first film role, as a space rat in Mom and Dad Save the World (1992).

By the time he arrived on the set of The Mask, Max had learned enough to match wits with master of improvisation Carrey. In one scene, while Carrey frantically stuffed money into a closet with a Frisbee, Max grabbed the Frisbee and sent the star sprawling into one of his characteristic pratfalls. The revised scene made the final cut.

Trainer Steve Berens claims Max was satisfied with his performance and enjoyed the film (he was even shepherded to the Hollywood premiere in a limousine). In fact, he had only one reservation: ”He thought some of the movie was a little too loud.”",-1.1342134594648636
"After decrying the removal of several far-right personalities from social media platforms, President Donald Trump retweeted several people that espouse similar views, including Infowars contributor Paul Joseph Watson and Canadian far-right activist Lauren Southern.

Trump also retweeted videos from Infowars and from an unverified account called ""Deep State Exposed.""

Trump's rant on conservative censorship on social media follows Facebook's decision to ban several alt-right commentators and conspiracy theorists.

Deplatforming has proven to be an effective measure against commentators who knowingly spread false information, as Infowars founder Alex Jones has been accused of doing. Alt-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos has gone into millions of dollars-worth of debt and cancelled several speaking tours after being removed from several social media platforms.

Read more stories like this on the Business Insider homepage.

President Donald Trump used his Twitter bullhorn to bring several lesser-known far-right activists and conspiracy theory accounts to an audience of millions Saturday morning, retweeting accounts called ""Deep State Exposed"" and Canadian far-right activist Lauren Southern.

Less than a full day after ranting against conservative censorship on Twitter, Trump tweeted more than a dozen times Saturday morning, retweeting the accounts of Infowars Paul Joseph Watson and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who mostly tweeted praise of the President or criticism of social media censorship.

But the President also spread the message of Southern, a 23-year-old Canadian with views the Southern Poverty Law Center described as being ""at the precipice of outright white nationalism.""

Southern, who wrote a book titled ""Barbarians: How Baby Boomers, Immigrants, and Muslims Screwed My Generation,"" criticized more moderate conservatives celebrating the expulsion of far-right personalities.

She ended the tweet with the ""A-OK"" emoji, which has been co-opted by the alt-Right — a characterization which she has denied.

The President also retweeted videos from Infowars, a website that frequently pushes conspiracy theories. The founder, Alex Jones, was one of the people banned by Facebook Friday, along with his website, Watson, alt-right speakers Milo Yiannopoulos and Laura Loomer, and anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan.

Facebook's decision to remove the accounts is powerful, as deplatforming has been an effective measure in reducing the exposure and spread of misinformation. Yiannopoulos has gone into millions of dollars worth of debt and canceled several speaking tours after his removal from several platforms.

Twitter, which has been applauded for its ability to remove propaganda from ISIS quickly and effectively, has struggled to do the same with white nationalist content. A recent report from Motherboard read that Twitter's struggles in doing so are tied to the fact that an all-out ban of white nationalist content like it does for ISIS posts and videos would result in the suspension and deletion of Republican politicians' accounts.",1.8273010687662263
"Most Ordinary Americans in 2016 Are Richer Than Was John D. Rockefeller in 1916

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This Atlantic story reveals how Americans lived 100 years ago. (HT Warren Smith) By the standards of a middle-class American today, that lifestyle was poor, inconvenient, dreary, and dangerous. (Only a few years later – in 1924 – the 16-year-old son of a sitting U.S. president would die of an infected blister that the boy got on his toe while playing tennis on the White House grounds.)

So here’s a question that I’ve asked in one form or another on earlier occasions, but that is so probing that I ask it again: What is the minimum amount of money that you would demand in exchange for your going back to live even as John D. Rockefeller lived in 1916? 21.7 million 2016 dollars (which are about one million 1916 dollars)? Would that do it? What about a billion 2016 – or 1916 – dollars? Would this sizable sum of dollars be enough to enable you to purchase a quantity of high-quality 1916 goods and services that would at least make you indifferent between living in 1916 America and living (on your current income) in 2016 America?

Think about it. Hard. Carefully.

If you were a 1916 American billionaire you could, of course, afford prime real-estate. You could afford a home on 5th Avenue or one overlooking the Pacific Ocean or one on your own tropical island somewhere (or all three). But when you travelled from your Manhattan digs to your west-coast palace, it would take a few days, and if you made that trip during the summer months, you’d likely not have air-conditioning in your private railroad car.

*

And while you might have air-conditioning in your New York home, many of the friends’ homes that you visit – as well as restaurants and business offices that you frequent – were not air-conditioned. In the winter, many were also poorly heated by today’s standards.

To travel to Europe took you several days. To get to foreign lands beyond Europe took you even longer.

Might you want to deliver a package or letter overnight from New York City to someone in Los Angeles? Sorry. Impossible.

You could neither listen to radio (the first commercial radio broadcast occurred in 1920) nor watch television. You could, however, afford the state-of-the-art phonograph of the era. (It wasn’t stereo, though. And – I feel certain – even today’s vinylphiles would prefer listening to music played off of a modern compact disc to listening to music played off of a 1916 phonograph record.) Obviously, you could not download music.

There really wasn’t very much in the way of movies for you to watch, even though you could afford to build your own home movie theater.

Your telephone was attached to a wall. You could not use it to Skype.

Your luxury limo was far more likely to break down while you were being chauffeured about town than is your car today to break down while you are driving yourself to your yoga class. While broken down and waiting patiently in the back seat for your chauffeur to finish fixing your limo, you could not telephone anyone to inform that person that you’ll be late for your meeting.

Even when in residence at your Manhattan home, if you had a hankering for some Thai red curry or Vindaloo chicken or Vietnamese Pho or a falafel, you were out of luck: even in the unlikely event that you even knew of such exquisite dishes, your chef likely had no idea how to prepare them, and New York’s restaurant scene had yet to feature such exotic fare. And while you might have had the money in 1916 to afford to supply yourself with a daily bowlful of blueberries at your New York home in January, even for mighty-rich you the expense was likely not worthwhile.

Your wi-fi connection was painfully slow – oh, wait, right: it didn’t exist. No matter, because you had neither a computer nor access to the Internet. (My gosh, there weren’t even any blogs for you to read!)

Even the best medical care back then was horrid by today’s standards: it was much more painful and much less effective. (Remember young Coolidge.) Antibiotics weren’t available. Erectile dysfunction? Bipolar disorder? Live with ailments such as these. That was your only option.

You (if you are a woman) or (if you are a man) your wife and, in either case, your daughter and your sister had a much higher chance of dying as a result of giving birth than is the case today. The child herself or himself was much less likely to survive infancy than is the typical American newborn today.

Dental care wasn’t any better. Your money didn’t buy you a toothbrush with vibrating bristles. (You could, however, afford the very finest dentures.)

Despite your vanity, you couldn’t have purchased contact lenses, reliable hair restoration, or modern, safe breast augmentation. And forget about liposuction to vacuum away the results of your having dined on far too many cream-sauce-covered terrapin.

Birth control was primitive: it was less reliable and far more disruptive of pleasure than are any of the many inexpensive and widely available birth-control methods of today.

Of course, you adore precious-weacious little Rover, but your riches probably could not buy for Rover veterinary care of the sort that is routine in every burgh throughout the land today.

You were completely cut off from the cultural richness that globalization has spawned over the past century. There was no American-inspired, British-generated rock’n’roll played on electric guitars. And no reggae. Jazz was still a toddler, with only few recordings of it.

You could afford to buy the finest Swiss watches and clocks, but even they couldn’t keep time as accurately as does a cheap Timex today (not to mention the accuracy of the time kept by your smartphone).

…….

Honestly, I wouldn’t be remotely tempted to quit the 2016 me so that I could be a one-billion-dollar-richer me in 1916. This fact means that, by 1916 standards, I am today more than a billionaire. It means, at least given my preferences, I am today materially richer than was John D. Rockefeller in 1916. And if, as I think is true, my preferences here are not unusual, then nearly every middle-class American today is richer than was America’s richest man a mere 100 years ago.

……

……

* This photo – which I took with my telephone (!) – is of page 99 in César Hidalgo’s 2015 book, Why Information Grows.

Comments",1.1220069510103245
"Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees, April 10, 2018. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters)

Rules would stabilize FB and protect it from competition.

Here’s a bet: Congress will end up “cracking down” on Facebook with “tough” regulations that Facebook will probably protest quite vigorously.

And then Facebook profits will go up.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, withstood two days of questioning in Congress this week. You could tell Zuckerberg took it very seriously, not least because he shed his traditional T-shirt and hoodie in favor of a grown-up suit.

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Again and again, he was asked whether he was opposed to regulation.

“You embrace regulation?” asked Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.).

“I think the real question, as the Internet becomes more important in people’s lives, is what is the right regulation, not whether there should be or not,” Zuckerberg responded.

Many are focusing (understandably) on Zuckerberg’s stance on the countless and complex free-speech issues raised by Facebook’s dominance and reach. Zuckerberg kept suggesting that artificial intelligence could soon solve most of these problems by policing “hate speech” and perhaps “fake news” faster than human monitors ever could.

Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) had a brilliant line of questioning that exposed at least some of the problems with handing over these responsibilities to the real-world equivalent of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey or Skynet from the Terminator movies.

“Can you define hate speech?” Sasse asked.

Zuckerberg admitted that beyond calls for violence, he couldn’t come up with a definition of the sort of speech that should be banned by an algorithm.

Added Zuckerberg:

I do generally agree with the point that . . . as we’re able to technologically shift toward especially having AI proactively look at content, I think that that’s going to create massive questions for society about what kinds of obligations we want to require companies to fulfill.

That is both an impressive understatement and a topic we’ll all be returning to often in the years to come.

But let’s assume Zuckerberg is correct. In the future, much of our speech will be policed by our robot overlords.

As Zuckerberg hinted more than a few times, political leaders will need to get involved in the regulation and administration of how these AI systems will work. We’ll probably set up some new agency or a new division of the FCC to provide oversight.

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And which company will have the loudest voice in the drafting of these new rules? If history is any guide, the obvious answer is . . . Facebook.

The standard story of the Progressive era, taught to high-school kids and college students alike, is that the government has come to the rescue time and again to curtail the excesses of irresponsible, selfish, or otherwise dastardly big businesses. Upton Sinclair, in his book The Jungle, famously exposed the abuses of the meat-packing industry, prompting the government to impose new regulations on it.

Left out of this tale of enlightened regulation is that the meat-packing industry wanted to be regulated — something even Sinclair admitted.

“The Federal inspection of meat was, historically, established at the packers’ request,” Sinclair wrote in 1906. “It is maintained and paid for by the people of the United States for the benefit of the packers.”

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The famous trusts were no different. In 1909, Andrew Carnegie wrote a letter to the New York Times suggesting “government control” of the steel industry. The chairman of U.S. Steel, Judge Elbert Gary, lobbied for the same thing.

I suspect one reason Zuckerberg wants AI to be essential is that Facebook can afford to make AI essential while potential competitors can’t.

The story repeated itself during the New Deal. The “malefactors of great wealth” that FDR demonized welcomed government regulation. Famed lawyer Clarence Darrow issued a report on the New Deal’s industrial “codes.” In “virtually all the codes we have examined, one condition has been persistent, “Darrow found. “In Industry after Industry, the larger units . . . have for their own advantage written the codes, and then, in effect and for their own advantage, assumed the administration of the code they have framed.”

Why would the titans of capitalism welcome regulation? Because regulation is the best protection against competition. It stabilizes prices, eliminates uncertainty, and writes profits into law — which is why AT&T convinced Congress at the beginning of the 20th century to give it a monopoly over phone services.

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I don’t know what the regulation of Facebook will look like. But I suspect one reason Zuckerberg wants AI to be essential is that Facebook can afford to make AI essential while potential competitors can’t.

Regardless, I have confidence that when all is said and done, Facebook will look more like the 21st-century AT&T of social media.

© 2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC",0.6698966362035694
"Attorney General William Barr testifies before a Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., May 1, 2019. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters)

Successfully winning a battle in an ongoing spin war is not a “cover-up,” never mind a “crime.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is Jonah Goldberg’s weekly “news”letter, the G-File. Subscribe here to get the G-File delivered to your inbox on Fridays.

Dear Reader (Including Jacob Wohl, who might need help with the big words),

I’m leaving in a little while to chaperone a New York City weekend get-together for my daughter and 15 other 16-year-olds. So . . . pray for me. This might mean that this week’s “news”letter is not only abbreviated but also a bit snitty.

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Speaking of snitty — and I don’t mean the eighth dwarf — I really don’t want to write about the Bill Barr brouhaha bedeviling the Beltway Brahmins, but alliteration beckons and beguiles, perforce the professional pundit proceeds with perhaps pusillanimous, perchance pugnacious, pontification on the pending pertinent predicaments.

Sorry, I won’t do that again.

You know that feeling when you and your fellow Knights Templar are sitting around drinking absinthe-flavored Fresca watching turtles play chess, but no one else notices that the bigger turtle, which is actually a rare breed of parrot that likes to wear unlicensed Phish concert T-shirts, brings its queen out way too early? No wait, that’s a different feeling. A somewhat related one is when everybody is screaming about stuff you don’t think is scream-worthy.

That’s how I feel about this Barr stuff. On the substance, I mostly fall in with my colleagues on this one. Bill Barr stands accused of a heinous cover-up. But he didn’t actually cover up anything. He wrote a letter that characterized the findings of the Mueller report in terms that were favorable to the president, but not inaccurate. The monster! He then released the report less than a month later with minimal and, by most objective accounts, perfectly reasonable redactions.

In the long history of attorneys general playing the role of political fixers and cronies, this doesn’t seem to amount to much. George Washington’s first — “handpicked” — attorney general, Edmund Randolph, served as a political operative and confidante of the president. JFK appointed his 35-year-old, unqualified brother to run interference for him. FDR’s first AG was a former head of the DNC who spent much of his tenure concocting dubious constitutional arguments to give the boss wartime powers over the economy. If you’ve seen Boardwalk Empire, you probably know that Harding’s AG, Harry Daugherty, was a piece of work.

Give Me Narrative or Give Me Death

Anyway, Eli Lake asks a good question:

So what are Democrats so upset about? Is it that they lost a precious 25 days — from March 24 to April 18 — to spin Mueller’s findings to their liking? This is worse than Watergate! They will never get those news cycles back.

E. J. Dionne has the answer: Yes, that is exactly what they are upset about:

It’s not good enough that a redacted version of the report was eventually made public. For 27 days, the debate over Mueller’s findings was twisted by Barr’s poisonous distortions that implied a full exoneration of President Trump. Many public statements and much punditry were devoted to insisting that Trump’s opponents owed the president an apology, that the Russia matter was never what it was cracked up to be, that the president was free and clear.

Back to Eli:

This complaint is not only picayune but also hypocritical. Since Trump won the 2016 election, the narrative (that word again) that he might be a Russian asset or may have conspired with Russia has been a near article of faith for the resistance. If Democrats can chastise Barr for spinning Mueller’s report for 25 days, then why can’t Republicans ask why Mueller didn’t end all the speculation about a Trump-Russia conspiracy as soon as he found out it wasn’t true?

Much like that time the border patrol opened my car’s trunk during my Bolivian-tree-frog-smuggling phase, a few things jump out at me.

The first is that Eli says it was 25 days and E. J. says it was 27. I will not adjudicate this because I was promised there would be no math. But I am tempted to split the difference Salvador Dali style and say it was melting clock number of days.

Second, I think E. J. has a point, I just think it’s a strange one to get so angry about. Barr did throw a monkey wrench into the gears of the juggernaut of the media-industrial complex. I have no quarrel with folks who think Barr overstepped in an effort to blunt the spin of the report. But Mueller declined to make a call on obstruction, leaving that up to Bill Barr. He decided not to pursue charges of obstruction for debatable, but certainly defensible, reasons. Once he made that decision, it would be odd for him to lend aid and comfort to those who would disagree with it no matter what.

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But the really amazing part is the way the imperative of narrative is overpowering everything else. I’m with Eli in being a little exhausted with the thumbsuckery about narratives these days. But this is remarkable. Barr’s “cover up” amounts to accurately describing the conclusions of the Mueller report, but not in a way that would have chummed the water for the media and the Democrats.

This is a categorical change in the way we normally talk about scandals. Dionne — along with many others — is sincerely outraged that pundits were denied their preferred column fodder for 27 days. Mueller himself also seems perturbed that the Barr letter contributed to a narrative that was less hostile to Trump than the one he wanted. And, to be honest, I get it. I think the Mueller report is far more damning of the Trump administration than the pro-Trump narrative-crafters claim. But successfully winning a battle in an ongoing spin war is not a “cover up,” never mind a “crime.”

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The assumption seems to be that a great opportunity to gin up public outrage was lost by Barr’s chicanery and that it now unfairly falls to the Democratic House to make its case on the merits. I get why partisans would be pissed off about that. I can recount countless examples of Bill Clinton winning spin battles with similar “cheating” during his impeachment struggles. But at the end of the day, winning a spin cycle is not an affront to the Constitution.

One last thing. I do think many criticisms of Barr have some merit, but I am deeply skeptical of the various theories about his motivations. All of this talk about how Trump has finally found his Roy Cohn or Eric Holder strikes me as another form of narrative maintenance. If someone does something that is beneficial to Trump, it must be proof that they’ve gone over to the Dark Side or some such. But it still strikes me as possible, indeed probable, that Barr’s motivations are nobler. Remember the anonymous op-ed in the New York Times? The author said he was one of many administration officials working to blunt or thwart the president’s “worst inclinations.” Don McGahn arguably saved the Trump presidency by refusing to do some of the “crazy sh**” Trump wanted him to do. Gary Cohn reportedly stopped Trump from pulling out of NAFTA and a trade deal with South Korea by snatching the paperwork from his desk. I know too many people in the administration who see themselves as doing the right things despite Trump, not because of him, to immediately assume everyone in there is a less stupid Jacob Wohl.

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It is not obvious to me that Barr’s actions aren’t consistent with these kinds of efforts. Who knows what Barr had to do to get Trump’s permission to release the Mueller report in a timely manner? The widespread assumption is that Barr wrote that memo about the Mueller probe as a way to curry favor with the administration. Maybe. But it’s also possible that he sincerely believed the Mueller probe was fatally flawed on the merits, as many of my friends around here believe as well. Maybe he is trying to salvage the Department of Justice as an institution. The public facts make this seem preposterous to people who think that anything that is good for Trump must not only be bad but also come from bad motives. Barr has certainly taken a reputational hit since he became attorney general — a job he didn’t need — but we don’t know what he is getting for paying that price. But the history of all this has yet to be written, and I’m willing to hold off final judgment until it is — or at least until we have better facts than the ones currently on offer.

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Various & Sundry

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There’s a bunch more stuff I wanted to write about today, but I don’t want to start stuff I won’t be able to finish before I have to head to New York. So my unconventional take on the media’s labelling of Louis Farrakahn as a “rightwinger” will have to wait. As will my fairly conventional theory about the head of Alfredo Garcia.

Meanwhile, if you’re still feeling intellectually peckish after this “news”letter, you might want to nosh on my lengthy essay for the special capitalismpalooza issue of National Review. It may well be my last piece for the magazine — as a senior editor. I hope to still grace (and be graced by) NR’s pages in the future.

It’s been a good week for The Remnant podcast. For episode 100 (?) I talked with the great Thomas Sowell. For episode 101 (?) I finally convinced my bride, The Fair Jessica, to talk with me about her career as an author and ghostwriter, her roots in Alaska, our shared dog-love, and a host of other topics (warning: I apparently giggled a lot). Going by the feedback on Twitter, it was one of the most popular episodes ever. The latest installment features my friend and colleague Michael Brendan Dougherty, discussing his book, staggered identity, Ireland, and the disenchantment of the world.

Canine Update: The middle-age mellowing of Zoë continues apace. Kirsten our indispensable canine perambulator sent Jessica and me a text the other day: “Wow, so ZZ found some ancient bone and Obi [a member of the pack] went to investigate and all she did was tell him off. That would have been a face ripping offense once upon a time. I’m kind of proud of her.” Some evidence of Zoë’s meddling might just be a misreading of the data. She is a little overweight (we’re working on it), and so she’s lost a step when it comes to chasing rabbits and squirrels. It could be that when we get her back down to fighting weight, she will be able to add to her metaphorical necklace of critter skulls. Still, she seems more content with smelling (and occasionally eating) the flowers than she used to be and more content with scritches too. Though she still considers guarding the pack a non-negotiable part of her portfolio, even if she sometimes thinks Pippa should fight her own battles. Meanwhile, Pippa remains the indefatigable ball of energy she’s always been. As she matures, that puts a bit more pressure on us to regulate her butt-waggling spanielness since she came without any factory-installed regulator. Regardless, they’re good dogs, no matter what Comfortably Smug says. And Gracie is a good cat. When she chooses to be.

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ICYMI

Last week’s G-File

This week’s first Remnant, with my wife

The NRA in disarray

A special Game of Thrones GLoP

More on Game of Thrones

This week’s second Remnant, with MBD

Will the right defend economic liberty?

Is the right forgetting Hayek?

And now, the weird stuff.

University title generator

What is STEVE?

Fun ferries

Answering the important questions

Hedgehog spike wound

Gross

Also gross

Classic storytelling

This seems excessive

The ventriloquism museum

Good news

Cocaine shrimp

Nature is scary

https://twitter.com/BrendanClancy/status/1123582887339724801

Don’t cheat at marathons; this guy will catch you

Lake Erie’s mystery beast

Yeti discovered; crossover Bigfoot erotica to follow?",0.06576374837887783
"Conleth Hill (right), Nathalie Emmanuel (left), and Emilia Clarke in Game of Thrones (HBO)

I’ll save the detailed summary of last night’s Game of Thrones for somebody else. But there is one major spoiler ahead.

Lots of folks had real problems with the military tactics deployed in last week’s battle with the dead. I was okay with it, in part because I liked the epic, almost mystical, choreography of the battle. A little poetic license was ok.

But the loss of Rhaegal was a Bay of Pigs level failure on the part of Dany’s advisors and generals. She would be within her rights to sh*t-can all of them.

Tyrion, who’d been humiliated by not one, but two, catastrophic surprise naval attacks just last year — and was almost fired for it — took no care to anticipate anything like this?

There were no scouts up ahead who could have warned that Euron was hiding his ships behind a big rock? Who could imagine such clever tactics?

Varys, the former Master of Whispers, with a spy in every grotto, bedchamber, and hamlet, didn’t get an inkling something like this might happen? Presumably the mass manufacture and installation of so many “scorpions” — those giant crossbow things — was common enough knowledge. I mean how secret can you keep these weapons if they’re being wheeled through the streets down to the docks and installed on the battlements?

Also, did they really leave absolutely no one at Dragonstone who could send a raven or two when a whole enemy fleet shows up for an ambush? Come on people! This is a war!

Viserion’s death by ice spear was at least fairly unforeseeable. But they knew Cersei was working on a way to kill the dragons. They’d seen a scorpion before. Maybe adopt a general rule that the dragons should fly at higher altitudes until the landing strip is secured?

Anyway, maybe I’ll chime in on the rest of it later. But this was either the worst intelligence failure of the show or one of the worst writing failures.",0.8172936651357455
"Sen. Kamala Harris takes the stage for a campaign stop at Keene State College in Keene, N.H., April 23, 2019. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)

Most of the field seems to think that Twitter likes and retweets will count as primary votes, and that there’s an appetite for left-wing radicalism.

In the 1920 presidential election, Warren Harding won in a landslide by promising a “Return to Normalcy.” Today’s Democrats would be wise to make that same pledge for 2020. They probably won’t, however, which is why President Trump might get re-elected.

Harding’s concept of normalcy has been ridiculed and reviled by progressives and liberal historians for 100 years. Some falsely claim it was merely a call for a return to the isolationism of the prewar years. But Harding wasn’t just tapping into the unpopularity of the First World War; he also spoke to Americans’ worries about the widespread domestic turmoil and tumult of the Progressive Era. Race riots, labor violence, anarchist terror bombings, the Red Scare, Prohibition, widespread censorship, political oppression, and mass arrests were also on voters’ minds.

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Even important and necessary progressive advances — such as women’s suffrage — caused disruption. Harding offered voters a breather from the rapid social change.

Nothing in the last two years — or two decades — approaches the turmoil of the Woodrow Wilson administration, but that doesn’t change the fact that a lot of Americans feel like they’ve been through the wringer. That feeling has defined our politics for a long time — from the Clinton scandals to the Iraq War to the financial crisis and the fights over Obamacare — bringing us one “change election” after another. But politicians often seem to miss that the change many voters are looking for is a reversion from the abnormal to the normal.

Given the roaring economy, with near full employment and rising wages, a normal president would lie back and avoid fueling the unease that has kept Trump from breaking through the 50 percent approval ceiling. But he is clearly incapable of doing that, which creates an opportunity for Democrats to win, despite a healthy economy.

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Democrats seized such an opportunity in the 2018 midterms. The president’s constant trolling of the political and media establishment is music to the ears of his biggest supporters, but it is an unsettling and deafening din to the most important constituency in American politics: the vast, mostly moderate middle.

While activist firebrand freshmen (freshpersons?) such as Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) get all the attention from both the liberal and conservative press, most of the Democrats elected in the 2018 landslide were moderates from purplish districts that will decide the 2020 election. They ran on health care and other issues, but also on the promise to be a check on Trump’s “abnormalcy.” Promising to turn down the political temperature, reducing not just the drama of Washington but the centrality of it in our lives and conversations, would still leave lots of room for a Democrat to advance his or her agenda.

Right now, Joe Biden is the only major Democratic presidential contender who seems both interested in and capable of pursuing such a strategy. The rest of the field seems to think that Twitter likes and retweets will count as primary votes, and that there’s an appetite in the country for left-wing radicalism on par with what they see as Trump’s right-wing radicalism.

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Rather than vow to keep the economic boom going while returning Washington to normalcy and enacting reasonable reforms with bipartisan support, they talk about socializing medicine, making slavery reparations, forgiving student loans, banning guns through executive orders, and implementing a Green New Deal. And the media obsess over impeachment.

All that stuff is super popular with young, college-educated activists and journalists, all of whom are wildly overrepresented on social media.

But most Democrats belong to what CNN’s Harry Enten calls the “hidden Democratic Party.” Enten notes that a majority of Democrats are over the age of 50, at least half call themselves moderate or conservative, and a majority don’t have college degrees. Biden’s lead in the polls is explained almost entirely by his support from older Democrats.

Moreover, many blacks and Latinos — crucial to the Democratic coalition — aren’t nearly as “woke” as progressives often assume they are. They often have a more pragmatic and transactional view of politics, for a slew of reasons. Even Ocasio-Cortez underperformed with blacks and Latinos, defeating the incumbent Democrat by running up tallies from richer and whiter precincts.

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The college-educated barista socialist constituency dominates in states that the Democrats will win no matter what. But the battleground will be in states that narrowly went for Trump. Biden, a logorrheic and gaffe-prone 76-year-old with a terrible track record in presidential contests, is best positioned to beat Trump, but first he has to survive the death by a thousand tweets that the vocal minority has in store for him.

(C) 2019 TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC",0.08533991346547026
"(Larry Downing/Reuters)

Those conspiracy theories generally are preposterous.

One of the hardest lessons for young, idealistic, and educated people to learn when they come to Washington — and some never learn it — is that nobody is running things. Sure, they know how to hold a press conference or write a law or conduct a study. But no person or group of people has the power to impose their will on society. There are just too many chefs making the soup.

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In other words, people have the power to try stuff in the same way generals have the authority to send troops into battle, but as General James Mattis likes to say, “The enemy gets a vote.” And in politics and public policy, the enemy isn’t merely the opposing party or hostile voters, but life — that vast realm of existence governed as much by Murphy’s Law as by Washington’s laws. Facts are stubborn things. The world is complicated.

After Barack Obama got his stimulus passed on the promise that there were millions of “shovel-ready jobs,” the stimulation never quite materialized as planned, and the shovels tended to stay in the shed. Obama later insisted that the theory behind the stimulus was right, but “the problem is that spending it out takes a long time, because there’s really nothing — there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects.”

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This is a hard lesson for people who put immense faith in government to do big, important things. The technocratic New Dealers were sure they were smart enough to allocate resources better than the market. To that end, in 1933, when millions of Americans were going hungry, the government slaughtered some 6 million pigs and threw away the meat in an effort to drive up pork prices. Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace was convinced America was on the verge of creating a new society.

“Only the merest quarter-turn of the heart separates us from a material abundance beyond the fondest dream of anyone present,” he told a crowd in Des Moines, Iowa. All we had to do was resist the urge to act like dogs returning “to the vomit of capitalism.”

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Capitalism nauseates because we come into this world with programming for a “Stone Age conception of clan life,” as economist Michael Munger puts it. Our brains are wired to expect someone to be in charge. When bad things happen, it must be because someone intended it. We get angry at perceived slights, inconveniences, and tragedies, and our anger needs a target.

This wiring was perfectly adapted for a zero-sum world where resources were finite, and political and economic transactions were essentially face-to-face and communal. But in a world where the price of a bag of rice from India is influenced by political turmoil in Indonesia and heavy rains in Arkansas, never mind the overproduction of potatoes (a substitute for expensive rice) in Russia or the Netherlands, blaming your local grocer for charging an extra 50 cents is silly. But it’s still natural.

When gas prices are “too high,” many politicians blame oil companies for “gouging.” When prices are low, these same politicians insist that oil companies shouldn’t drill, build pipelines, or open new refineries. That one result is correlated to the other is irrelevant to the need to aim anger at someone.

The need to blame is a core driver of conspiratorial thinking. When bad things happen, we look for beneficiaries and then reason backwards that they must have been responsible.

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MSNBC’s Chris Hayes recently floated the idea on Twitter that Obama’s failure to goose the economy was a conspiracy. The excuses that big business offered for low investment or wage growth were proven wrong by today’s economic boom, Hayes argued (with varying degrees of plausibility). But then he added, “An even less charitable interpretation: they didn’t get it wrong at all. They didn’t want full employment, they didn’t want wage growth and empowered workers and they certainly didn’t want that happening under a Democratic president.”

The idea that tens of thousands of businesses chose to needlessly keep wages low — or even go out of business — lest they lend aid and comfort to Obama is preposterous. Because what is true of politicians is also true of everybody else. No one is really in charge of anything, except for a few things in front of their noses and in their heads, and even then control is often an illusion.

There’s nobody behind the curtain pulling the strings. We’re all on the stage together, playing our parts.

© 2019 Tribune Content Agency LLC",-0.7298377969436385
"CINCINNATI — Wet weather threatened to delay the first two games of the series between the Giants and Reds in Cincinnati this weekend, but both games started on time.

The sun was shining and the skies were clear for Monday’s series finale, but the game was delayed anyway. That’s because a large amount of bees appeared near home plate just prior to the 12:35 EST start of Monday’s game, preventing both teams from taking the field.

Monday’s delay lasted 18 minutes as the bees ultimately departed the area and the game began at 12:53 p.m.

The bee delay was not the first in Cincinnati and it was not the first bee delay involving the San Francisco Giants, either. According to Major League Baseball, the two sides were delayed on April 17, 1976 at Riverfront Stadium due to the presence of bees.

Reds utility player Derek Dietrich was not in the starting lineup Monday, but he made his presence felt by dressing in a beekeeper suit and emerging on the field in an effort to scare the bees away. Fans in attendance thought Dietrich was actually there to help the situation, but Dietrich eventually began unbuttoning his shirt to reveal his jersey underneath the white suit.",-0.40266493765458494
"Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.",2.372402856847889
"What went wrong with Hiddleswift? The same thing that always makes Taylor Swift's relationships go down in flames — her man's unwillingness to commit to a Faustian bargain.

See, Swift's uncanny resemblance to Zeena Schreck, former high priestess of the church of Satan, has been common knowledge on the internet for a while now. Rumors of a deeper connection have reached a fever pitch recently, based in part on the airtight theory that Swift is a clone of Schreck, who is the daughter of Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey.

The evidence is hard to shake off.

Schreck and Swift are both best represented by the serpent emoji and have blonde hair. Schreck's dad founded the Church of Satan, while Swift's (surrogate) father is a Merrill Lynch executive who owned a Christmas tree farm.

Obviosuly, the two women have too much in common to ignore, but their connection cannot merely exist on the surface. A close look at their life stories suggests an interwoven plot that all points to the truth — Swift's love for Lucifer is red, burning red.

Zeena Lavey grooming her clone, Taylor Swift. pic.twitter.com/KB11Zl1KzY — Prolebasaur☭ (@Prolebasaur) August 18, 2016

2. Taylor Swift is actually an illuminati clone made from Zeena Laveys DNA, a well known satanist from 1985 pic.twitter.com/FKlQuHE59v — $TEEZY BABY (@fuckthtx) August 18, 2016

Schreck was high priestess of the Church of Satan from 1985-1990, which is very suspicious, because Taylor Swift talks a big game about being born in 1989. Naming her smash hit album 1989 is clearly TayTay LaVey's desperate attempt to emphasize that she had a normal human birth and was not cultivated in a cauldron and/or laboratory. The whole thing reeks of a coverup.

As soon as Schreck created a currently unknown number of clones of herself to carry on the work of Satan, she moved on to conquer new territory, because she's an overachiever. Kind of like Swift, who shares her entire genetic makeup.

Back in 2012, Schreck spoke to Vice about her post-Church of Satan, which includes a music venture — a band called Radio Werewolf. Interesting!

Schreck traveled a lot throughout these years — ""grab your passport and my hand"" — and devoted herself to Sethianism, a faith devoted to the ancient Egyptian god, Seth. Schreck went on to become high priestess of the Temple of Seth because she's a crossover queen, just like Taylor slaying the country and pop charts with her doting squad by her side!

All this evidence is pretty damning, but here's how we know that TSwift is a clone with absolute certainty — she's not the only one.

Remember Becky?

Image: tumblr

The Tumblr legend who allegedly snorted marijuana at a party and died instantly is definitely another clone of Schreck.

When Swift acknowledged the meme in 2014, people thought she was proving she could be in on a joke. But was she just gloating over the fact that she is the queen of the clones? Yes, friends, she was.

Image: taylor swift/tumblr

Now that it's crystal clear that Swift is the devil, what does this mean? It definitely puts One Direction music and the fate of Harry Styles' immortal soul in a whole new light.

harry dated taylor swift and taylor swift is a clone of zeena lavey who was a satanist which means taylor believes in satan — 🌹 (@craicful) August 23, 2016

taylor introduced harry to satanism when she showed him her pussy as in HER CAT meredith — 🌹 (@craicful) August 23, 2016

the virgin mary who birthed jesus christ himself WHILE STILL A VIRGIN?? no honey i don't think so — 🌹 (@craicful) August 23, 2016

heaven is up and hell is down harry thinks angels are devils so you guys HARRY IS RIGHT AND WE ARE ALL WRONG — 🌹 (@craicful) August 23, 2016

that's why planet earth is hella fucked bc we're all confused EXCEPT for harry that's why he's unproblematic — 🌹 (@craicful) August 23, 2016

Keep up the evil work, Taylor!",-0.1836114374010249
"Attorney General William Barr testifies before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, May 1, 2019. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters)

Is it already August? That’s usually the Beltway silly season appropriate for such a ridiculous non-scandal as the Great Bill Barr Summary of Findings Outrage of 2019.

As everyone knows, Bill Barr released a brief letter summarizing the top-line conclusions of the Mueller report shortly after he received it. Justice Department lawyers then worked with Mueller staff to make the appropriate redactions, after which the entire 400-page report was publicly released. Strangely enough, this process has become an obsession for Democrats and the press and the focus of endless conspiracy theories.

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Now it has emerged that Robert Mueller wrote a letter to Barr complaining about his summary letter and public perceptions in the wake of it, leading to Democratic calls for Barr to resign or even get impeached.

It’s hard to know where to begin. Barr’s position was eminently reasonable. He wanted to get the basic verdict of the Mueller report out as quickly as possible, given the inherent interest in the question of whether the president of the United States had conspired with the Russians. He opposed the subsequent release of the summaries of the report, as suggested in Mueller’s letter, because he thought it better that the public get the entire report at once. Which it did. Democrats and the media are acting as if Barr engaged in some sort of cover-up, when he went further than required under the regulations to release all of the report with minimal redactions.

Even Mueller in a phone conversation with Barr didn’t complain that his summary of findings was inaccurate — Barr was careful to note that Mueller didn’t “exonerate” Trump on obstruction.

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Barr is being accused of perjury in prior congressional testimony about his handling of his report. But Barr was typically terse and precise in his answers. In one exchange with Representative Charlie Crist (Fla., Any Party That Will Take Him), Barr said he didn’t know what were the specific complaints of unnamed Mueller staff criticizing his handling of the summary to the press. But he also offered, on his own initiative, that they probably wanted more material from the report made public, and he explained why he didn’t think it was a good idea to release summaries of the report.

What is perhaps most notable about this episode is that Robert Mueller — or, perhaps, as Barr hinted in his Wednesday testimony, people around him — were concerned about the media coverage and political discussion around his report. Particularly troubling was that it wasn’t damning enough of the president. This is not a prosecutorial concern, but a political one unworthy of people who were invested with incredible investigative power in the name of objectivity.

Of course, no one holding forth about Barr on CNN and MSNBC, which are as committed to their hysteria and groupthink today as when the Russia story began, ever wonders about that. Not for the first time, or we expect, the last, Bill Barr’s critics are demonstrating their lack of judgment and seriousness, not his.

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"With President Donald Trump’s announcement that he would nominate former Attorney General William P. Barr to fill the position again, Trump chose a prominent Republican lawyer with extensive government experience to run the Justice Department.

Barr has publicly supported some of Trump’s criticisms of the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. It’s not known how Barr would reflect those positions in his interactions with the investigation.

But when Donald Trump announced Jeff Sessions’s nomination as his attorney general, the position was seen as a reward for Sessions’s early endorsement of the president’s 2016 campaign. And the president wanted loyalty in return.

“The only reason I gave him the job,” Trump said, “was because I felt loyalty. He was an original supporter. He was on the campaign.”

Many people predicted that Trump indeed would have a loyal foot soldier as head of the Justice Department.

But the president’s wish was not realized. Feeling betrayed when Sessions recused himself from the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, Trump turned Sessions into a regular target for his Twitter assaults.

Trump ended their fraught relationship by asking for Sessions to resign after the 2018 midterm election and replacing him with Matthew Whitaker. Whitaker is known as a critic of the Mueller investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia.

The Whitaker appointment provoked questions among Trump critics, including George Conway, husband of the president’s counselor, Kellyanne Conway, about its constitutionality and its wisdom.

However, others welcomed the alliance between Trump and Whitaker. Margot Cleveland, an adjunct law professor at the University of Notre Dame, argued that “there is nothing nefarious about the (acting) attorney general loyally serving the president of the United States.”

For me as a legal scholar who has studied controversies surrounding the role of prosecutors and prosecutorial decisions, all of this has a familiar ring.

Indeed, throughout American history, there have been different visions of the role of the attorney general and his or her relationship to the president.

Part-time official

The office of attorney general is not mentioned in the Constitution. It was created when the First Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789.

That act called for the appointment of a person “learned in the law, to act as attorney general for the United States.” It said that the attorney general’s duty “shall be to prosecute and conduct all suits in the Supreme Court in which the United States shall be concerned, and to give his advice and opinion upon questions of law when required by the President of the United States, or when requested by the heads of any of the departments.”

The act gave the attorney general limited duties relating strictly to matters of law. In fact, the attorney general was to be a part-time official, carrying out quasi-judicial functions, but responsible to the president who appointed him.

Two days after the Judiciary Act became law, George Washington appointed Edmund Jennings Randolph to be the first attorney general of the United States.

Randolph had been a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and Virginia’s attorney general. He was “learned in the law,” but he was also Washington’s confidante and close political ally, having served as the general’s chief of staff and personal secretary in 1775.

During Randolph’s term as attorney general, Washington relied on him for support on matters that went well beyond the formal duties of his office. In one such instance, Randolph helped Washington handle foreign relations with France and Great Britain and, in others, advised him on his dealings with Congress.

Thus, “from the beginning,” writes law professor Susan Low Bloch, “there were questions about whom the attorney general represented, who should and would control the incumbent attorney general, and what it means to represent the ‘interests of the United States.‘”

Carving out a role

As other scholars have noted, the role of the attorney general has been variously defined by the occupants of that office.

Some have followed in Randolph’s footsteps, serving as close political allies of the president. Others have seen themselves as different from the rest of the president’s Cabinet and kept their distance from the president. They acted primarily as defenders of the rule of law.

Examples of the first type from the early years of the country include President Andrew Jackson’s attorney general, Roger Taney, who worked hand-in-hand with Jackson to end funding for the Bank of the United States.

Jackson subsequently nominated Taney to the Supreme Court, where he wrote the decision in the infamous Dred Scott case.

In the 20th century, President Franklin Roosevelt’s attorneys general regularly helped him in political battles. Some of those battles involved the Justice Department and some did not.

For example, Robert Jackson, who served as FDR’s attorney general in 1940 and 1941 before being elevated to the Supreme Court, played a key role in the effort to circumvent the Neutrality Act in order to provide war equipment to Great Britain before America’s entrance into World War II.

Other close political allies of the president who appointed them include Robert Kennedy, who was appointed at age 35 by his brother, President John F. Kennedy, and widely criticized as unqualified for the job. President Reagan’s second attorney general, Edwin Meese, was a longtime friend of Reagan’s.

So common is this tendency to appoint friends and supporters to be attorneys general that, since FDR, many presidents have chosen their campaign manager or their party’s national chairperson to be attorney general of the United States. Examples include J. Howard McGrath, who served under President Truman, and Herbert Brownell, attorney general under President Eisenhower.

Attorneys general who have tried to eschew a clearly political role and be bureaucratic servants of the rule of law include, in the early 19th century, William Wirt.

Wirt was attorney general from 1817-1829 under Presidents James Monroe and John Quincy Adams. He insisted that the attorney general should not be drawn into partisan activities and should adhere to what he called “the strict limits prescribed for… [that office] by law.’”

Twentieth-century exemplars of this more independent role include Calvin Coolidge’s attorney general, Harlan Fiske Stone, and Edward Levi, who served under President Gerald Ford.

Both of them came to office in the wake of scandals. Stone took office after the Teapot Dome scandal and Levi after Watergate. Each restored integrity to the Justice Department by instituting new guidelines designed to limit political interference in its work.

Throughout American history, when presidents have appointed political cronies to be attorney general, they were looking for people only to help them pursue a policy agenda. President Nixon’s efforts to enlist Attorney General John Mitchell in the Watergate cover-up and get one of Mitchell’s successors, Elliot Richardson, to fire the Watergate special prosecutor stand out as important, but rare, exceptions.

Other presidents have not expected or asked their attorneys general to shut down investigations or protect them from possible criminal liability.

But that is exactly what Trump’s vision of the attorney general’s role seemed to entail. Like Nixon, he wanted more than a political ally. What he wanted from his attorney general posed a serious threat to the rule of law. With his appointment of Barr, perhaps that will change.

This story has been updated to reflect the nomination of William P. Barr as attorney general.",1.300564788147153
"Why did this happen?

Please make sure your browser supports JavaScript and cookies and that you are not blocking them from loading. For more information you can review our Terms of Service and Cookie Policy.",-0.29168349433194923
"2018 anonymous essay

""I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration"" The graphic published along with the essay Author Published anonymously (later revealed to be Miles Taylor) Country United States Language English Published in The New York Times Publication type Op-ed Publisher Arthur Gregg Sulzberger Media type Newspaper Publication date September 5, 2018

""I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration"" is an anonymous essay published by The New York Times on September 5, 2018. The author was described as a senior official working for the administration of U.S. president Donald Trump. About a week before the 2020 presidential election, Miles Taylor, the former chief of staff to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, revealed himself as the author.

The op-ed criticizes Trump and states that many current members of the administration deliberately undermine his suggestions and orders for the good of the country. It also states that some cabinet members in the early days of the administration discussed using the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution as a way to remove the president from power.

The New York Times editorial board said that it knew the author's identity but granted the person anonymity to protect him from reprisal.[1][2] The publication of this editorial was unusual because few New York Times pieces have been anonymously written.[3] Trump expressed outrage and called for an investigation; the author's identity drew much speculation in the media, with over 30 senior administration officials denying their involvement. A Warning, a book also anonymously written by Taylor, was published on November 19, 2019.

Political environment [ edit ]

The essay was published on September 5, 2018. During the week that the article was published, the book Fear: Trump in the White House by political author Bob Woodward was being promoted in the media ahead of its September 11, 2018, release date. Woodward's book depicts the Trump administration as being engulfed in chaos and internal opposition to Trump's impulses.[4] The day before the essay's publication, the US Senate Judiciary Committee began public hearings on controversial US Supreme Court candidate Brett Kavanaugh. This timing was also two months prior to the 2018 US elections. The timing has been questioned as a possible calculated diversion, although The New York Times editorial board denied this.[1] The essay praised Senator John McCain, whose death occurred 11 days prior to the essay's publication.[5]

Contents [ edit ]

The author of the essay writes that they, and many of their colleagues, deliberately fail to follow some directives from the president when they feel the proposal would be bad for the country, ""working diligently"" to block his ""worst inclinations"".[6] The author writes, ""The root of the problem is the president's amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making"".[7] The author expresses support for a traditional Republican platform, and particularly the Trump tax policy, while disagreeing strongly with the Trump foreign policy, and taking pride in colleagues' efforts to shift that policy in regard to Russia. The paper's editorial page editor summarized the column's perspective as ""that of a conservative explaining why they felt that even if working for the Trump administration meant compromising some principles, it ultimately served the country if they could achieve some of the president’s policy objectives while helping resist some of his worst impulses"".[1] The author disavowed any resemblance to the so-called ""deep state"": ""This isn't the work of the so-called deep state. It's the work of the steady state.""

Identity of the author [ edit ]

There was much speculation about the identity of Anonymous. The New York Times said that they were working with a single author, not a group of officials and that the text was lightly edited by them, but not for the purpose of obscuring the author's identity. They said that the definition of ""senior administration official"" was used in regular practice by journalists to describe ""positions in the upper echelon of an administration, such as the one held by this writer"".[1]

The newspaper's editorial page editor, op-ed editor, and publisher knew the identity of the author. Patrick Healy, the newspaper's politics editor, said that no identifying information had been leaked to The New York Times's newsroom. The agreement between the newspaper's editorial department and the author did not prevent the newspaper's news department from investigating the identity of the author.[8]

According to James Dao, the paper's editorial page editor, the author was introduced to them by a trusted intermediary, and the author's identity was verified by background checking and direct communication. Dao said the use of a vaguely described anonymous identity was believed to be necessary to protect the author from reprisal, ""and that concern has been borne out by the president's reaction to the essay"".[1] In response to a reader's question about whether the paper might have to reveal the author's name, Dao replied ""We intend to do everything in our power to protect the identity of the writer and have great confidence that the government cannot legally force us to reveal it.""[1]

Several theories about who wrote the op-ed were offered. Some theories looked at which administration officials have a record of using certain words that appear in the essay. Specifically, the theories focused on the use of the words 'steady state', 'lodestar' and 'first principles'.[9] Some offshore bookmakers took bets on who the anonymous author was; Vice President Mike Pence was the favorite at one site, while then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions led the field at another.[10]

More than 30 senior administration officials, including the actual author, Miles Taylor, denied authoring the editorial:

U.S. senator Rand Paul suggested that the president force members of his administration to take polygraph examinations. Presidential advisers did consider polygraph exams as well as requiring officials to sign sworn affidavits. Reports surfaced that the administration came up with a list of about a dozen people who are suspected to have authored the editorial.[20] By September 7, Trump said that the Justice Department should open an investigation to determine who wrote the essay. However, the Justice Department would only be able to open an investigation if it is determined that the editorial publicized classified information.[21]

On October 28, 2020, Miles Taylor came forward as ""Anonymous"".[22]

Reaction [ edit ]

Trump responds to the news of the anonymous essay.

Trump reacted in private with what was described as ""volcanic"" anger.[23] Via Twitter, he stated that the author was ""failing"" and ""probably here for all the wrong reasons"".[2] He also questioned via Twitter whether the aide was another ""phony source"" invented by the ""failing New York Times"". Trump tweeted: ""If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!""[3][24] He later tweeted: ""TREASON?""[6]

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called the author a ""coward"" and said that they should resign.[3] Some Democrats, including Robby Mook and Peter Daou, criticized the author for not doing enough to stop Trump. Representative Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) commended the author for speaking out against the president, but criticized the author for maintaining anonymity, saying, ""This is the problem with a lot of Republicans, including in the House: they privately say he's wrong, but they don't do anything about it"".[25] Former president Barack Obama warned that the op-ed should be viewed as a sign of ""dangerous times"" rather than as a source of comfort, criticizing the actions of the author as undemocratic.[26]

Georgetown University political scientist Elizabeth N. Saunders noted that while it is accurate that staff within administrations often push back on the sitting president's views and that staff leak things to the press, the extent to which senior advisers within the Trump administration push back against him is ""essentially unprecedented"".[27] Cato Institute scholar Julian Sanchez questioned the author's motives, believing that the editorial would make Trump ""even more paranoid"" and cause capable staffers to be succeeded by ""loyalist nuts and/or Trump family members"".[28]

Followup book [ edit ]

On October 22, 2019, The Washington Post revealed that the anonymous author wrote a book, again anonymously, about his experiences inside the White House; it was released on November 19.[29][30][31]

See also [ edit ]

References [ edit ]",-0.9440596418743178
"Republican leaders will have to acknowledge that market capitalism is not a religion. Market capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or a toaster. You’d have to be a fool to worship it. Our system was created by human beings for the benefit of human beings. We do not exist to serve markets. Just the opposite. Any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society.

— Tucker Carlson, Fox News, January 2",-0.4599506213846879
"Attendees at the National Rifle Association annual meeting in Indianapolis, Ind., April 27, 2019. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

The NRA’s problems have little to do with the typical criticisms hurled at it by its biggest detractors.

The National Rifle Association has big troubles. It’s wildly in debt. The attorney general of New York — where the NRA was founded in 1871 and where it remains incorporated — is investigating the tax-exempt status of what she has called a “terrorist organization.” The NRA’s longtime chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, is in a bitter feud with its outgoing president, Oliver North. Accusations are flying, including of attempted extortion and misuse of perhaps millions of dollars.

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On the surface, the NRA’s problems have little to do with the typical criticisms hurled at it by its biggest detractors. To them, the villainous NRA is too rich, too powerful, and too well-run, not an outfit drowning in red ink and dysfunction. But it turns out that its real problems, in part, may stem from its outsized ambitions.

For most of its history, the NRA was a sporting club dedicated to teaching gun safety and promoting hunting and marksmanship as a pastime. It was founded by two Union Army officers who had noticed that the Confederates tended to be better shots. In the 1930s, it started to dip its toes into lobbying, but in favor of limited gun control. The NRA, for instance, supported the Federal Firearms Act of 1938, which established federal gun licensing requirements. It wasn’t until the mid-1970s, after passage of the federal Gun Control Act, that new leadership at the NRA made lobbying for gun rights central to its mission.

Still, that mission was notably bipartisan. Working from the common-sense assumption that gun rights would be better protected if support came from both parties, the NRA once supported candidates on either side of the aisle. In the 2000 campaign cycle, it spent $372,000 on some 66 Democratic incumbents. But by 2016, it contributed to just four.

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What happened? The easy answer is that as the GOP increasingly embraced gun rights, the Democrats embraced gun control — or the other way around. Which side is guilty of policy extremism depends on your views on gun policy. Asking which side is guilty of rhetorical extremism is pointless, because both are. The NRA is not a “terrorist organization,” but neither are its opponents a horde of anarchists, socialists, and goons, as the NRA’s media arm often portrays them.

The GOP-NRA alliance came downstream from two larger social shifts. The first is the “Big Sort” — shorthand for how American society has self-organized not just into “red” and “blue” regions, but also worldviews. The end of the NRA’s bipartisan lobbying strategy simply reflected the facts on the ground. In 1989, 64 percent of Republicans had a favorable view of the NRA, and so did 49 percent of Democrats. Today, those numbers are 88 percent and 24 percent, respectively.

The second reason is that the parties are weaker than they have ever been. The common assertion that Republican politicians are pro-gun because they’ve been bought off with NRA blood money is mostly a paranoid conspiracy theory. The NRA doesn’t actually give very much money to politicians, at least compared with, say, organized labor or trial lawyers.

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What the NRA does do — incredibly effectively — is organize and inform voters, mobilizing them to vote reliably for philosophically aligned candidates. Historically, that was a function of political parties, but now it’s been largely outsourced to special-interest groups such as the NRA but also Planned Parenthood for the Democrats. These groups are motivated to get out the vote, but they’re also incentivized to monetize the voters.

The net effect has been for these interest groups to go all in for the culture war — which is highly effective for fundraising — and take our elections with them.

NRA folks today inveigh against “the socialists” with the same vehemence they used to reserve for gun-grabbers. UCLA law professor Adam Winkler, author of Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America, observes that NRATV, the online media outlet of the NRA, has strayed far from the gun lane. “Now it’s focused on immigration, race, health care,” he told The New Republic. Dana Loesch, an NRA spokeswoman, has called the mainstream news media “the rat bastards of the earth” who deserve to be “curb-stomped.”

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We’ve come a long way since William F. Buckley came out in favor of the Brady Bill.

Political parties once had the desire and resources to manage their own brands — keeping activists and interests at a more healthy distance. Those days are gone. Parties — and the institutions that really run them — are simply uniforms for combatants in the culture war. In such a climate, it’s no surprise that things such as good corporate governance became an afterthought at the NRA.

© 2019 TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY LLC",0.09380767974048672
"The Night King in Game of Thrones (HBO)

I don’t mind that David is more a fan than a critic. The world is a big place. And, frankly, it needs more people with the capacity to take joy in things and fewer who start from the assumption that the joy should be dissected for close and clinical examination or who believe that the smartest interpretation is the one that says the intended message is the wrongest one. There’s room for Sonny Bunch and there’s room for David’s bunches of sunniness. David should have a pop culture Twitter handle called @ComfortablyUpbeat.

Still, one of the areas where our tastes differ is on the value of spectacle for spectacle’s sake. For instance, David loved the underwater battle scene in Aquaman with the laser sharks and the things with the stuff all over the place. I didn’t.

But I did like the battle for Winterfell. But not entirely for the reasons David did. Spoilers ahead my friends.

Before I get to that, I was vexed by how dark it was. Some are blaming the cable companies. On one very narrow and petty level, I welcome any opportunity to vilify the cable companies. But if it was not the producers’ intention to have the first half be downright opaque — and apparently it wasn’t — they should have anticipated the problem given that it was undoubtedly the most expensive — and most anticipated — battle scene in the history of television. Someone might have said, “Hey, let’s look at this the way millions of our biggest fans are going to experience it and make sure it checks out.”

Some other minor notes. Let it be remembered that I was right in my predictions that the Dothraki were going to get wiped out and that the crypt was going to become an abattoir once the Night King deployed his necromancy. I was surprised Brienne and Grey Worm survived because I was pretty confident that the knighting of Brienne and Grey Worm’s “I’m gonna take you to the Bahamas when this is all over” promise were dead give-aways they were going to end up fighting for the dead. In general, I think the producers chickened out by letting so many survive. But maybe they have sufficiently cool plans in store for the remaining episodes that it’ll make sense. I suspected Jaime would survive because there was that almost gratuitous scene enlisting Braun to dispatch her brothers if they should survive. Why have that scene unless they plan on it leading to something?

I agree with David that Arya’s role as the killer of the Night King was long foreshadowed and it didn’t bother me very much (On the other hand, I thought the way they developed Arya’s character over the previous seasons was not well executed for reasons I’ll explain another time). I was a bit shocked when the Night King grabbed Arya’s throat and she didn’t instantly die, which I thought was one of his powers, but maybe I’m missing something there.

One last criticism of this battle — and several others — before I get to why I liked it. As we’ve discussed before, the show has a problem with time and space. Last season, the battle north of the wall seemed to take a few hours. But in that same time period, Gendry ran all the way back to the wall (presumably without getting lost, despite the fact he had never seen snow before and would probably have a hard time retracing his steps). He then told the wildlings watching the wall to send a raven across most of Westeros to Dragonstone, which apparently made it there in record time. Dany took only seconds to decide to fly all the way back to the exact spot to save the day. Even giving every benefit of the doubt, that strained credulity. All the writers needed to do was include a tiny bit of dialogue — “We’ve been here for days,” “we only have a day’s worth of food left,” whatever — to signal to the viewer that it had been a while.

I’m not a great military expert, but it’s simply not the case that great battles only last a couple hours. The Battle of Verdun lasted ten months. The Battle of Petersburg in the Civil War went on for nine and a half. The Battle of Sevastopol took eight months. I understand that ancient battles were often quicker. Thermopylae took a couple days. But still, the Battle of the Bastards, Hardhome, etc. all started and finished in a few hours — or seemed to. By no means am I saying that I wish the battle had been dragged out longer in terms of screen time, but I don’t understand why the invasion of Winterfell had to commence almost instantaneously after the ring of fire was lit. If they only signaled that this battle took days or even weeks, there would have been some excellent opportunities for actual dialogue and character development — some of which could have been plucked from the first two episodes — that could have heightened the drama and fixed the pacing of all three episodes. It would have made this battle, which in many ways is the climactic moment of the whole series, seem more epic and made the payoff with Arya seem less convenient.

Okay, now, here’s why I liked it. One of the greatest charms of the show, from the very first episode forward, was the way it treated the issue of magic and mysticism. Despite being set in a fantasy world, the characters served as “moderns” in the sense that they believed the age of magic and dragons were over. This made the political intrigue so much more compelling. The Red Woman was constantly dismissed as a fraud and charlatan because magic isn’t real. Tyrion mocks the idea of White Walkers as if they belonged alongside “grumkins and snarks” and other folktale creatures only children believe in. Numerous characters belittle the brothers of the Night’s Watch as fools and fear of the Night King as ridiculous because all of that stuff was just superstition. The Maesters of the Citadel, who actually have written records proving it all happened, were overcome with cynicism and weltschmerz. Even Jon Snow was stunned to discover giants are real. Of course, the show also made it clear that this was the wrong take on the situation. Dragons were back, after all. The Red Woman birthed a smoke monster. We knew the Walkers were real. But there was a wonderful tension between these two conflicting understandings of the world the characters — and viewers — lived in.

The reason I liked the battle scene wasn’t for the spectacle per se. Though I definitely dug a lot of it. No, what I liked was how it was the big reveal. The stories of Old Valyria, of magic and myth, dragons and White Walkers, that served as an ancient backdrop for the characters in “this” time, were in effect made real by this confrontation that will be sung about 1,000 years hence in Westeros.

In a sense I’ll be a little disappointed if it turns out that I will be able to watch every detail in perfect clarity if I merely toggle the brightness and contrast knobs on my TV. Because I kind of liked how, even though the battle was taking place right before our eyes, the whole thing felt like the stuff of legend and mystical memory. The Dothraki, the fiercest warriors in the world, bravely ride out only to disappear, their flaming swords snuffed out by the cold hand(s) of death, their bravery only half glimpsed, lending it poetic tragedy. The warriors battled through the night — though it should have been nights — felling the undead by the thousands. The mist conjured by the night king, blinding the dragons seemed metaphorical to me, like the mists of the past had been for the characters who couldn’t entirely believe that dragons had ever existed in the first place.

The whole battle seemed deliberately choreographed to send the message: the age of myth and folktale, monsters and magic, isn’t in the shrouded, half-imagined, past we tell our children about. It’s right now. That’s the kind of spectacle I can get behind.",1.3361456286809374
"My Father Left Me Ireland by Michael Brendan Dougherty (Sentinel/Michael Brendan Dougherty)

National Review senior writer Michael Brendan Dougherty returns to The Remnant to discuss nationalism, patriotism, and identity, the themes of his new book, My Father Left Me Ireland.",-0.877253378960877
"Freeway interchange in Los Angeles, Calif. (Eric Thayer/Reuters)

Whenever government regulations lead to higher prices, the champions of regulation blame the free market for failing to fix the problem.

It has “invariably been the fate of conservatism to be dragged along a path not of its own choosing,” the philosopher and economist Friedrich Hayek famously wrote. Hayek’s larger point was that while conservatism plays an important role in pumping the brakes on radical ideas that go too far, too fast, it lacks a positive alternative agenda itself.

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In fairness to American conservatism, Hayek was talking primarily about the European variant that defended a status quo of aristocracy, theocracy, and a fairly closed economy. But his basic point about the conservative temperament has always resonated with me, because it rings true. Conservatives often start from the position of saying “No” to any new proposal or reform and end up, because of the nature of politics, agreeing to some compromise between no and a total yes.

Sometimes this is fine. Sometimes it’s worse than doing nothing. For example, imagine that liberals want to build a bridge that conservatives think is unnecessary pork. Compromising on half a bridge is dumber than no bridge or a whole bridge. Cheering the “bipartisan” or “centrist” nature of the half-bridge deal doesn’t change the foolishness of it. Worse, liberals understand that they can pocket the concessions and benefits (union jobs, expanding the baseline budget, etc.) and come back the next year to demand more money to finish the project. As Milton Friedman said, “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.”

This dynamic doesn’t apply just to public works but to a whole raft of market-distorting policies, from subsidies for higher education and health care to entitlements. The political priority for liberals is to establish the principle that there is a role for government in X and then keep insisting that the supposedly worthy initiative is underfunded. Look at where Democrats are today on health care. A couple years ago the Affordable Care Act was a bold progressive reform. Now it’s too conservative for Democrats eager to do away with private health insurance and establish Medicare for All.

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What makes this dialectic so frustrating for conservatives is that whenever government regulations lead to higher prices — in college tuition, energy prices, rent, etc. — the champions of further regulation blame the free market for failing to fix the problem.

This seems worth bearing in mind as President Trump and Democratic leaders hammer out an agreement to spend $2 trillion on infrastructure before agreeing on where the money will come from or how to spend it. The president would like to put it on the nation’s credit card. The Democrats have no insurmountable objection to that, but they’d like to goad Trump into agreeing (before the 2020 election) to tax hikes to pay for it.

However it’s spent, or paid for, you can be sure that before the last dollar goes out the door, Democrats will be insisting again that infrastructure is underfunded and that the private sector is inadequate to the task.

I don’t really have a solution, in part because I’m not sure there is one. And as the saying goes, a problem without a solution isn’t a problem, it’s simply a fact. This is the nature of politics generally, and not just for conservatives. After all, there are many issues where liberals start from a position of “No” and end up being forced to accept a compromise they don’t like.

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But, as a conservative of the Hayekian variety, I see a particular threat in how some on the right are responding to this inconvenient truth: They want to get in on the action.

Historically, the primary conservative argument against top-down planning wasn’t so much that politicians and bureaucrats aren’t smart enough to run the economy from some Washington-based control room, but that it simply can’t be done. Policymakers suffer from what Hayek called “the knowledge problem.” The market is too complex, with too many variables on the ground, for anyone to manage things from above.

On some parts of the right, the argument is changing. The new proponents of “economic nationalism” no longer think elites can’t run the economy — just that liberal elites, or “globalists,” can’t run it. Part of this stems from the often-paranoid conviction that liberal elites have brilliantly rigged the system in their favor. So, the thinking goes, if they can pull that off, so can we.

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It doesn’t work that way. Such thinking is wrong regardless of the partisan agenda behind it, which is why Hayek dedicated his book The Road to Serfdom to “the Socialists of All Parties.”

© 2019 TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY LLC",0.9115505703325757
"A classic, Barney-colored STEVE in the sky. Rocky Raybell

Several times a year, around the border between the U.S. and Canada, STEVEs take to the sky. STEVEs aren’t plaid-clad dudes with dreams of flight, but rather a celestial phenomenon that illuminates the sky with an enormous crescent of mauve light and an accompanying row of dashes of lime-green light. And STEVE isn’t a nickname for Steven, but rather Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement. The physics behind STEVEs has stumped scientists almost as soon as they were officially named in 2017, but a recent study published on April 16, 2019, in Geophysical Research Letters sheds new light on the atmospheric reactions that conjure STEVE’s signature hazy purple ribbon in the sky.

Though STEVEs bear an uncanny resemblance to auroras—which gain their glow from charged particles cascading into Earth’s upper atmosphere—they’re not quite the same thing. In 2018, scientists confirmed that STEVE’s mysterious purple light originated from another mechanism entirely. But no one knew precisely what that mechanism was or how it operated, so they coined it a “skyglow” and called it a day.

Now, scientists understand that the elements of a STEVE originate from two distinct atmospheric phenomenon, writes Toshi Nishimura, a space physicist at Boston University and the lead author of the study, in an email. The researchers analyzed data from satellites passing over eight years of STEVE events. They also contrasted measurements of the electric and magnetic fields in Earth’s magnetosphere against photos of STEVE events to see what caused the mysterious glow.

Another angle of a STEVE’s mauve glow. Rocky Raybell

The team confirmed that a STEVE’s row of green lights—which scientists call a picket fence—arises from a mechanism similar to auroras, where energetic electrons streaming in from space collide with oxygen atoms to emit a green light. Except a STEVE’s green fences occur in atmospheres much closer to the equator than normal auroras.

A STEVE’s purple stripe, however, has a much more alluring origin. The light emerges when charged particles in the ionosphere collide, thus creating friction that heats the particles and causes them to emit light the approximate color of an eggplant. “The purple part is like a stream of excited particles zipping through the ionosphere,” Nishimura says. “Instead of knocking off electrons, this actually generated friction, which heats up the particles and causes them to vibrate and jump about a bit.” He likens the reaction to the process that lights incandescent bulbs, where electricity heats a tungsten filament until it glows.

Though the researchers now know what causes a STEVE’s arc of light, they’re not quite sure why it’s purple. Nishimura hopes to resolve this question in a follow-up study, but he believes nitrogen might be involved, as the element has been known to create a mauve-colored auroral emission in similar altitudes.

Beyond further clarifying the mystery of an atmospheric phenomenon that sounds a lot like a dude from your high school, the study has big implications for radio communication, Nishimura says. The new study reveals that STEVE events are associated with troughs, or holes in the plasma density of the ionosphere. These holes can disrupt radio communication between Earth and space, such as GPS navigation. Spotting a STEVE event help researchers visualize where these holes occur and how they evolve and may even help scientists predict areas of radio communication problems in the future, Nishimura says.

STEVEs are quite common and easy to spot, especially if you live in New England, British Columbia, or New Zealand. Nishimura says that photos of STEVEs taken by citizen scientists proved crucial for the team’s analysis. So if you see a STEVE, snap a picture and you can help scientists like Nishimura better understand this stunning ethereal occurrence.",-1.7114405787206652
"Bridges and tunnels may be the most convenient way to cross a body of water, but they’re far from scenic. If views are what you're seeking, a ferry ride is just the answer, whether you're in a car or on foot. According to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation, nearly 119 million passengers and 25 million motor vehicles received ferry transport in 2015, the bureau's most recent data, with New York and Washington being the two states with the most ferry boardings. Here are seven of the most scenic ferry rides this country has to offer.

Staten Island Ferry, New York City

Probably the most recognizable ferry in the United States and for good reason, the Staten Island Ferry shuttles 22 million passengers each year (70,000 each weekday) across the New York Harbor between Lower Manhattan and Staten Island. The cost for the five-mile, 25-minute ride: $0. And while most passengers use it for commuting between the two islands (before September 11 the ferries carried passenger vehicles), the ferry has also garnered a reputation for being “the poor man’s cruise,” eliciting spectacular views of the city’s hulking skyline along with the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Plus, the fully stocked snack bar aboard is open 24/7 and serves beer. The Staten Island Ferry is one of the longest operating ferry lines in the United States, with origins dating back to 1817 when the Richmond Turnpike Company launched a steamboat service. Today the New York City Department of Transportation operates the nine-vessel fleet.

Block Island Ferry, Rhode Island

There are two ways to get to Block Island (also known as New Shoreham, Rhode Island), a pear-shaped speck of land situated just south of the state’s mainland: by plane or by ferry. The latter is the cheaper of the two options, with a fleet of six ferries shuttling pedestrians across Block Island Sound from Point Judith and Newport, Rhode Island, and Fall River, Massachusetts year round. (While you can make a reservation with the ferry service to bring your car, part of Block Island's allure is that it limits the number of motor vehicles on the island—most people get around on foot, bicycle or moped—plus getting a car there isn't cheap.) Depending on your point of origin and whether you’re onboard a traditional or high-speed ferry, travel times between ports can take between 30 minutes to a little over two hours, buying you more time to take in the endless great blue beyond.

Washington State Ferries, Washington

As a city surrounded by water, Seattle would probably come to a standstill if it weren’t for its ferry service, which is open to both passengers and motor vehicles. At all hours of the day, ferries crisscross the Puget Sound carrying passengers from the Bainbridge Island and Seattle harbors to nearly two dozen ports of call in between. According to the Washington States Department of Transportation, which operates the 23-ferry fleet, 25 million passengers ride its vessels each year, and it’s no surprise. Besides being a popular mode of transport for locals in a city known for its gridlock, it’s also one of the best ways to get a sweeping view of Seattle’s skyline, including the Space Needle.

Galveston-Port Bolivar Ferry, Texas

Texas State Highway 87 comes to a dead end when it meets Galveston Bay. Drivers can either turn around or drive aboard one of the Texas Department of Transportation’s fleet of nearly a half-dozen ferries. The voyage between Port Bolivar and Galveston is brief, taking about 18 minutes total to cross one of the world’s busiest waterways. While today TxDOT abides by a regular schedule that runs around the clock, when the first ferries embarked across the bay in the 19th century, skiffs only made the trip when they had paying passengers. These days it’s not uncommon for dolphins to swim alongside the ferries.

Alaska Marine Highway System, Alaska

Out of all the ferry operations in the United States, Alaska’s is easily the most extensive, with the Alaska Marine Highway operating a system comprised of 3,500 miles of routes navigated by a fleet of 11 vessels that can ferry both pedestrians and motor vehicles alike (even RVs!). No big surprise considering the state’s land size and the chain of islands that make up its southwestern coast. Traveling by ferry is the easiest way to access many of the 35 coastal communities serviced by the fleet, including popular locales like Glacier Bay National Park, the Inside Passage and Kenai Peninsula.

S.S. Badger Ferry, Michigan and Wisconsin

The S.S. Badger dubs itself as a “mini-cruise,” and it’s hard to not agree. From outdoor decks furnished with lounge chairs for sunbathing to a bloody Mary bar located on the upper deck, not to mention 40 staterooms, the ferry boasts perks not commonly found on most commuter vessels. The S.S. Badger travels the four-hour, 60-mile journey across Lake Michigan to ports in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and Ludington, Michigan, providing daily service since 1953, and motor vehicles are welcome.

Cape May-Lewes Ferry, Delaware and New Jersey

Linking Cape May on New Jersey’s southern tip to Lewes, Delaware, the Cape May-Lewes Ferry provides an 85-minute journey past striking lighthouses and charming harbors, often escorted by a pod of dolphins or whales. Make sure to arrive early, as both ports are home to dockside grills known for serving New England clam chowder, conch fritters and burgers, not to mention a variety of coastal-inspired cocktails like Mai Tais and Rum Runners. In addition to its regularly scheduled year round crossings that can accommodate both passengers and motor vehicles, the ferry also hosts firework cruises, holiday brunches, wine dinners and other events.",2.03610404104826
"Photo : jetcityimage ( iStock )

Because I don’t watch Game Of Thrones nor have I seen Avengers: Endgame, I’ve lately been living in an alternate universe from family, friends, and the rest of the world. That’s fine. I am immune to spoilers and leaks because I don’t know what any of it means. It’s blissful.

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But such was not the case for a Domino’s employee in Friendswood, Texas, whose colleague revealed one of Avengers: Endgame’s major plot points, which occurs toward the end of the movie. Per NBC News, the employee then punched his coworker in the chest and was charged with misdemeanor assault.

The Friendswood Police Department shared the incident in a blotter-style post on its Facebook page. One of the responding officers, Lisa Price, told NBC News that reviewing her department’s report on the incident also spoiled the plot for her, but she says she still plans to see Endgame in theaters. Look, no spoilers here, folks.",-0.1311315670110262
"Derek Murphy was suspicious even before he knew the man’s name.

Sitting on the couch in his living room, Murphy squinted at the color-coded spreadsheet on his laptop, checking and re-checking the finish times for this year’s Boston Marathon. Something about the time for runner No. 9974 didn’t add up.

The first race checkpoint recorded the man running a pace of about 11 minutes per mile, yet his 3-hour finish meant he had to average a 7-minute pace the entire way.

Then Murphy noticed something else: The same runner missed almost every other checkpoint between the start of the race and the finish line. It was as if he’d vanished for most of the 26.2 miles.

Murphy was sure now. He’d caught another cheater.

“Sometimes,” he said. “You just know.”

Murphy’s hunches are right more often than not. The middle-aged dad from suburban Lebanon is a financial analyst, a runner of modest talent and the world’s most prolific hunter of people who cheat at marathons.

He didn’t set out to be that guy, the one pointing fingers at liars and course-cutters who take home medals they don’t deserve and brag on Instagram about finish times they didn’t earn.

More:Flying Pig streakers are a thing – but it's probably not what you think

Yet here he is, race after race, outing cheaters on his website, marathoninvestigation.com. He does it after most big races, as well as some small ones, and he’ll do it again Sunday when he downloads the official results of Cincinnati’s Flying Pig Marathon.

Murphy describes his detective work as a hobby, but that isn’t entirely right. Stamp collecting is a hobby. Knitting is a hobby.

Catching cheaters is something else entirely. What Murphy does is more of a calling. He pushes back against the notion that a little cheating here or there is no big deal, that dishonesty is just part of the game, or, in this case, the race.

“It’s a slap in the face to the people who put the work in,” Murphy said. “It gets at me.”

He fights back with all the tools at his disposal: Official results, checkpoint times, course maps, a runner’s race history, eyewitness accounts and photos from the day of the race. He relies on intuition, too, as he did with runner No. 9974 in Boston.

In that case, the numbers told the story. But the clincher, for Murphy, was the photo after the race, in which the runner smiled for the camera as his finisher’s medal rested on a belly that seemed unlikely to belong to a 3-hour marathon runner.

“He didn’t look the part,” said Murphy, who’s never finished a marathon in less than 5 hours. “He’s kind of built like me.”

Looking out for honest runners

Murphy, a veteran of about a dozen marathons and ultra-marathons, has no delusions about his running ability. “I can move very slowly for a long time,” he said.

But he’s a world-class talker when the subject is something he’s passionate about, like running or Excel spreadsheets. Or Excel spreadsheets about running. The words fly when he talks about his work.

Murphy sees in numbers a way to get at a quantifiable truth, something he can measure when other details are muddy. People might lie. But numbers, those he can trust.

So when Murphy got curious about marathon cheating in 2015, he knew his spreadsheets were the way to get to the bottom of things.

“It started out as an interest,” he said. “A fascination about why people did it and how they did it.”

He’s confident most runners would rather burn their favorite shoes than claim a time they didn’t earn. But if thousands of runners participate in a marathon, Murphy knows the odds are good a few cheaters are in the mix.

It may be a sad commentary on human nature, but it’s good for Murphy’s website, which can earn him $1,000 or more a month in advertising and donations, depending on how the cheat-catching business is going.

The week after the Boston Marathon, his site averaged about 50,000 views a day. The article he wrote about runner No. 9974 got 145,000 views.

He gets his material from race results and tipsters, who fill his inbox with news of racing malfeasance. One day it’s a woman in Duluth who swapped racing bibs with a faster runner. The next it’s a man in New Orleans who cut short the course in a half-marathon.

Runners who follow the rules flock to the site to vent about the scofflaws. “I find cheating so frustrating,” one commenter wrote after finding out about runner No. 9974.

Others take it personally: “Him smiling with that medal … what a turd,” wrote another.

Though there’s no shortage of righteous indignation among his readers, Murphy usually lets the numbers do the talking. He said he’s less interested in shaming cheaters than in helping runners who, because of those cheaters, finish lower in the official results, miss out on an age-group medal or fail to qualify for a premier marathon like Boston.

The runners who suffer are rarely elite. They are dentists and warehouse workers, accountants and cops, people whose greatest athletic achievement is crossing a marathon finish line. Murphy knows them because he’s one of them.

“That’s really why I do it,” he said.

The Boston Marathon, a race he’s certain he’ll never qualify for, is particularly close to Murphy’s heart. People work hard to make the field of 30,000, he said, so he works hard to catch bogus qualifiers who might take the spots of legitimate runners.

“If I can stop 50 people from missing Boston,” he said, “it’s worth it.”

From Rosie Ruiz to Mrs. Manziel

Boston is where it started for Murphy. After the 2015 race, he heard rumors about people cheating in qualifying marathons and wondered how often it happened.

He started digging into the results, comparing qualifying times from marathons in places like Chicago and Cincinnati to the same runners’ times at Boston. If there was a big difference, Murphy dug deeper.

“I was trying to find people who shouldn’t have been there,” he said.

And he did. At least 60 runners were, in his view, stone cold cheaters. In most cases, he found they ran slower, probably legitimate times at Boston, but they cut the course or cheated in some other way in the qualifying race to get to Boston.

Murphy was surprised to find so many, if only because cheating is harder than ever. Courses are monitored, cameras are everywhere and computer chips in the runners’ bibs track not only their finish times but their times at various checkpoints.

Rosie Ruiz, America’s most notorious marathon cheat, would find it impossible today to jump into the Boston Marathon a mile from the finish and claim victory, as she did in 1980.

“It’s pretty closely monitored,” said Iris Simpson Bush, executive director of the Flying Pig. Only a handful of discrepancies have come up over the years in Cincinnati, she said, and none were confirmed as cheating.

“It does happen, you could never deny it does,” she said. “But it isn’t prevalent.”

Still, cheaters find a way. Murphy has written about people who slip in and out of races, about a wife who switched bibs with her husband to win age-group medals, and about a man who carried a stack of bibs during a race so slower runners could qualify for Boston with his time.

Sometimes, Murphy even encounters a D-list celebrity or two. He broke out his spreadsheets in March when fitness model Bre Tiesi, soon-to-be ex-wife of quarterback Johnny Manziel, was accused of cutting the course in a half-marathon.

Murphy found Tiesi would have had to run a 4-minute mile pace for the second half of the race to post the finishing time she claimed. Either Tiesi had just run six miles faster than any human in history, or she’d cheated.

How do runners like Tiesi react when he calls them out? Murphy shrugged.

“It’s not usually positive,” he said.

'Play by the rules'

Murphy said he tries to contact runners with questionable results before posting a story about them. Sometimes there’s an explanation for the discrepancies – a wrong turn on the course, a malfunctioning chip, an honest mistake.

Sometimes cheaters admit what they did and disqualify themselves, and sometimes there are excuses or more deception. Murphy believes one runner went so far as to fake GPS data from her watch to cover her tracks.

“If they admit it and withdraw, I don’t write about it,” Murphy said. “It’s when they double down that it gets interesting.”

Every now and then, things get ugly. One person threatened Murphy’s wife on Facebook and another made references to mass shootings while griping about him.

The confrontations are the hardest part for Murphy. He enjoys the chasing more than the catching.

“I like doing the work, figuring it all out,” he said. “I don’t like conflict.”

Murphy doesn’t speculate about why runners cheat. He knows some are desperate to qualify for Boston, but for the rest, the motive seems to be little more than a desire to post a photo on social media and bring home a medal.

Jack Lesyk said that sounds about right. He’s a runner and a clinical psychologist at the Ohio Center for Sports Psychology.

He said people driven primarily by internal forces set personal goals and work to achieve them, while those driven by external forces want validation from others in the form of trophies, praise and Facebook likes.

It’s that latter group, he said, that’s most likely to cheat. And although some might consider course-cutting or bib-swapping a victimless crime, Lesyk said there’s value in Murphy’s work.

“I really do think we should take a strong stand,” he said. “If you’re going to play, play by the rules.”

But does Murphy’s sleuthing really matter, or is it, as some of the people he’s caught have claimed, just another form of public shaming? Should he take the advice he hears most often from them and just “get a life”?

On his bad days, Murphy wonders about that himself. “Sometimes I get burned out on it,” he said. “I step away a little.”

But then he’ll get a tip about an egregious case, or he’ll skim some race results and see a few numbers that don’t add up. He’ll think about the runners who do things the right way, the ones, like him, who train long hours and run long distances and expect nothing more than an honest race.

And he’ll just know. It’s time to get back to work.",0.5979197017250641
"Lake Erie is the fourth largest lake of the five North American Great Lakes, sprawled out over 9,910 sq, and is the shallowest and smallest by volume of its brethren. It was named after the native Erie people, a shortened form of the Iroquoian word erielhonan, meaning “long tail,” and stretches between the Canadian province of Ontario, with the U.S. states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York on its western, southern, and eastern shores. Like the other Great Lakes it is more like an inland sea than a lake, and it has also long said to be the haunt of something very mysterious prowling through its waters.

The Lake Erie creature itself is most often described as being a 9 to 12 m (30 to 40 ft) long undulating beast, and very serpentine in appearance, with a dark gray or black coloration. Sightings of something very bizarre lurking in Lake Erie go back centuries. The natives of the region told of a great water spirit dwelling within the lake called the Oniare, a huge, horned water serpent with venomous breath that prowled the area and capsized boats. Perhaps the first known recorded modern encounter with the creature allegedly occurred in 1793, when a captain aboard the sloop Felicity spotted a snake-like creature more than 16 feet long moving through the water while duck hunting near Sandusky, Ohio.

In 1817 there was another well-known early report, when two brothers named Dusseau saw an enormous monster, 20 to 30 feet long, that seemed to have been beached and possibly dying. In this particular case the beast was said to look as if it had actual arms, and its appearance was reminiscent of a sturgeon. They apparently left and came back later with company, but all that was left were marks from its thrashing and large, anomalous scales. Later in the 1800s we have the sighting made by the crew of a ship headed out across Lake Erie towards Toledo, Ohio from Buffalo, New York in 1892. As they cut through the waves there was apparently a commotion in the water ahead, and upon closer inspection it turned out to be some gargantuan serpent at least 50 feet long, with long, prominent fins and saucer-like eyes that were “viciously sparkling.” Then in 1896 there was an encounter made by four witnesses who watched it for 45 minutes as the dog-headed beast cavorted about off the shore of Crystal Beach near Fort Erie, Ontario.

Sightings continued, although there were obviously some people who began to have fun with it all. According to cryptozoologist Loren Coleman in his book Cryptozoology A to Z, in 1931 two fishermen named Clifford Wilson and Francis Cogenstose claimed to have not only come across the mysterious monster, but to have clubbed it to death and stuffed it into a shipping crate. However, when a curator of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History went to investigate it, the creature was found to be merely a very large Indian python. It was still an unusual thing to see in the area, but far from the Lake Erie monster that everyone had come to know.

The Lake Eerie monster would later come to be known as “Bessie,” after the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Port Clinton, and continued to be sighted sporadically over the decades and right up into more modern times. In the 1980s there was a sighting made by two fishermen who were throwing in lines near the East 55th Street marina in Cleveland, Ohio, off their 20-foot fishing boat, the Cool Breeze. It had been a calm day just after dawn when the boat was rocked by a disturbance in the water that jolted their vessel. When the two startled men looked into the water they saw what looked like an immense black shape at least as long as the boat and similar in shape to an alligator, which then grabbed at the boat with its arms and shook it to send them grabbing for anything they could hold on to before gliding off into the depths.

In September of 1990 a Harold Bricker, his wife Cora, and their son Robert, were out on Sandusky Bay to enjoy a day out fishing. They stopped their boat and began preparing when Harold claimed to have seen a giant serpentine creature swimming through the water around 1,000 feet from them, described as black in color and around 40 feet long. According to the Los Angeles Times article on the sighting at the time, five other witnesses has seen the same exact thing. This sighting was followed by a spate of similar reports from Sandusky Bay, and Thomas Solberg, the owner of Huron Lagoon Marina, posted a $100,000 reward for a live specimen, which apparently still stands and has obviously never been collected. Another fairly recent account was given to Weird Ohio, by a witness calling himself Franklin P. Wainwright, who says he saw it off near Vermilion, Ohio while out fishing on his 18-foot Boston Whaler. The witness says:

In early July, I was having one of those nights where I was just cruising the lake. I anchored the boat a few hundred yards off shore and was just lying on my back drinking a few cans of beer. As sad as it is in hindsight, I found that the combination of the rocking of the boat and a few beers was one of the only surefire methods of overcoming my insomnia. I don’t know how many mornings that summer I woke up fully clothed on the deck of my boat with cans scattered about. It wasn’t happiest period of my life. This particular night, I was awakened from my slumber by something rubbing against the bottom of the boat. The noise and the impact woke me and I immediately heard a noise that I find hard to describe. It was the rushing of water followed by the slap of something against the surface of the lake. I sprang up and grabbed the lantern which I always left burning in the bow of the boat so that no other vessels would plow into me at night. Then I lunged to the gunwale and held the light over the water to have a look. What I saw I will never forget. Before I go any further, let me say that I was not drunk when I saw what I saw. I had been sleeping for at least three hours, and I had only had four beers. I am sure what I am about to describe is in no way the product of any alcohol induced hallucination. There was a long, thick creature a few feet beneath the keel of my boat. All exaggeration aside, this thing was at LEAST twenty feet long. It darted with incredible speed away from my skiff as I struggled to make out its form beneath the inky black surface of the water. When it was about 30 feet away from my vessel, the beast reared its body up out of the lake. Although it was still dark out, it was a clear night with a full moon shinning down on the still surface of the lake. Because of this fact I was able to clearly make out the long serpentine body of the animal and its large, round head. That was all I saw before it submerged again and disappeared forever. There is no doubt in my mind that that thing intentionally slammed into my boat. The first instinct I had when I saw it was that I had invaded its territory and it was letting me know. Perhaps like a common eel it had been attracted to the glow of my lantern. I cannot say for sure, but that was the last night I ever spent alone on Lake Erie. I’ve only gone fishing at night a few times in the past two years, and never by myself. Needless to say, the sleeplessness of that summer only got worse after I looked that monster in the eye. Thankfully since then, my life has returned, more or less, to normal. I’ve remarried, see my kid often, and have a new job much better than the one I was so worried about back then. When I think back to that summer, the only really terrifying aspect of it I haven’t managed to reckon with is the mystery of what I saw that night.

Even more spectacular was a spate of reports from 2001 in which numerous swimmers came forward claiming to have been actually attacked by Bessie while swimming near the Port Dover pump house, often with large bite marks on their legs and bodies to prove it. The bites were explained away as those of other known fishes or exotic species such as the bowfin and even snapping turtles, but there were many who insisted that they had been victims of none other than Bessie.

The mystery of the Lake Erie monster has never been satisfactorily explained, although there have been many efforts to come up with a rational explanation. On is that these are simply misidentifications of very large lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens), which can get up to 7 feet or more in length and several hundred pounds. Lake Erie was once teeming with these sturgeon, although they were nearly fished out at one point. It seems possible that the fish’s prehistoric appearance could startle some people, but it is nowhere near the reported sizes for Bessie. Another idea is that this is simply an urban legend that has been played up on to bring tourists in, but how does this explain sightings going back hundreds of years? Could this be something else altogether, perhaps some new species or surviving dinosaur? There are no answers in sight, and for now it might just be a good idea to keep your eyes peeled if you ever find yourself looking out over the waters of Lake Erie.",1.0493992328828605
"Thomas Sowell

For the 100th episode of The Remnant, Thomas Sowell, who needs no introduction, joins Jonah for a long conversation on discrimination, inequality, the uses and misuses of economics (all subjects covered in the new edition of Discrimination and Disparities, out now), and more.",0.1564639360410572
"(Leah Millis/Reuters)

What is “nationalism”? Does it need to be benign? Is there a conservative case for the Austro-Hungarian Empire? The latest episode of The Remnant is actually audio of a conversation between Jonah, Rich Lowry, and Jim Geraghty at the 2019 National Review Ideas Summit.",0.3074591623265438
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks on Capitol Hill, March 27, 2019. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

Because impeachment is a political process, the key consideration is what the American people say.

‘Do you think this is impeachable?” Chuck Todd, host of Meet the Press, asked Representative Jerrold Nadler about the findings in the report by special counsel Robert Mueller.

The congressman from New York took a dramatic pause before replying, “Yeah, I do. I do think this, if proven, if proven . . . some of this would be impeachable, yes. Obstruction of justice, if proven, would be impeachable.”

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Within NBC’s studio and outside it, this was greeted as news. Maybe in one sense, it was. Nadler chairs the House Judiciary Committee, where impeachment proceedings originate. Like the Democratic leadership generally, he has been very circumspect on the issue. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remains reluctant to commit to impeachment. Nadler, however, nudged the Democratic position toward impeachment, slightly.

But in another sense this was just another no-duh moment. Of course, obstruction of justice — if proved — is impeachable. Not even Rudy Giuliani would dispute that.

Obstruction of justice was at the heart of the impeachment case that caused President Nixon to resign. It was one of the two charges against President Clinton in his impeachment (the other was perjury).

But here’s the thing: Even if it’s not proved, obstruction of justice is impeachable. What I mean is: If a majority of House members think the president obstructed justice, they can vote to impeach him, even if the charge would never fly in a court of law. In fact, the House can impeach the president for literally any reason it wants, including noncriminal behavior. That’s because Congress isn’t a judicial body, and impeachment isn’t a criminal proceeding but a political one — and, save for the trial in the Senate, there’s no appeal.

The frustrating thing about impeachment debates — under every president, not just Trump — is how lawyers are granted almost priestly authority over the subject, in part to save politicians from making tough calls. That is not what the Founders intended. In Federalist No. 65, Alexander Hamilton — the dude from the musical — explained that impeachable offenses “are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL” (the all-caps are Hamilton’s). They “proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust” that does injury “immediately to the society itself.”

Among the eleven articles of impeachment against Andrew Johnson, Article 10 remains my favorite. It charged the president with attempting “to bring into disgrace, ridicule, hatred, contempt and reproach, the Congress of the United States, . . . to impair and destroy the regard and respect of all the good people of the United States for the Congress and the legislative power thereof.”

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That’s great stuff.

Because impeachment is a political process, the key consideration isn’t what criminal law says but what the American people say. Yet they too have abdicated their responsibilities to call out leaders who have violated the Constitution or simply the public trust. When President George W. Bush signed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (also known as the McCain-Feingold Act, restricting certain spending on political campaigns), Bush said the law presented “serious constitutional concerns.” He signed it anyway, saying he’d leave it for the courts to deal with them. Bush was right about his concerns, as the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

The president takes an oath to uphold the Constitution. In Bush’s own words, he violated the spirit of that oath. Congress, of course, wouldn’t impeach a president for signing a law it passed. But I wish I lived in a country where voters saw that as an impeachable act.

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Worse, Americans now seem to believe that presidents from their “side” can take whatever steps the Supreme Court will let them get away with. President Obama unilaterally overhauled U.S. immigration policy, though he had repeatedly said he didn’t have the authority to do it. Republicans were outraged at this abuse of executive power — and they shouldn’t have been alone. But they were, so now they’re not inclined to share Democrats’ outrage over Trump’s excesses.

Congress has impotently outsourced its own judgment to lawyers, courts, executive branch bureaucrats, and, most importantly, to a public capable only of partisan outrage. So now congressional Democrats wrestling with whether to impeach Trump are pretending they need some legal smoking gun. It’s all a canard. All they need are votes — first in the House, then in the Senate — and the support of Americans around the country. They might have enough of the former but probably not of the latter.

© 2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC",-0.39573582581281935
"Simple Sharing Page

A clean, simple landing page with an embedded HTML5 audio player (and audio cards for Twitter and Facebook).

Embeddable Audio Player

Paste this code to embed an HTML5 audio player with controls.

Download URL

Useful if you want to create a direct download link, embed in your own player, post from another publishing engine, link to from Patreon, etc.'",1.5875674034941913
"It’s easy to think of the soon-to-be launched conservative news site run by two prominent Never Trump conservatives as an outlet created simply to bash the president.

But Jonah Goldberg, one of the two co-founders, said that’s not quite right.

“We don’t want to be an anti-Trump thing,” Goldberg said in an interview on the Yahoo News podcast, “The Long Game.” “We kinda want to be a post-Trump thing.”

Goldberg is in the process of leaving his job at the National Review to join former Weekly Standard editor-in-chief Stephen Hayes at the yet-to-be named new outlet. They hope to launch this fall, he said.

The Weekly Standard — which had been co-founded by one of the most prominent anti-Trump conservatives, Bill Kristol — was shut down by billionaire owner Philip Anschutz late last year. Anschutz has remained invested, however, in the Washington Examiner, which has tilted in a pro-Trump direction.

The Weekly Standard and National Review were the two redoubts of the Never Trump movement and stand in stark contrast to most media and activist websites on the right. Places like Breitbart News, the Daily Caller, the Federalist, Newsmax and others have all generally acceded to the pro-Trump point of view.

Jonah Goldberg (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photo: William B. Plowman/NBC/NBC NewsWire via Getty Images)

Goldberg noted that, by and large, none of the many conservative sites — even those like Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire, which is often quite critical of Trump — do a lot of original journalism, preferring instead to traffic in opinion and analysis.

“We think there is a large market out there for reporting from the right of center, and analysis ... that isn’t water-carrying for the Republican Party, nor is it just trying to beat up the Republican Party,” Goldberg said.

Much of Goldberg’s thinking has been shaped of late by studying the ways that traditional political parties have atrophied over the last several decades, creating a vacuum that has been filled by other actors and redefining the meaning of what a party is.

Political parties now are much more than a few committees and elected officials, he said. Political parties have become an ecosystem of interest groups, partisan media outlets and cable TV channels, big donors and dark money groups, and the traditional committee institutions and politicians.

Story continues

“Since 1972, right before our eyes but almost invisibly, the infrastructure of both the professional right and the professional left have turned into essentially de facto proxies of the parties,” Goldberg said. “When the parties stopped performing party functions, these other institutions starting doing it, whether it’s Planned Parenthood on the left or the NRA on the right.

Goldberg said the “ideological press” has also become part of the new party ecosystem, but said that is “not always a bad thing.”

“I’m not leaving National Review because I’m mad at National Review,” Goldberg said. “National Review vets candidates, it frames issues, it does all sorts of things that parties are supposed to do. Fox News plays a huge function in that. So does MSNBC. All those televised debates and town halls, those are essentially party functions that the party isn’t doing anymore, or is at least cooperating with.”

Nonetheless, he said, he and Hayes are setting out to create a news site that consciously rejects an alignment with the modern party apparatus.

“Lots of media institutions have internalized this role as a sort of an arm of the party,” he said. “So you get a lot of media players who, to the extent that they’re reporting … a lot of it is basically in service to a partisan agenda. That’s a lot of what Daily Caller has become … defending Trump.”

The Daily Caller, in fact, was launched in 2009 with a similar mission to the one stated by Goldberg: to do in-depth journalism from a center-right point of view. But that vision was long ago eclipsed by an approach that relies on stoking partisan outrage, which is a lower-cost, higher-yield business venture, at least in the short term. (This was the reason I left the publication after working there for just over a year in 2010.)

“We think chasing clicks is a bad idea … but also chasing clicks actually is bad for the country,” Goldberg said. “It leads to this nut-picking, where you pick the very worst examples of the other side … and hold them up as representative of the entire other side. It contributes to this screwed-up fishbowl demonization polarization dynamic.”

“Part of what we believe as a business proposition is that there are enough people out there who just don’t like that stuff,” Goldberg said. “That’s sort of part of the tradition I want to get back to is engaging with the other side where we try to tackle their best arguments, not their worst arguments, and where we don’t take their fringiest craziest people and hold them up as examples.”

As Goldberg and Hayes have gone through the process of meeting with investors and venture capital fund managers, their idea of what their project will be has shifted, Goldberg said.

“Part of the feedback we got from people was, ‘This sounds like a really fantastic business plan for newsletters, podcasts and events. Why are you chasing the dot.com model when everyone is running away from that?’” Goldberg said. “What started out as a grandiose big online magazine thing is now iterating.”

“We’re gonna have definitely an online magazine presence, but the footprint is going to be lighter,” he said.

Goldberg said he was hopeful that Trumpism is a passing fad in the long run.

“The Trumpification of conservatism and the GOP is in the most significant respects a story about old people,” Goldberg said. “The reality is that Trump’s base are over-65-year-old white people, and that’s the bulk of Fox viewers too.”

“This new thing we’re doing ties in with this idea of being a remnant for this renewal,” he said.",0.07621250521663965
"White House Counsel Don McGahn sits behind President Trump during a cabinet meeting June 21, 2018. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

The president is calling McGahn a liar, and it looks as if a lot of people will throw the former White House counsel under the bus.

So Don McGahn is in the president’s crosshairs. Whose side are you on?

I ask because this is perhaps the perfect test for a special subgroup of Donald Trump supporters. Call them the “But Gorsuchers.”

At the beginning of the Trump administration, when things got off to a rocky start, the go-to response from many Trump boosters was some version of “Yes, but we got Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court.” As things got more chaotic, it became a joke to say, “Yeah, but Gorsuch” after every embarrassing revelation or disturbing tweet.

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But from a conservative perspective that places a high priority on the court, this was an utterly defensible point of view. Many Republicans who were reluctant to vote for Trump came around only after he promised to pick judges exclusively from a list vetted by the conservative Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. This reassured the voters who had taken Trump seriously when he talked about putting his sister on the Supreme Court.

If the opportunity to put a conservative on the court — or deny Hillary Clinton a chance to do so — was why you ultimately voted for him, then “But Gorsuch” was a fair retort.

You don’t hear “But Gorsuch” often these days, for two reasons. The first is entirely to Trump’s credit — again from a certain Republican or conservative perspective. Brett Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court, too. Scores of excellent judges have been appointed to the lower courts. We’ve seen tax cuts, deregulation, the partial dismantling of Obamacare, and a number of other conservative accomplishments on Trump’s watch. His supporters — reluctant and wholehearted alike — have every reason to count these things in the “pro” column.

Then there’s the second reason, which is less favorable to Trump. Whether you call it the party line, right-wing political correctness, or simply a desire to cater to the president’s fragile ego, it’s simply not acceptable to publicly criticize Trump on the right. Prominent religious leaders feel compelled to dismiss Trump’s sordid sexual history. Passionate constitutionalists simply shrug or celebrate Trump’s words and deeds, no matter how contrary they may be to constitutional principles. You have to gush about his genius when there’s little discernible wisdom in what he does, and you must marvel at his courage when there’s none to be seen. Credit for Trump’s wins is all his; blame for his losses is all somebody else’s.

The “But Gorsuch” argument is also known as the transactional case for Trump. You don’t have to like or approve of what he does, but it’s worth putting up with because of the results. This is what you hear when you talk to Republican politicians and many prominent conservative activists and donors in private. But when was the last time you heard it on TV or talk radio?

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Indeed, the demand that everyone see the emperor’s new clothes is so powerful that criticizing — or even being inconvenient to — the president’s preferred messaging is seen not only as a kind of treason but as proof that the critic isn’t really a conservative at all.

Which brings me to McGahn, who until recently was considered a widely respected, unimpeachably conservative lawyer. I have no idea what the former White House counsel’s personal views on Trump are. But based on his actions, he was at minimum a conservative transactionalist. He didn’t attack the president; he joined Trump’s team. It was McGahn’s job to shepherd Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and other judges through the confirmation process. By the time McGahn left the White House last year, not only had he scored two Supreme Court victories for the president, he’d been a sherpa to 59 other federal judgeships.

Also, according to the Mueller report, McGahn may well have saved the Trump presidency by refusing to follow the president’s orders to derail the Mueller probe.

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McGahn cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. He didn’t want to; he was told to by Trump and his legal team.

Now, Trump is calling McGahn a liar. The president denies he told McGahn to fire Mueller. Trump and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, have insinuated that McGahn’s handwritten notes from his conversations with the president are somehow fraudulent.

We’ll see how things unfold, but it looks as if a lot of people, when forced to choose, will opt to throw McGahn under the bus, because loyalty to the president is now the definition of what it means to be a Republican or a conservative. And saying “But Gorsuch” won’t help McGahn.

(C) 2019 TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC",-1.3288069790039385
"Scientists take a mammoth step forward by reactivating the cells of an extinct animal who died almost thirty thousand years ago, but that doesn’t mean you should expect to see one stomping around at your local zoo any time soon.

Sometime, roughly around 28,000 BCE, a young female woolly mammoth died along the Dmitry Laptev Strait in Russia’s far east. The creature’s body was trapped in the Siberian permafrost, preserving the corpse for generations as the rest of her species disappeared from the land above. She sat entombed in ice for millennia. Then, she was unearthed by researchers in 2010. And they just woke up some of her cells for a brief moment.

A new study in Scientific Reports (that we came across at Motherboard) explains how University in Japan biologist Kazuo Yamagata and his team took 88 nucleus-like structures from the muscle tissue of a woolly mammoth whose body was in tremendous shape when they extracted from her from an icy Siberian grave. Named Yuka, they put her preserved cells into the ovarian cells of a mouse. Those cells, known as oocytes, are part of the cells that control a mouse’s embryonic development. Scientists were able to slightly reactivate the mammoth cells when the mouse cell nuclei was incubated. While no cell division took place, the ancient mammoth cells did begin some of the processes needed before that can take place.

For a brief moment, the same cells that once brought a woolly mammoth to life were alive once again.[/nerdist_section]

Researchers have observed biological activity after transplanting cell nuclei from the 28,000-year-old remains of a woolly mammoth from the Siberian permafrost into mice oocytes. Read the paper, published in @SciReports, here: https://t.co/21TwWRa8aX pic.twitter.com/DkjfoBFSB6 — Nature Research (@nresearchnews) March 12, 2019

The team’s attempt to do this almost a decade ago with the cells of a 15,000-year-old mammoth failed, but they were able to accomplish this with new technological advancements over the last ten years. But before you begin making plans to see the new woolly mammoth at the zoo, they are still light years away from the dream of bringing back extinct animals. As a specimen, Yuka is an ideal find in tremendous shape, and even then no cell division took place with her cells. Without that key activity, woolly mammoths aren’t going to be roaming Russia’s coasts again.

Still, it’s an exciting development that could be a major step to bringing back extinct animals, and we doubt it will take another 28,000 years to make the next one.

Image: Cyclonaut – Wikimedia Commons",-0.3565262901004798
"Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday reportedly threatened to ""declare war"" against Canada within the next week if the country fails to remove tons of garbage that was previously shipped to Manila.

Duterte, in remarks aired by state media and reported by The Canadian Press, said he will ""give a warning to Canada maybe next week that they better pull that thing out or I will set sail.""

JUSTIN TRUDEAU HIT WITH SECRET RECORDING OF AIDE PRESSING FOR END OF CORRUPTION CASE AGAINST CANADIAN COMPANY

""I will declare war against them. I will advise Canada that your garbage is on the way. Prepare a grand reception. Eat it if you want to,"" he said. ""Your garbage is coming home.""

The garbage reportedly consists of electronic and household waste.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Between 2013 and 2014, Canada shipped tons of waste in 103 containers to the Philippines and ,in the years since, has been pushing the Southeastern Asia country to dispose of it.

When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Manila in 2015, he said that a ""Canadian solution"" was being developed and said the situation would not occur again, according to the news outlet.",0.314082047651486
"The Daily Star's FREE newsletter is spectacular! Sign up today for the best stories straight to your inbox Invalid Email Something went wrong, please try again later. Sign up today! Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice

The snake, almost certainly a type of rattlesnake, was swallowed without any kind of cooking or preparation – sugggesting that it was seated as part of a religious ritual or possibly for a bet.Which is why we specified cave-MAN. Swallowing venomous animals for a laugh is very much a bloke’s thing.A team led by archaeologist Elanor Sonderman from Texas A&M University re-examined a collection of coprolites – partly-fossilized turds – that had been collected from Conejo Shelter site in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwest Texas.One of the samples stood out because it contained not only an entire rodent that had been swallowed without cooking or even skinning, but also a complete rattlesnake including its fangs.The sample dates from approximately 1,500 years ago.

(Image: Getty)

(Image: E. M. Sonderman et al.) (Image: Getty)

The archaeologists’ research paper says: “Zooarchaeological analysis found the remains of a small rodent, evidently eaten whole, with no indication of preparation or cooking.“Notably, the bones, scales and a fang of a snake in the Viperidae family were also recovered from the coprolite, which is the first direct archaeological evidence of venomous snake consumption known to the researchers. “The paper is headed “Potential ritualistic viperous snake consumption”

(Image: Getty)

The samples would have been left by a group of hunter-gatherers known as Ancestral Puebloans. They were an ancient Native American culture that lived in parts of what is now Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado.They thrived in Southwestern America for about 4 or 5 thousand years before being gradually supplanted by Navajo tribes.

(Image: E. M. Sonderman et al.)

US tech site Gizmodo asked Professor Sonderman whether it was possible that the snake remains found into the prehistoric poo by chance, rather than being eaten but she told them this was highly unlikely: “The indigestible materials include some fibrous portions of plants, fur, bones, and the like.” She told them. “The indigestible materials in the coprolite were coated in fecal matter. “Based on the archaeological context it is possible that large portions of plant materials might have adhered to the coprolite soon after deposition but these exterior materials were removed from the coprolite before analysis.” Bottom line: “The fang was inside the coprolite. Not hanging around on it.”",0.5705593447766147
"Fishermen have made a discovery stalking the waters of a lake in Doncaster – far removed from the likes of the River Amazon.

Regulars to Martinwells Lake in South Yorkshire believe the number of ducks and fish at the lake has reduced and wonder if the discovery two piranha can answer their questions.

Full-time mum Toni Hooper, 32, discovered them while on a family walk on Sunday.

A pirhana was discovered in a lake in South Yorkshire, leading to fears it had been eating the local wildlife (Picture: SWNS)

One theory is that they outgrew a tank and their owner abandoned them in the lake (Picture: SWNS)

She said: ‘When we realised what it was it sent shivers down my spine. This is a popular spot amongst families, dog walkers and fishermen. It’s always busy here.

‘There’s a play park nearby, so you get kids here paddling in the water, teenagers will go swimming here. You wouldn’t catch me going in the water.

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‘We came here to feed the ducks and on Sunday we noticed there was only one duck and two ducklings, I’m concerned about where the wildlife is.

‘I’ve spoken to others who have said they’ve noticed there aren’t as many ducks.’

Her boyfriend Gary Walker, 34, who is currently out of work, often fishes at the site and said that he noticed the number of fish he catches from the former clay pit has reduced.

Lisa Holmes, 37, who was with her family when the fish were discovered said: ‘My partner is a fisherman and was looking around the edge of the lake when he suddenly spotted this fish floating near one of the pegs [fishing platform].

Davey White pictured with one of the piranha that was found at the lake in Doncaster (Picture: SWNS)

Regulars to the lake – a former clay pit – said they believed the number of ducks had reduced recently (Picture: SWNS)

‘He managed to get it out of the water and although he’s a keen angler, he wasn’t sure what type of fish it was straight away.

‘But then we started looking at it more closely and saw the teeth we realised it was a piranha.

‘We went home and Googled it and its quite clear its a piranha. It was quite a shock.

‘We couldn’t believe that we’d found a piranha fish. It’s not the kind of thing you expect to find in Doncaster.

‘We presume that it was a pet that someone no longer wanted and they have gone and dumped it in the lake.’

However, there may be an answer. Expert Helen Thompson said that piranhas attract a ‘certain type of pet lover’.

Teenagers often go swimming in the lake (Picture: SWNS)

But when the fish get too big for their tanks they take them to a local lake and dump them there instead.

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She wrote in the Smithsonian magazine: ‘Obviously it’s never a good idea to release them into the wild, as the species could become invasive.’

The lake, known locally as the Brick Pond, is owned by Doncaster Council and a spokesman for the authority said the dead fish have been taken for examination.

Gill Gillies, assistant director of environment said: ‘Given the natural habitat of piranhas, it is highly unlikely that the fish were alive at any time in the lake.

‘We assume that these were pets that were placed in the lake, something that we would strongly discourage people from doing. The presence of a piranha is somewhat of a novelty so they have since been taken away by the Environment Agency for testing.

‘In any event we would always strongly advise against anyone paddling or swimming in this or any lake due to the dangers of deep water.’

An Environment Agency spokesman said: ‘Piranhas are not native to England and do not belong in our rivers and lakes.

‘These fish do not easily survive or feed at temperatures below 10C and readily succumb to the cold of northern winters.

‘Nevertheless, we would encourage anyone that keeps exotic fish and which may have outgrown their tanks, to contact a specialist able to advise on how best to deal with them.

‘It is illegal to release or transfer fish in England without the appropriate permit. It is also illegal to keep non-native species in the wild without a permit.’

Most piranha attacks on humans only result in minor injuries but they have been fatal.

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In 2011, a drunk man, 18, was attacked and killed in Bolivia. A five-year-old Brazilian girl was attacked and killed by a shoal in 2015. And in 2016 a Brazilian girl died after her grandmother’s boat capsized during a family holiday.

Various stories exist about piranhas, such as how they can lacerate a human body or cattle in seconds and when American President Theodore Roosevelt visited Brazil in 1913, he was shown the power of piranhas when he went on a hunting expedition through the Amazon Rainforest.

While standing on the bank of the Amazon River, he witnessed a spectacle created by local fishermen.

After blocking off part of the river and starving the piranhas for several days, they pushed a cow into the water, where it was quickly torn apart by a school of hungry piranhas.

But experts have suggested that it is virtually impossible for the piranhas to have lived in Yorkshire-temperature open water.

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"Michael Mann on Real Time with Bill Maher in 2015 (via YouTube)

The aim of his lawsuit is to destroy us. We ask you to help us rebuff this attack.

Here we are, in year nine of climate scientist Michael Mann’s lawsuit against National Review, with no end in sight, with the dollars continuing to drain from our account, and with help nowhere on the horizon.

Except, that is, from you. Now, as you have so many times before, we hope that you will help us stay afloat. Our current webathon seeks to raise $250,000, and more if possible, to offset some of those lawsuit costs, which come on top of the inherent financial stresses of consequential opinion journalism. This campaign runs through March 29.

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Morally, and legally, Mann v. National Review is not a difficult case. Mann’s aims are totalitarian, his brief is nonexistent, and he sits squarely on the wrong side of the law. If the system were expedient, this would all have been over within a year — dismissed under the anti-SLAPP statute that was designed to prevent precisely this sort of nonsense, and, if not, then under the First Amendment’s broad protections of political debate. But the system has not been expedient, and, as a result, Mann has been handed the dual weapons of time and inertia — which, when combined, have accorded him an advantage he has used to great effect. So on it goes, without resolve. A decade of harassment because a thin-skinned man disliked a couple of blog posts.

As was made clear in the correspondence we unearthed during discovery, the aim of Mann’s lawsuit is to destroy us. At the outset, he wrote unequivocally to a friend that he had detected the “possibility that I can ruin National Review,” and then confirmed that he intended to do just that. Thus far, he has not succeeded. But, alas, that is not the same thing as saying that he has done no harm. Time, as the old saying goes, is money, and boy has this time cost us a lot of money. In the nearly nine years since the lawsuit began, National Review has spent millions of dollars and an untold amount of effort defending itself — and yet, because the courts have sat on their hands, we have barely scratched the surface of the case itself. Some of the dollars we have spent have come from our legal insurance policy. But not all of them have, and, besides, if the case carries on for too much longer, there will be no insurance money left. This isn’t law; it’s attrition.

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What happens if the money runs out? Well, you do. This week, and next, we are asking you to help us rebuff this attack against free inquiry by chipping in for our defense.

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This isn’t just about us. There is a good reason that National Review’s position has been supported in amicus briefs by the Washington Post, Time Inc., the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and others, and that good reason is that while it is our name on this lawsuit, its effects will be felt by others, too. Indeed, as Justice Alito observed in his dissent from the Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari, the tactic Michael Mann is trying here will have deleterious effects on free speech even if National Review succeeds. “A journalist who prevails after trial in a defamation case,” Alito wrote, “will still have been required to shoulder all the burdens of difficult litigation and may be faced with hefty attorney’s fees” — a prospect that, over time, “may deter the uninhibited expression of views that would contribute to healthy public debate.” It is that possibility — not just National Review’s survival — that is at stake here.

But, of course, it is also National Review’s survival. Grateful as we are for their support in the various particulars of the litigation, it remains the case that Michael Mann did not go after the Washington Post or Time Inc. or the Cato Institute. He went after us, the flagship conservative publication in the United States. Why? Because totalitarians cannot brook dissent, and because we are most definitely among the dissenters on a whole host of hot-button issues. Explaining the illiberal impulse in 1938, Winston Churchill noted that its progenitors “are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home.” Michael Mann is afraid of our words and our thoughts — so afraid, in fact, that he wishes to throttle them. We do not intend to let this happen. We hope you don’t, either.

Please stand with National Review, and sanity, and free speech, and against Michael Mann and the tyranny he represents and inflicts: Donate here, and do so knowing you have our appreciation.",0.8057319684302077
"National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr.

To the 1,597 kindly friends who — whether via our donation page or by check (a good number have already come into the NYC office) — have responded to our webathon appeal, we can only say thanks. Well, that’s not the only thing we can say: We are hoping that many more will find their way to do likewise before this effort ends on March 29. Our goal of $250,000, a long shot, we figured, will likely be revised, because, well, our real needs dwarf that amount. Oh, yeah: About $190,000 have arrived so far. Did I say thanks? I meant, THANKS! Which is exactly what some of the donors are saying, appending kind comments along with their generosity. Here are a few of many:

Sherry found $50 and sent it thisaway, along with an unnecessary confession: “I began reading NR this year and am sorry I waited so long to start! The fact that you are not afraid to criticize Republicans when they are wrong and to defend Democrats when they are right is great journalism. Thank you, NR.” Never too late Sherry, and by the way, it’s you who gets the thanks.

Jonathan sent $3,000 — yes, you read that correctly — and a note short on words but long on inspiration: “Greatly appreciate your magazine and all you stand for and do.” Jonathan, when the smelling salts take affect and I rouse, I will find a way to properly say thanks for this amazing gift.

Michael contributes a sweet $100 and a pretty good evaluation of the crew here: “Intellectual honesty is difficult for human beings — we are all to a degree emotional. Your writers, editors manage a level of honesty and passion which is unequaled in the U.S.A. of the last decade. Thank you all so much for your hard work, your energy, and dedication.” If any of this is true, Michael, it’s because of generous people such as you.

Robert also spots us a C Note and a nifty thought: “Would love to do more but retirement has it’s constraints. I actually consider this one of the best ways to use a piece of the stimulus. I always remember a couple of quotes I heard years ago. Not sure I have them exactly right but I think you get the point: (1) All it takes for evil (or in this case the Democrats) to succeed is for good men to do nothing, and (2) If not us — who? I believe both of these to be extremely relevant to the current situation in our country.” About sums it up, Robert. We dig your kindness.

Suzy goes big with $200 and this: “ National Review has the most balanced writers and I find myself increasingly utilizing your website for news. One suggestion — fix your very glitchy app if you want to add more younger people to your viewership.” The Dept. of Glitches has been notified. Many thanks for the support.

has the most balanced writers and I find myself increasingly utilizing your website for news. One suggestion — fix your very glitchy app if you want to add more younger people to your viewership.” The Dept. of Glitches has been notified. Many thanks for the support. Mitchel sends along $100 and plays a variation of Sherry’s tune: “I’m a late joiner, but a committed grunt! I still remember vividly the first time I ever saw Uncle Bill on Firing Line (born Pearl Harbor Day, 1957). Keep up the great work (especially love Andrew McCarthy and Cameron Hilditch)!” We try, and it’s all the easier because you have our back.

Francis drops a mighty $200 into the basket. Then she gives the down-and-dirty: “I am so grateful that National Review journalists can keep a level head and describe events with such clarity. Yes, they take a conservative view, but I don’t hear a vindictive, condescending or hysterical tone. The public NEEDS to be exposed to such solid rational. I read National Review from cover to cover and look forward to each issue. I pray that you will be able to keep up this necessary work.” Money . . . prayers . . . Francis, with friends like you, we will prevail!

These good people are now in our band of brothers and sisters, which is usually Saint Crispin’s gig, but he’s happy to let Patrick in on the glory. Join them, and us. If you can spare $10 or $50 or $100 or $200 or $1,000 and beyond, be assured your selflessness will matter greatly to the causes you wanted defended against the Wokia, the SJWs, the CRTers, and the entire stinking lot of crypto-socialists who are trying to strut their totalitarian stuff on Old Glory. Please donate here, and by check, if that’s your preference, make it payable to “National Review” and mail it to: National Review, ATTN: Webathon, 19 West 44th Street, Suite 1701, New York, N.Y., 10036. And do that with our immense gratitude.",-0.3704506957725969
"National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr.

With your help, we’ll be fully supplied for the fights ahead.

Bill Buckley had the answer to the vital question, where would this movement be but for NR’s readers?

Tucked away in the files is an early 1990s memo from Bill to National Review’s directors discussing the corporation. I am reminded of this now, as we approach the midpoint of our March webathon — which seeks to raise $250,000 (if at all possible, more) to offset costs and especially to help fund our free-speech legal fight (now in year eight!) against Michael Mann.

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In the memo, Bill spent some paragraphs putting his ownership into perspective, almost spiritually. He said he believed he owned NR’s voting shares (he did — all of them!) in behalf of the magazine’s supporters. His rationale was simple: Had our readers not, year after year, kept the flame lit, there would have been no National Review to own.

Bill wasn’t alone in this view, and why should he have been? The facts, after all, are the facts. Indisputable. And scary, as Bill Rusher explained in his 1984 history, The Rise of the Right: A very young NR might have never seen its fifth anniversary (we just celebrated our 65th).

The excerpt is a tad lengthy, but it’s a good read, and if you enjoy NR history, well, this will get you all hot and bothered:

Unfortunately, though, my early years at National Review coincided with deepening financial problems that threatened to destroy the publication. The projected advertising revenues failed to materialize. For a time various individual members of the Buckley family chipped in with what one of them bravely called “fives and tens” (thousand dollars, that is); but in point of fact, the collective family fortune was simply not capable of sustaining indefinitely a magazine that was already losing $100,000 a year. Sales of stock and debentures to “investors” willing to take the predictable capital loss continued to bring in a certain amount of income for a while, but we were soon running afoul of the blue-sky laws of the individual states, which are understandably harsh on money-losing corporations that try to sell securities to their citizens. In desperation, Buckley turned in 1958 directly to the subscribers. In a long personal letter to each of them, he outlined what we hoped for National Review and sketched the financial problems that were threatening its life. In conclusion, he asked for their financial support, suggesting a contribution of $100, over and above the subscription price. Then we sat back and waited — and watched with growing joy and relief as a bar graph set up in the central editorial room of the office inched upward toward our goal. National Review’s subscribers had pulled us through — as they have continued to do in every succeeding year, ever since. National Review has long since ceased to be apologetic about this annual need for a “fund appeal.” A journal of opinion (as I patiently explained to the many free-enterprise enthusiasts who wrote every year to tell us that we ought to stop begging and sink or swim on straight market principles) is not a commercial venture at all and therefore cannot be judged purely in terms of its survivability in a free market. It exists to expound a point of view and to persist in doing so whether or not that viewpoint is popular or commercially self-sustaining. In this respect it resembles a church, or a university, or a political party; and indeed, a journal of opinion partakes, to some degree, of the nature of all three. No wonder, then, that it is a historical fact that no journal of opinion in American history has ever made a profit, or so much as broken even, over any significant period of time. Every one of them has found it necessary to develop some kind of external subvention, and the really remarkable thing about National Review is that it is the only such publication to base its survival on so broad a numerical base of supporters. There are several thousand people in the United States who have contributed substantial sums of money — $100 or more — to National Review, not once but repeatedly, in some cases over a period of many years. At the other end of the financial spectrum is an extremely small handful of wealthy individuals whose contributions have reached five figures; and the largest gift ever made to the magazine at a single time was the bequest, by will, of a section of Kansas farmland that we sold in the early 1960s for $34,000. National Review’s survival, then, is directly traceable to the support of several thousand people whose confidence in it never wavered. All honor to them.

You can still connect those dots to 2021. Also still as true today as a generation ago is Mr. Rusher’s brief, heartfelt conclusion: All honor to them.

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May we include you in them? You in . . . us? We ask, especially if you’ve yet to lend this cause that is NR a show of selfless support. True, we have no claim on your generosity, and true, you have no obligation to us. Not a shred, not a jot or tittle or micron. Nada.

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But . . . we’d like to think you get it.

We’d like to think that you believe the world is a better place for there being NR.

We’d like to think that you believe the world would be a far worse place without NR.

We’d like to think at this time, especially, when sane analysis is at a premium, that NR needs to be like one of those fabled saints, bilocating — in both the public square arguing fiercely and freely as well as at the front lines ferociously fighting the Cancel Culture Stalinists, the Woke Jacobins, and the 1619 Malarkeyists, all of them intent on stampeding our culture, erasing our biology, and shredding our Founding and institutions.

With your help, we’ll be fully supplied, with ample ammo at arm’s length.

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Our webathon goal is $250,000. The deadline is March 29. Frankly, we need to raise twice that amount of support, and twice again. Maybe the original goal — praise God, we are more than halfway to it, thanks to the nearly 1,200 good souls who have responded to our appeal in the past week — was unreachable. Please prove that wrong. Maybe even play a part in proving that figure surpassable.

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If you agree to all above, and if the Buckley/Rusher spirit touches you, and if you concede that yep, it may be your time to buy a round, you will find you can help NR easily and securely by donating here. Do that knowing we contend no contribution is too small, and none is too grand, and anything donated will see to the defense of our principles and the defeat of their enemies.

Please let it happen, that you become us. While the foes of liberty cringe at the thought, we happily anticipate and await your camaraderie.

All honor to you!

If you would like to make a donation to National Review by check, please make yours payable to “National Review” and mail it to National Review, ATTN: Webathon, 19 West 44th Street, Suite 1701, New York, NY 10036.",-0.9873094759296802
"(Eachat/Getty Images)

Our movement, which we contend is at one with the principles of The Founding — you know, that thing of 1776, that Commission that the Discombobulated Man from Delaware kyboshed as soon as he wandered into the Oval Office (probably while searching for the basement) — is being sorely contested, on fronts foreign and domestic, on matters cultural and fiscal, and indeed, spiritual, on the sovereignty of borders and the meaning of “states,” on delusions scientific (pay no attention to the chromosomes hiding behind the curtain!) and biological (are there really more genders than Baskin-Robbins flavors?), and catechisms pigmentary. If only to combat the insane but real threat of “H.R. 1” to the Republic, the dangerous but real threat of Red China to the same (and to the whole wide world), the ghastly but real threat of the “Equality Act” to civil rights, your help is needed, right now, to provide material assistance to National Review while it makes the case for reason and right and tradition and heritage and decency. Stop the World, I Want to Get Off say some, as is their right; but we say Fix Bayonets and Charge! as is our duty. Our mission.

We cannot charge, not too far into the enemy lines, without your help. If you are not interested, know that we have not a scintilla of claim to your kindness or generosity. Go in peace! But if you do contend, as we do, that facing us is a battle that requires the efforts of all conservatives, we ask you to consider this: We are in the first days of a webathon, seeking to raise $250,000 — to bring ammunition and support as we fight this epic fight (never mind a contrived court battle in defense of the First Amendment with Michael Mann, now plodding towards its ninth year of contrivance and sloth and seven-figure expense) on behalf of our mutual beliefs. National Review’s beliefs. And your beliefs. To date, we have witnessed nearly a thousand people contributing some $115,000. This is quite heartening. But the goal remains distant.

If you can spare some assistance — selfless and, from us, deeply appreciated — to help us reach it, please do so. Done here, securely. And for those who prefer to send their generosity via the U.S. Mail, please make your check payable to “National Review” and send it to National Review, ATTN: Webathon, 19 West 44th Street, New York, N.Y. 10036. And, again, with our thanks.",-1.279479840650086
"(Thinkstock)

The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has announced the formation of a coalition to promote authentic civic education. The new NAS Civics Alliance will oppose attempts to replace proper courses in American government with politicized “action civics.” Most conservatives still haven’t even heard of action civics, where K-12 and college students are required to protest and lobby for (invariably leftist) political causes for course credit. At a moment when the public and legislators are eager to restore long-neglected civic education, radicals are attempting to smuggle partisan leftist activism into K-12 education under the misleading label of “civics.” The new NAS Civics Alliance aims to block these moves and restore genuine civic education instead.

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The NAS Civics Alliance announced its formation with an introductory essay from NAS President Peter Wood, an Open Letter and Curriculum Statement signed by members of the alliance, and a page where anyone can sign the Open Letter and join the alliance.

The Open Letter warns against the rise of action civics in states like Massachusetts and Illinois, and new attempts to nationalize the practice. The Civics Curriculum Statement lays out a range of positive alternatives, while being careful not to endorse any specific program. The NAS Alliance, for example, makes no attempt to force a single solution on the complex question of precisely how to balance state-level mandates with local school-district control. On the other hand, the NAS Civics Alliance clearly endorses the Partisanship Out of Civics Act (which I authored) as a model for legislation which would ban action civics at the state level. Opposition to the politicization of civic education is the alliance’s unifying theme.

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You can see the initial members of the NAS Civics Alliance by scanning the names at the bottom of the Open Letter and Curriculum Statement. I will note a few of the signatories (of which I am one).

A number of signatories are leaders of, or residents at, nationally influential think tanks, such as Katherine Gorka of the Heritage Foundation; Sam Karnick of the Heartland Institute; Terry Stoops of the John Locke Foundation; and Ryan Williams, president of the Claremont Institute. Other signatories lead or are situated at think tanks with national profiles but a particular focus on state-level education issues, such as Jamie Gass of Boston’s Pioneer Institute (which led the battle against action civics in Massachusetts); John Hinderaker, president of Minnesota’s Center for the American Experiment; Tom Lindsay of the Texas Public Policy Foundation and one of the foremost critics of action civics; and Jenna Robinson, president of North Carolina’s Martin Center.

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A number of signatories have expertise in education policy at the national and states levels, such as Mark Bauerlein of First Things, a prolific commentator on all aspects of education; John Fonte of the Hudson Institute, with decades of expertise on standards for teaching history and civics; George Leef of the Martin Center, familiar to Corner readers for his work on higher education; Arthur Milikh, director of Claremont’s new Center for the American Way of Life and a leading critic of higher education; Joy Pullman, executive editor of The Federalist and a particularly knowledgeable critic of Common Core; Christopher Rufo, director of the Center on Wealth and Poverty and perhaps the leading journalistic adversary of Critical Race Theory; Sandra Stotsky, who created the superb Massachusetts Social Studies Standards later gutted by advocates of action civics in that state; and Robert Woodson, president of the Woodson Center and leader of 1776 Unites, along with the NAS, the leading group pushing back against the 1619 Project.

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Some signatories are scholars or administrators, such as Mary Grabar, who has published a powerful critique of Howard Zinn; Brown University’s Glenn Loury, a well-known public intellectual whose regular dialogues with John McWhorter and other scholars are well worth your time; Wilfred McClay, whose magisterial book, Land of Hope, provides a genuine alternative to boring and left-biased American history textbooks; Robert Paquette, historian of slavery and president of the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization; Pete Peterson, dean of Pepperdine’s School of Public Policy, one of the rare academic institutions that takes a commitment to intellectual diversity seriously; and Hillsdale’s Paul Rahe, a superb scholar of the Western tradition.

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Members of the NAS Civics Alliance also include noted editors and publishers at national publications, like Roger Kimball of The New Criterion and Chris Buskirk of American Greatness.

Theodor Rebarber, well-regarded education policy expert and CEO of the new nonprofit, American Achievement Testing (AAT), is a signatory of particular interest since AAT is creating a U.S. history curriculum around McClay’s Land of Hope, and will likely follow up with a curriculum in American government, both of which would provide positive alternatives to the troubling turn taken by some of the latest versions of civic education.

Sue Peterson, a member of the South Dakota House of Representatives and a pioneer in efforts to bring intellectual diversity to America’s college campuses, is yet another signatory, with luck the first of other state legislators to join the coalition.

Eunie Smith, Phyllis Schlafly’s long-time colleague and Schlafly’s successor as head of Eagle Forum, is another signatory of note. Education has long been a top priority for Eagle Forum, which has grassroots chapters active on the issue in a great many states.

The NAS Civics Alliance, unfortunately, has more than enough battles to wade into. A profoundly misguided effort to nationalize action civics is well underway. Two federal bills that would channel well over a billion dollars to action civics and critical race theory have just been introduced. Battles are just now breaking out at the state level as well. (I’ll be writing about those shortly.) Radicals have been building the movement to replace authentic civic education with leftist political protests for decades. Conservatives and moderate liberals are only just now catching on, and the hour is late.

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With the formation of the NAS Civics Alliance, however, much-needed pushback against action civics has well and truly begun. Explore the links and see if you’d like to join.",0.7152844688144028
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Today, Kevin Williamson has written a column arguing that we actually could use a Department of Education — among other reasons, to combat the rising threat from China.

I would advise reading his whole piece to consider his argument. But to be clear, Kevin acknowledges that, “The actual Department of Education we have exists primarily to service the interests of the largely unionized public-school personnel who do irreplaceable work funding and staffing Democratic political campaigns. It also maintains a sideline interest in Kulturkampf.” And he laments that it has devolved into a jobs program rather than one that actually invests in educating children.

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Yet all of those things that Williamson imagines we could remove from the department are endemic to any large federal agency. Saying we need a Department of Education, but a less wasteful and more effective one, reminds me of the old argument that communism was a great theory, but just wouldn’t work in practice. (Not that I am accusing Kevin of being a closet commie.)

The problem with the Department of Education — aside from the fact that it goes well beyond the founding vision for the role of the federal government — is that it removes too many decisions from the local level, where parents can have more influence and where they retain the ability to move to if they don’t like the decisions of their local governments. Under the current model, taxpayers send money to Washington, which then squanders it, and sends a smaller amount back to states, often with directives.

Because it is federal, as the administration changes, the personnel have the ability to impose their vision on the whole country. That means that liberals had to (from their perspective) suffer for four years when Betsy DeVos was leading the department, and now conservatives are bracing for whatever the Biden administration is going to cook up. Even if the department could be completely reformed in the way Kevin suggests, there is no way that new model would survive one term of liberal governance.

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In reality, the Department of Education should have never existed, it should have been abolished decades ago, and there is no plausible way to turn it into something useful.",-1.254280533827266
"Just not this one.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE C onservatives have hated the Department of Education since it was founded, and before it was founded, we preemptively hated the notion of it.

It is not difficult to see why.

The Department of Education was a Jimmy Carter project, and Ronald Reagan ran in 1980 promising to abolish it. Tip O’Neill, the Democratic Speaker of the House and principal architect of those “Reagan deficits,” had other ideas, and, though Reagan kept up the pressure (in his 1982 State of the Union speech, he promised to “dismantle” the department), he was unsuccessful. When Reagan ran for reelection in 1984 (winning 49 states in …",0.24429207737137926
"Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta, Ga. (Tami Chappell/Reuters)

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris visited the CDC headquarters in Atlanta today as the agency announced new social-distancing guidance saying it was safe for students to maintain three feet of separation from other students, rather than six feet.

The decision, which came after several studies demonstrated three feet was a safe distance for students, was seen by many as a big help in getting schools open, particularly in districts with space constraints that make it challenging to maintain six feet of social distancing.

Yet anything that may make it easier for schools to reopen is bad news to teachers’ unions, which have been fighting tirelessly to keep schools closed even in the face of science saying it is safe to do so, even seeing the growing toll it is taking on students’ emotional well-being, and even though distance learning has been catastrophic academically.

As a result, it didn’t take long for the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, to say it was “concerned” about the announcement:

At first glance, the change to three feet distance for students in classrooms will be particularly challenging for large urban school districts and those that have not yet had access to the resources necessary to fully implement the very COVID-19 mitigation measures that the CDC says are essential to safe in-person instruction, no matter how far apart students in classrooms are. And while distancing is one important strategy, we must also continue to prioritize all mitigation strategies including vaccinations, wearing masks, hand washing, healthy school buildings and a system of testing, tracing, and quarantining. For the sake of public trust and clarity, we urge the CDC to provide far more detail about the rationale for the change from six feet to three feet for students in classrooms, clearly and publicly account for differences in types of school environments, new virus variants, differences in mitigation compliance, and how study participants were tested for the virus. We are concerned that the CDC has changed one of the basic rules for how to ensure school safety without demonstrating certainty that the change is justified by the science and can be implemented in a manner that does not detract from the larger long-term needs of students.

Unionized teachers have used every trick in the book to avoid doing their jobs — in some districts they are refusing to teach in person even after cutting in the vaccine line. Now, they have moved on to professing concern that Biden’s CDC is not following the science.",1.229296976128331
"The Golden Gate Bridge and the skyline of downtown San Francisco, 2016. (Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports)

A member of the San Francisco School Board referred to Asian Americans as “house n****r[s]” in a 2016 tweet thread, in a comment highlighted by the organizer of a movement to recall her.

Alison Collins, who serves as vice president on the school board, published a long Twitter thread in December 2016 in which she explained her intention “to combat anti-black racism in the Asian community at at [sic] my daughters’ mostly Asian Am[erican] school.”

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Collins accused “many Asian American Ts, Ss, and Ps” — teachers, students, and parents — of promoting “the ‘model minority’ BS” and of using “white supremacist thinking to assimilate and ‘get ahead.’”

“I even see it in my FB timeline with former HS peers. Their TLs are full of White and Asian ppl. No recognition #BlackLivesMatter exists,” she stated, before describing how her daughter had experienced Asian-American boys teasing a Latino classmate. “She spoke up when none of the other staff did,” Collins recalled. “The after school counselor was Asian. :/”

She then demanded to know “[w]here are the vocal Asians speaking up against Trump?”

“Don’t Asian Americans know they are on his list as well?” Collins continued. “Do they think they won’t be deported? profiled? beaten? Being a house n****r is still being a n****r. You’re still considered “the help.”

The entire thread was highlighted by a parent-led group titled “Recall SF School Board.”

30 REASONS TO RECALL THE SF SCHOOL BOARD 19. Commissioner Collins appears biased against Asian Americanshttps://t.co/lX2Q0IhFyw pic.twitter.com/LyAe6gty13 — Recall SF School Board (@recallsfboe) March 19, 2021

In a subsequent press release, the organization called the tweets “unacceptable for any elected school official, but especially so in a school district where over a third of the children are Asian.”

Siva Raj, one of the two organizers of the group, told National Review that Collins’ comments shed additional light on the board’s decision to eliminate merit-based admission at Lowell High School — the best high school in the district — and replace it with a lottery system.

“The district’s about a 30-34 percent and Asian American, Lowell is about 55 percent — Asian American kids tend to do better on merit based admission scores,” he explained. “Ever since the recall campaign started, one of the things we’ve been trying to understand and kind of clarify is that this whole decision was made with the best intent . . . and now we can understand why: there seems to be deep seated prejudice against the Asian American community.”

“It’s unacceptable for our elected leader, any elected leader, to have such high degree of personal animosity towards any ethnic minority in this country,” he continued. “Let alone someone who’s on our school board, who’s making day-to-day decisions on the safety and welfare of all our children. I would expect her to be absolutely, completely 100 percent unbiased.”

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Collins, who joined the San Francisco school board in 2018, has personal ties to the public school system, which “helped her mother rise out of poverty, and helped her father become one of the first Black professors at UCLA,” per her bio. On her personal website, Collins notes a number of initiatives she participated in to aid Chinese-speaking students and their families.

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She told National Review that “I’m not going to comment on social media posts from five years ago,” adding that she has “been heartbroken seeing the escalating violence against my Asian-American brothers, sisters and siblings.”

“What has been even more upsetting is seeing the ways that the media often erase the true nature of the problem,” she continued. “Seeing hate crimes labeled ‘sex addiction’, and seeing videos of police and EMTs responding to the needs of perpetrators of violence while overlooking the needs of the people they target is telling. This isn’t just about one or two incidents circulating in the news cycle—it’s a pervasive culture. One we must all collectively name and dismantle.”

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In explaining the decision to change the admission standards at Lowell, which was also a school being considered for a name change by the school board, Collins explained in a February blog post that it was a “key contributor” to “the problems with racist abuse and discrimination at the school,” and referenced infamous antiracist proponent Ibram X. Kendi.

“Folks who argue that changes to admissions policies are unfair are also uninformed of the relationship between test-based admissions policies and racist discrimination educators have been discussing for decades,” she explained. “In fact, the resolution cites testimony Ibram X. Kendi prepared in support of the Boston School Committees’ decision to eliminate standardized test scores from admissions to Boston’s selective enrollment “exam schools.”

After a January “anti-racism training” at Lowell was hacked and flooded with racist slurs and pornographic images, Collins and the school board moved to make the admissions shift permanent.

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Raj acknowledged the concerns, but said the response aimed “to score political points.”

“There have been incidents of bullying, racism, sexual harassment, all kinds of things that happened to school district over the years that have not really been addressed, that have not really been directly addressed,” he said. “People have been using them to score political points rather than actually addressing the root causes of all of these incidents.”

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated with a comment from Collins.

Send a tip to the news team at NR.",0.8574266877225624
"It’s a vital check on majoritarian excess

The Democrats’ campaign to destroy the legislative filibuster is predicated on three questionable claims.

The first is that allowing a 60-vote threshold in the Senate to cut off debate is antiquated, fundamentally undemocratic, and an impediment to progress that facilitates “minority rule” — by which Democrats mean “federalism.” Now that the Democrats have won a narrow, probably fleeting, majority, they want the unfettered ability to compel an entire nation to live under intrusive partisan generational “reform” bills. This brand of majoritarianism is objectively un-American, undermining the proper constitutional limits of the federal government to lord over states and localities. The filibuster …",0.8284038449183455
Rick and Luke examine how The Declaration of the Seneca Falls Convention changed the course of events to bring the principles of liberty to all Americans.,0.14228553444121475
Rick and Luke examine how The Declaration of the Seneca Falls Convention changed the course of events to bring the principles of liberty to all Americans.,0.27048635400041215
"A man receives a COVID-19 vaccination in Los Angeles, Calif., March 17, 2021. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

Writing in The Atlantic this past week, Brown University economist Emily Oster did what she does best by using data and research to reassure parents. She made an obvious point: By the summer, adults will have been able to get vaccinated and the number of COVID-19 cases will likely be low. Thus, parents should feel okay about taking children on vacation even though the vaccine won’t be available for younger ages yet.

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Given how low-risk children are of developing severe COVID-19, Oster advised that parents should view unvaccinated children as they would vaccinated grandparents. She wrote that, “the best available research indicates that families with young children don’t, in fact, have to live like it’s 2020 until 2022. Parents can go ahead and plan on barbecues and even vacations.”

Naturally, when the story was tweeted out, the mob pounced. Replies accused Oster of being a “monster” and said the article was “irresponsible” and “dangerous” — and that it could even get people killed.

She attempted to patiently respond to her critics, but of course, it was to no avail. Eventually she was forced to throw in the towel and announced, “I’ll be taking a break from Twitter for a week or two.”

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Oster first gained notoriety for her book Expecting Better, in which she harnessed data to push back against decades of alarmism about what behaviors are risky during pregnancy. During the pandemic, she’s been indispensable in compiling data showing that opening schools does not increase spread of the coronavirus in communities. (Typically, the case load in schools has been about the same as, or less than, the surrounding community.)

The angry reaction to her latest completely reasonable article is another demonstration of just how distorted some people’s thinking has become during the pandemic. From the start, it was important to strike a balance between the risks associated with catching or spreading COVID-19 and the risks of sustained lockdowns and social isolation.

The availability of vaccines for adults has greatly reduced the risks stemming from the coronavirus, so there is much less reason to perpetuate an attitude that has deprived children of school, camp, playdates, sports, seeing their extended family, and vacations with their families.

No segment of the population has sacrificed more for this virus relative to their risk than children, and this has had serious emotional consequences for them.

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It was one thing to argue that keeping them cooped up could save grandma. But when grandma has access to a vaccine that is virtually 100 percent effective at preventing hospitalization and death, then the calculus changes. Oster was simply explaining this new reality.",-0.20589659126627205
"Alexi McCammond has been fired from her new position at Teen Vogue, a week before she was set to start:

Alexi McCammond, who made her name as a politics reporter at the Washington news site Axios, had planned to start as the editor in chief of Teen Vogue on March 24. Now, after Teen Vogue staff members publicly condemned racist and homophobic tweets Ms. McCammond had posted a decade ago, she has resigned from the job.

Condé Nast, Teen Vogue’s publisher, announced the abrupt turn on Thursday in an internal email that was sent amid pressure from the publication’s staff, readers and at",-0.43463217427897277
"With dubious accusations of racial bias, the Sussexes take aim at the British monarchy

When Meghan Markle and Prince Harry struck their multimillion-dollar deal with Netflix, the pair reportedly insisted that the streaming service not include them in The Crown, its popular dramatization of recent royal history. Indeed, it would appear that the estranged couple were saving the opening episode of their personal drama for CBS This Morning and Oprah Winfrey.

In a two-hour TV special in March, Meghan spoke to Oprah, woman to woman; then, in the second half, Prince Harry joined them to hold Markle’s hand and repeat her talking points, only less eloquently. All in all, it was a farce, the highlights of …",0.932752914990209
"A student walks across the campus of Columbia University in New York, October 5, 2009. (Mike Segar/Reuters)

Conservatives can, and should, form alliances with liberals committed to free speech to keep it alive.

Last week, I helped launch the Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA), a nonprofit organization comprising college and university faculty members from across the ideological spectrum who are committed to defending each other’s free speech. I am a right-of-center libertarian in my own political views. Many of us on the right are familiar with the rising threat to conservative speech on campuses. Although conservative faculty are a minority on college campuses, theirs is not the only speech under threat in our current political environment. A good-faith review of the steady stream of speech controversies emerging from American university campuses makes evident that suppression of controversial ideas runs rampant on all sides.

Liberal and moderate academics are deeply affected by the erosion of tolerance for dissent on our college campuses. Many of them decline to speak out on controversial subjects precisely because of the fierce intimidation that they face from their own side — and, to be frank, that they all too often face from politicians and activists on the political right. This creates an illusion of ideological conformity. Jonathan Zimmerman of the University of Pennsylvania, a self-described liberal Democrat and a founding member of the AFA, recently described the problem in an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune:

If you’re affiliated with a college or university and it initiates a set of diversity trainings, you probably won’t bring up research suggesting that these trainings either have a negligible impact on racial attitudes or make them worse. People might conclude that you don’t support diversity, period. That’s just too big a risk to take, especially if you don’t have tenure. Or if your university releases a statement condemning acts of police violence, you won’t ask out loud why it didn’t also denounce the rioting that followed some of them. For the record, Biden has condemned both. But if you repeat what he said, dear professor, you might be reviled as a racist by the same colleagues who are celebrating Biden’s projected victory.

For conservatives to win more support from liberal academics on free-speech issues, we must be willing to defend the rights of liberal academics to voice their own dissenting views. As a purely strategic matter, conservatives can build more support for the protection of their own speech rights by making common cause with liberal academics who wish to have their speech rights defended. Free critical inquiry and robust intellectual debate are at the very heart of what universities do, and we should recognize that conservatives and liberals alike have an interest in these universal principles. More broadly, the ability to have conversations across the ideological divide and to tolerate those with whom we differ is essential to living together in a liberal democracy. Universities should be models for how we build healthy communities despite our differences.

Another prominent left-leaning AFA member, Jeannie Suk Gersen of Harvard Law School, has written powerfully about free speech in the New Yorker. In March 2019, she defended her colleague, Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., an undergraduate dean at Harvard who was demonized and had his home vandalized after he agreed to serve as defense counsel for Harvey Weinstein. Gersen explained why this is a troubling sign of the times:

The core of due process is having a fair chance to be heard. This is something I tell my students, in some way or another, almost every day. That same principle, of hearing people out, is the basis of any free society. In all my roles, of teacher, lawyer, and writer, I’ve never been more conscious of the principle’s wider implications. A chill has descended on our intellectual lives—on the positions we feel free to question and express.

It’s worth noting that Gersen’s defense wasn’t enough. In May 2019, Harvard announced that it would not renew the appointments of Sullivan and his wife, Stephanie Robinson, as faculty deans. Sullivan, who is now also a member of the AFA, has come away from his experience with an even more emphatic commitment to free inquiry. As he wrote for the New York Times:

I am profoundly troubled by the reaction of university administrators who are in charge of student growth and development. The job of a teacher is to help students think through what constitutes a reasonable argument. It is a dereliction of duty for administrators to allow themselves to be bullied into unprincipled positions. Unchecked emotion has replaced thoughtful reasoning on campus. Feelings are no longer subjected to evidence, analysis or empirical defense. Angry demands, rather than rigorous arguments, now appear to guide university policy.

I am proud to be allied today with Sullivan, Gersen, Zimmerman, and many other liberal academics in the AFA. All of the organization’s members commit to defending speech rights regardless of whether we agree with the speech under attack. Mutual defense is the only reliable foundation for free speech in academia, media, or any other arena. If we are only prepared to defend the speech rights of those with whom we agree, then we are hardly committed to free speech at all, and we do a disservice to the liberal values that underlie American constitutionalism. The pursuit of truth is impossible unless all views may be presented, defended, and debated. This is why the AFA’s mission statement declares, “A threat to academic freedom anywhere is a threat to academic freedom everywhere.”

The AFA’s cross-ideological nature emphasizes the duty of both the Left and the Right to stand up for each other. It has become too easy to retreat into the familiar comfort of our ideological tribes and to stand in defense only of those with whom we most strongly agree. Neither universities nor a free society can survive like that. Despite our disagreements, we still share common ground. A commitment to free speech should be part of that common ground. Just as I on the right would hope to be defended by my colleagues on the left were my speech under fire, I must also be ready to defend my liberal colleagues — even when, or especially when, their rights are called into question by those considered to be “on my side.” The members of the AFA have banded together in the common cause of supporting professors in their traditional mission of exploring difficult ideas and attempting to advance our understanding of the world, society, and humanity. We also hope to resist efforts to suppress those endeavors, whether the forces of censorship come from the left or the right.

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No professor can be certain that he won’t be next on cancel culture’s chopping block. In fact, many progressives find it particularly difficult to teach classes on the subjects typically seen as liberal, such as gender, sexuality, or police brutality. The landmines are simply too plentiful. The risk of offending the sensibilities of students, alumni, or politicians is simply too great.

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Many of my liberal colleagues in academia believe themselves to be in even greater danger of being silenced than conservatives. Whether they are right or wrong on the relative threat isn’t the point. The point is that the sense of fear in modern academia is pervasive and the threats to free speech are widespread.

Many liberals and progressives are natural and eager allies for conservatives on free speech, and I am determined to continue finding such allies. We need their help, and they need ours. The AFA provides the space for this alliance to develop in the sphere of academia. We should be building such alliances on behalf of liberal values wherever we can.",-0.5795100023096417
"A Customs and Border Protection vehicle patrols along a new section of the U.S.-Mexico border wall in El Paso, Texas, August 27, 2020. (Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuter)

It’s not a matter of resources. It’s a matter of will.

Welcome to “The Tuesday,” a weekly newsletter about language, culture, and politics that almost didn’t come out this week but is here now for your reading pleasure. To subscribe to “The Tuesday,” follow this link.

Patrol the Border

Why is it we do not control our southern border?

Some people say it is the lack of a wall. There are places along our border where barriers are appropriate and useful and places where they aren’t. But we could put up a wall of a different kind — the human kind — tomorrow. The federal government employees 20,000 Border Patrol agents, and our border with Mexico is less than 2,000 miles. That means that we could station a Border Patrol agent every 500 feet or so on the border, or every 1,500 feet if we split them into three eight-hour shifts for 24-hour surveillance. And 1,500 feet is not very far: They could see each other. There are people who can run that far in less than a minute.

Yes, I know we have other borders.

Since we need some of those agents to do other things, we could pretty easily supplement them with volunteers. Harris County (that’s Houston), Texas, and Los Angeles County both have very large volunteer auxiliaries for their sheriffs’ departments (L.A. County has more volunteer sheriff’s reserves than Salt Lake City has police officers), and one gets the distinct feeling that volunteer border watchers would not be hard to come by. Give them radios. They don’t have to intercept anybody — they just have to call it in.

We do not use our resources effectively because there is no incentive to do so. Patrolling the border — actually doing the job — would be hard and tedious work, and thankless for the most part. You see the same pattern across U.S. law enforcement: We do squat to run down straw-buyers and low-level firearms offenders, but we have a gigantic, expensive bureaucratic apparatus to police the trade in firearms at federally licensed retailers, where the owners and the customers are, pretty much by definition, law-abiding people. You probably think the Border Patrol is a law-enforcement agency, but a lot of people think of it as a jobs program, the same way they think of the schools and prisons (which increasingly resemble one another in their architecture and management). I have heard the same story from any number of embittered young police officers: They thought they were signing up to be protectors and guardians, and then found out two years in that they were mostly tax collectors. But they stay in the job.

Getting control of the southern border is not the same thing as getting control over illegal immigration. Many of our illegal immigrants (in some years, the majority of them) do not come into the country by walking over the border illegally. They come legally by land, air, and sea, and then they don’t leave when they are supposed to. Those illegal immigrants, like the ones who cross the border on foot, come and stay for different reasons: many of them, but by no means all, for work; others to be reunited with family living here; others because of the simple raw desperation of living in one of the unhappier corners of this world, where there is no hope of improvement. People respond to incentives.

That we should be sympathetic to their situation and that we should enforce our laws are not mutually exclusive propositions. It is certainly the case that our lax attitude toward illegal immigration makes their lives worse in some ways — it is an attractive nuisance that leaves them in thrall to human traffickers, organized-crime bosses on both sides of the border, unscrupulous employers, etc. For them to be in the United States is a near-guarantee of poverty and puts them at very high risk for various awful kinds of exploitation. The Biden administration is not doing anybody any favors by signaling its intention to loosen up Trump-era practices. People — I repeat — respond to incentives.

Illegal immigrants who come to the United States for work should be the easiest ones to police — but we don’t do it. A mandatory system for verifying employment eligibility (E-Verify or similar) would get most of that job done. Frog-march a few meatpacking executives off to the pokey for a few years and start enforcing the law and word will get out. All the complaints that this or that business cannot make it without illegal-immigrant labor are poppycock: We are still going to have farms, hotels, and drywall, even if we start enforcing our immigration laws. If your business cannot make it without violating federal law and holding your workers in semi-serfdom, then your business doesn’t make it. I get the feeling somebody is still going to figure out a way to make a dime selling me an avocado.

Should the United States have a tighter or looser immigration policy? Yes.

We should make it as easy as possible for highly skilled, highly educated, high-income people to come here. They will do highly productive work and start businesses. Immigrants like Elon Musk don’t come here to take Americans’ jobs — they create new ones. But we should also get control of illegal immigration and be forthright about creating a legal-immigration system that is oriented toward the interests of American citizens, just as we would ordinarily expect any other policy to be.

If it were only a matter of labor economics, then I’d be happy to let the markets decide. But people aren’t just units of labor. And though it may not always be as obvious as those disquieting photos of children locked up in detention facilities, our decision — and it is a national political decision — to tacitly encourage illegal immigration is much more profoundly inhumane than it would be to enforce our laws and reform our system along intelligent and decent lines.

We could do that, if we wanted to. But we don’t want to.

In Other News . . .

One of the most entertaining things in observing American politics is watching progressives keep discovering and rediscovering that the Catholic Church believes in its own teachings.

In Other Other News . . .

There is at the moment a very dumb and largely one-sided turf war on the right. It is mostly an intra-media thing, and it produces some strange results: My colleague Mark Krikorian was scandalized that my colleague Jack Butler had the audacity to take his own side in a fight. It is very tedious, and I bring it up only because it illustrates something that conservatives need to be thinking about — which is: What is all this for?

There are really two audiences for conservative commentary and conservative journalism. One of those audiences is conservatives, and the other audience is everybody else. Which audience you are after determines a lot about your business model and your politics — and, in some cases, there’s no difference between those.

Fox News, talk radio, a lot of dopey websites and would-be social-media influencers whose main mission in life is trying to get noticed by picking a fight with Jack Butler or David French, the television startups that hope to out-Fox Fox — all of these are in the business of packaging conservatism for conservatives. There is a lot of money to be made, and easeful careers to be had, preaching to the choir. I take the Don Corleone view of this question: I don’t judge a man for how he makes his living, but it’s a dirty business, and I believe that it will destroy us in the years to come. I have a few friends who have traded in their bow ties for red caps. Some of them are true believers, and some of them have been corrupted. Some of them feel a strange compulsion to explain themselves to me: “Yeah, it was a deal with the devil — but I got a really good deal!”

To quote the noted economist Katt Williams: “By all means, make your paper, boo-boo.”

A variation on this is the Tracy Flick school of activism — starting a club for the purpose of giving yourself something to be in charge of. Catholic integralism? That’s pure Tracy Flick. These are the “strategists” and “consultants” who have never had a real paying client, the “institutions” and “organizations” that are mostly social-media accounts, etc.

Conservatism-for-conservatives, telling conservatives what they want to hear, can be really good business — Sean Hannity is seriously rich — and it is based on a conception of conservatism as tribe, conservatism as self-conscious counterculture. For these people, being conservative is an identity, like being transgender or being a religious convert. (Indeed, religious converts, political converts, and transgender people all tell a variation of the same story: “I was blind, but now I see.”) That means that conservatism isn’t a disposition or a sensibility, but something that one is loyal to. Like all tribalism, it is primitive and, therefore, effectively ineradicable. You can’t argue with it.

Politically, it is a losing proposition, as attested to by President Biden, Senators Ossoff and Warnock, Senators Sinema and Kelly, etc.

The other model of conservative journalism or activism is the everyone else approach, one that is directed not at rallying one’s own partisans but at persuading people who are not already self-conscious conservatives, engaging with people as they are and with mainstream institutions. This irritates and enrages tribal conservatives, especially if you’re any good at it. I quote the New York Times fairly often, because it is one of the newspapers to which I subscribe, and I write from time to time for mainstream publications such as the Washington Post. And I hear from my fellow conservatives: “Why would you want to read the New York Times? Why would you want to write in the Washington Post?” Often, this is accompanied by some kind of feral howl about “Georgetown cocktail parties.” (I live in Texas. If memory serves, the last Georgetown cocktail party I went to was Jonah Goldberg’s birthday party a couple of years ago. Bill Kristol was there — it was practically a talk-radio conspiracy theory come to life.) The answer to the silly question, of course, is that I read the New York Times because I live in the United States of America, not in the People’s Republic of Konservistan, and if you want to effect change in the United States and in the world, it matters what other people who read the New York Times and the Washington Post think. It even matters, a little bit, what the people who write for them think.

The value of this used to be obvious: William F. Buckley (who lived and worked “a long time ago,” I am informed) criticized what he called “the Playboy philosophy,” but he also wrote for Playboy. Rush Limbaugh wrote for the New York Times. (His byline was “Rush H. Limbaugh 3d.”) Ronald Reagan didn’t change the country because conservatives supported him — he changed the country because he ran a sensible conservative administration on big-tent principles and won 49 states in his reelection campaign.

(Recount Minnesota!)

Conversely, Trump lost in 2020 and took Georgia down with him because, even though he wasn’t and never has been a conservative, he is a practitioner of conservative tribalism, a counterculturalist down to the medical quackery and conspiracy kookery.

There are three kinds of voters in the United States: committed Republicans, committed Democrats, and everybody else. Two out of three, you win — one out of three, you lose. But if you have a powerful appeal to a tiny share of the population — even if it is only 2 percent — you can make a lot of money and have a pretty big social-media footprint, which will be a big deal until people figure out that it doesn’t mean anything. You can’t do politics with 2 percent, and you can’t do much cultural reform with 2 percent, but you can do other things. And conservatives should maybe think a little about what those other things are the next time somebody tries to sell you some doggie vitamins or a five-year supply of freeze-dried apocalypse lasagna.

Words About Words

“Clinton is rightly regarded a political genius,” Charles M. Blow writes in the New York Times, “with a gift for making the complex plain—‘putting the hay down where the goats can get it,’ as we Southerners say—but he made some huge mistakes for which his party must repent, and that party is well down that road.”

The language of religious conversion is everywhere in our politics (“must repent”) but the language of goat hay is less common. I like the expression, and I will take Blow’s word for it that it is something Southerners say. But the only person I can find using the expression — Southern or otherwise — is George Wallace.

Even goats won’t eat that hay.

Rampant Prescriptivism

A limit is a defined boundary or a demarcation; a limitation is a disability. Intention and intent are pretty nearly interchangeable, with intent having a slightly stronger connotation of careful deliberation; a motive is a reason, motivation is an animating force; to be obliged is to be in someone’s debt for a favor, to be obligated is to be formally required to do something. “I had a motive to kill him but lacked the motivation. There was no limit to what I would countenance, but my aversion to risk was a limitation. I was intent on revealing nothing about my intentions. When Richard canceled the meeting, I was much obliged to him for liberating me from the obligation to attend.”

Send your language questions to TheTuesday@NationalReview.Com

Home and Away

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In Closing

A thought: If you rush to social media or the comments section to inform the world how much you don’t care about Harry and Meghan, you care a great deal about Harry and Meghan.

To subscribe to “The Tuesday,” follow this link.",0.8734510552211628
"FILE -- In this Feb. 2, 2021 file photo, Pope Francis celebrates a Mass with members of religious institutions on the occasion of the celebration of the World Day of Consecrated Life, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. The Vatican has decreed, Monday, March 15, 2021, that the Catholic Church cannot bless same-sex unions since God “cannot bless sin.” The Vatican’s orthodoxy office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a formal response to a question about whether Catholic clergy can bless gay unions (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, pool)

FILE -- In this Feb. 2, 2021 file photo, Pope Francis celebrates a Mass with members of religious institutions on the occasion of the celebration of the World Day of Consecrated Life, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. The Vatican has decreed, Monday, March 15, 2021, that the Catholic Church cannot bless same-sex unions since God “cannot bless sin.” The Vatican’s orthodoxy office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a formal response to a question about whether Catholic clergy can bless gay unions (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, pool)

The Vatican’s declaration that same-sex unions are a sin the Roman Catholic Church cannot bless was no surprise for LGBTQ Catholics in the United States — yet it stung deeply nonetheless.

Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, said her organization’s membership includes same-sex couples who have been together for decades, persevering in their love for one another in the face of bias and family rejection.

“The fact that our church at its highest levels cannot recognize the grace in that and cannot extend any sort of blessing to these couples is just tragic,” she said.

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She was responding to a formal statement Monday from the Vatican’s orthodoxy office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, saying Roman Catholic clergy may not bless such unions since God “cannot bless sin.” It was approved by Pope Francis.

“Having sin be explicitly included in this statement kind of brings us back to zero,” said Ross Murray, who oversees religious issues for the LGBTQ rights group GLAAD.

He expressed dismay that “the ability for us to live out our lives fully and freely is still seen as an affront to the church or, worse yet, an affront to God, who created us and knows us and loves us.”

Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for greater LGBTQ acceptance in the church, said that if those priests who have already been blessing same-sex unions now stop doing so, lay Catholics could be moved take their place.

“If priests and pastoral ministers no longer feel they can perform such a blessing, the Catholic laity will step in and perform their own rituals,” DeBernardo said. “The toothpaste is out of the tube, and it can’t be put back inside.”

The Rev. Bryan Massingale, an openly gay Catholic priest and professor of theology and social ethics at Fordham University, said priests who want to engage in pastoral outreach to the gay and lesbian community “will continue to do so, except that it will be even more under the table ... than it was before.”

For Catholics in same-sex relationships, he said, the Vatican’s new message will hurt.

“Every human being is born with this innate desire to love,” he said. “For those who are oriented toward members of the same sex ... to have it being described as inherently or innately sinful without any qualification, that is crushing.”

The Rev. James Martin, another priest who advocates for greater LGBTQ inclusion in the Catholic church, said in a post on Twitter that he received dozens of messages from LGBTQ people on Monday saying they were discouraged by the Vatican’s pronouncement. He urged them not to despair.

“Besides, what is the alternative?” he asked. “To live in fear of the future that God has in store for us?... To doubt that Jesus is on the side of those who feel in any way marginalized?”

Vatican doctrine holds that gays and lesbians should be treated with dignity and respect, but that gay sex is “intrinsically disordered” and that same-sex unions are sinful.

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Natalia Imperatori-Lee, a professor of religious studies at Manhattan College, said those teachings, put together, are problematic.

“It boggles the mind that the hierarchy can affirm that LGBTQ+ persons are made in the image of God but that their unions are a sin,” she said via email. “Are they made in God’s image with the exception of their hearts? With the exception of their abilities and inclinations to love?”

Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of the U.S.-based NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, said she was relieved the Vatican statement wasn’t harsher.

She interpreted it as saying, “You can bless the individuals (in a same-sex union), you just can’t bless the contract.”

“So it’s possible you could have a ritual where the individuals get blessed to be their committed selves.”

The Vatican’s pronouncement was welcomed by some church conservatives, however, such as Bill Donohue, president of the New York-based Catholic League.

Full Coverage: Religion

“There will be no recognition of homosexual unions or marriage by the Catholic Church. It is non-negotiable. End of story,” he said.

“Pope Francis has been under considerable pressure by gay activists, in and out of the church, to give the green light to gay marriage,” Donohue added, calling Monday’s statement “the most decisive rejection of those efforts ever written.”

Francis has endorsed providing legal protections for same-sex couples, but that is in the civil sphere and not the church.

Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean advocate for sex-abuse victims who is gay, reported in 2018 that when he met with Francis, the pope had told him, “God made you like this, and he loves you.”

On Monday, Cruz said the Vatican officials who issued the new statement “are completely in a world of their own, away from people and trying to defend the indefensible.”

He called for a change in the leadership of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, saying it was undermining efforts by Francis to create a more inclusive church.

“If the church and the CDF do not advance with the world ... Catholics will continue to flee.” he said.

In Francis’ homeland of Argentina, LGBTQ activist Esteban Paulon said earlier statements by the pontiff conveying empathy and understanding for gays and lesbians were mere gestures, lacking any official weight.

“They were not institutional pronouncements,” said Paulon, executive director of the Institute of Public Policies LGBT+. “Saying that homosexual practice is a sin takes us back 200 years and promotes hate speech that unfortunately in Latin America and Europe is on the rise.”

Chile’s largest LGBTQ rights group, the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation, condemned the decree as a “homophobic and anti-Christian action” from the Catholic hierarchy.

Spokesman Oscar Rementería contrasted the Vatican’s stern rhetoric against same-sex marriage with the many documented cases of Catholic leaders covering up child sex abuse committed by clergy.

___

Associated Press writers Eva Vergara in Santiago, Chile; Almudena Calatrava in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Nicole Winfield in Rome and Mariam Fam in Cairo contributed to this report.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation U.S. The AP is solely responsible for this content.",0.7751868739584252
"(trekandshoot/Getty Images)

The other day, Jack Butler criticized a new group for young conservatives called American Moment. Jack’s critique struck me as hasty and uncharitable.

The first sentence of the group’s mission statement, as Jack acknowledged only late in his piece, is “to identify, educate, and credential young Americans who will implement public policy that supports strong families, a sovereign nation, and prosperity for all.” This is literally the reason for the organization. Jack deprecates this goal of cultivating young cadres to staff the offices of populist conservative congressmen (and, hopefully, a future Republican administration) as based on “the dehumanizing logic of administrative bureaucracy” and a sign that the principals of American Moment merely want to get a piece of the Swamp action.

But personnel problems were a serious handicap for the prior administration, arguably the flaw that limited its impact and contributed to President Trump’s defeat. Someone, after all, has to man the bowels of government, and this challenge is greater for conservatives since bureaucracies tend to the left, conservatives being more likely to gravitate to the private sector. Rachel Bovard (a member of American Moment’s advisory board) examined the personnel problem at length as part of American Compass’s post-mortem for the Trump administration. The paragraph in her piece that’s most relevant here is this:

External forces will plague all future White House staffs, with those seeking the most direct challenge to the status quo facing the strongest pressure. The best immunization is a community and institutions that build cohesion and loyalty, both internally and to the shared policy agenda. Bad personnel choices are always a risk, but good ones will never be better than the pool from which they are drawn.

Maybe American Moment will fail at its goal of contributing to such a community and cultivating such a pool of talent, but it’s clearly an urgent task, and the young organizational entrepreneurs who started the group think they can help meet that need. More power to them.

Part of that function is American Moment’s goal of serving as a “credentialing” organization, essentially seeking to develop a brand so that potential employers would know what they were getting when hiring someone with the group’s imprimatur.

One sign of the failure of the current mechanisms for educating and credentialing young conservative foot soldiers, and thus the need for something like American Moment, is the success of people such as Nick Fuentes. It’s not that young people are attracted to his noisome Jew jokes and obsession with the USS Liberty; it’s that they see no one else their age calling for reduced immigration, a less-interventionist foreign policy, and an end to free-trade fundamentalism. We’d better hope American Moment or something like it captures significant market share, because there’s a lot worse than Fuentes out there.

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Jack also seems to suggest that American Moment is insufficiently appreciative of Donald Trump’s shortcomings and his contribution to his administration’s problems. It’s true that the group doesn’t specifically call out Trump, which is probably a prudent move. But I can think of no way to telegraph your fealty to principle over personality — to “sort out Trump’s vices from his virtues”, as Jack put it — than to feature Jeff Sessions as your marquee endorser at your launch party. Sessions is the last person in the world — literally the last person, including even Kim Jong-un — that a Trump-cultist group would embrace.

The point is not that any of us here has an obligation to toe a party line; NR is no one’s PR shop. But when writing a critique — especially of a group whose board includes several people, such as J. D. Vance, who have written for this magazine — to do our best to be fair.",0.42552952360388446
"$\begingroup$

I've been trying to answer my (high school) daughter's questions about the periodic table, and the reactivity series, but we keep hitting gaps in my knowledge.

So I showed that the noble gases have a full outer shell, which is why they don't react with anything. And then over the other side of the periodic table we have potassium and sodium, which have only one electron in their outer shell, which is what makes them so reactive, and at the top of our reactivity list. (And the bigger they get, the more reactive, which is why we were not allowed to play with caesium in class...)

But then we looked up gold, which is at the bottom of the reactivity series, and found it also has only one electron in its outermost shell (2-8-18-32-18-1).

Is there an easy explanation for why gold doesn't fizz like potassium when you drop it in water?

(This question could be rephrased as ""What properties of each element decide their ranking in the metal reactivity series?"" if you prefer; that was the original question we were trying to answer.)",-0.9503785337491418
"It would be difficult to devise a targeted giveaway more likely to inspire popular outrage.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE I f you were to design a legislative provision outrageous enough to inspire another Tea Party-style political uprising, you would be hard-pressed to do better than section 5111 of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.

President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief clunker is full of items with perverse incentives (long-term unemployment top-offs and blue-state pension-fund bailouts) and others that are just obviously injurious (a federal minimum-wage hike which the Congressional Budget Office says would cost 1.4 million jobs). But nothing quite compares to its “Emergency Federal Employee Leave Fund” for the righteous indignation it should arouse in most Americans.

The provision sets …",-1.6226549986445444
"Pandemic Inspires More Than 1,200 New German Words

Enlarge this image toggle caption Tobias Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images Tobias Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images

The pandemic has changed how people talk and write. In English, dictionaries have noted a few dozen new entries and revisions: social distancing, frontliner, super-spreader, ""Zoom"" as a verb.

But in Germany, lexicographers at the Leibniz Institute for the German Language have compiled more than 1,200 new words related to the coronavirus pandemic.

German's propensity for compounding words has been a big part of the proliferation.

For example, Coronamutationsgebiet is an area where coronavirus mutations are widespread. A Geisterveranstaltung (ghost event) is an event with no people in attendance, usually sports. Live music is allowed, provided the audience remains in their cars, at an Autokonzert.

New nouns are often formed in German by combining two or three nouns, says Anatol Stefanowitsch, a professor of linguistics at the Freie Universität Berlin.

""That's one of the explanations for why we find so many new words,"" he tells Scott Simon on Weekend Edition. ""It's just so easy to coin them. Many of these words disappear again after they've been used once. But some of them have stuck around.""

There are several variations on ""face mask.""

Mundschutzmode includes ""Mund for mouth, Schutz for protection and Mode as a term for fashion. So a literal translation would be mouth protection fashion,"" Stefanowitsch says.

But Germans have also referred to a Gesichtskondom — a ""face condom,"" which he notes creates a ""novel image"" in your head. Behelfsmundnasenschutz would be an ""improvised mouth nose protection.""

Maulkorb, or muzzle, is not on the list of new words. But people opposed to mask requirements are using the word muzzle in a new way: ""to portray adherence to sensible public health measures as an act of submission under an authoritarian government,"" Stefanowitsch says. ""So that's been a stroke of genius from their perspective.""

Only a small fraction of new pandemic words will likely make it into the dictionary. He thinks the ones that are most precise have more lasting potential.

""Kontaktbeschränkungen, contact restrictions, and Ausgehbeschränkung, going out restrictions, those are interesting,"" he says.

""One of the things that the pandemic has really shown us is that people have been trying to differentiate linguistically, trying not to use too strong a word for a measure but also not trying to make it sound too harmless. And so I think those words, they're interesting, because they show the function of language and the potential of language to create ever smaller distinctions in meaning to try to get things exactly right.""

There's also a deeper emotional aspect of all this new language, according to one of the researchers at the Leibniz Institute.

""When new things happen in the world [we] look for a name,"" Christine Möhrs told The Guardian. ""Things that do not have a name can cause people to feel fear and insecurity. However, if we can talk about things and name them, then we can communicate with each other. Especially in times of crisis, this is important.""

Peter Breslow and Kitty Eisele produced and edited the audio version of this story.",0.06793360932666678
"“Fiscally conservative” conservatism may hold the idea of government-provided health care or payments aimed at family formation at arm’s length (for fear of “enabling dependency”), but many voters don’t. The conservatism that was seemingly agreed upon by the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute and National Review was not the conservatism that Mr. Trump sold to the American people.

Mitt Romney campaigned in 2012 on being “severely conservative” and lost. Mr. Trump campaigned on a self-serving redefinition of what it even means to be conservative and won. After all, as Mr. Trump told ABC News in early 2016, “this is called the Republican Party, it’s not called the Conservative Party.”

But what Mr. Trump was for, and what his voters supported, was not the populist nationalism generally associated with “Trumpism.” Populist nationalism has a long history in this country. Paleoconservatives like Pat Buchanan, the former Nixon assistant and political commentator, have espoused a blend of America First isolationist foreign policy rhetoric and distrust of perceived culture and political “elites” for decades.

While populist nationalism exists, its existence does not depend on any one individual. Trumpism does. In reality, there is no such thing as Trumpism. “Trumpism” is a retconning of Mr. Trump’s rise to the presidency, a version of the story in which his myriad statements and outbursts and tweets were based on a foundational policy and not on whatever he happened to be thinking about at that moment. What Mr. Trump was for was Donald Trump, and what Trumpism is, is Donald Trump. Put another way: Had Mr. Trump run for the presidency as a “severely conservative” nominee, he probably would have won the nomination just the same.

He did not have a coherent policy platform, because he was the policy platform, the middle finger to perceived enemies and the bulwark against real or imagined progressive assault. Many Republican presidents would have moved the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem or supported a capital-gains tax cut or attempted to wage a Kulturkampf against “cancel culture” or any other wedge issue that provided an unwinnable and unlosable political war to be fought in the Twitter trenches. It is telling that as president, Mr. Trump became a remarkably standard Republican on many issues (his opposition to raising the minimum wage, for example) and received no penalty from his voters or allies. He did not need to fulfill the promises of Trumpism to win their support. He merely needed to be Donald Trump.",-0.13643170106560265
"Dr. Seuss is down for the count — Dr. Seuss Enterprises is now in command.

After a long, if relatively low-key, jihad against the children’s author by left-wing academics and activists, Dr. Seuss Enterprises has announced that it will deep-six a half-dozen of the author’s books, including “And to Think that I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” the first children’s work Theodor Geisel published under the name of his beloved alter-ego.

“Dr. Seuss Enterprises” is a comical name — appending the self-aggrandizing business-school dropout “Enterprises” to the lighthearted “Dr. Seuss,” you might as well call it the Magical Childhood Whimsy Corporation of Zhengzhou — and its craven self-censorship renders it more comical still: a veritably Seussian cartoon caricature of corporate cowardice. This is what happens when you give a little bit of power to the weasels down in marketing and human resources.

The complaints about Seuss’ books are not without foundation. “And to Think that I Saw It on Mulberry Street” contains both language (“Chinaman”) and imagery (slant-eyed figure in a conical hat) that are, for good reason, considered offensive. The other Seuss books on the blacklist have similar language and images.

As it turns out, a man born in 1904 and writing during the Roosevelt administration did not have a racial sensibility or a conception of etiquette identical with our own today. This should come as a surprise to no literate adult, and we do not do anybody — least or all children — any favors by conspiring to keep them ignorant of such facts.

“And to Think that I Saw It on Mulberry Street” contains both language and imagery that are, for good reason, considered offensive. AP

The idea that children are harmed by mere exposure to words and images — rather than educated by such exposure — is pure superstition, but regnant superstition. Hence, even self-consciously anti-racist works such as “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” have been suppressed by school boards and libraries for the crime of accurately portraying the world they were written about. “Of Mice and Men” has come under similar pressure, as have dozens of other works by authors from Shakespeare to Maya Angelou.

And this is not only about verboten words and images: Part of the complaint against “Mulberry Street” was its “centering white childhood,” a social-justice no-no. As quoted in the Los Angeles Times, a parent looking to spare their children the indignity of reading “Huckleberry Finn” — arguably the greatest American novel — complained about its storytelling: “There’s no counter-narrative to this black person dealing with racism and a white person saving them.” This is not about George Carlin’s seven words you can’t say on television — this is about the elimination of ideas and points of view, narratives, and entire bodies of literature.

Americans have always been keen to ban our best books: Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” was banned in Boston on grounds of obscenity; “The Great Gatsby” has been shelved because of its references to drug use. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was challenged when it was published in 1962 and remains targeted today by the little suppressors, who object to a white man having created a troubling Native American character. Some dolts down in Alabama banned “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” because they felt it was unkind to white people, and others have gone after the book for its sexual explicitness.

How these decisions get made is anybody’s guess — Hachette dumped Woody Allen but published a new edition of “Mein Kampf” in 2017. Mark Halperin’s alleged sexual harassment was too much for Penguin Books, which published the Marquis de Sade’s “120 Days of Sodom” under its Penguin Classics imprint in 2016.

Children’s literature has always addressed serious and sometimes troubling themes, from Little Red Riding Hood to “Watership Down.” Dr. Seuss himself created one of the great satires of discrimination with his Star-Belly Sneetches (self-satisfied bigots who lord it over their plain-bellied brethren). Suppressing that which is troubling in children’s literature in order to relieve uneasiness in neurotic adults is an act of intellectual and cultural violence. It proudly salutes the flag of ignorance.

Novels like “The Great Gatsby” and “Of Mice and Men” have been shelved for the depiction of drug use and accurately portraying the world they were written about.

It would be better to publish 1,000 genuinely wicked books out of principle than to suppress one problematic one out of cowardice. But these are cowardly times, with the Seuss people virtually burning their own books even as Amazon disappears controversial political books such as Ryan Anderson’s “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment” and documentaries such as “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words.”

Where does it stop? If anybody ever gets around to rereading T. S. Eliot’s poems, which are interlaced with genuinely nasty anti-Semitism, his heirs will have nothing to live on except royalties from “Cats.”

The Left does not have a philosophy — what it has is an enemies list. And it should tell us something that its enemies include Dr. Seuss.

Kevin D. Williamson’s book “Big White Ghetto: Dead Broke, Stone-Cold Stupid and High on Rage in the Dank Woolly Wilds of the ‘Real America’” (Regnery) is out now.",-1.0117348514640605
"“We’re so disgusted by Republicans that, honestly, if Trump’s not running, we don’t care who wins,” Sany Dash said as she worked at her Trump merchandise booth.

Ms. Dash’s store, Bye Bye Democrats, was bustling on Saturday as CPAC attendees browsed bejeweled MAGA clutches, plush elephants and a tapestry featuring an image of Mr. Trump drinking coffee accompanied by text reading, “The best part of waking up is Donald Trump is president.” (“We’ve sold probably 1,400 Nancy Pelosi toilet paper rolls here,” she said. “Our toilet paper is always a hit.”)

Yet Ms. Dash, an Indian-American from New York who called herself a “Day 1” Trump supporter, appeared angrier at the moment at Republicans, and specifically at Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who has urged her party to break with the former president. Ms. Dash said she was preparing to open a store in Wyoming in the next two months and call it Bye Bye Liz.

“Liz Cheney is a descendant of a warmonger,” she said. “Sorry, we got into war with Iraq, and so many people died — millions of people’s lives changed.”

She continued: “I don’t care what she has to say now. It’s like the Bush girls in Austin. I don’t care how woke you are in Austin, just because now you get along with Michelle Obama, but your father killed a lot of people. So excuse me, I don’t want anything to do with you people.”

Like all of the dozens of CPAC attendees interviewed, Ms. Dash said she hoped Mr. Trump would run for president in 2024. There are some other Republicans she likes, including Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota — “I like Kristi Noem, because she fights back,” she said, calling her a “female Trump” — but she said she would stick with the G.O.P. only if Mr. Trump, or someone who pledges to lead as he did, was the nominee.

“I mean, I’ve heard the rest of them — if they actually come through, that’s wonderful,” she said. “If they don’t, I’m going to be out of this party, just like everyone else. It’s that simple.”",1.2628524244129555
"A vituperation against federal architecture

France’s greatest building is a church, Notre-Dame de Paris, while India’s greatest building is a royal mausoleum, the Taj Mahal. Our greatest building is a train station, Grand Central Terminal, a monument to a nation in motion, if one built for a future that never quite managed to arrive. It is adjacent to another of the great American monuments, the wildly exuberant Chrysler Building, and only a few blocks from the Empire State Building, the great symbol of American confidence built mostly by European immigrants and Mohawk steelworkers in just 410 days. These are the real monuments to a nation …",-1.139770499529599
"I’m writing from Texas, so I’ll try to finish this column before the electricity goes out.

As you may have heard, we’ve had an unusually powerful winter storm down here and, in spite of the fact that every third household has a four-wheel-drive super-duty pickup truck, Texas has come to a standstill. When a little bit of ice settled on the freeway, a half a dozen people lost their lives in the ensuing 135-car pileup.

Meanwhile, after years of mocking Californians for their self-imposed energy troubles, Texans are experiencing rolling blackouts — and a whole lot of blackouts that refuse to roll on but instead sit obstinately in place — because our power grid cannot keep up with the spike in demand.

As in California, Texas’s energy scarcity is largely artificial: The state produces an extraordinary amount of natural gas, but there has been a woeful underinvestment in infrastructure ranging from pipelines to winterizing equipment at utilities. You may as well not have the fuel at all if you can’t get it to where it’s needed or use it once it’s there.

What Texas has invested in is renewables, especially wind. These have performed especially poorly: The state’s electric-grid regulator reports that though wind and solar still make up a relatively small share of the state’s overall energy mix, they accounted for 40 percent of the capacity shut down by the storm: Out of the 45 gigawatts that went dark, 18 gigawatts were from wind and solar.

Wind is in many ways a good bet for Texas, especially in the western and northern parts of the state, the Saudi Arabia of gales. The sunny parts of the state also generate a fair bit of solar power, which also is welcome. The problem is that these power sources are unreliable. Solar panels don’t work with a couple of inches of snow on top of them, and an icy storm can cause those massive wind turbines to freeze up and stop working. As of right now, most of those Texas turbines are not functioning power sources — they are modern art.

It may seem perverse to think about global warming when it’s so cold outside, but the situation in Texas speaks directly to that question. There are good-faith disputes to be had about climate policy.

The Left wants to use the threat of climate change as a license to remake the entire economy and government along its preferred lines — energy policy, yes, but also everything from transportation to architecture, and from labor law to foreign relations and trade. The argument for replacing natural-gas electricity with wind and solar is that reducing our use of fossil fuels could, if the practice were widespread enough, help to mitigate the effects of climate change already underway.

Karla Perez and Esperanza Gonzalez stay in their apartment during a power outage caused by the winter storm on Feb. 16 in Houston, Texas. Getty Images

But there is another way to look at the question. If the predictions are correct and we are set to experience more extreme weather events, including unusually powerful winter storms, then it may be more advisable to invest in adaptation than in the much more uncertain project of severely limiting greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide, a global effort that would require the willing and honest cooperation of countries such as India and China, which are unlikely to comply.

We have a great deal of natural gas in the United States, but we have an infrastructure that is inadequate, which makes much of that fuel useless in a situation such as this one. We need more oil-and-gas pipeline capacity rather than less — an issue the Biden administration is on the wrong side of. Gas-fired electricity plants are much cleaner than coal-fired plants, and they rely on a fuel that we have in abundance. We should be adding gas-fired generating capacity on a large scale. And rather than try to figure out how to run a modern industrial economy on pixie dust and unicorn power, we might invest some of that money in making sure the infrastructure we already have will function in the conditions we can expect.

Out of the 45 gigawatts of power that went dark during the storm, 18 gigawatts were from wind and solar. Corbis via Getty Images

Of course, we could add a great deal of electricity capacity at a very low carbon cost, if we were so inclined: That means more nuclear power — which, unlike wind and solar, provides a reliable baseline of generation. The new flexible reactors being developed by Bill Gates’ TerraPower could be a game-changer — and the challenges to nuclear power are more a matter of finance and regulation than of science and engineering. Making it easier to bring nuclear power online is something that can be fixed by policy.

Climate change is not, in spite of the insistence of some of my conservative friends, a hoax. But conceding the reality of it is not the same as conceding the Left’s far-reaching schemes, up to and including the so-called Green New Deal. Instead, we should be looking at making intelligent, economical decisions that maximize the use of the desirable resources we already have at our command, balancing environmental concerns with other pressing questions, such as being able to keep Americans’ houses heated and their lights on when a little snow falls in San Antonio.

Kevin D. Williamson’s book “Big White Ghetto: Dead Broke, Stone-Cold Stupid, and High on Rage in the Dank Woolly Wilds of the ‘Real America’” (Regnery) is out now.",-1.2655543734037398
"“I’m here for all the chatter tonight,” said Doris Burke, who was calling the game for ESPN.

It was the kind of action that, as much as the tight score, suggested an extra weight to the game. Championship aspirants doing a little early-season mettle-testing. But the attentive viewer might have noticed that the mood was incomplete, and not only because the game, like most in the NBA this season, was held in front of empty stands.

“I miss being close enough to the floor to maybe catch a word or two,” Burke said from her coronavirus-protocol-compliant perch high above the Wells Fargo Center floor while Davis shot free throws.

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“You’re not kidding,” agreed Mike Breen, who was handling play-by-play duties..

The sequence summed up the challenges the pandemic has introduced to their profession — first in last season’s bubble and now across 29 arenas. Broadcast teams either call games remotely (as TNT has done all year to this point, and ESPN has done with a subset of its games) or whisk quickly in and out of buildings, with Zoom interviews replacing pregame stop-and-chats and sideline views giving way to faraway workstations. And as network executives suggest that some of the new logistics may remain even after a return to normalcy, announcers search for the best way to call a game away from the court. How do you make an audience feel close to the action when you aren’t particularly close to it yourself?

Habit and hesitation

The best announcers, at heart, are hosts. Breen’s “Bang!” — delivered when a player caps an escalating series of high-difficulty buckets with a late dagger — gives fans on sofas a dose of the in-arena thrill. Burke’s breakdowns of after-timeout plays and pivot-foot placement offer the advantage of having a seat close enough to see such nuances, and a basketball mind keen enough to pick them up.

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The realities of the pandemic, though, have made the illusion harder to maintain. The Disney World bubble introduced certain types of distance, with no fans at games and announcers working from walled-off booths high above the floor. This season has brought more still. Cavernous home arenas, with scatterings of spectators at most, emphasize the emptiness.

Technology has helped minimize the issues for remote broadcasts. Networks have goosed up their talent’s at-home Internet, keeping signals as clear as possible, and direct video feeds between the play-by-play announcer and analyst help compensate for the loss of in-person glances and shoulder taps. Constant communication among directors, producers and camera operators helps get announcers the shots and intel they need. At-home mixing boards let broadcasters manipulate the volume of their partner’s voice or the piped-in crowd noise in their headsets, to best approximate the real thing.

“It’s way different, but honestly, I’m enjoying the collaboration,” said Brian Anderson, who has spent the season working games for TNT from his Wisconsin home.

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The demands of the new normal have caused industry veterans to rethink the basics of the trade. In the bubble, they would gather for meals and swap strategies; techniques had to be tweaked and habits adapted. Anderson has drawn on his experience calling minor league baseball, where fans often numbered in the hundreds, not thousands.

“I wouldn’t dare lay out” — stop speaking to let the crowd reaction come through — “because it just sounded sad,” Anderson said of those midweek games in Wichita.

Breen, decades into his NBA career, has found himself studying his own tape more than he has in years, gauging how his approach fits the current environment.

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“I’ve always used the fans as part of my calls, and now that’s gone,” he said.

In place of the crowd’s roar is a vacuum that now needs to be filled. The 30-second pause that might have followed a “Bang!” in years past has been trimmed to five. It falls to the broadcasters not only to frame the excitement but to generate it, a task better suited to 20,000 attendees than one voice and a microphone.

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“Sometimes you walk away and wonder: ‘Was I screaming too much? Did I not have enough energy?’ ” Breen said. “You’re just so used to the background music.”

While play-by-play announcers recalibrate their voices, analysts retrain their eyes. When they call games from home, their views of the court are beholden to the angles obtained by camera operators.

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“When you’re there, you can see things — interactions between player and player, player and coach, officials — that you can’t see now because the camera is focused somewhere else,” ESPN’s Jeff Van Gundy said. Running dialogues with production teams, in which broadcasters request certain shots, help matters but can’t match a quick turn of the head for efficiency. Details are in shorter supply.

“When you’re there in person,” TNT’s Grant Hill said, “you’re watching the game, not the monitor. You’re watching facial expressions, body language — the court action can be on one end, and you can look over to the coach on the other end. You take it all in. … That’s different, as great as the views are that are provided for us.”

Loss of connection

Technical issues can largely be elided by craft and character. Burke’s deft shorthand for Kevin Durant’s scoring prowess on Christmas Day — “range and release point” — was worth waiting for. Van Gundy’s idea of requiring masks permanently to cut down on technical fouls fit in nicely alongside his pre-pandemic takes. The hardest thing to re-create, broadcasters agree, is the least tangible aspect of the NBA’s appeal: the sense of interconnectedness and community that animates it.

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“When we cover games, we feel like part of a fraternity,” said Ryan Ruocco, who calls national games for ESPN and Brooklyn Nets games for the YES Network.

Layup lines and chance encounters in the hallways outside the locker rooms once afforded chances to check in on the league’s glut of meta-narratives: player movement, the arrival or departure of coaches, responses to political upheaval. As Kyrie Irving’s absence and the trade for James Harden made the Nets the league’s most talked-about team, Ruocco missed approaching players and staff for casual comment.

“When you have personal access, you’re able to glean so much more,” he said. “The second I make a phone call or shoot a text, that’s already more formal than just passing someone in the hallway.”

Malika Andrews, an ESPN.com journalist who began her broadcasting career working as a sideline reporter in the bubble, and who passed along some of the first on-the-scene reports from the Milwaukee Bucks’ strike in August, credits her work as a print journalist with readying her for the laborious process of pandemic-era info-gathering.

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“It’s funny, when people talk about the lack of access, I’m like, ‘Wow, a player is supposed to sit down before the game for 35 minutes, just with us?’ ” Andrews said. “I’m leaning more into my instincts as a print reporter than into the luxuries that, occasionally, broadcast reporting can bring.”

Still, proximity has irreplaceable perks. Andrews wonders if the story of Big Face Coffee — Jimmy Butler’s ad hoc espresso shop that came to emblematize a strain of stir-crazy humor running through the bubble — would have remained players-only knowledge had it taken place in this season’s setup. And when the Bucks declined to play following the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis., Andrews stationed herself outside their locker room, relaying the tension, grief and gravity of the conversations happening behind the doors.

“What you could capture by being there was so much more than what you can capture through Zooms,” she said.

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Producers and executives are, as yet, unsure what form post-pandemic broadcasts will take. The financial effects of the pandemic have spared neither major sports leagues nor their televising partners, and remote work offers the twin appeals of greater flexibility and lowered costs.

“When you’re innovating, you learn things out of necessity,” said Tim Corrigan, a coordinating producer for ESPN’s NBA coverage, “and you realize, ‘Hey, this could be valuable for us moving forward, in other ways.’ ”

Burke sees a different silver lining to the pared-down travel schedule.

“I’m watching maybe more basketball right now than maybe ever,” she laughed, “and I watch a lot of basketball.”

But she still considers the simple act of being there tantamount.",0.32140367262215763
"What articles of impeachment against some deserving late presidents might look like.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE T he United States might be “A City upon a Hill,” but, for the most part, the ‘mayors’ of that city have been awful. And now that we’ve settled the constitutional question of post-term impeachments, we might begin contemplating the idea of posthumous ones.

Okay, okay — let’s draw the line at actually impeaching the dead, lest the Left get any ideas. But here are some impeachments that should have happened, as a useful Presidents’ Day reminder that most presidents have actually been terrible.

The United States, after all, has been plagued by chief executives, somewhere around half in my estimation, who were …",-0.3246653196337511
"February 15, 2021



President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20500



Dear Mr. President:



The nation’s Governors again congratulate you on your victory and look forward to a working

partnership as we battle these difficult times together. We thank you for the coordination that your

team has already extended to the Governors. We are the front line in the battle against COVID-19

and we will only succeed if we work together.



We have two immediate issues of concern. First, we believe it is essential that the American people

understand the vaccine distribution process and the extent of the effort that governments on both the

federal and state level are extending. There has been an ongoing issue since last year with which we

would ask your assistance. Due to the anxiety created by the demand and supply of the vaccine, it is

imperative that the American people fully understand the process.



Currently the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides public information on a

state and territory level as to the number of vaccines distributed to each state and the number of

vaccinations performed. The CDC reporting mechanism has created unnecessary confusion. We

would ask that the CDC reporting accurately reflects the reality.



The vaccine is delivered and administered through several different programs. By one program, the

federal government administers a program in which it contracts with private pharmacies for

vaccinations in nursing homes and long-term care facilities (LTCF program). The program is not

controlled by the states. Your Administration has started a new federal program to directly deliver

vaccines to certain pharmacies in our states the federal government selects. Your Administration has

also announced another new federal program whereby the federal government will directly distribute

to Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) that it selects. These are three separate federal efforts

beyond our control.



State and territorial governments then receive vaccine allocations for “first doses” and “second

doses” from the federal government. We appreciate transparency, accountability and our

responsibility for the administration of the first and second doses. However, the federal LTCF

program, federal pharmacy program and the federal FQHC program, are federally administered and

beyond the states’ control.



We believe it is important that the CDC in its reporting distinguish between these separate efforts to

avoid confusion and provide a clear understanding to the American people. States also need

visibility into the federal vaccination efforts at the facility level happening in our borders.



Second, we believe that federal decisions to use pharmacies and FQHCs should be coordinated with

state governments. States also allocate doses often to these same pharmacies and FQHCs. We

understand the capacity of the individual entities and we know the range of the individual entities

throughput and their inventory. As usual, some pharmacies and FQHCs are better suited for the task

than others. Following the performance data on these entities is essential. We also know the need in

the respective communities they serve and other efforts in the geographic vicinity. If the federal

government distributes independently of the states to these same entities without state coordination

and consultation, redundancy and inefficiency may very well follow.



We are most appreciative of our relationship with your Administration and Mr. Jeff Zients in

particular, who has been doing great work, and we look forward to working through these issues in a

mutually productive manner. Thank you in advance.



Sincerely,



Governor Andrew Cuomo, New York, Chairman



Governor Asa Hutchinson, Arkansas, Vice Chairman



Governor Charlie Baker, Massachusetts

Member, NGA Executive Committee



Governor Larry Hogan, Maryland

Member, NGA Executive Committee

Governor Kay Ivey, Alabama

Member, NGA Executive Committee



Governor Doug Ducey, Arizona

Member, NGA Executive Committee



Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, New Mexico

Member, NGA Executive Committee



Governor Jared Polis, Colorado

Member, NGA Executive Committee



Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan

Member, NGA Executive Committee",-0.8132679431105811
"In his philippic against advertising, published at National Review Online, Alexi Sargeant writes of a “rebellion” in the form of “artistic guerilla campaigns” against advertising placards on pay phones. (Readers under 30: Ask your parents what a pay phone is.) This is the work of something called Art in Ad Places, which, inevitably, advertises itself as “a collective.” Of course.

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The more plain term for what we are talking about here is vandalism, the destruction of property — even if it is ugly property — by petty criminals for political ends.

A write-up in The Nation finds the group arguing that advertisements for cosmetic surgery and other communications that annoy some feminists are “psychologically damaging visual pollution that is pushed on viewers without their consent.” So is Penn Station in New York and the FBI building in Washington. For that matter, I don’t consent to see the cover of The Nation when I walk by a newsstand. (Readers under 30: Ask your parents what a newsstand is.) Visual pollution? Intellectual pollution? I think they still print The New Republic.

“We need to reclaim the space these ads take up in our attention and our cities.” No, you don’t — it isn’t your space to reclaim. They don’t give Victoria’s Secret that advertising space on the sides of buses. If you want to put the stuff you think (possibly wrongly!) is art in that space, it’s a free market.

Sargeant’s column suggests (and the headline insists) that the alternative here is “public art.” Public art in these United States is more or less exactly what you’d expect when you ask the Philadelphia city council to exercise good taste: garbage, ranging from the hideous to the banal. Public art in practically every American city cursed with it is a scandal, a crime against taste, sense, proportion, and the part of the human spirit that art at its best addresses.

Public art tends to be free of content, for obvious political reasons. If I may quote myself:

Content is controversial because people are controversial. Imagine, if you can, New York City’s attempting to name one of its busiest and most prestigious intersections after Christopher Columbus in anno Domini 2014. The city fathers would have a better chance of naming it for Jefferson Davis. But even a sculpture honoring the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. — surely the most honored American in modern life, if we’re counting street namings — contains rich raw materials for political disputes. The memorial to the Reverend King in Washington proved to be a perfect machine for the mass production of grievance: that the Chinese artist designing the project had once sculpted Mao Zedong and was casting the Reverend King in the style of a Leninist monument, that the stone was imported, that the imported stone was white and therefore inappropriate for depicting a black man, that the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers did not get a sufficient cut of the action, etc. People do not have very strong opinions about the beanhood of the bean as such, or about bright-red steel girders piled together, which under the name of “Joie de Vivre” is the piece of public art that anchors New York’s Zuccotti Park, acting as a beacon for the Occupy Wall Street rabble. But people do have strong opinions about people and about depictions of people, which is perhaps why it once seemed like a good idea to Frank Gehry to design a memorial to Dwight D. Eisenhower that contained no depiction of Dwight D. Eisenhower. (The plans have since been revised.) With a few exceptions, such as Austin’s tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan, it’s far easier to go with a giant clothespin (Claes Oldenburg’s Clothespin — Philadelphia), or a meaningless geometric form such as a sphere (Jim Love’s Can Johnny Come Out and Play? — Houston), than with a person, especially a person of interest.

Ezra Pound, a very fine writer with very bad politics, would have loved this nonsense, being scandalized as he was by the existence of billboards. One goes for a nice walk only to have it ruined when “some foetid spawn of the pit puts up a 30-foot wooden advertisement of synthetic citronade to defile man’s art in road-making and the natural pulchritude of the vegetation,” he fumed. Pound left us an illuminating testament into the refined kind of fascist mind. The idea of putting all of society under political discipline wasn’t — isn’t — just about factories and farms, increasing steel output by 20 percent in the next five years, etc. Fascism is at its heart as much an aesthetic as a politics, one that would see society liberated from the vulgar products of the interaction between property rights, liberalism, and the taste of human beings in their unimproved and unidealized state for synthetic citronade or Brazilian butt lifts had at a discount.

Sargeant, too, would have communications in the public square (which is what advertising is) put under political discipline under the theory that communications that make him uncomfortable are a crime, a species of sexual assault. Hence his call for “legal antidotes” to things like Calvin Klein ads. Recall that the Justice Department under Bill Clinton once investigated Calvin Klein ads as potential child pornography, even though the ads contained no children (and no pornography). The American Family Association, a conservative Christian group, picketed retailers over the ads. Think on that: Those ads may have been creepy and tasteless, but producing child pornography is a crime for which one may be sentenced to 30 years in a penitentiary. The time lapse between “I don’t like those ads” and “We should think about treating those ads as a felony because I don’t like them” was, back in the 1990s, about three weeks.

American public spaces are for the most part very ugly, and ugly advertising is a part of that. (What is it with Texas and billboards for lawyers with dopey nicknames?) We could operate buses with no advertising at all, if riders and taxpayers were willing to make up the difference in revenue, or if transportation authorities were more sober in their finances. But consider that when New York’s MTA decided to forgo alcohol advertising — just booze ads — that cost $2.5 million a year. The New York public-transit riders among our readers are not, I suspect, under the impression that MTA is drowning in excess resources.

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But it isn’t really about money. It’s about: Who, whom? Who decides for whom? Do we decide for ourselves, or do we subject ourselves to political discipline everywhere, including in our thoughts? With all due respect, Alexi Sargeant is a theater director in New York, and I, a former theater critic in New York, very strongly believe that New York theater directors are among the very last people who should be empowered to make aesthetic decisions on behalf of society at large. If the choice is between the ghastly buffoons behind the Public Theater and the free market, I’ll choose the free market. If the choice is between the Cleveland city council and the free market, I’ll choose the free market. If the alternative were the Cleveland city council as advised by the ghastly buffoons behind the Public Theater, I’d look into hiring some trained monkeys.

Say this for Ted Turner: When he didn’t like what people were doing with their land, he bought it and put it to what he believed to be its better purpose. If you don’t like the advertisements in Times Square, pass the hat and put up something more edifying.

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As an alternative, you could mind your own business.",1.9207956475276433
"Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher points skyward as she receives standing ovation at the Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool, England, on October 13, 1989. (Stringer UK/Reuters)

An app company cancels Thatcher following user complaints. But it could be persuaded otherwise.

It is a cliché, but you really, truly should be careful what you ask for.

I use a very helpful app called 1Focus, which I keep on my work computer to block Twitter and other similar websites that might distract me during my work day. It is a nice, simple procedure: You block the site for a specified period of time, and then, if you try to navigate there or click on a link to it (people send me a lot of Twitter links) the page will not come up.

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Instead, you will get a page with some motivational quotations about procrastination and time-wasting. There’s Aristotle (“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self”), Bertrand Russell (“To be able to concentrate for a considerable time is essential to difficult achievement”), Peter Drucker (“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all”), and other figures of that kidney.

And then there is an anonymous quotation: “Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the high road to pride, self-esteem and personal satisfaction.” No attribution.

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These are, of course, the words of Margaret Thatcher.

The left-wing campaign to erase conservatives from public spaces and the public discourse is without limits: It is a project that exists at Harvard and the New York Times, the big book publishers and the social-media companies — but it also descends into the picayune. I suspected that was the case for 1Focus, and, as it turns out, I was correct.

I wrote to the developer of the app, who told me forthrightly that “the Thatcher quote is unsourced because several users got offended and emailed me about how Thatcher was a terrible person.” He included this example:

Can you please take the Margaret Thatcher quotes OFF whatever list of quotes you have that shows up when I go to a blocked site? She’s a despicable human being and it makes my stomach turn knowing I gave money to a company that would acknowledge her in a supportive way like this. You wouldn’t include a Donald Trump quote would you? Please amend this. Please.

Companies respond to the people they hear from. I told the developer that I understood his position, and asked: “How many angry emails do you need to get from those of us who admire Margaret Thatcher to put Margaret Thatcher’s name back on Margaret Thatcher’s words?”

His answer: Three.

I think we can arrange that.

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I don’t want to put his email out there, which I think would be bad manners, and I would be mortified if anybody took this as an opportunity to treat this man discourteously. He answered my questions honestly and directly, which is a hell of a lot more than you could say for the typical ambassador from corporate America. So, send your emails to TheTuesday@nationalreview.com, and I will forward them. Together, we will take a stand for the Iron Lady, who is not here to defend herself.

I’ll also offer my friend at 1Focus an inspirational quotation from our founder, William F. Buckley Jr.: “The largest cultural menace in America is the conformity of the intellectual cliques which, in education as well as the arts, are out to impose upon the nation their modish fads and fallacies, and have nearly succeeded in doing so. In this cultural issue, we are, without reservations, on the side of excellence rather than ‘newness’ and of honest intellectual combat rather than conformity.”

And, since my correspondent will no doubt be catching some grief shortly, a thought from Mohandas K. Gandhi: “Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.”",-0.6269884135497915
"No matter who wins next week, we should expect lots of talk about how many of the norms of democracy broke down during the campaign. One of the clearest losers was legitimate opposition. This has taken many forms, from chants of ""lock her up"" at the Republican National Convention to Donald Trump's suggestion that he might not concede the election to the many violations of the ""Goldwater rule"" to question the sanity of the Republican nominee and his supporters.

As we head into the election itself, we should think about what it means to lose a sense of legitimate opposition, why this has happened, and what might happen after Election Day.

I want to start by noting the distinct and unique state of political parties right now, and how that's contributed to several of the problems our political system seems to be facing. This post is an adaptation of some remarks I gave at Cornell University earlier this week.

After observing what's gone on this cycle, I've come to this conclusion: The defining characteristic of our moment is that parties are weak while partisanship is strong. What we've known about party organizations has long indicated that they are weak, with little to hold over candidates or officeholders.

Theories of parties that move away from the formal structures of the RNC and DNC, emphasizing networks of policy demanders instead, seemed to give parties as organizations a reprieve. But 2016 showed the weakness of the networks approach. This idea suggests that officeholders and the various interest groups that constitute parties — labor, environmentalists, the National Rifle Association, etc. — coordinate to narrow the field to a few choices.

In 2016, we learned the weaknesses of the network method of controlling party politics: Voters do not have to listen to elite signals. Elites do not have to listen to each other's signals. Parties have been stripped (in part by their own actions) of their ability to coordinate and bargain. As I noted back in May, bargaining breaks down when no one has anything that anyone else wants.

The Democratic process went more like we expected — but not entirely. Bernie Sanders's candidacy and its success showed that the coordination process is weak there too. There was nothing particularly wrong with what happened this year — the contest was largely substantive, and Sanders was an unexpected but in many ways conventional candidate. But what happens when there's not a potential candidate like Clinton — famous and powerful? A crowded, uncoordinated field could easily open things up to an inexperienced, unvetted, or extreme candidate.

But while parties as organizations are weak, parties as ideas —partisanship — is strong. This is what studies of Congress — which document the increasing gap between Republican and Democratic votes — are telling us. This is what obstructionist politics tells us. Polarized presidential approval, the Republicans lining up behind Trump — all of this is telling us that party identification matters to people. A lot. And much of these partisan feelings manifest in a negative way, with distrust and dislike for the other side.

This combination is fairly unique in American politics; the only other time it was obtained was in the early republic, when the different sides were clearly opposed and the modern party system had yet to form. And, I submit, it is a particularly dangerous combination — parties can't control whom they nominate. But their adherents — elites and ordinary voters alike — are prepared to support them.

Strong partisanship with weak parties makes for a couple of fairly serious problems for a democracy. The destabilization of institutions, for one. It's hard for institutions — elected ones like Congress, the presidency, or state governments — to have legitimacy when partisan motives are constantly suspect. This is also true for other kinds of institutions, like courts and, as we've seen most recently, law enforcement agencies like the FBI. Citizens view much of what these institutions do through a partisan lens.

Suspicion of institutions doesn't just undermine courts or Congress — it also undermines party politics as a whole. Party politics is really important for democracy; most political scientists still share E.E. Schattschneider's observation that democracy is ""unthinkable"" without parties to do the work of campaigning, to organize stable coalitions, and to help citizens make sense of political choices.

But the mass public seems less sold on them as a concept. Perceptions that partisanship creates division and animosity, and distracts public officials from serving the nation, whether fair or not, send the message that strong parties are bad. And the work that parties do remains invisible. The social and organizational benefits are perhaps even nonexistent in this context. When so many citizens are convinced that parties have a negative impact on politics, it's hard for us to think about revitalizing them, or even reconceiving what strong parties might mean in the 21st century.

Second, while party organizations are concrete, partisanship as an idea is abstract. Partisan identity tells us who shares our beliefs, and it helps to make political meaning, conveying important truths about the world through symbols. It is in these cracks of abstraction that truly pathological politics grows.

In a severe example, Lee Atwater described this when he compared ""coded"" racial appeals to the more overt ones of decades past, noting that when you talk about busing or states' rights, it becomes more abstract. The more abstract party identification is, the more resentment can fester against people whom you do not know or encounter, whose lives you have not considered, but who seem like useful targets for your frustration.

Abstractions allow citizens to ignore the full implications of their views — and to neglect to consider other citizens. This makes it a lot easier to ascribe bad intent to them, or to blame them for your problems.

These problems have the potential to seriously damage the concept of legitimate opposition. Partisanship as a way of expressing both team loyalty and policy beliefs can be very useful. But it needs to be balanced with a sense of the party as an organization — a team in a more concrete, social sense. Team-spiritedness also needs to be balanced out by organizations that have an interest in the next fight: robust party organizations that want to win next time, and believe that they can.

In other words, the norms that we depend on to keep democracy functioning aren't just there or not. They are enforced by political actors, and parties play an important role in this enforcement.

In a forthcoming post, I will take up legitimate opposition in more depth and historical context.",-0.7280386089468011
"Notes from a weekend with Bernie

Marshalltown, Iowa — ‘All foreign-made vehicles park in designated area in rear of building.” So reads the sign in front of United Auto Workers Local 893 in Marshalltown, Iowa, though nobody is bothered much about the CNN satellite truck out front, a Daimler-AG Freightliner proudly declaring itself “Powered by Mercedes-Benz,” nor about the guys doggedly and earnestly unpacking yard signs and $15 T-shirts and rolls of giveaway stickers from a newish Subaru, all that swag bearing the face and/or logo of Senator Bernie Sanders, the confessing socialist from Brooklyn representing Vermont in the Senate who is, in his half-assed and …",0.22315459593852136
"On August 31, 1910, President Theodore Roosevelt visited Osawatomie, Kansas and laid out his vision for what he called a ""new nationalism.""

In the speech, he called for the end of special protections for businesses in government. He declared that anyone who worked hard should be able to provide for themselves and their family, and that no one person was more entitled to special privileges than another. He stood by fair play under the rules of the game ensuring the rules made opportunity available to everyone.

Today President Obama traveled to Osawatomie to talk about some of the very same things. In his speech, the President talked about how this is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and all those who are fighting to get into the middle class. At stake is the very survival of a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, and secure their retirement.

Read President Obama's speech here and read President Roosevelt's new nationalism speech below.

We come here today to commemorate one of the epoch-making events of the long struggle for the rights of man--the long struggle for the uplift of humanity. Our country--this great Republic-means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy, the triumph of popular government, and, in the long run, of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him. That is why the history of America is now the central feature of the history of the world; for the world has set its face hopefully toward our democracy; and, O my fellow citizens, each one of you carries on your shoulders not only the burden of doing well for the sake of your country, but the burden of doing well and of seeing that this nation does well for the sake of mankind.

There have been two great crises in our country’s history: first, when it was formed, and then, again, when it was perpetuated; and, in the second of these great crises--in the time of stress and strain which culminated in the Civil War, on the outcome of which depended the justification of what had been done earlier, you men of the Grand Army, you men who fought through the Civil War, not only did you justify your generation, but you justified the wisdom of Washington and Washington’s colleagues. If this Republic had been founded by them only to be split asunder into fragments when the strain came, then the judgment of the world would have been that Washington’s work was not worth doing. It was you who crowned Washington’s work, as you carried to achievement the high purpose of Abraham Lincoln.

Now, with this second period of our history the name of John Brown will forever be associated; and Kansas was the theatre upon which the first act of the second of our great national life dramas was played. It was the result of the struggle in Kansas which determined that our country should be in deed as well as in name devoted to both union and freedom; that the great experiment of democratic government on a national scale should succeed and not fail. In name we had the Declaration of Independence in 1776; but we gave the lie by our acts to the words of the Declaration of Independence until 1865; and words count for nothing except in so far as they represent acts. This is true everywhere; but, O my friends, it should be truest of all in political life. A broken promise is bad enough in private life. It is worse in the field of politics. No man is worth his salt in public life who makes on the stump a pledge which he does not keep after election; and, if he makes such a pledge and does not keep it, hunt him out of public life. I care for the great deeds of the past chiefly as spurs to drive us onward in the present. I speak of the men of the past partly that they may be honored by our praise of them, but more that they may serve as examples for the future.

It was a heroic struggle; and, as is inevitable with all such struggles, it had also a dark and terrible side. Very much was done of good, and much also of evil; and, as was inevitable in such a period of revolution, often the same man did both good and evil. For our great good fortune as a nation, we, the people of the United States as a whole, can now afford to forget the evil, or, at least, to remember it without bitterness, and to fix our eyes with pride only on the good that was accomplished. Even in ordinary times there are very few of us who do not see the problems of life as through a glass, darkly; and when the glass is clouded by the murk of furious popular passion, the vision of the best and the bravest is dimmed. Looking back, we are all of us now able to do justice to the valor and the disinterestedness and the love of the right, as to each it was given to see the right, shown both by the men of the North and the men of the South in that contest which was finally decided by the attitude of the West. We can admire the heroic valor, the sincerity, the self-devotion shown alike by the men who wore the blue and the men who wore the gray; and our sadness that such men should have to fight one another is tempered by the glad knowledge that ever hereafter their descendants shall be fighting side by side, struggling in peace as well as in war for the uplift of their common country, all alike resolute to raise to the highest pitch of honor and usefulness the nation to which they all belong. As for the veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic, they deserve honor and recognition such as is paid to no other citizens of the Republic; for to them the republic owes it all; for to them it owes its very existence. It is because of what you and your comrades did in the dark years that we of to-day walk, each of us, head erect, and proud that we belong, not to one of a dozen little squabbling contemptible commonwealths, but to the mightiest nation upon which the sun shines.

I do not speak of this struggle of the past merely from the historic standpoint. Our interest is primarily in the application to-day of the lessons taught by the contest a half a century ago. It is of little use for us to pay lip-loyalty to the mighty men of the past unless we sincerely endeavor to apply to the problems of the present precisely the qualities which in other crises enabled the men of that day to meet those crises. It is half melancholy and half amusing to see the way in which well-meaning people gather to do honor to the men who, in company with John Brown, and under the lead of Abraham Lincoln, faced and solved the great problems of the nineteenth century, while, at the same time, these same good people nervously shrink from, or frantically denounce, those who are trying to meet the problems of the twentieth century in the spirit which was accountable for the successful solution of the problems of Lincoln’s time.

Of that generation of men to whom we owe so much, the man to whom we owe most is, of course, Lincoln. Part of our debt to him is because he forecast our present struggle and saw the way out. He said:

""I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind.""

And again:

""Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.""

If that remark was original with me, I should be even more strongly denounced as a Communist agitator than I shall be anyhow. It is Lincoln’s. I am only quoting it; and that is one side; that is the side the capitalist should hear. Now, let the working man hear his side.

""Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. . . . Nor should this lead to a war upon the owners of property. Property is the fruit of labor; . . . property is desirable; is a positive good in the world.""

And then comes a thoroughly Lincoln-like sentence:

""Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.""

It seems to me that, in these words, Lincoln took substantially the attitude that we ought to take; he showed the proper sense of proportion in his relative estimates of capital and labor, of human rights and property rights. Above all, in this speech, as in many others, he taught a lesson in wise kindliness and charity; an indispensable lesson to us of today. But this wise kindliness and charity never weakened his arm or numbed his heart. We cannot afford weakly to blind ourselves to the actual conflict which faces us today. The issue is joined, and we must fight or fail.

In every wise struggle for human betterment one of the main objects, and often the only object, has been to achieve in large measure equality of opportunity. In the struggle for this great end, nations rise from barbarism to civilization, and through it people press forward from one stage of enlightenment to the next. One of the chief factors in progress is the destruction of special privilege. The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows. That is what you fought for in the Civil War, and that is what we strive for now.

At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. In our day it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will. At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value both to himself and to the commonwealth. That is nothing new. All I ask in civil life is what you fought for in the Civil War. I ask that civil life be carried on according to the spirit in which the army was carried on. You never get perfect justice, but the effort in handling the army was to bring to the front the men who could do the job. Nobody grudged promotion to Grant, or Sherman, or Thomas, or Sheridan, because they earned it. The only complaint was when a man got promotion which he did not earn.

Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every man will have a fair chance to make of himself all that in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own and unhampered by the special privilege of others, can carry him, and to get for himself and his family substantially what he has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is capable. No man who carries the burden of the special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that service to which it is fairly entitled.

I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service. One word of warning, which, I think, is hardly necessary in Kansas. When I say I want a square deal for the poor man, I do not mean that I want a square deal for the man who remains poor because he has not got the energy to work for himself. If a man who has had a chance will not make good, then he has got to quit. And you men of the Grand Army, you want justice for the brave man who fought, and punishment for the coward who shirked his work. Is that not so?

Now, this means that our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics. That is one of our tasks to-day. Every special interest is entitled to justice--full, fair, and complete--and, now, mind you, if there were any attempt by mob-violence to plunder and work harm to the special interest, whatever it may be, that I most dislike, and the wealthy man, whomsoever he may be, for whom I have the greatest contempt, I would fight for him, and you would if you were worth your salt. He should have justice. For every special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office. The Constitution guarantees protection to property, and we must make that promise good. But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation.

The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man’s making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have called into being.

There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done.

We must have complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs, so that the people may know beyond peradventure whether the corporations obey the law and whether their management entitles them to the confidence of the public. It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced. Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public-service corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs.

It has become entirely clear that we must have government supervision of the capitalization, not only of public-service corporations, including, particularly, railways, but of all corporations doing an interstate business. I do not wish to see the nation forced into the ownership of the railways if it can possibly be avoided, and the only alternative is thoroughgoing and effective legislation, which shall be based on a full knowledge of all the facts, including a physical valuation of property. This physical valuation is not needed, or, at least, is very rarely needed, for fixing rates; but it is needed as the basis of honest capitalization.

We have come to recognize that franchises should never be granted except for a limited time, and never without proper provision for compensation to the public. It is my personal belief that the same kind and degree of control and supervision which should be exercised over public-service corporations should be extended also to combinations which control necessaries of life, such as meat, oil, or coal, or which deal in them on an important scale. I have no doubt that the ordinary man who has control of them is much like ourselves. I have no doubt he would like to do well, but I want to have enough supervision to help him realize that desire to do well.

I believe that the officers, and, especially, the directors, of corporations should be held personally responsible when any corporation breaks the law.

Combinations in industry are the result of an imperative economic law which cannot be repealed by political legislation. The effort at prohibiting all combination has substantially failed. The way out lies, not in attempting to prevent such combinations, but in completely controlling them in the interest of the public welfare. For that purpose the Federal Bureau of Corporations is an agency of first importance. Its powers, and, therefore, its efficiency, as well as that of the Interstate Commerce Commission, should be largely increased. We have a right to expect from the Bureau of Corporations and from the Interstate Commerce Commission a very high grade of public service. We should be as sure of the proper conduct of the interstate railways and the proper management of interstate business as we are now sure of the conduct and management of the national banks, and we should have as effective supervision in one case as in the other. The Hepburn Act, and the amendment to the act in the shape in which it finally passed Congress at the last session, represent a long step in advance, and we must go yet further.

There is a wide-spread belief among our people that, under the methods of making tariffs which have hitherto obtained, the special interests are too influential. Probably this is true of both the big special interests and the little special interests. These methods have put a premium on selfishness, and, naturally, the selfish big interests have gotten more than their smaller, though equally selfish, brothers. The duty of Congress is to provide a method by which the interest of the whole people shall be all that receives consideration. To this end there must be an expert tariff commission, wholly removed from the possibility of political pressure or of improper business influence. Such a commission can find the real difference between cost of production, which is mainly the difference of labor cost here and abroad. As fast as its recommendations are made, I believe in revising one schedule at a time. A general revision of the tariff almost inevitably leads to logrolling and the subordination of the general public interest to local and special interests.

The absence of effective State, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power. The prime need to is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which it is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise. We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity, when exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows. Again, comrades over there, take the lesson from your own experience. Not only did you not grudge, but you gloried in the promotion of the great generals who gained their promotion by leading their army to victory. So it is with us. We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community. This, I know, implies a policy of a far more active governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country than we have yet had, but I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now necessary.

No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar’s worth of service rendered-not gambling in stocks, but service rendered. The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective-a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.

The people of the United States suffer from periodical financial panics to a degree substantially unknown to the other nations, which approach us in financial strength. There is no reason why we should suffer what they escape. It is of profound importance that our financial system should be promptly investigated, and so thoroughly and effectively revised as to make it certain that hereafter our currency will no longer fail at critical times to meet our needs.

It is hardly necessary to me to repeat that I believe in an efficient army and a navy large enough to secure for us abroad that respect which is the surest guaranty of peace. A word of special warning to my fellow citizens who are as progressive as I hope I am. I want them to keep up their interest in our international affairs; and I want them also continually to remember Uncle Sam’s interests abroad. Justice and fair dealings among nations rest upon principles identical with those which control justice and fair dealing among the individuals of which nations are composed, with the vital exception that each nation must do its own part in international police work. If you get into trouble here, you can call for the police; but if Uncle Sam gets into trouble, he has got to be his own policeman, and I want to see him strong enough to encourage the peaceful aspirations of other people’s in connection with us. I believe in national friendships and heartiest good-will to all nations; but national friendships, like those between men, must be founded on respect as well as on liking, on forbearance as well as upon trust. I should be heartily ashamed of any American who did not try to make the American government act as justly toward the other nations in international relations as he himself would act toward any individual in private relations. I should be heartily ashamed to see us wrong a weaker power, and I should hang my head forever if we tamely suffered wrong from a stronger power.

Of conservation I shall speak more at length elsewhere. Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us. I ask nothing of the nation except that it so behave as each farmer here behaves with reference to his own children. That farmer is a poor creature who skins the land and leaves it worthless to his children. The farmer is a good farmer who, having enabled the land to support himself and to provide for the education of his children, leaves it to them a little better than he found it himself. I believe the same thing of a nation.

Moreover, I believe that the natural resources must be used for the benefit of all our people, and not monopolized for the benefit of the few, and here again is another case in which I am accused of taking a revolutionary attitude. People forget now that one hundred years ago there were public men of good character who advocated the nation selling its public lands in great quantities, so that the nation could get the most money out of it, and giving it to the men who could cultivate it for their own uses. We took the proper democratic ground that the land should be granted in small sections to the men who were actually to till it and live on it. Now, with the water-power, with the forests, with the mines, we are brought face to face with the fact that there are many people who will go with us in conserving the resources only if they are to be allowed to exploit them for their benefit. That is one of the fundamental reasons why the special interests should be driven out of politics. Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us, and training them into a better race to inhabit the land and pass it on. Conservation is a great moral issue, for it involves the patriotic duty of insuring the safety and continuance of the nation. Let me add that the health and vitality of our people are at least as well worth conserving as their forests, waters, lands, and minerals, and in this great work the national government must bear a most important part.

I have spoken elsewhere also of the great task which lies before the farmers of the country to get for themselves and their wives and children not only the benefits of better farming, but also those of better business methods and better conditions of life on the farm. The burden of this great task will fall, as it should, mainly upon the great organizations of the farmers themselves. I am glad it will, for I believe they are all well able to handle it. In particular, there are strong reasons why the Departments of Agriculture of the various states, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the agricultural colleges and experiment stations should extend their work to cover all phases of farm life, instead of limiting themselves, as they have far too often limited themselves in the past, solely to the question of the production of crops. And now a special word to the farmer. I want to see him make the farm as fine a farm as it can be made; and let him remember to see that the improvement goes on indoors as well as out; let him remember that the farmer’s wife should have her share of thought and attention just as much as the farmer himself.

Nothing is more true than that excess of every kind is followed by reaction; a fact which should be pondered by reformer and reactionary alike. We are face to face with new conceptions of the relations of property to human welfare, chiefly because certain advocates of the rights of property as against the rights of men have been pushing their claims too far. The man who wrongly holds that every human right is secondary to his profit must now give way to the advocate of human welfare, who rightly maintains that every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.

But I think we may go still further. The right to regulate the use of wealth in the public interest is universally admitted. Let us admit also the right to regulate the terms and conditions of labor, which is the chief element of wealth, directly in the interest of the common good. The fundamental thing to do for every man is to give him a chance to reach a place in which he will make the greatest possible contribution to the public welfare. Understand what I say there. Give him a chance, not push him up if he will not be pushed. Help any man who stumbles; if he lies down, it is a poor job to try to carry him; but if he is a worthy man, try your best to see that he gets a chance to show the worth that is in him. No man can be a good citizen unless he has a wage more than sufficient to cover the bare cost of living, and hours of labor short enough so after his day’s work is done he will have time and energy to bear his share in the management of the community, to help in carrying the general load. We keep countless men from being good citizens by the conditions of life by which we surround them. We need comprehensive workman’s compensation acts, both State and national laws to regulate child labor and work for women, and, especially, we need in our common schools not merely education in book-learning, but also practical training for daily life and work. We need to enforce better sanitary conditions for our workers and to extend the use of safety appliances for workers in industry and commerce, both within and between the States. Also, friends, in the interest of the working man himself, we need to set our faces like flint against mob-violence just as against corporate greed; against violence and injustice and lawlessness by wage-workers just as much as against lawless cunning and greed and selfish arrogance of employers. If I could ask but one thing of my fellow countrymen, my request would be that, whenever they go in for reform, they remember the two sides, and that they always exact justice from one side as much as from the other. I have small use for the public servant who can always see and denounce the corruption of the capitalist, but who cannot persuade himself, especially before election, to say a word about lawless mob-violence. And I have equally small use for the man, be he a judge on the bench or editor of a great paper, or wealthy and influential private citizen, who can see clearly enough and denounce the lawlessness of mob-violence, but whose eyes are closed so that he is blind when the question is one of corruption of business on a gigantic scale. Also, remember what I said about excess in reformer and reactionary alike. If the reactionary man, who thinks of nothing but the rights of property, could have his way, he would bring about a revolution; and one of my chief fears in connection with progress comes because I do not want to see our people, for lack of proper leadership, compelled to follow men whose intentions are excellent, but whose eyes are a little too wild to make it really safe to trust them. Here in Kansas there is one paper which habitually denounces me as the tool of Wall Street, and at the same time frantically repudiates the statement that I am a Socialist on the ground that that is an unwarranted slander of the Socialists.

National efficiency has many factors. It is a necessary result of the principle of conservation widely applied. In the end, it will determine our failure or success as a nation. National efficiency has to do, not only with natural resources and with men, but it is equally concerned with institutions. The State must be made efficient for the work which concerns only the people of the State; and the nation for that which concerns all the people. There must remain no neutral ground to serve as a refuge for lawbreakers, and especially for lawbreakers of great wealth, who can hire the vulpine legal cunning which will teach them how to avoid both jurisdictions. It is a misfortune when the national legislature fails to do its duty in providing a national remedy, so that the only national activity is the purely negative activity of the judiciary in forbidding the State to exercise power in the premises.

I do not ask for the over centralization; but I do ask that we work in a spirit of broad and far-reaching nationalism where we work for what concerns our people as a whole. We are all Americans. Our common interests are as broad as the continent. I speak to you here in Kansas exactly as I would speak in New York or Georgia, for the most vital problems are those which affect us all alike. The National Government belongs to the whole American people, and where the whole American people are interested, that interest can be guarded effectively only by the National Government. The betterment which we seek must be accomplished, I believe, mainly through the National Government.

The American people are right in demanding that New Nationalism, without which we cannot hope to deal with new problems. The New Nationalism puts the national need before sectional or personal advantage. It is impatient of the utter confusion that results from local legislatures attempting to treat national issues as local issues. It is still more impatient of the impotence which springs from over division of governmental powers, the impotence which makes it possible for local selfishness or for legal cunning, hired by wealthy special interests, to bring national activities to a deadlock. This New Nationalism regards the executive power as the steward of the public welfare. It demands of the judiciary that it shall be interested primarily in human welfare rather than in property, just as it demands that the representative body shall represent all the people rather than any one class or section of the people.

I believe in shaping the ends of government to protect property as well as human welfare. Normally, and in the long run, the ends are the same; but whenever the alternative must be faced, I am for men and not for property, as you were in the Civil War. I am far from underestimating the importance of dividends; but I rank dividends below human character. Again, I do not have any sympathy with the reformer who says he does not care for dividends. Of course, economic welfare is necessary, for a man must pull his own weight and be able to support his family. I know well that the reformers must not bring upon the people economic ruin, or the reforms themselves will go down in the ruin. But we must be ready to face temporary disaster, whether or not brought on by those who will war against us to the knife. Those who oppose reform will do well to remember that ruin in its worst form is inevitable if our national life brings us nothing better than swollen fortunes for the few and the triumph in both politics and business of a sordid and selfish materialism.

If our political institutions were perfect, they would absolutely prevent the political domination of money in any part of our affairs. We need to make our political representatives more quickly and sensitively responsive to the people whose servants they are. More direct action by the people in their own affairs under proper safeguards is vitally necessary. The direct primary is a step in this direction, if it is associated with a corrupt-services act effective to prevent the advantage of the man willing recklessly and unscrupulously to spend money over his more honest competitor. It is particularly important that all moneys received or expended for campaign purposes should be publicly accounted for, not only after election, but before election as well. Political action must be made simpler, easier, and freer from confusion for every citizen. I believe that the prompt removal of unfaithful or incompetent public servants should be made easy and sure in whatever way experience shall show to be most expedient in any given class of cases.

One of the fundamental necessities in a representative government such as ours is to make certain that the men to whom the people delegate their power shall serve the people by whom they are elected, and not the special interests. I believe that every national officer, elected or appointed, should be forbidden to perform any service or receive any compensation, directly or indirectly, from interstate corporations; and a similar provision could not fail to be useful within the States.

The object of government is the welfare of the people. The material progress and prosperity of a nation are desirable chiefly so long as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all good citizens. Just in proportion as the average man and woman are honest, capable of sound judgment and high ideals, active in public affairs,-but, first of all, sound in their home, and the father and mother of healthy children whom they bring up well,-just so far, and no farther, we may count our civilization a success. We must have-I believe we have already-a genuine and permanent moral awakening, without which no wisdom of legislation or administration really means anything; and, on the other hand, we must try to secure the social and economic legislation without which any improvement due to purely moral agitation is necessarily evanescent. Let me again illustrate by a reference to the Grand Army. You could not have won simply as a disorderly and disorganized mob. You needed generals; you needed careful administration of the most advanced type; and a good commissary-the cracker line. You well remember that success was necessary in many different lines in order to bring about general success. You had to have the administration at Washington good, just as you had to have the administration in the field; and you had to have the work of the generals good. You could not have triumphed without the administration and leadership; but it would all have been worthless if the average soldier had not had the right stuff in him. He had to have the right stuff in him, or you could not get it out of him. In the last analysis, therefore, vitally necessary though it was to have the right kind of organization and the right kind of generalship, it was even more vitally necessary that the average soldier should have the fighting edge, the right character. So it is in our civil life. No matter how honest and decent we are in our private lives, if we do not have the right kind of law and the right kind of administration of the law, we cannot go forward as a nation. That is imperative; but it must be an addition to, and not a substitute for, the qualities that make us good citizens. In the last analysis, the most important elements in any man’s career must be the sum of those qualities which, in the aggregate, we speak of as character. If he has not got it, then no law that the wit of man can devise, no administration of the law by the boldest and strongest executive, will avail to help him. We must have the right kind of character-character that makes a man, first of all, a good man in the home, a good father, and a good husband-that makes a man a good neighbor. You must have that, and, then, in addition, you must have the kind of law and the kind of administration of the law which will give to those qualities in the private citizen the best possible chance for development. The prime problem of our nation is to get the right type of good citizenship, and, to get it, we must have progress, and our public men must be genuinely progressive.",2.340939851820546
"Myanmar Coup: With Aung San Suu Kyi Detained, Military Takes Over Government

Enlarge this image toggle caption Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Updated at 4:15 a.m. ET on Tuesday

Myanmar's military seized control of the country Monday, detaining the country's de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and declaring a state of emergency. The military has claimed election fraud in the November vote, in which many members of its party lost.

The coup ousted Suu Kyi and other members of her National League for Democracy party as the Parliament was poised to convene and form a new government. Instead, the Tatmadaw, Myanmar's military, announced it was taking over the country's government.

The parliament session had originally been scheduled for Monday, but it was recently postponed for one day because of rumors of a coup attempt. An unknown number of activists and human rights advocates were reportedly arrested on Monday, along with Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and other politicians.

The Tatmadaw says the state of emergency will last until a new election is held one year from now. In the meantime, it has installed Commander in Chief Min Aung Hlaing in power.

In a letter published on an official NLD Facebook page that is attributed to Suu Kyi, she told Myanmar's public to ""protest against the coup,"" according to a translation by the BBC. She also told supporters not to accept a return to the military dictatorship that ended 10 years ago.

toggle caption Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images

The power grab is being condemned on the international stage, as Myanmar appears on the precipice of a return to military rule that controlled the country for decades.

President Biden said in a statement that the coup ""will necessitate an immediate review"" of whether sanctions against Myanmar should be reimposed. He described the move as ""a direct assault on the country's transition to democracy and the rule of law.""

The NLD party handily won elections in November, but the military's refusal to accept the results prompted worries that it would stage a takeover and arrest Suu Kyi and other democratically elected leaders.

The commander in chief released a statement Monday through the military-owned media outlet Myawaddy TV, repeating claims that there were problems with the voter rolls and expressing frustration with Myanmar's Union Election Commission, which had reported there was no evidence of voter fraud. The commission will be ""re-constituted,"" he said.

The military has also sought to control the flow of information in the country. The Myanmar Times reports that access to Internet services, phone lines and TV channels were cut on Monday. Banks also shut down, citing the disruptions.

By early Tuesday morning at least one network operator, Telenor, was back in service, according to the Norwegian company's Chief Executive Sigve Brekke.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres ""strongly condemns the detention"" of Suu Kyi and other elected leaders, spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said. Expressing concern about the seizure of all three branches of Myanmar's government, Guterres called on the military leadership ""to respect the will of the people of Myanmar and adhere to democratic norms.""

Ahead of a U.N. Security Council meeting Tuesday, a spokesman for China's foreign ministry said that the international community should respond to Myanmar's political and social stability to prevent further tensions, according to The Associated Press.

The Philippines foreign ministry on Tuesday broke with its nation's President Rodrigo Duterte in expressing its ""deep concern"" with the coup as well as with the safety of Suu Kyi. A day earlier, Duterte's spokesman had said the goings on in Myanmar were ""an internal matter that we will not meddle with.""

Suu Kyi, 75, holds the official title of state counsellor, but she has been Myanmar's de facto leader since 2016. Despite her party's dominance at the polls, the Nobel Peace Prize winner is barred from officially becoming president because of legal requirements set by the military.

When the Tatmadaw formally ended military rule in the face of democratic reforms in 2011, the military enshrined many of its powers in the country's new constitution.

""Even today, it's in charge of the defense ministry, the home ministry,"" NPR's Michael Sullivan reports. ""It reserved a quarter of the seats in Parliament for itself in that constitution. And that's pretty much prevented Suu Kyi and her party from achieving some of what they wanted. She's been trying to get the constitution changed, and the military hasn't been happy about that, either.""

The coup comes as Myanmar faces a number of challenges, from the COVID-19 pandemic to multiple ethnic insurgencies. The country is accused of committing war crimes and other human rights violations in the state of Rakhine against its Rohingya Muslim minority and Buddhist separatists. Suu Kyi herself appeared before the International Court of Justice in The Hague in 2019 to defend Myanmar against a charge of genocide.

The situation in Myanmar is ""extremely alarming,"" says Ming Yu Hah, Amnesty International's deputy regional director for campaigns.

""This is an ominous moment for people in Myanmar, and threatens a severe worsening of military repression and impunity,"" she said, adding that the sweeping arrests show that the military will not tolerate dissent.",0.5240098114484631
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1. What sequester mechanisms are currently in play?

There are two separate areas of law that either mandate or could lead to automatic reductions in spending, commonly referred to as “sequestration.”

The Statutory Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) Act of 2010 aims to ensure that, on net, enacted legislation affecting direct spending or revenues does not increase projected deficits. If the requirements of the law are not met, the executive branch is required to implement automatic spending reductions. Statutory PAYGO sequestration has never occurred – when automatic reductions would have been triggered, Congress has always waived or delayed them from taking effect.

The Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA), which amended the Budget Control and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (BBEDCA), created a Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, which was tasked with reaching agreement on a comprehensive deficit reduction package. When the Committee failed, backup procedures in the law created an enforcement mechanism of automatic cuts. This mechanism originally required nine annual “sequestrations” (in each of the fiscal years 2013-2021) of $109 billion, affecting both mandatory and discretionary spending.

On the discretionary side, starting in 2014, the BCA put into place extremely tight spending caps through 2021, with separate caps for defense and non-defense. But Congress never allowed the BCA’s unrealistically low funding caps to take effect. Instead, Congress passed legislation raising the caps four times: most recently in August, when the Bipartisan Budget Act (BBA) of 2019 raised the discretionary caps for 2020 and 2021 and suspended the debt limit for two years. The discretionary caps are enforceable through across-the-board cuts – also referred to as sequestration – if Congress enacts appropriations that exceed the caps. (For a table that compares the BCA austerity-level discretionary caps and the caps as modified by the Bipartisan Budget Acts of 2013, 2015, 2018, and 2019 see the Appendix.)

On the mandatory side, the BCA required across-the-board cuts to non-exempt funding. Congress has extended the mandatory sequester several times. The remainder of these FAQs will focus on the sequestration of mandatory spending required by the BCA.

2. How is the aggregate mandatory sequester determined?

The required spending cuts in the BCA were intended to come half from defense programs and half from non-defense programs. The defense category is the federal budget's national defense function, which includes the Department of Defense, nuclear-weapons related activities at the Department of Energy, and the national security activities of several other agencies (such as the Coast Guard and Federal Bureau of Investigation). Non-defense is everything else. The defense category has few mandatory programs, so nearly all the defense reduction was applied to discretionary programs. On the non-defense side, roughly one-third of the non-defense savings originally came from mandatory spending and the rest from a reduction in discretionary spending.

Within each category, the BCA allocated the savings proportionally across discretionary and non-exempt mandatory programs. The discretionary savings were converted into the BCA’s strict caps on discretionary appropriations. On the mandatory side, each year the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) calculates the percentage and dollar amount to be taken from affected programs to achieve the total mandatory cut required by the BCA. When Congress raised the discretionary caps, it directed that the mandatory sequester calculations be made as if the caps had not been raised.

Unlike discretionary spending caps, which expire after 2021, sequestration of mandatory spending has been extended on several occasions. The BBA of 2013 extended the mandatory sequester through 2023, and then a law modifying military retiree benefits extended the sequester through 2024. The BBA of 2015 extended the sequester through 2025; the BBA of 2018 extended the sequester through 2027; the BBA of 2019 extended the sequester through 2029; and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES Act) of 2020 extended the sequester through 2030.

These extensions did not specify the amount of savings that the sequester would need to achieve in fiscal years after FY 2021, but instead directed OMB to apply the percentage reductions calculated for FY 2021 to subsequent fiscal years. Those percentages were released by OMB in February 2020, and are also listed in FAQ #4.

3. How is the mandatory sequester allocated? What programs are exempt?

Under the BCA, across-the-board reductions are made to all mandatory programs that are not specifically exempt. However, most mandatory spending is exempt, including Social Security, veterans’ programs, Medicaid and other low-income programs, and net interest. In addition, the cut is limited for certain programs, such as Medicare, which receives cuts to providers that are capped at 2 percent regardless of the size of the sequester.

Even though the Medicare cut is limited, it still comprises about three-quarters of the non-defense mandatory sequester in dollar terms. The remaining reductions come mostly from farm programs, but student loans, the Social Service Block Grant, vocational rehabilitation, and dozens of other programs are also affected.

4. How big are the mandatory sequestration cuts?

Excluding 2013, eligible non-defense non-Medicare mandatory programs have been cut through sequester by about 6 to 7 percent, and defense mandatory programs by about 9 percent. This represents about $20 billion for non-defense and less than $1 billion for defense per year, and are the full cuts called for under the Budget Control Act.

5. How does the Medicare sequestration cut work?

The BCA limits the reduction to Medicare benefit payments and Medicare Integrity Program spending to 2 percent. The cap does not apply to certain Medicare administrative spending classified as mandatory, which is sequestered at the rate that applies to all other non-defense mandatory programs—5.7 percent in FY 2021 and beyond. (Most Medicare administrative spending is discretionary, however, and thus not subject to this sequester.)

The 2 percent cut is a reduction in payments to Medicare providers and plans and has been in place every year since 2013. Beneficiaries see few direct impacts, as the sequester does not affect their benefit structure.

According to OMB’s most recent sequestration report, the FY 2021 sequester would reduce Medicare spending by $16.2 billion. That represents 2 percent of the base of $809 billion in Medicare spending that year that is subject to the 2 percent cap.

6. How does the CARES Act affect the sequester?

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES Act) of 2020 does two things. First, it temporarily suspends the Medicare sequester from taking effect between May 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020. This means that Medicare plans and providers would receive an increase in payment rates of approximately 2 percent more than what they otherwise would have received during this time.

Second, it extended the mandatory sequester for one additional year. This means that mandatory spending for all non-exempt programs, including Medicare and non-Medicare, will be reduced through 2030.",-1.004977120096052
"When the conservative editor and intellectual William F. Buckley, Jr., ran for mayor of New York in 1965, he may have been the first conservative to endorse affirmative action, or, as he called it, “the kind of special treatment [of African Americans] that might make up for centuries of oppression.” He also promised to crack down on labor unions that discriminated against minorities, a cause even his liberal opponents were unwilling to embrace. Buckley pointed out the inherent unfairness in the administration of drug laws and in judicial sentencing. He also advanced a welfare “reform” plan whose major components were job training, education and daycare.

In 1969, in his capacity as founding editor of National Review, launched a decade and a half earlier as a “conservative weekly journal of opinion” that stood in opposition to the dominant liberal ethos of the time, Buckley toured African-American neighborhoods in Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles and Atlanta organized by the Urban League and afterward singled out for special praise “community organizers” who were working “in straightforward social work in the ghettos.” In an article in Look magazine months later, Buckley anticipated that the United States could well elect an African-American president within a decade, and that this milestone would confer the same reassurance and social distinction upon African Americans that Roman Catholics had felt upon the election of John F. Kennedy. That, he said, would be “welcome tonic” for the American soul.

This Buckley, who emerged in the years after 1965, bore little resemblance to the one who, eight years earlier in 1957, had penned an editorial he titled “Why the South Must Prevail”—in which he declared the white race the more “advanced” race and, as such, the most fit to govern. What happened in those eight years that sparked this change in attitude and policy advocacy on Buckley’s part? How did a man who later proclaimed his greatest legacy was keeping the conservative movement free of bigots, kooks and anti-Semites move past a nakedly racist editorial like that?

It was the convergence of political shifts—particularly in the South, where the more genteel, states’ rights-focused politicians were giving way to more overtly racist, populist demagogues—and his own personal introspection, rooted particularly in his religious faith and his own intellectual concerns about the integrity of conservatism. Buckley’s evolution makes for important context today, particularly in the wake of the 2016 election. As Republican standard-bearers struggle with how to discourage the alt-righters and white nationalists and new wave of populists that Donald Trump’s campaign apparently surfaced, they might do well to pay attention to how exactly Buckley began his search and how he charted out a new course for conservatism at a time when polarization over civil rights threatened to tear the GOP apart.

“Why the South Must Prevail” is shocking to the 21st century reader. The piece put National Review on record in favor of both legal segregation where it existed (in accordance with the “states’ rights” principle) and the right of southern whites to discriminate against southern blacks, on the basis of their “Negro backwardness.” The editorial defended the right of whites to govern exclusively, even in jurisdictions where they did not constitute a majority of the population.

In the same op-ed, Buckley concluded that as long as African Americans remained “backward” in education and in economic progress, Southern whites had a right to “impose superior mores for whatever period it takes to affect a genuine cultural equality between the races.” In defense of his position that whites, for the time being, remained the “more advanced race,” Buckley pointed to the name a major civil rights organization, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had adopted for itself as evidence that its founders considered its constituents “less advanced.” He offered no guidance as to how blacks might attain what he called “cultural equality,” save for by the sufferance of the white population.

It’s important to understand how Buckley rationalized such thinking because it’s at the root of his later transformation. National Review justified its position on the grounds that whites were “the more advanced race,” and as such were “entitled to rule.” Buckley, the author of the editorial, made no mention of the role Southern whites had played, through the social and legal systems they had put into place, in keeping Southern blacks from rising to the point where he—or their white neighbors—would consider them “advanced” and therefore eligible to participate in the region’s governance. He went so far as to condone the violence whites committed to perpetuate segregation.

National Review’s opposition to federal civil rights legislation put it at odds not only with self-proclaimed “modern Republicans” such as Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. (In 1957, years before he adopted the southern strategy, Nixon was one of the highest-profile defenders of civil rights in the Republican Party). But it also put him at odds with conservative Republicans, whom the magazine supported editorially, such as Senate Minority Leader William Knowland, the 1957 Civil Rights bill’s primary sponsor.

Buckley’s 1957 opposition to legislative and other attempts to enforce Brown vs. Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court decision that declared segregated schools unconstitutional, betrayed more than a defense of the rights of states to impose segregation and unequal treatment of citizens, but also his reservations about democracy’s capacity to enhance freedom. In a subsequent editorial of “clarification,” Buckley proposed in the name of racial equality an alternative to disenfranchising all African Americans on account of their race: All states should disenfranchise the uneducated of all races. He saw no reason to confine such practices to the South. In Buckley’s view, too many ignorant people were being allowed to vote elsewhere.

As he contemplated the merits of the franchise and to whom to extend it, Buckley had restated views he had advanced while a student at Millbrook, his preparatory school. In a term paper he had written for his headmaster, Buckley maintained that uneducated voters might be manipulated by demagogues into surrendering some of their freedom in exchange for benefits raised through taxation of the citizenry. In staking out this position, Buckley was taking his place in a long line of conservative theorists beginning as far back as Aristotle, who saw in such democratic practices the roots of tyranny.

It was these intellectual currents that turned Buckley away from the Southern politicians of the time—and toward his reversal on civil rights.

At this time, a political transformation was taking place in the South, as the “old Bourbons,” with which he and his southern-rooted family identified, were being displaced in governors’ and congressional offices by a “new breed” of politicians that Buckley termed “welfare populists.” Whereas the Bourbons shunned harsher racial rhetoric and sought to break up the Ku Klux Klan, their successors practiced a more guttural and violent form of politics, especially crafted to crush, by whatever means, the aspirations of African-Americans in the region.

The Buckleys had ample experience with such politicians before and had come to treat them with contempt. Buckley’s uncle vividly recalled Buckley’s grandfather, John Buckley, the sheriff of Duval County, Texas, going into tirades against the “white trash of the town.” The uncle held them directly responsible for the voter fraud and intimidation of Mexican-Americans that resulted in the sheriff’s defeat at the polls.

By 1963, Buckley was voicing outrage at Southern populists like Alabama Governor George C. Wallace on two grounds: their agitation for greater federal intervention in the economy (a no-no among movement conservatives) and their refusal to extend the benefits of such largesse to African-Americans. It may have been his disdain for these kind of ideologically impure politicians that hastened Buckley’s eventual 180 on federal intervention. Looking back on the period in 2004, Buckley told Time magazine, “I once believed we could evolve our way up from Jim Crow. I was wrong. Federal intervention was necessary.”

Buckley’s religious concerns rose up to meet his political ones. Privately, he was beginning to harbor doubts about legal segregation, a practice he had accepted without question his entire life. Early in 1963, he wrote his mother, the most religious person he knew, inquiring how she could “reconcile Christian fraternity” with “the separation of the races.” Aloise Buckley responded that she had gone to church and prayed for humility and wisdom from the Holy Spirit and that she would answer his question as the inspiration came to her.

That May, racial tensions mounted in Birmingham, Alabama, when Commission of Public Safety Bull Connor ordered hoses, nightsticks and dogs turned on young demonstrators. During these months, Buckley remained on an intellectual and emotional seesaw that still tilted southward. He wrote that the police had no alternative but to impose order and that the South could do without “massive infusions of northern moralism.” Yet he juxtaposed these statements with calls on Southerners to respect the right of people to demonstrate, lest they ease over into the “hands of the federal government … a greater and greater role in the revolution of Southern affairs.”

Then came the apparent turning point. Buckley was outraged when white supremacists set off a bomb in a Birmingham church on Sept. 15, 1963, killing four young African American girls. An early biographer reported that Buckley privately wept when he heard about the incident. He blamed Wallace for the tragedy. The Alabama governor’s “noisy opposition” to integration, Buckley wrote, had “galvanized the demon” who committed the murders in the name of “racial integrity.” Wallace, he said, sought to perpetuate himself in power by appealing to the racial resentments of those who had elected him.

As Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency unfolded, Buckley’s writings became increasingly sympathetic toward the cause of civil rights. African-Americans were upping their efforts to secure the right to vote in the South and Southern whites were showing increasing hostility, with the Ku Klux Klan and other white vigilantes resorting to violence and terrorism. Gradually, but steadily, Buckley shifted his emphasis, directing his criticisms less against those who sought federal intervention and more toward those whose recalcitrance made that outcome inevitable. In his columns and elsewhere, Buckley ridiculed practices designed to keep African Americans off the voter registration rolls, such as demanding that those seeking to register to vote state the number of bubbles in a bar of soap.

In columns, he condemned proprietors of commercial establishments who declined service to African Americans in violation of the recently enacted 1964 Civil Rights Act. When future Georgia governor Lester Maddox, a known critic of the open public accommodation section of that law, chased African Americans out of his restaurant, wielding an axe handle, Buckley declared it “theoretically and morally inexplicable” that anyone would voice opposition to a law by retaliating against its “innocent beneficiaries.”

Increasingly, Buckley’s columns sounded less like apologias for segregation and more like lectures to Southern conservatives to obey laws and court orders. Gone too were references to the Southern “cause.” No longer was Buckley describing African Americans as less “advanced” than their white counterparts in the South. He showed little patience for whites he considered “primitives” (Southern politicians who incited racial violence and race-baited in their campaigns) and evidenced increased sympathy for their victims. And he demonstrated nothing but contempt for southern officials who evoked what he considered sound constitutional principles (such as federalism and states’ rights) solely to perpetuate a system that oppressed African Americans. Mississippi, he concluded, could not “have it both ways”: it could not preserve its right to set voting requirements while using race as the single criterion of voter eligibility.

Still, Buckley worried that once enfranchised, African-Americans in the South would prove just as easily manipulated by demagogues as other voters: “Too many countries in the democratic world have gone down into totalitarianism because some demagogue or other has persuaded everyone who can stagger to the polls to go there, and vote: usually to give power to himself.” The challenge, he wrote in a 1964 column, “is to lure to the polls those who will cast responsible votes.” He recounted how urban machines had sustained themselves in power by manipulating turnout and committing voter fraud, and wrote that he had seen how “welfare populists” had wrested control of southern state governments from the more genteel Bourbons by stirring up racial resentments among poor Southern whites.

In August 1965, after the Voting Rights Act became law, National Review praised the “seriousness and hope and quiet pride” it detected on the faces of African Americans lining up to vote in the South. It made reference to the religious roots of the civil rights movement and foresaw a major transformation of the region. Five years later, Buckley rejoiced in his column that so much had changed.

Buckley went on to cultivate a reputation for chasing out the anti-Semites and “kooks” out of conservatism. He disowned the fanaticism of Ayn Rand and the John Birch Society and barred any National Review writer from also writing for the American Mercury, a conservative magazine that had descended into anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. He urged readers not to vote for race-baiting politicians like Wallace and cheered when one remaining holdout of overt racism, conservative columnist James J. Kilpatrick, gave up his opposition to federal desegregation.

Today, the Republican Party lacks a Buckley figure to purge these “kooks.” During Barack Obama’s first term, for instance, only a few brave souls like Sen. John McCain stood up to criticize birthers—and McCain was seen as a “maverick.” The sitting speaker, John Boehner, wouldn’t repudiate the birthers, telling reporters that it wasn’t up to him “to tell them what to think.”

We’ve seen the result of that, as “alt-rightists,” “economic nationalists” and ethnic supremacists enter the tent of the movement Buckley boasted he had rid of bigots. The moment may be at hand for another Buckley to step up to the plate and, as his transformation demonstrates, it may come from the most unexpected source.",1.001643523653781
"GOP mega-donor Charles Koch said he regrets his decades of partisanship and now wants to focus on bridging the political divide, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

In an interview shortly before the election, the 85-year-old libertarian tycoon told the newspaper that after funding conservative causes, he is turning his attention to issues like poverty, addiction, gang violence, homelessness and recidivism.

Over the years, the Koch brothers — Charles and David Koch — built an influence network that poured money into conservative causes and candidates. Charles Koch remains head of Koch Industries, a multibillion-dollar conglomerate with 130,000 employees.

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In a new book co-authored by Koch — ""Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World,"" slated for publication Tuesday — he reflects on what he called the divisiveness of his partisan politics.

""Boy, did we screw up!"" he writes in the book. ""What a mess!""

Despite Koch's calls for unity, his political contributions largely favored GOP candidates in the 2020 election cycle, with $2.8 million donated to Republicans and just $221,000 for Democratic candidates, the Journal reported.

Still, Koch congratulated President-elect Joe Biden Joe BidenAstraZeneca says COVID-19 vaccine found 79 percent effective in US trial with no safety concerns The Hill's Morning Report - Biden: Back to the future on immigration, Afghanistan, Iran This week: Senate works to confirm Biden picks ahead of break MORE and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris Kamala HarrisThe Hill's Morning Report - Biden: Back to the future on immigration, Afghanistan, Iran Future of the GOP? The art, promise — and lesson — of politics Harris seeks her own unique path at White House MORE on their election victory, saying, ""I hope we all use this post-election period to find a better way forward.""

President Trump Donald TrumpThe Hill's Morning Report - Biden: Back to the future on immigration, Afghanistan, Iran Juan Williams: Biden flips the script The Memo: Two months in, strong Biden faces steep climbs MORE and most congressional Republicans refuse to refer to Biden as the president-elect, instead siding with the Trump campaign's legal efforts to dispute the election results.

""Because of partisanship, we've come to expect too much of politics and too little of ourselves and one another,"" Koch said.",0.8541767881226402
"(Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Donald Trump can’t close the deal.

A few years ago in New York, Al Pacino starred in a revival of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, and the casting was poignant: In 1992, a much younger and more vigorous Pacino had played the role of hotshot salesman Ricky Roma in the film adaptation of the play; in the Broadway revival, a 72-year-old Pacino played the broken-down has-been Shelley Levene.

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Glengarry Glen Ross is the Macbeth of real estate, full of great, blistering lines and soliloquies so liberally peppered with profanity that the original cast had nicknamed the show “Death of a F***ing Salesman.” But a few of those attending the New York revival left disappointed. For a certain type of young man, the star of Glengarry Glen Ross is a character called Blake, played in the film by Alec Baldwin. We know that his name is “Blake” only from the credits; asked his name by one of the other salesmen, he answers: “What’s my name? F*** you. That’s my name.” In the film, Blake sets things in motion by delivering a motivational speech and announcing a sales competition: “First prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Second prize? A set of steak knives. Third prize is, you’re fired. Get the picture?” He berates the salesmen in terms both financial — “My watch cost more than your car!” — and sexual. Their problem, in Blake’s telling, isn’t that they’ve had a run of bad luck or bad sales leads — or that the real estate they’re trying to sell is crap — it is that they aren’t real men.

The leads are weak? You’re weak. . . . Your name is “you’re wanting,” and you can’t play the man’s game. You can’t close them? Then tell your wife your troubles, because only one thing counts in this world: Get them to sign on the line which is dotted. Got that, you f***ing f*****s?

A few young men waiting to see the show had been quoting Blake’s speech to one another. For them, and for a number of men who imagine themselves to be hard-hitting competitors (I’ve never met a woman of whom this is true), Blake’s speech is practically a creed. It’s one of those things that some guys memorize. But Blake does not appear in the play, the scene having been written specifically for the film and specifically for Alec Baldwin, a sop to investors who feared that the film would not be profitable and wanted an additional jolt of star power to enliven it.

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That’s some fine irony: Blake’s paean to salesmanship was written to satisfy salesmen who did not quite buy David Mamet’s original pitch. The play is if anything darker and more terrifying without Blake, leaving the poor feckless salesmen at the mercy of a faceless malevolence offstage rather than some regular jerk in a BMW. But a few finance bros went home disappointed that they did not get the chance to sing along, as it were, with their favorite hymn.

These guys don’t want to see Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross. What they want is to be Blake. They want to swagger, to curse, to insult, and to exercise power over men, exercising power over men being the classical means to the end of exercising power over women, which is of course what this, and nine-tenths of everything else in human affairs, is about. Blake is a specimen of that famous creature, the “alpha male,” and establishing and advertising one’s alpha creds is an obsession for some sexually unhappy contemporary men. There is a whole weird little ecosystem of websites (some of them very amusing) and pickup-artist manuals offering men tips on how to be more alpha, more dominant, more commanding, a literature that performs roughly the same function in the lives of these men that Cosmopolitan sex tips play in the lives of insecure women. Of course this advice ends up producing cartoonish, ridiculous behavior. If you’re wondering where Anthony Scaramucci learned to talk and behave like such a Scaramuccia, ask him how many times he’s seen Glengarry Glen Ross.

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What’s notable about the advice offered to young men aspiring to be “alpha males” is that it is consistent with the classic salesmanship advice offered by the real-world versions of Blake in a hundred thousand business-inspiration books (Og Mandino’s The Greatest Salesman in the World is the classic of the genre) and self-help tomes, summarized in an old Alcoholics Anonymous slogan: “Fake it ’til you make it.” For the pick-up artists, the idea is that simply acting in social situations as though one were confident, successful, and naturally masterful is a pretty good substitute for being those things. Never mind the advice of Cicero (esse quam videri, be rather than seem) or Rush — just go around acting like Blake and people will treat you like Blake.

If that sounds preposterous, remind yourself who the president of the United States of America is.

Trump is the political version of a pickup artist, and Republicans — and America — went to bed with him convinced that he was something other than what he is. Trump inherited his fortune but describes himself as though he were a self-made man.

We did not elect Donald Trump; we elected the character he plays on television.

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He has had a middling career in real estate and a poor one as a hotelier and casino operator but convinced people he is a titan of industry. He has never managed a large, complex corporate enterprise, but he did play an executive on a reality show. He presents himself as a confident ladies’ man but is so insecure that he invented an imaginary friend to lie to the New York press about his love life and is now married to a woman who is open and blasé about the fact that she married him for his money. He fixates on certain words (“negotiator”) and certain classes of words (mainly adjectives and adverbs, “bigly,” “major,” “world-class,” “top,” and superlatives), but he isn’t much of a negotiator, manager, or leader. He cannot negotiate a health-care deal among members of a party desperate for one, can’t manage his own factionalized and leak-ridden White House, and cannot lead a political movement that aspires to anything greater than the service of his own pathetic vanity.

He wants to be John Wayne, but what he is is “Woody Allen without the humor.” Peggy Noonan, to whom we owe that observation, has his number: He is soft, weak, whimpering, and petulant. He isn’t smart enough to do the job and isn’t man enough to own up to the fact. For all his gold-plated toilets, he is at heart that middling junior salesman watching Glengarry Glen Ross and thinking to himself: “That’s the man I want to be.” How many times do you imagine he has stood in front of a mirror trying to project like Alec Baldwin? Unfortunately for the president, it’s Baldwin who does the good imitation of Trump, not the other way around.

Hence the cartoon tough-guy act. Scaramucci’s star didn’t fade when he gave that batty and profane interview in which he reimagined Steve Bannon as a kind of autoerotic yogi. That’s Scaramucci’s best impersonation of the sort of man the president of these United States, God help us, aspires to be.

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But he isn’t that guy. He isn’t Blake. He’s poor sad old Shelley Levene, who cannot close the deal, who spends his nights whining about the unfairness of it all.

So, listen up, Team Trump: “Put that coffee down. Coffee is for closers only.”

Got that?

READ MORE:

Who Killed Obamacare Repeal? Blame Trump

When a Diminishing President Is a Good Thing

Trump, Party of One

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— Kevin D. Williamson is National Review’s roving correspondent.",-0.013471883427936504
"When Ann Dowd is walking toward you, the impulse is not to make eye contact.

The veteran actress has played, with chilling effect, some of television’s most fearsome, scene-stealing archvillains in recent years: cult leader Patti Levin in HBO’s recently departed “The Leftovers” and, currently, the domineering oppressor Aunt Lydia in Hulu ’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

But Dowd, draped in an imperial violaceous dress, is far more friendly than intimidating during a recent sit-down. Unlike her alter egos, she’s not stingy with a laugh.

And there’s much to be happy about. In addition to Season 2 of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which is currently available to stream, Dowd has a string of films opening next month, including horror film “Hereditary” and “A Kid Like Jake,” opposite Claire Danes and Jim Parsons.

But it’s Dowd’s dark character on “The Handmaid’s Tale” — for which she won an Emmy last year — that has everyone talking these days. And not simply because of her performance. A few weeks from this conversation, the character got caught up in controversy after comedian Michelle Wolf compared divisive White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to Aunt Lydia, sparking countless dissections.

(Dowd gave us her thoughts on the hubbub via email, as noted below.)

Aunt Lydia is a very complicated character. Two seasons in, what has it been like getting to know her?

It's like a friendship or a relationship: She tells me about her, I tell her about me. I think that whatever happens to her, whoever hurt her, did it very successfully. And I think it was early and consistent. So, at some point, the doors closed and what remains is this. She has managed to, from her perspective, live a redeemed and meaningful life.

The world is trashed. I think she had a very religious upbringing. She's a loner, very repressive. And maybe she had a baby early, had sex, or something and was shamed — shamed into submission and begging God for just one more chance.

So, I think she's a purist in the sense that she said, ""This has got to change.""

Ann Dowd as Aunt Lydia, left, and Elisabeth Moss as June/Offred in a scene from Season 2 of ""The Handmaid's Tale."" George Kraychyk / Hulu

You're coming into this role after playing Patti in “The Leftovers.” They're both such chilling characters. Where do you go, what do you channel, when bringing them to life?

I must be a twisted soul deep down, but I loved Patti from minute one. And I never looked at her as the enemy, ever. Here's another woman trashed all her life, never had a minute of anything. And then she's validated, and for the first time in her life, comes into her strength. She's a born leader who is like, “It's over, baby. It's done. Let's let go of attachment. Let's stop this.” She makes so much sense to me.

And Lydia, I get it. I was educated by Catholic nuns. They were not cruel. I never went through any of that. My two aunts were Catholic sisters. I know that world and what I got from it. Being educated by Catholic sisters was a sense of work ethic — the whole, “You're not special, hon. You have a job to do, and when it is completed, then you may go about your next thing.” So, that sense of commitment, discipline, work ethic, respect for your elders, deferring to authority. That was all firmly implanted.

You won my heart when you revealed that you didn’t understand “The Leftovers” when you first read the script.

Not only did I not understand, I said, on the phone to my manager and agent, ""What is with this departure business?"" My manager and agent were quiet, like we have an idiot client. But they didn't go there. They said, ""Well, it's an HBO show shooting in New York. Why don't you give it another read?"" I thought, ""Eh.""

Then, I went in the room and something happened. I went in the room and I said, ""Oh, wait. She's interesting."" But she doesn’t say anything. And I thought, “Oh, great. She's not gonna talk?” Oh, how I was wrong. Not talking is the most powerful position you can have in a room. The things I learned on that show — I can’t even tell you. Imagine spending time in some town up in New York somewhere, and there’s Liv Tyler, and she’s on her goat cheese fast, and Amy Brenneman. And we’re all sitting around, we’re dead tired and we’re getting to know each other. And we’re laughing and we’re saying, “OK, Liv, your skin is flawless, stop with the goat cheese.”

What has it been like to receive this kind of acclaim at this stage in your career? How are you able to process it or enjoy it in ways maybe you couldn’t had it come sooner?

It would have been a very hard thing. I would say the first two-thirds of my career, if you will, were about letting go of fear and letting go of control. I hope this doesn’t sound like bragging — I don’t mean it that way, but I played a character that I loved deeply, and it was one of the first things I did out of school — her name was Sarah in a play called “A Different Moon” by Ara Watson. I didn’t read reviews, I don’t read them now. But I was told about one that said, “Who is Ann Dowd and where will she go from here?” And I almost collapsed with pressure. And so that this would happen now, when I could focus on the work — these women that made sense to me, to be able to play loners who just follow a different path — it has been a blessing.

Actress Ann Dowd poses for portrait to promote the new season of Hulu's ""The Handmaids Tale,"" in Beverly Hills, Calif. Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times

Were you able to be present in that moment when you were onstage accepting your Emmy?

I’ll never get over it for as long as I live. It makes me cry to think about it, because as much as you think, “I’m not going to attach my worth to it,” it does mean something. When this moment happens in your life, when someone says, “You did good, here you go”—it’s unbelievable. You wish that for everybody — [whether] they’re doing something that matters to them, or even [if] they’re not doing something that matters to them, but they’re doing it because they don’t have an option. Like, I’m doing a film in Valencia and I’m staying at like a Hilton Garden Inn. And you see the workers who are getting the towels and cleaning rooms and moving down that hallway and they’re behind schedule so they’re trying their hardest to hurry. If someone just said, “Hey, could you come here for one second? I’m going to put this light on you and everybody’s is going to see you and praise your work.” Can you imagine what that does to someone’s spirit? Acknowledgment can go a long way to someone’s insides.

Before becoming an actress, you were pre-med. What happened there?

I had decided I wanted to be a doctor. It was a decision I sort of made for my dad. And then he died, which was catastrophic to my life. But yes, he had wanted me to go to [the College of the] Holy Cross, his alma mater. I didn’t want to go. We were at odds a lot — but the love was never a question. I loved my dad deeply. But yes, I wanted to carve my own path. I wanted to go to summer theater, because plays were heaven to me. He was very supportive of that. And I had gotten the part of Adelaide in “Guys and Dolls.” And I was thrilled and was about to tell them when life happened. I got home and my mother was sitting next to my sister and they were crying. They said my dad had two to five years to live. I went upstairs and had a good cry … then I went into his office and I said: “I have three things to tell you: I’m going to Holy Cross, I’m not going to summer theater, and I’m sorry for all the grief I caused you, and I love you and can I give you these things?” I’m so lucky, because if you don’t get that chance, you live with that regret. I went off to Holy Cross in the fall. He died in March. I was really committed to that decision. And it’s a rough, rough college experience. The anxiety is over the top. But relief came in acting classes and doing plays at the same time. And it’s led me here.

Aunt Lydia has been in the news lately. What were your thoughts on the White House press secretary being compared to your character during Michelle Wolf’s set at the White House Correspondents’ dinner?

(Via email) From my experience, Lydia is a straightforward person with a low tolerance for confusion and nonsense. Had she been offered the job of press secretary for the present administration, she most likely would have turned it down. Also, Lydia has the comfort of believing that everything she says and does is in service to God. Ms. Sanders has no such luxury.

Overtime: What are you reading now?

I'm reading the novel “Lambs of God” in preparation for the miniseries of the same name that began shooting this week in Sydney, Australia. The novel is written by Marele Day and the screen adaptation is by Sarah Lambert. It's a wonderful story about three cloistered nuns who live in a huge monastery taken over by nature on a remote island somewhere off the coast between England and Ireland. After 12 years of no visitors, a priest arrives, sent by the bishop, with plans for the monastery. Suffice it to say, the nuns take matters into their own hands.

yvonne.villarreal@latimes.com

Twitter: @villarrealy",-0.9177347978308931
"Joe Biden says he wants to “heal America” as president. The problem for Biden is that the president and, perhaps more important, the presidency thrive on crisis. It is wars and other national emergencies (real and imagined) that have facilitated the radical expansion of the executive office from FDR onward. Keeping the nation in a state of crisis is good for presidents — and good for their hangers-on, who feed parasitically on the swollen executive in chief.

Biden comes into office in an age of big presidents, Barack Obama and Donald Trump among them. But he also comes into the presidency after having spent nearly 40 years in the Senate. If he truly wants to heal the nation, cooperation and consensus should be at the center of his agenda, as they should be central to everybody else’s approach, too: Bipartisanship and consensus are not sentimental feel-good virtues — they are necessary to creating stable public policy and the prosperity that rests on that stability. That doesn’t mean pretending that our disagreements are not disagreements; it means not treating our disagreements as civil war.

Rather than follow the worst instincts of his executive predecessors, Biden should pay some attention to this week’s rare moment of deep agreement between two very different legislators: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah).

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez complained loudly that legislators were given a few hours to read the recent coronavirus-relief bill, which runs 5,593 pages and is the second-largest spending measure ever passed by Congress. Sen. Lee voiced his agreement and expanded in a video, describing how it has come to pass that Congress has forwarded a bill read in its entirety by none of its members and stitched together by a small number of leaders, a half dozen or so, who expect their colleagues to simply proceed on faith and loyalty. When the Bronx socialist and the Utah Republican come down on the same side of the question, it’s time to pay attention.

Biden comes into office in an age of big presidents, Barack Obama and Donald Trump among them. Getty Images (2)

Biden, who has long experience in the legislative branch, could use his clout as president to push for a return to the steady and stable if plodding and irritating process of making law through the lawmaking process rather than allowing the constant threat of government shutdowns or the blockage of genuine emergency measures to keep the US government in a state of politically induced crisis. Ocasio-Cortez was right to observe that the current model isn’t legislating, but hostage-taking.

The root problem in Congress and the root problem of the presidency are the same problem: The US government has been operating in a semi-permanent state of emergency for decades. Congress has abandoned “regular order” — the committee-based process by which the House and the Senate adopt a budget and produce a series of appropriations bills, working out their differences in conference before sending legislation to the president. In its place we have had a long series of emergency measures, a continuing resolution here and a Frankenstein omnibus bill there, in a process dominated by congressional leadership and, hence, by partisanship. This is a near guarantee of polarization and short-term thinking.

Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive from NYC, recently proved that legislators from opposite sides of the aisle can find common ground. Getty Images (2)

If Biden wants to heal the nation, then the answer isn’t a heroic presidency elevated to the state of a national priest-king, as though the Oval Office were the Chrysanthemum Throne. The answer is a smaller presidency led by a smaller president, who allows our legislature to do their jobs in the way that our Founders intended.

And Joe Biden, that blessed mediocrity, may be just the right man for that job.

Kevin D. Williamson’s new book, “Big White Ghetto: Dead Broke, Stone-Cold Stupid, and High on Rage in the Dank Woolly Wilds of the ‘Real America’” (Regnery), is out now.",1.3482031564356582
"Bust of Plato in the library of Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland (Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters)

Manners, morals, and decent politics stand or fall together.

Day-to-day politics is of intrinsic interest for us political animals, and the issues of the day orient much or most of our political reflection. But ideas, and ideas of a high order, ultimately give life and definition to the conservatism that has animated NR since its founding in 1955.

The indispensable Books, Arts & Manners section of National Review (what we call “BAM” in-house), last but not least in each and every issue, allows for contributors to thoughtfully engage with books that, for good or for ill, shape our self-understanding as a free people. This section — sponsored by the nonprofit National Review Institute — brings out elegant writing, as well as deeper reflection on human nature, conservative political thought, culture, and manners more broadly. As a trustee of NRI and an occasional contributor to NR, I am delighted to recommend Books, Arts & Manners.

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The best politics, and the best human lives, are necessarily informed by what the great Edmund Burke so memorably called “the moral imagination.” Burke, the first modern conservative, knew that manners, morals, and decent politics stand or fall together. And NR’s founder, William F. Buckley Jr., was a stylish writer, a man of wide reading, and cultivated in every sense of the term. In important respects, the Books, Arts & Manners section serves as a reminder of the urbanity that informed and defined WFB as a person and thinker. It is, I suggest, a precious part of his legacy, which is why it’s so important for NRI to support and promote this cultural work.

For the recent 65th anniversary of the magazine, NR’s editors invited distinguished scholars and writers, young and old alike, to discuss the classics of classical liberalism and conservatism. The 50th anniversary issue, to which I was happy to contribute, memorably highlighted the best and most enduring conservative books of the half century that followed NR’s founding. This is “BAM” at its peak. But its movie reviews by the likes of Ross Douthat, and its reflections on modern manners by the likes of Rick Brookhiser, also charm and instruct, and keep readers coming. NRI brings these pieces to life through complementary events — regular book and movie discussions led by fellows Jay Nordlinger, Kyle Smith, Kevin D. Williamson, and others.

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In an age when politics can all but consume us, it’s critical that we not lose sight of our culture and the preservation of the permanent things. NRI’s commitment to the thought and culture that defines BAM becomes even more indispensable as we approach the centenary of Bill Buckley’s birth in 2025.

This giving season, I ask that you support National Review Institute’s continued efforts to highlight the importance of culture and ideas of a higher order. Please donate generously to NRI’s End-of-Year Fund Appeal today.

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All donations are fully tax-deductible and go towards NRI’s educational and outreach programs and fellowships — including its sponsorship of Books, Arts & Manners and related cultural pursuits. NRI has an ambitious goal to raise $500,000 by the end of the calendar year. Please donate today — every dollar counts.

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"(Sergey Tinyakov/Getty Images)

Welcome to “The Tuesday,” a weekly newsletter that comes out on a day that you can probably guess, dealing with culture, language, politics, and much else. To subscribe to “The Tuesday,” follow this link.

Toward a (More) Multipolar Health-Care System

I have for years argued that most people would be reflexive free-market capitalists if not for their experiences with a handful of businesses: airlines, banks, cable and Internet providers, etc. At the very top of this list is insurance companies. “The trouble with socialism is socialism,” as Willi Schlamm famously put it. “The trouble with capitalism is capitalists.” These [baroquely ornate string of expletives deleted] insurance monkeys are the capitalists Willi Schlamm warned us about.

Congress, responding to years of outcry against “surprise” medical bills, is about to do what Congress does, which is make things somewhat worse by giving the people what they are clamoring for.

Medical bills and medical insurance can be perplexing and exasperating. They often are random-seeming. My mother’s last stay in the hospital lasted several weeks, some of them in cardiac intensive care. The bill that came was absolutely staggering, about ten times the annual salary she’d earned at the end of her working life. But she spent the last part of that working life employed by the state, so she had excellent insurance at practically no cost, and so instead of being saddled with a ruinous bill she could never hope to pay, she received a check equal to about a year’s pay. It was a welcome outcome, but an absurd one. I have more stories of that kind, as I am sure many of you do. I suppose I am the kind of sucker insurance companies like: I have a high-deductible plan in case I get hit by a cement truck, but if I need a COVID test or an eye exam, I generally use the insurance card that says “American Express” on the front of it, sparing myself the Kafkaesque horror of engaging with the insurance bureaucracy.

Surprise medical bills most often come to people who have received medical services under the impression that these were covered by their insurance only to find out that some portion of the tab — or all of it — is landing on them. The New York Times: “Patients go to a hospital that accepts their insurance, for example, but get treated there by an emergency room physician who doesn’t.” People coming into emergency rooms often are not at that particular moment very much inclined to carefully scrutinize paperwork of any kind.

What’s worse, as the Times reports, is that in such situations “doctors often bill those patients for large fees, far higher than what health plans typically pay.” Note that this is the opposite of the experience of many patients who choose “concierge” medical care, “concierge” being what the boys down in marketing came up with as a substitute for “cash up front.” Many (though by no means all) medical services provided on a cash basis are offered at a lower price than the one quoted to insurers, in part because medical practices that simply will not look at insurance cards need not employ an expensive staff of clerks to look at insurance cards (and manage insurance records and have long stupid maddening extended telephone conversations with insurance people) and pass along some of this savings to their patients — who, because they are paying out of pocket, have an opportunity and incentive to comparison shop.

That “concierge” model — a functional market with lots of buyers and sellers and competition — is, in most cases, the ideal way medical care should function, and the presence of such a functional market is one of the reasons so many Americans have much better experiences with cash-only dermatologists, cosmetic surgeons, etc., than they do when they have a heart attack or cancer. That latter category of care — care for severe injuries and serious or chronic disease — provides a basis of skepticism for the market-oriented approach to health care. Patients in those situations, the argument goes, have no negotiating power as buyers — faced with a choice of paying or dying, they will pay (or at least agree to pay) whatever is asked. And so, that argument goes, either prices must be set by a third party such as government, or payment must fall to and be negotiated by a third party, such as government or an insurance company. Much of the debate about health-care policy in the United States ignores the problems of third-party payments and instead turns its attention to the question of which third party should make the payments: insurance companies or government.

There are times when third-party payments for medical care are appropriate. Health insurance, properly understood, is not a medical product but a financial product, a hedge in which patients pay a premium to manage certain financial risks associated with medical need. Risk management is a benefit worth paying for: The wise man who dies at 100 without ever having had to file a hospitalization claim understands that his premiums were money well spent; the foolish man thinks he got ripped off. Paying for insurance is something like saving for retirement: It is a way of redirecting a portion of income from the prospering times, when it is not acutely needed, to the hard times, when it is acutely needed.

“Social insurance,” the traditional liberal model for providing publicly supported medical benefits, applies the insurance model to society at large, with the state acting as insurer. This is a model fundamentally different from the state-monopoly model of British and Canadian experience (in spite of what our ignorant progressives claim, most of Western Europe does not rely on national single-payer systems), and it has some virtues apparent even to such committed free-market thinkers as F. A. Hayek, whose libertarianism made room for government programs “providing for those common hazards of life against which few can make adequate provision.” The social-insurance model as practiced in high-tax Scandinavia is a way for young, healthy, working you to make provision for elderly, sick, unemployed you.

The United States is, judging by the actions of political leaders in both parties, utterly committed to maintaining a worst-of-both-worlds situation. The Left talks up the state-monopoly model, but no politician of the Left, including Bernie Sanders, the socialist from Vermont from Brooklyn, has put forward a serious proposal to pay for such a thing. (Avoiding such difficult discussions is the reason for all that umbrageous moralistic talk about health care as a “right.”) And it is impossible to imagine such a thing’s being intelligently administered by the federal apparatus: Consider that the U.S. government already is laboring under more than $50 trillion in unfunded liabilities for Medicare alone, or about 2.5 times GDP.

Republicans still talk about free markets and consumer choice, but under the influence of populism they cower at the prospect of reforming the entitlement programs and align themselves with Barack Obama et al. on the matter of “preexisting conditions,” which they insist that we cover with insurance even though such a thing is a logical impossibility. (Insuring against preexisting conditions is the equivalent of making a bet today on the 1984 Super Bowl, but Washington is convinced that it can monkey with the odds and the terms of the wager in such a way as to make that a sensible proposition.) They understand that third-party payments are a problem (your insurance company and your doctor both have economic incentives that are different from yours) and that the health-insurance market itself has a layered-on third-party problem because it has for so long been shaped by employer-based plans (your insurance company and your employer both have economic incentives that are different from yours). Most Americans who have insurance still get it from employer-based plans, and that is something that could be addressed — but Republicans will not touch it, because doing so would mean getting rid of a tax subsidy dear to middle-class people and upending the current health-insurance arrangements of a lot of Republican voters.

The grievously misnamed Affordable Care Act was in part inspired by the excellent Swiss system of health insurance, but with a characteristically dysfunctional American twist: without proper enforcement, without credible financial commitment, and with administration that might be described as anything but Swiss. But the ACA was in some sense almost inevitable: Democrats, frustrated by the persistent post–Great Society failure of their efforts to sell Americans on big, expensive new social programs, have in recent decades leaned on regulation instead — using employer mandates and the like to in effect create new welfare programs within employers. (This really kicked off in earnest in 1973 with Senator Ted Kennedy’s HMO Act.) The politics of this approach are attractive for obvious reasons, beginning with official cowardice: Congress or the state governments could create programs to supplement the incomes of low-wage workers, but simply mandating a higher minimum wage and mandating certain benefits allows them to do much the same thing without taxing anybody to pay for it or accounting for the expenditures. In that model, employers are both the welfare office and the tax office.

One of the long-term problems with that approach is that it does little for the unemployed poor or the marginally employed poor, whose standard of living has diverged sharply from that of the middle class. (Here, economics and mode of living are closely linked: The median income for a married couple with children is about $100,000, and the overwhelming majority of households in the top 20 percent of incomes are two-earner couples, generally married.) For reasons having to do with the parochialism and small-mindedness of the American intellectual classes, we spend a great deal of time talking about the shocking net worths of Silicon Valley billionaires and the big bonuses of Wall Street sharks, as though the poor were poor because Jeff Bezos is rich. In fact, the benevolence of the affluent professionals who dominate the country politically and staff its major institutions is directed largely at themselves, which is why we are debating writing off the debts of Harvard-educated lawyers rather than talking about the social and economic failures of, say, Milwaukee, and how these affect poor people, who rarely write New York Times guest columns or testify before congressional subcommittees.

To return to the beginning: The “surprise” medical-bill rule is one more little bit of effort to use business regulation to service the interests and demands of the politically important classes. And, as often is the case, those interests will be served by making the health-care system a little bit worse than it already is. Here, that will happen by forbidding doctors, hospitals, and certain other providers from billing patients at all in these situations, obliging them instead to charge insurers. This will have the effect of reinforcing still further the centrality of insurance to the medical system. As the Times reports, a Congressional Budget Office study finds that the new law will reduce the incomes of doctors and other providers, in part by imposing a mandatory arbitration regime on them. The loss of bargaining power and income “would happen to providers that both do and do not send surprise bills, because taking away the option would reduce their leverage in negotiating contracts with health insurers.” Which is to say, a law that purportedly was meant to bring insurers to heel has in fact strengthened their economic position.

What the United States needs is not a British monopoly-style system or a libertarian free-market fantasy or the Democratic dream of Scandinavia on the cheap, but instead a more multipolar system than the one we already have. Ideally, this would include health insurance that functions as insurance, i.e., as a financial product for risk mitigation, not as a dues-collecting membership club for medical care; an intelligently designed and administered form of social insurance that would see to the interests of those who cannot see to their own, including poorly provided-for children, the disabled, and others; and, perhaps most important, functional, consumer-driven markets for both health insurance and for health care per se, with most non-emergency care purchased out of pocket, the same way Americans pay for cars or mobile phones or Netflix rentals. There are some obvious challenges to getting that done: our generally incompetent public administration; bad political incentives; complicating economic realities (including the fact that such a large share of health-care spending happens at the end of life and for patients with chronic conditions); inertia; stubbornness; and the surprising stupidity, alternating with piggish intelligence, of American corporate management.

Or, we could pass another dumb law every time somebody complains about something.

Words About Words

Grawlix is the comic-strip term for using punctuation marks to represent profanity, for example: %@$&*!. The word comes to us from Beetle Bailey creator Mort Walker, who coined it sometime in the 1960s. Grawlix has fallen into disuse: Mostly, that is because we simply accept profanity in print more readily today than we did a generation ago, though some publications, including this magazine, omit the middle letters: “This is a big f*****g deal,” Joe Biden said. My book The Smallest Minority is probably the most profane thing ever published by Regnery, the conservative publisher, but I think the profanity there was appropriate in context. (We disagreed over a few lines, including the first lines in the book.) But I kind of like grawlix, and I like the word grawlix, too: Professional terms of art, especially from the printing and typography world, are dear to me.

So are technical terms from sports and games. For instance, here is a description of a certain bridge strategy that stood out to my eye for some reason, via Wikipedia: “The trump coup is a contract bridge coup used when the hand on lead (typically the dummy) has no trumps remaining, while the next hand in rotation has only trumps.” I suspect I’ll find a metaphorical use for that one some time in the near future. Also this from the American Contract Bridge League: “Butcher. Colloquialism to indicate a bad misplay: ‘He butchered the hand.’” Also feels potentially useful.

Rampant Prescriptivism

All literate Anglophone people know the difference between “then” and “than.” But the then-than bust ends up in some pretty rarified places: The Last American Aristocrat: The Brilliant Life and Improbable Education of Henry Adams, a big book from a big publisher and a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, contains this sentence: “His account stressed Lincoln’s supposedly awkward and ungainly carriage before the poised Governor, whose education, experience, and patrimony, the younger Charles suggested, deserved a better reception then [sic] they received.” (Please feel free to not send me examples of my own typos. I know about them.) My point here isn’t to embarrass the author or his publisher but rather to emphasize that everybody needs an editor.

Send your language questions to TheTuesday@NationalReview.Com

Home and Away

You can buy my latest book, Big White Ghetto: Dead Broke, Stone-Cold Stupid, and High on Rage in the Dank Wooly Wilds of the ‘Real America,’ here. I hope you will read it and enjoy it. But I won’t mind if you just buy it and never get around to it.

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In Closing

I recently watched The Professor and the Madman, a film I enjoyed very much. (I like stories about friendship, an underappreciated necessity.) Watching the scene in which the editor of the Oxford English Dictionary is abused by his superiors for the bad reviews his dictionary has received in the foreign press (especially in Le Figaro), I felt a little envy. I enjoy our modern conveniences and do not suffer much from sentimentality or nostalgia, but I would like to live in a world in which the OED is the subject of contentious reviews in the popular press. I think of the legendary riot that greeted the first performance of Rite of Spring at the Théâtre de Champs-Elysées: I am anti-riot, most of the time, but there is something to be said for a culture that riots over Stravinsky.

To subscribe to “The Tuesday,” follow this link.",0.12615202628707733
"On Monday, members of the Electoral College are meeting in their respective states to cast their votes to make Joe Biden the 46th president of the United States.

Normally a formality, this year’s meetings take on added significance. President Donald Trump has refused to concede, and his effort to overturn just enough votes to claim a false victory in the Electoral College exposed how the flaws of that body threaten the very foundation of American democracy. That peril, though, is opening up new opportunities—and challenges—for those seeking to move this country to a national popular vote.

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There have been hundreds of attempts to reform or abolish the Electoral College since the nation’s founding, but the urgency has picked up in recent years. Twice in the past six elections has the winner of the Electoral College lost the popular vote and twice has such a “wrong winner” only been narrowly averted.

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Even though Biden won the popular vote by more than 7 million votes, his margin in three decisive Electoral College states—Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin—was just a little more than 40,000 votes combined. That means that Biden’s victory essentially rested on 22,000 voters in those three states. And while Trump’s many attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election have failed, had the outcome been fractionally closer in a few key states, Trump’s schemes to remain in power despite losing may well have worked.

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“If you want to run a coup in the United States, this is the way to do it,” John Koza, the chairman of the group National Popular Vote, told more than 1,600 attendees to his organization’s 270-by-2024 Virtual Conference shortly after the election. “Democracy is literally at stake at this point, because the road map has been painted now … everyone in politics can see what [the president] was doing.”

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Koza, a former Al Gore elector, has been working for 15 years to encourage states to join an interstate compact committing to give their electors to the national popular vote winner if states with enough electors to command the presidency—270—agree to join. Hundreds of past efforts to reform or abolish the Electoral College and replace it with a popular vote have failed. The institution itself was designed as a last-ditch, anti-majoritarian “Frankenstein compromise” to win over slave-holding interests during the Constitutional Convention, as Jesse Wegman writes in his book, Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College. The fact that it was written into the Constitution is what has made it so hard to change.

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The plan Koza helped devise and put into action is a simple and elegant solution to this problem. The Constitution allows state legislatures to set the “manner” of choosing representatives to the Electoral College. It also allows states to enter into compacts with other states. In order to win the Electoral College, a candidate needs 270 votes. The National Popular Vote compact says that once states with 270 or more Electoral College votes have joined, then every member of the compact will automatically give its electors—and the presidency—to the national popular vote winner. His group primarily lobbies state legislatures around the country to pass the same 888-word bill, which binds each state to agree to certify its electors for the winner of the national popular vote, much the same way state officials now certify their electors for the winner of their respective states.

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After George W. Bush defeated Gore in 2000 despite losing the popular vote, the issue began to pick up interest in the academic community. But Electoral College reform garnered little popular momentum. “If you look at journalism written in the 20 years before 2000, it was the conventional wisdom that if we ever had a ‘wrong winner’ the Electoral College would be abolished,” said Harvard professor Alexander Keyssar, the author of the book, Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College? “Then we had a ‘wrong winner’ in 2000 and there was deafening silence.”

At the time he launched his group, Koza notes, there was “a lot of resistance among Republicans because they thought this was sort of an implied insult to the way Bush had gotten elected.” After Barack Obama’s election, it became easier to convince at least some Republican legislative bodies to join his cause, but Democrats cooled on the idea. After Trump won in 2016 despite losing the popular vote by more than 2 percentage points, however, the dynamic flipped again.

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Koza believes the chaotic aftermath of the 2020 election opens up a new opportunity to carry the compact over the crucial threshold. In fact, the name of the organization’s conference this year was taken from Koza’s belief that his interstate compact can pass in enough states to secure a 270-vote majority in the Electoral College and take effect by 2024.

“This election is the poster boy of what’s wrong with the system and far more than even the 2016 election,” Koza told me. “By dragging it out for five days to figure out who got 12,000 more votes than somebody else in Georgia and Arizona … [it] obviously captured the public’s attention.

“This really hammers home to people how shaky the current system is,” he continued. “I think that in some way will make it possible to finish this off.”

Koza’s interest in the Electoral College goes back more than five decades, when—as a 22-year-old graduate student in computer science—he created a board game called Consensus. Players compete as presidential candidates trying to win enough different constituencies in the right states to win the Electoral College.

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The game sold 3,200 copies—a commercial flop—but Koza would earn a fortune in the 1970s and ’80s as the inventor of the scratch-off lottery ticket. After convincing Massachusetts to become the first state to use his ticket design in 1974, he traveled around the country successfully lobbying dozens of other states to legalize instant lotto.

In 2005, Koza and his old lobbying partner, Barry Fadem, realized that their work on the lottery—navigating bill passages in state legislatures, popular voter initiatives, and interstate compacts—actually applied perfectly to reforming American democracy. “We actually looked at each other” over lunch one day, Koza recalled, “and said … ‘We are the exact right people to do this.’ ”

Koza, whose group now has just a handful of states left to reach 270 electoral votes, says he has only recently begun to grasp the urgency of his project. For 14 years, he thought of the popular vote compact as a sort of technocratic fix that would significantly improve the American system of self-governance but maybe was not essential for the survival of the republic. Now he considers it a matter of life and death for American democracy.

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“At this point I think changing the system to something better is going to determine whether there’s a dictator in this country,” he said. Given the tens of millions of Americans who would like to see Trump reinstalled as president despite clearly losing the election, Koza has a point.

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Trump’s efforts to overturn the election also create new challenges for the National Popular Vote movement. Koza and his organization have taken a strongly nonpartisan stance toward Electoral College reform, working particularly hard to try to convince Republicans that the current system harms the interests of every voter who doesn’t live in one of a small group of battleground states. That has become a harder sell for Republicans in recent years, as GOP presidential candidates have lost the popular vote in seven of the past eight elections. The fight over the legitimacy of the 2020 election and the dangers of an American autogolpe only make that work harder.

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At least one member of Koza’s own team supported Trump’s effort to overturn the Electoral College outcome this year.

“If I moved just two and a half hours north, I would have over three times the representation in a presidential election.” — Sylvia Bernstein

“It’s not a coup if you follow the law. If you follow the Constitution that’s just following the law,” Ray Haynes, a Republican lobbyist for National Popular Vote, told me last month in response to Koza’s characterization of Trump’s efforts as a coup attempt. Even with his legal options narrowing, Trump has continued his efforts to pressure leaders in the Pennsylvania state legislature to vote to send a second slate of pro-Trump electors to Congress. He has also started pressuring Republican members of Congress to simply overturn the election when they meet on Jan. 6 to count the Electoral College votes. Haynes—who is himself a former member of the California Legislature and national chairman for the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council—told me that if he were in a contested legislature, he would vote to give Trump the state’s electors.

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“The winner of the election has a lot of power for a short period of time so there’s a lot at stake,” Haynes argued, endorsing Trump’s push to have state legislatures overturn the election. “Dr. Koza agrees that state legislators can do this if they wanted. I would argue that they’re just following the Constitution.”

If the compact is to succeed, they’ll need to get red states on board—meaning they will need to win over people who share Haynes’ perspective. The compact has passed in 15 states and the District of Columbia—“an average of one state per year,” Koza notes—and its participants total 196 electoral votes, just 74 short of adoption. But all of the states that have signed on are states Biden carried by at least 10.8 points. The latest success was in Colorado, where Koza’s organization fended off a GOP-backed effort to overturn last year’s passage of the compact via a rarely used direct initiative. Koza’s team and local allies won the statewide vote last month 52–48.

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Koza’s success in Colorado marks a particularly significant juncture for the organization. In 2006, when Koza and Fadem were “forming the organization on the fly,” Colorado’s Senate was the first legislative body to try to pass National Popular Vote’s bill. It failed four times, but organizers like Sylvia Bernstein decided to try again when Democrats took over control of the Colorado Senate from Republicans in 2018.

“The No. 1 best message is that every vote should count equally,” Bernstein, who worked as the coalition coordinator for Colorado’s Yes on National Popular Vote campaign, told me of her group’s grassroots messaging strategy. “There are a couple of reasons why every vote doesn’t count equally. Right now, one of them especially resonates with Coloradans, and that is what we call ‘the Wyoming Issue,’ ” she explained.

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The principal bias of the Electoral College is that it gives a small number of battleground states more weight than every other state, large and small. But another bias is that one person’s vote in a less populous state is worth more than in larger states. “If I moved just two and a half hours north, I would have over three times the representation in a presidential election and that’s kind of mind-blowing,” Bernstein said of “the Wyoming Issue.” By localizing that issue around a friendly border state rivalry, Bernstein and her group were able to boost support for the compact.

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Bernstein only became involved in popular vote reform after the 2016 election, when she was taken aback by the disconnect between the popular vote, which Hillary Clinton won by nearly 3 million votes, and the Electoral College, which Trump won 306 to 232. “The fact that somebody won the popular vote by so much and yet still failed to win the presidency was something that I just didn’t really think could happen,” she said.

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After attending a local meeting, Bernstein became a leader of the campaign effort, helping to organize 50-plus volunteers. The bill finally passed and was signed into law in 2019. Republican Party officials, though, backed a signature-gathering campaign to use a special type of voter initiative that hadn’t been utilized since the 1930s to force the issue onto the 2020 ballot. The question was finally decided by the state’s voters last month.

The Electoral College has historically benefited different parties at different times.

The intellectual underpinnings for Koza’s plan were actually formed following the 2000 election, when law professors and brothers Akhil and Vikram Amar wrote a series of articles outlining how the formation of an interstate compact could create a national popular vote.

The remaining major “hurdles,” Vikram Amar argues, are twofold: First, he believes the compact would need some sort of formal congressional approval to standardize nationwide presidential elections in order to pass muster in the courts. Second, in order to have any political chance of success, the compact will need more Republican buy-in, and so far it has almost exclusively been successful in states dominated by Democrats.

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“It has to break through in a red state both to get over the top to 270 and also to give the plan any real credibility,” Amar said. “It can’t be a plan that’s favored only by blue states but not by red states, that’s not the way to do election reform.” He argues that putting the issue to voters in a direct initiative in a state like Arkansas, Arizona, or Oklahoma might be the easiest way to get that red-state buy-in (though that might come with its own separate legal challenges).

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“Republican leaders are much less open to this idea than Republican rank-and-file voters,” Amar says. “I think the hardest thing to overcome is opposition by people who really do fear the partisan consequences of this but they just don’t really want to say that.”

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That is one reason Koza’s group has long argued that this is not a partisan issue. The Electoral College has historically benefited different parties at different times. In 2004, George W. Bush nearly lost Ohio and the Electoral College despite decisively winning the popular vote. In 2012, Democrats were thought to have a major advantage in the Electoral College thanks to the “Blue Wall” in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Ever since the “Blue Wall” crumbled in 2016 after 24 years of going for Democrats, political commentators take it as a given that Republican candidates other than Donald Trump might be able to replicate that feat. Haynes thinks it’s a mistake to assume that. “You can’t rely on Trump to be there all the time,” he said.

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If large and midsize states with changing demographics such as Texas, Arizona, and Georgia flip or stay blue, then Republicans will have a significant disadvantage in the Electoral College. For nearly a decade, Haynes and other Republican members of Koza’s team have been traveling around the country to try to convince GOP state legislators that a popular vote would be good for the country, for their party, and for the conservative movement. Haynes appears to be a true believer on these three points. He argues that in past elections, candidates have sidelined conservative issues in general elections to woo swing voters in battleground states, while the Republican Party is also leaving millions of votes on the table across the country. “Energizing conservatives in the Midwest and the South and parts of California would change the entire dynamic of the election,” Haynes said.

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None of these arguments work without the right messenger, however. “If you sent a Democrat into a roomful of Kansas Republicans, they’d be like, ‘Get the hell out of here,’ ” said Wegman. “But when you send in some kind of dyed-in-the-wool conservative, some of whom are Trump supporters, you can have a real conversation.”

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Haynes is that dyed-in-the-wool conservative. Indeed, as a California legislator, he spoke against the very first passage of the compact on the floor of the California Assembly in 2006. At the time, he doubted its constitutionality and thought it might burden rural parts of the state. After hearing both sides of the argument at an ALEC convention in San Diego in 2010, he became convinced those were myths—rural areas across the country are ignored now if they’re not in a battleground state, and the compact has a strong constitutional grounding. Not long after attending that conference, he was convinced to join Koza’s team and started touring the country selling the national popular vote to Republicans. Haynes’ strategy has been to visit Republican legislators for hourlong meetings in their home districts rather than for 15-minute chats in the state capital. It has had some not insignificant successes—the bill passed Republican-led chambers in Oklahoma in 2014 and Arizona in 2016 and was approved in Republican-led committees in Georgia and Missouri. That was all before the 2016 election, though, and since Trump won that election based solely on the Electoral College, it has been more challenging to convince Republicans to support the idea. He has had to revisit states where he had past success and “go back and replant some seeds.”

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Virginia is the next target for Koza’s team. The state Senate is scheduled to hold committee hearings in January, Koza says, after the bill passed in February in the House of Delegates 51–46. Earlier this year, the bill initially failed in committee in both chambers. Passage would put the compact at 209 electoral votes, or 61 away from enactment.*

Koza firmly believes time is running out. “If the system isn’t changed in 2024, there will be a dozen battleground states again,” he warned, “And when the election smoke clears, there’ll be three or four or five that are within 10,000 or 12,000 votes and then you can find some flaw in the election process in those states.”

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The mutual suspicion among Republicans and Democrats points to the biggest defect of National Popular Vote and, for that matter, of our broader political system right now: Republicans increasingly view the voting system as illegitimate when their opponents win. That trend is likely to persist no matter what that system is.

The fact that Koza and his team are on both sides of this divide could very well be an untold asset. When he speaks with state legislators, Haynes said, “The joke I tell them is ‘I don’t speak very good Democrat.’ ”

“Democrats and Republicans speak a different language. I know when I’m talking to a Democrat and when I’m talking to a Republican by the words that they use to describe certain things,” he said. “I always use the comparison of ‘voter fraud’ versus ‘voter suppression.’ When Republicans talk about trying to prevent voter fraud, Democrats hear ‘voter suppression.’ And when Republicans hear ‘voter suppression,’ they think, ‘Aha they just want voter fraud.’ ”

That language barrier could doom the National Popular Vote, along with any pro-democracy reforms the country might enact going forward. Or maybe translators like Haynes can push through where so many others have failed.

Correction, Dec. 16, 2020: This article originally misstated that the National Popular Vote Compact bill passed in the Virginia House of Delegates in Dec. 2020.",-1.9597853721736962
"What’s in an honorific.

What’s in an honorific? Not Shakespearean, I realize, but it is our topic for today. The question came up — not for the first time — when the New York Times ran its several articles on the Cornel West controversy at Harvard. (West, a star professor in the Afro-American Studies department, was tiffing with the university’s new president, Lawrence Summers. It seems that Summers wanted West to straighten up his scholarly and professorial act. West, quite naturally, got upset.) Some of us suspicious types noticed that the Times referred to West and other Afro-Am profs as “Dr.” — “Dr. West,” “Dr. Gates,” “Dr. Wilson” — while referring to Summers as plain ol’ “Mr.” (The Times did the same with the school’s former president, Neil Rudenstine. All these people have Ph.D.’s, of course.) This was passing strange — the kind of thing that “made you go, ‘Hmmm,’” in the words of the old rap song.

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How’s that? First, the Times seldom refers to any Ph.D. as “Dr.” The head of Mt. Sinai Hospital, yes; the Nobel Prize winner in physics, perhaps. But an English prof or a sociologist or a drama teacher or something? Unusual. Second, all of the men referred to as “Dr.” were black, while the palefaces were “Mr.” Was this an act of racial condescension, the attempt of a great liberal newspaper to puff these aggrieved black academics — whose seriousness and academic legitimacy are repeatedly and rightly questioned — up? It seemed to many of us that this was likely. Issues of this kind were addressed by Roger Kimball in the last NR, in his piece on the West controversy, titled, pointedly enough, “Dr. West and Mr. Summers.”

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The Times weren’t the only white liberals in the game. Al Hunt, in his column for the Wall Street Journal, referred to West as “Dr.,” “Professor,” and “Mr.,” covering all bases (and that was a lot of titles for a short column); Summers got “Mr.” and “President.”

These questions may seem trivial — and they are trivial, in the context of a war against terrorism and all — but they include in them enduring cultural and national questions. Cornel West and his like (not that there are many of his like, West being a pretty singular character) are very big on pride, self-esteem, and what Aretha Franklin called “R-E-S-P-E-C-T.” He’s exactly the type to insist on, and elicit, “Dr.” (though he’s also been known to refer to himself — with great frequency, as a matter of fact — as “Brother West”).

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It turns out that West did indeed insist on “Dr.” It is the policy of the New York Times to leave it up to the individual — to the individual Ph.D.-holder, that is — how he is to be referred to in the paper (though “Dr.” can’t be used for an honorary degree, thank goodness). (Physicians and dentists get “Dr.” as a matter of course.) A senior news editor at the Times confirmed to me that West has informed the paper that he wants “Dr.,” while Summers — the youngest man ever tenured in the Harvard economics department, by the way — wants “Mr.” (Arthur Schlesinger Jr. — by the way, again — has fought all his life against being called “Dr.” He never earned a Ph.D., having been made a Harvard professor without one. Come to think of it, this may speak well for a Ph.D.)

Another official at the Times — in the public-relations department — told me that the paper’s reporters make it a habit to ask subjects who hold Ph.D.’s how they’d like to be referred to. This, however, would be news to many people. I know several people — Ph.D.-holders — who’ve been quoted regularly in the Times for many years who tell me they’ve never been asked such a question. (They’re called “Mr.” or “Ms.” ) These include big-time, true-blue, super-serious academics. When I mentioned this to the senior news editor, he replied that these people need only give the word, and they’ll be “Dr.” (You know who you are; be it on your conscience.)

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In the West controversy, the Times wasn’t quite consistent. In late December — right off the bat — West was “Dr.” But in a January 13 article, he was “Mr.” (No word yet on whether he’s planning a lawsuit.) (For that matter, “Dr. Gates” — Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr. — was merely “Mr.,” too.) On December 29, Charles Ogletree — a (black) law professor at Harvard and a key ally of West — was “Mr.” Later, on January 4, he was bumped to “Dr.” It would appear that he requested “Dr.” (although the particular reporter could have bestowed it on her own). It would also appear that Ogletree is the first law prof in history, or at least recent history, to be called “Dr.” in the Times, or most anywhere else. (“Dr. Bork,” anyone?)

As for the Wall Street Journal, the stylebook says that a Ph.D. is called “Dr.” “if appropriate in context and if the individual desires it.” The editorial page, however — always independent and (gloriously) contrarian — won’t give you “Dr.” unless you wear a white coat and stethoscope. The paper at large also requires that Martin Luther King, though dead, be called “Dr. King,” always. And this, the editorial page follows. King is virtually the only non-physician in this society always to be called “Dr.” (and virtually the only dead person as well).

In fact, “Dr. King” is one of the great linguistic sacred cows in America. The Times does “Dr. King,” too, though many great and eminent persons who are dead are referred to in those pages by their last names only (e.g., Einstein). (Odd that Martin Luther King should be more a doctor than Einstein, don’t you think?) It was one of Bill Bennett’s masterstrokes, while he was secretary of education, to refer to King as “Rev. King.” One year, he was the Reagan cabinet member selected to go down to Atlanta to represent the administration on Martin Luther King Day. He made a point of referring to the great man as “Rev. King,” which was both startling and soothing to the ear. Bennett was reminding his audience of the religious nature of this figure, at a time when conservatives in general were trying to restore the place of religion in public affairs.

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Why, indeed, should King be “Dr.”? It is true that ours is a country in which black men, not long ago, were routinely called “boy” (or worse); we are properly conscious of dignity and redress. But what is more significant about MLK? That he repeatedly put his life on the line so that black Americans could, at long last, become fully Americans — eventually losing his life because of it — or that, early in his life, he managed to plagiarize his way to a Ph.D.? Anyone, practically, can get a Ph.D.; very few can be a Martin Luther King Jr.

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Back to the Times for a moment: It still burns many old-timers that the paper once referred to Fidel Castro as “Dr. Castro.” (The dictator took a law degree from the University of Havana.) The queer practice of “Dr. Castro” lives on among certain leftists, and in many British newspapers, not only the Guardian, which loves Communist dictators, but the Daily Telegraph, which doesn’t. Of course, absolute rulers are always lavishing titles on themselves (including “General,” although, as many have noted, it’s strange that Col. Qaddafi never moved himself up). Elena Ceausescu, the late (and bullet-riddled) First Lady of Romania, gave herself a Ph.D. in chemistry. She also had chemists write books in her name and arranged to have many prizes awarded to her in that discipline.

In 1986, the Times achieved something of a stylistic breakthrough, assenting to “Ms.” This allowed Gloria Steinem to utter what must be the best line of her career: “Now I don’t have to be ‘Miss Steinem from Ms. magazine.’” Put it in Bartlett’s, maybe. The Times is pro-choice on a woman’s honorific, as on abortion: One can select “Miss,” “Mrs.,” or “Ms.” Hillary Clinton must have chosen “Mrs.” somewhere along the line. Imagine the thought process — the machinations, the considerations, the strategic ins and outs — that went into her decision!

Besides Martin Luther King, the most famous non-stethoscope-wearing “Dr.” in America is Kissinger — though HK long ago asked the Times to call him “Mr.” (which it does). (I’ve always thought “Dr. Kissinger” rather natural for the man, given his background in Germany: Herr Doktor and all that.) Another former secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, had a curious transformation. At first in the Times, she was “Mrs.”; then “Ms.”; then, finally, she was “Dr.” — at her request (“Doctor’s Orders,” as a title in the Times put it!). (Must be the funniest Times headline ever, which, admittedly, isn’t saying much.) As the paper reported in that story, Albright asked for “Dr.” because “I worked hard for it” (meaning, her Ph.D.). The Times recorded that “she wondered whether the change might make her appear insecure,” but she went ahead and asked for it anyway. Her teacher at Columbia, Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser in the Carter administration, is “Mr.” in the Times.

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Condoleezza Rice, the current national security adviser, is “Ms. Rice” — her choice. Yet White House spokesmen routinely refer to her as “Dr. Rice.” This is somewhat strange, because the president’s chief economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, is very much a “Dr.” — Ph.D. in economics from Harvard — but is never, as far as I can tell, called “Dr.” He’s “Mr.” (or just “Larry”). Why should this be? Is this a sneaking bit of racial condescension or puffery? Is it a bit of gender-related condescension or puffery? Is it a harkening back to an earlier national security adviser, Dr. K? Or it is because there are a lot of Texans and southerners around the White House?

There is very much a North/South split in this country about “Dr.,” as about so many other things. It is common practice for professors in the South to be called “Dr.” At the universities I attended — northern — you would sooner have struck a professor than called him “Dr.” In fact, it was something if the sullen and self-absorbed students grunted their acknowledgement of the prof at all.

Feelings about “Dr.” are bound up in that bitch-goddess, Status. (Yes, I know: James said Success. But Status is a sister.) The best line in either Austin Powers movie belongs to Dr. Evil, who, when addressed as “Mr.,” says, “I didn’t spend six years in evil medical school to be called ‘Mr.,’ thank you very much!” Our senior editor Jeffrey Hart, professor emeritus of English at Dartmouth, remembers serving as a campaign adviser to Nixon (not that this is necessarily a segue from evil). To Jeff’s amusement, Nixon called him “Dr. Hart.” This accords with the Nixon we know: class-conscious, status-nervous, chip-on-the-shouldery, the boy from Whittier who received a tuition scholarship to Harvard but couldn’t go, because the family didn’t have the money to transport him to and from Massachusetts. Nixon, according to Jeff, would also say, “I’m no Ph.D., but . . .,” before launching into a disquisition on some arcane topic.

For some, to be called “Dr.” is a way of saying, “I am somebody,” in the words of the Rev. Jesse Jackson. (Ah, “the Rev. Mr. Jackson” and “the Rev. Al Sharpton” — that’s “a whole ’nother” article, as we say in my family.) Many years ago, another NR senior editor, Rick Brookhiser, surveying all the mail sent to Bill Buckley, adjudged that the most interesting letters were those from prison. And the least interesting? The ones from people who signed themselves “Ph.D.” I know someone who’s a lawyer in West Virginia who has found that the surest way to rattle his opposition’s expert Ph.D. witness is to refer to him as “Mr.”

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But then, I have another acquaintance who earned a Ph.D. in biochem — and he pleads for his “Dr.” because, “There aren’t many perks in this line of work, and I’d like my little payoff from polite society.” Well, at least he’s not a drama teacher. The bulk of the Ph.D.’s I know balk at being called anything but “Mr.” (or maybe “Professor,” in the case of academics), believing that “Dr.” has come to mean Marcus Welby, and that’s about it. As for those who feel slighted when they are “Dr.”-less, all we can say is, “Ph.D., heal thyself.”

– A shorter version of this article appeared in the February 11, 2002, issue of National Review.",-0.12465755467611231
"Iran delivered its first real response to Joe Biden’s election as U.S. president last week. It announced plans for a major escalation in its nuclear program.

The parliament passed, and the unelected Guardian Council approved, legislation ordering the government to significantly ratchet up its nuclear activities in the coming months. Iran’s ultimate goal is to persuade Biden to return to the 2015 nuclear agreement immediately, without preconditions or revisions. Tehran likely considers initiating a crisis over its nuclear program as the most effective way to force the issue – putting it on a collision course with the incoming U.S. administration.

Even before Biden was elected, the Trump administration and Israel had been laying the groundwork to limit his ability to return to the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Biden pledged during the campaign to return to the deal if Iran does the same (a view he repeated twice last week).

The Trump team has unleashed a ""flood"" of restrictions aimed at building a ""sanctions wall"" to box in Biden. Jerusalem has also taken advantage of an apparent green light from Washington to degrade Iran’s nuclear capacity and spoil potential diplomatic breakthroughs. Most recently, Israeli agents allegedly killed the key architect of the country’s past nuclear weapons program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

The Fakhrizadeh assassination likely accelerated the passage of the nuclear bill, but it’s important not to overstate its impact. The bill had been proposed well before the incident, indicating that the Guardian Council and parliament were gearing up to pass it eventually. But they certainly seized the opportunity to fast-track the bill and flex their muscles in response to the slaying of Fakhrizadeh.

Open gallery view An undated file handout photo provided by Iranian news agency IRNA shows Iran's President Hassan Rouhani at the award ceremony for Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in Tehran Credit: - - AFP

The legislation tasks the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) – which runs the country’s nuclear efforts – with taking a number of steps to expand its nuclear program. The law is short on detail but the overall message is clear: Should these measures be implemented, they would further reduce the country’s compliance with the JCPOA and heighten concerns that Tehran was strengthening its ability to potentially build a bomb.

First, the AEOI is set to produce 20 percent enriched uranium, with at least 120 kg a year of that enriched uranium remaining in the country. Iran has not enriched at this level, which is closer to weapons-grade, since before the JCPOA.

Second, the AEOI is required to increase the production of low-enriched uranium to at least 500 kg per month and to keep that amount on Iranian soil. That’s a significant increase, given that Iran is currently producing less than 150 kg every month. These two provisions are slated to begin immediately, although technical barriers may dictate how quickly the AEOI can move.

Third, the AEOI is to begin installing 1,000 advanced IR-2m centrifuges and use them for enrichment. It is also to conduct research and development with 164 advanced IR-6 centrifuges. Both these actions are to be initiated within three months of approval of the bill.

Two additional steps raise specific proliferation concerns. Within five months, the AEOI is tasked with operating a uranium metal production plan – a step that may signal a decision to return to weapons-related work.

And the bill mandates the design of an additional 40 megawatt reactor; Iran’s current 40 megawatt reactor, known as the Arak Heavy Water Research Reactor, was a major source of attention in the JCPOA because of its potential ability to produce weapons-grade plutonium.

The legislation also strikes at the heart of international monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program.

Open gallery view International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi listens as head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Ali-Akbar Salehi speaks at the IAEA General Conference. Vienna, Sept 21, 2020 Credit: LEONHARD FOEGER/ REUTERS

The law requires the government to stop cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency beyond what is provided for by the country’s Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement. This includes stopping the implementation of the Additional Protocol to the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement and other verification and monitoring provisions outlined in the JCPOA, which grants international inspectors more insights into the full spectrum of the Iranian nuclear program. This step would take place within two months of the bill’s entry into force if the remaining parties to the nuclear deal do not restore Tehran’s banking connections and oil sales.

It is hard to sugarcoat this bill – it is a step-by-step guide to triggering a nuclear crisis akin to the pre-JCPOA period, when concerns of an Israeli attack were frequent. Yet the bill and the nuclear measures it entails are not automatic, and they are far from a death knell for diplomacy.

The Iranian system affords key figures and bodies, particularly Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with the flexibility to override laws should the system’s interests dictate it in the name of maslahat, or expediency. In fact, the law itself begins by referring to Khamenei’s redlines, which he had formulated during the nuclear talks, noting that this legislation seeks to meet his requirements.

Open gallery view Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, center, leads the Friday prayers at Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque in Tehran, Iran. Jan. 17, 2020 Credit: ,AP

This is a noteworthy inclusion because while Khamenei’s red lines guided the negotiations, they weren’t respected to the letter. Expediency and flexibility carried the day, and it will likely do so again, if the Iranian leadership moves toward a deal with Washington.

Key Iranian officials are already making it clear that the law won’t prevent their country from returning to the JCPOA – for fear of the news changing the calculus in the Biden and Trump camps. The bill was passed over the objections of President Hassan Rohani’s government, which considered it outside the parliament’s jurisdiction.

It is still an open question whether the bill’s eventual approval represented a humiliation for the president or was part of a good-cop/bad-cop routine. But even as the battle over the law continues, Tehran has already started the implementation process by reporting to international inspectors that it will be deploying three additional cascades of IR-2m centrifuges to the underground enrichment plant at Natanz. And the Supreme National Security Council affirmed the propriety of the bill on Saturday.

Open gallery view Iran's Basij paramilitary force students burn posters depicting US President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden to protest he killing of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Nov 28, 2020 Credit: ATTA KENARE - AFP

The Rouhani government will likely make the best of the situation and use the law – and the hawkish parliament that passed it – to pressure the U.S. in eventual negotiations.

Shortly after the bill’s passing, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif noted that although his hands are now tied by the law, which he cannot ignore, the steps are reversible. He added: ""The Europeans and USA can come back into compliance with the JCPOA and not only this law will not be implemented, but in fact the actions we have taken...will be rescinded. We will go back to full compliance.""

Zarif’s comment is a contradiction – the government’s hands are tied until it decides that they aren’t – and it provides an early window into how the government will use the legislation’s deadlines to hurry their American counterparts to return to the deal and provide Iran with the sanctions relief it so needs.

Even with the parliament’s agitations, there are many roadblocks for Iran’s immediate re-entry to the nuclear agreement. Rohani certainly would prefer to negotiate a quick, clean re-entry – allowing him to rehabilitate his image and cement his legacy ahead of the June 2021 presidential elections, in which he cannot run but where his allies will be competing. But Khamenei and other hardliners may not be keen to deliver a victory for moderates before the June election is locked down, as we have previously argued.

In any event, Tehran has made clear that while it is prepared to return to the nuclear accord, it will lean on the nuclear tactics it used during the negotiations that led to the JCPOA to try to force the new administration’s hand. Fundamentally, at least for the time being, Iran is building leverage, not a bomb.

Henry Rome is the senior Iran analyst at Eurasia Group, the global political risk research and consulting firm. Twitter: @hrome2

Ariane Tabatabai is the Middle East fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and an adjunct senior research fellow at Columbia University. She’s the author of ""No Conquest, No Defeat: Iran’s National Security Strategy."" Twitter: @ArianeTabatabai",-1.4182990132296587
"There was this telling exchange on Sunday on Meet the Press between Chuck Todd and Raphael Warnock:

CHUCK TODD: I appreciate it. I want to start with something that the FBI director said this week. Director Wray said it does not appear the shooting was racially motivated. So, this is now the FBI director. We’ve heard local law enforcement. What are your — are you hearing the same thing from law enforcement that you’ve been speaking with?

SEN. RAPHAEL WARNOCK: Well, first of all, let me say that our hearts go out to these families as they are dealing with unspeakable loss. I think it’s important that we center the humanity of the victims. I’m hearing a lot about the shooter, but these precious lives that have been lost, they are attached to families. They’re, you know, they’re connected to people who love them. And so, we need to keep that in mind. I know that — look, law enforcement will go through the work that they need to do, but we all know hate when we see it.",1.0929168222891572
"(Matt Anderson/Getty Images)

Progressive complaints about the upper chamber fundamentally misunderstand the role it was meant to play in our constitutional order.

Frustrated by their narrow majority in Congress, progressives have begun to take their ire out on the legislative branch itself. They claim that the filibuster — the Senate rule that requires a three-fifths vote to end debate — has been abused by Republicans and is a vestige of racism. Never mind that Democrats have made ample use of the filibuster in recent years, most recently to block South Carolina senator Tim Scott’s police-reform legislation from even being considered.

Yet some progressives who get paid to write about politics are thinking bigger: The Senate itself is the problem! It is insufficiently democratic! Ezra Klein spoke for many on the left when he tweeted:

If Democrats won Senate seats roughly in proportion to how many people voted for Democrats to win Senate seats this would all look very different. The “center” of the Senate is well to the right of the center of the country. And today is the result.

Here, there is a temptation for conservative defenders of our constitutional order to roll their eyes and leave it at that. After all, the Left has been complaining about the Constitution since the Left as we know it came into being: Woodrow Wilson was lamenting that our system is insufficiently British all the way back in the 1880s. And whining about the Senate is especially idle, since the equal apportionment of senators is literally the one constitutional provision that cannot be changed by amendment.

What’s more, one might be forgiven for assuming progressives are upset that the Senate is insufficiently Democratic, rather than democratic. They did not, as far as I can recall, have any complaints about the upper chamber between 2011 and 2015, when Democrats controlled it. And there was certainly no talk of abolishing the filibuster in 2017 or 2018, when Republicans had control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, and the filibuster was the only toehold on power Democrats retained.

Nevertheless, there is a teachable moment here: The Senate does not really require us to defend it, but a defense nevertheless can remind us of some brilliant, and distinctly American, political ideas.

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At first glance, the American Congress appears to be indefensible on an intellectual level. Indeed, one can go back to the anti-Federalist writings of 1787 and 1788 to see opponents of the Constitution reject the partly federal, partly national nature of the institution. The dissenting delegates to the Pennsylvania ratifying convention of 1787 denounced Congress as a “solecism in politics” — a contradiction in terms. James Madison’s Federalist entries on the general subject of federalism are well argued, but his defense of equal apportionment in the Senate is a little forced, and for good reason — he vehemently opposed the idea at the Constitutional Convention. No delegate came into the Convention with a plan to build Congress as it was actually built, so the institution is reminiscent of the old saw that a camel is a horse designed by a committee.

But looks can be deceiving. A closer examination reveals colorful details about the Convention, especially the genius of the “small-state nationalists.” John Dickinson of Delaware and Oliver Ellsworth and Roger Sherman of Connecticut were as committed to a stronger national government as any of the delegates. Indeed, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Delaware all sent their best men to the meeting. They wanted the country to succeed. They knew that it was failing in that moment, and that only a new instrument of government would save it. But they were not willing to allow their states to be swallowed up by a potential Massachusetts-Pennsylvania-Virginia axis. Those three states were so large that they could essentially get whatever they wanted in a strictly democratic system of government.

Delegates from those states, especially Madison of Virginia and James Wilson of Pennsylvania, assured the small-state nationalists that they had nothing to fear: The large states were so diverse that they could never possibly agree on anything, and anyway, the only proper model of republican government is the rule of the majority. Yet the small-state delegates persisted, and who could blame them? They could not in good conscience go back home and present a constitution that threatened their constituents’ existences.

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Though the small-staters were unyielding in their demands, they did not abandon the constitutional project. They stayed and worked through their disagreements — despite the fact that they were increasingly angry, and it was very, very hot in Philadelphia that summer. Ultimately, they embraced the compromise first suggested by Sherman — a House apportioned by population and a Senate apportioned equally. And in so doing, they found something more noble than majority rule: a form of consensus that would become the great bulwark of the American union.

It is naïve to think the rule of a simple majority is not potentially dangerous. In a purely democratic system, there is nothing to stop a majority from doing whatever it wants, and if it wants to enrich itself at your expense, you are without recourse. There is no king to protect you, no House of Lords to temper the majority’s greed or avarice. Nothing. But what if a majority were broad, deep, and durable? What if it reflected the considered judgment of a large and diverse segment of the American population, rather than just over 50 percent of the people? Such a majority would represent the consensus view of the American people, a common sentiment that is shared by many. So long as the American people collectively possessed a measure of civic virtue, such a majority could safely govern. There would still be a chance, of course, that it could threaten the common interest or an individual’s natural rights, but the threat would no doubt be diminished.

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All of the deviations from direct democracy in the American system — Sherman’s representation scheme, the separation of powers across branches, federalism, bicameralism, the unelected judiciary, even the Bill of Rights — require us to forge consensus as a prelude to government action. They force we the people to pause before we act, to consider the views of others, and to try to find common ground.

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The United States Senate is perhaps the greatest institution of consensus ever designed. Part of this is due to the influence of the Roman republic on the minds of the Founders, which led them to envision the Senate as an elite body, separated from public passions, whose function was to give legislation a second look. But part of it is also due to the apparent obstinacy of Sherman et al. For in a continent-spanning republic, geographical place must be considered when forging consensus.

Madison’s rejection of the small-state argument was empirically accurate in 1787, when America was mainly a land filled with yeomen farmers, but history would vindicate the worries of Dickinson, Ellsworth, and Sherman. Though there was no conceivable alliance to be forged among the large states in 1787, the Industrial Revolution created new social and economic cleavages — urban versus rural, factory versus farm, city versus town — that set the large against the small. Sure, the small states of 1787 might not have been swallowed up by the large states, but could the same be said for the small states of 1817 or 1847 or 1877? Of course not. And why should we have expected western settlers to yield to a distant government into which they could provide no meaningful input, even on matters essential to their interests? After all, the American colonists in 1776 revolted against such a regime. Indeed, there were worries in the 1780s that settlers west of the Appalachian Mountains might be lured away by the Spanish or British.

Instead, we expanded rapidly westward before and after the Civil War, and our union held together because the interests of small states were incorporated into the decision-making process — thanks to the Senate. Therein lies the genius of the institution: By ensuring that the consensus has to take account of place, it facilitates the national republic that we enjoy today. It is easy to take that republic for granted. It is easy to imagine we could alter fundamental aspects of our system and still have the same country. But it is a dangerous fantasy. Were it not for the equal apportionment of senators, we would probably not even be a country today, and all the blessings of this union would be lost.

So, no, the Senate isn’t democratic. But thanks to Roger Sherman and the small-state nationalists, it is something much, much better: a force for consensus-building and national cohesion.",1.1094820356300588
"Statue of Roger Williams in Roger Williams Park, Providence, R.I. (Detroit Publishing Company/Library of Congress)

America must stay true to the principle of religious freedom — for ourselves, and as an example for the world.

Because the United States is the reigning and defending global hegemon, the prevailing winds of American society and politics are of heightened importance as compared to other countries. What goes on here has a ripple effect: The cultural commitments and values that manifest themselves in American politics inevitably spill over the borders of the republic and into the lives of men, women, and children around the world.

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’Twas ever thus with superpowers. At the dawn of the Pax Britannica, an Englishman named William Wilberforce decided that he didn’t like slavery very much. He found a few other chaps in Clapham Circle in London who felt the same way, and a few years later the global slave trade had been almost entirely dismantled. The priorities set by hegemonic powers always make themselves felt in this way on distant shores.

A number of Western countries have replaced religion with worship of the state over the past century and, as a result, have come to view the American prioritization of religious liberty either incomprehensible or ridiculous. Conversely, many non-Western countries still rely on a state-sponsored religion to provide social cohesion and to underwrite the legitimacy of the regime. Where the drive to conserve political power is strongest, the promotion of religious liberty is weakest. It shouldn’t surprise Americans to learn that the conviction that liberty of conscience is a non-negotiable component of a humane society is one held by America alone.

We were reminded of this last month by Alexander Dvorkin, who since 2009 has been the head of the Russian government’s “Council of Religious Experts.” The purpose of this body is to decide which religious groups in Russia should be designated as “extremist” and therefore “liquidated.” Among Dvorkin’s recent targets were the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who were banned and brutally repressed in Russia in 2017. Dvorkin can thus be called, without much exaggeration, the Kremlin’s grand inquisitor.

Dvorkin appears determined to subjugate all other forms of religious association to the dominance of the pro-Putin, statist wing of the Russian Orthodox Church. He’s been successful enough in this respect to have had his services sought out on several occasions by the Chinese Communist Party, who’ve invited him to China and Hong Kong in the past to provide aid and cover to their own efforts at repression.

On February 25, Dvorkin gave a speech at a conference in Paris during which he spoke about how the tightening and loosening of U.S. pressure affects his ability to pursue the Kremlin’s directives. He also provided a useful summary of how Putin’s government views the development of religious liberty in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union (it should be noted that “sects” and “cults” are the terms Dvorkin likes to use when talking about heterodox religions):

In the 1990s, the new Russia, painfully acquiring its shape, faced a massive invasion of totalitarian sects, which instantly attracted thousands and tens of thousands of new adherents to their ranks. . . . The Gorbachev Law on Freedom of Conscience (1990) contributed to giving the cults free rein, and they achieved spectacular successes. . . . A new law on freedom of conscience and religious organizations was passed in 1997. The law was the result of difficult compromises and agreements, but still, to a certain extent, it made it possible to limit the activities of cults. The real progress in the Russian state’s attitude toward cults began sometime after 2015, and more or less coincided with the deterioration of Russia’s relations with Western countries.

Noting a correlation between the deterioration of Russian–Western relations and the progress of his policies, he observed that many of Russia’s Western neighbors used to show a similar penchant for religious intolerance, but that the long-term influence of the U.S. has softened it. “Many Western countries that once set an example in the fight against cults, such as France, Germany, Belgium, and Austria, are gradually revising their positions under U.S. pressure,” Dvorkin lamented. Pliant European states have had to bolster their own commitment to religious liberty so as to remain in good standing with the global hegemon. As a result, Putin’s Russia has been left with only China as a bedfellow when it comes to a policy of religious persecution.

Dvorkin may strike Americans (correctly) as a sinister figure, but it’s important to remember that he is not an exotic one. In the grand sweep of human history, he is the norm and we are the exception. The brutal enforcement of religious orthodoxy has been a sine qua non of human social organization since the earliest days of recorded history. In his magisterial work The Ancient City, published in 1864, the French historian Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges showed how prehistoric religious beliefs shaped first the domestic and then the civic institutions of both ancient Greece and classical Rome. To be a citizen in Athens was to be an obedient member of the city’s official religious cult:

At the age of sixteen or eighteen, he [a young Athenian] is presented for admission to the city. On that day, in the presence of an altar, and before the smoking flesh of a victim, he pronounces an oath, by which he binds himself always to respect . . . the religion of the city. From that day he is initiated into the public worship, and becomes a citizen.

The specifics have varied in different times and different places, but the role that communal religious commitments, endorsed by the state and enforced by violence, have played in human social organization has been enormous. State religion has been the default method used by human beings to coordinate their relations with one another. Julian the Apostate, Augustine of Hippo, the Spanish inquisitors, John Calvin, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell . . . the list of violent religious enforcers goes on and on. Dvorkin, it turns out, is a fairly normal human being — banal, even.

Americans are the real weirdos (and I mean “weirdos” in the best possible sense). As early as the 17th century, there were settlers in the American colonies whose political opinions about religious liberty were staggeringly progressive to the point of sounding almost extraterrestrial to the Europeans they used to live among.

Take Roger Williams, for example, surely one of the greatest Americans in history. Born in 1603, Williams was a Puritan minister and theologian who founded what would eventually become the colony of Rhode Island. He was one of the earliest known abolitionists in the Western world, a staunch advocate of church-state separation, and a tireless campaigner for fair dealings with Native Americans. He eventually became the first anglophone settler to write a book on the Native American language of Narragansett. In 1636, Williams was expelled from the colony of Massachusetts Bay for spreading “new and dangerous ideas” like “liberty of conscience.” His influential writings on religious liberty made him in many ways the morning star of the First Amendment. He described forced worship as “rape of the soul” and decried the “oceans of blood” that had been spilled trying to enforce conformity. Amazingly for a man of his time (and a Puritan minister at that), Williams even favored full religious liberty for Muslims, Jews, and atheists. He justified his position thus:

A civil sword (as woeful experience in all ages has proved) is so far from bringing or helping forward an opposite in religion to repentance that magistrates sin grievously against the work of God and blood of souls by such proceedings. . . . Religion cannot be true which needs such instruments of violence to uphold it so.

Arguments like this have never been well received by kings or commissars, but they won the day at Independence Hall on July 4, 1776. All the talk about America as the “last best hope of Earth” can easily tip over into angry jingoism and nakedly nationalist idolatry, but on the narrow political question of religious liberty for the human race, it is exactly correct. Alexander Dvorkin has told us as much. If the American commitment to religious liberty falters and fails here at home, liberty of conscience may not be long for this world, or at least for vast portions of it.

The torch lit by Roger Williams is still being carried by the United States and its citizens, but the current administration gives us cause to worry. The career of Xavier Becerra, newly confirmed to head the Department of Health and Human Services, suggests that very little respect will be accorded to groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor. As the administration pursues an agenda hostile to conscience rights, many religious Americans may wonder what’s become of our bedrock commitment to religious freedom.

The enemies of religious freedom beyond America’s borders are presently wielding fearsome power. Here at home, it’s never been more important to defend liberty of conscience, the jewel in the Constitution’s crown — beautiful but fragile, and so very, very rare.",1.3312587246641947
"New York Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks during a news conference at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City, March 24, 2020. (Mike Segar/Reuters)

The New York Times reports that FBI agents have fanned out to conduct interviews of state and nursing-home officials in New York. At issue, as I’ve previously outlined, is an investigation of whether the administration of Governor Andrew Cuomo misled the federal government when it provided data on COVID-19-related deaths of nursing-home residents.

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The feds began asking New York and several other states for data in August 2019, in the course, apparently, of determining whether to open a broader civil-rights investigation based on a federal law designed to protect institutionalized persons.

Earlier this year, Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, admitted to New York legislators that the Cuomo administration had withheld information from them about the true number of nursing-home deaths. The true number was significantly larger than they had previously indicated, because, DeRosa said, they feared that, if the information became known, the Trump Justice Department would use it to attack Cuomo politically. It has since emerged that the data was suppressed well before the Justice Department began asking questions, in an effort to burnish Cuomo’s image as a masterful manager of the pandemic challenge.

The administration has retained Elkan Abramowitz, an incomparable criminal-defense lawyer, to represent the governor’s office in the probe. He told the Times that the state’s “submission in response to D.O.J.’s August request was truthful and accurate and any suggestion otherwise is demonstrably false.” I had many dealings with Abramowitz as a prosecutor, and while I would often disagree with him about facts should be interpreted (which is how it naturally goes between prosecutors and defense lawyers), he was always honorable in representing what the facts were, which is why I like him so much.

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Clearly, a major issue will be whether the state’s representations to the feds were not only truthful and accurate, but also complete. False-statements cases can turn as much on what is omitted as on what is asserted.

On the investigation reported by the Times today, the FBI is working with federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York. The criminal probe appears to be separate from pre-existing investigations by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and Civil Division (they’re different), which could involve civil claims.",0.3871707580127318
"Xavier Becerra, President Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, testifies during his confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C., February 23, 2021. (Leigh Vogel/Reuters)

Senate Democrats have voted to confirm California attorney general Xavier Becerra to head the Department of Health and Human Services, a sure sign that Joe Biden intends to govern not as a unifier but as a champion of the progressive social agenda.

In Becerra, Biden has selected an HHS secretary with zero health-care expertise, an especially odd choice given Democrats’ insistence that the COVID-19 pandemic is the top public-policy issue with which we must contend. The decision to instate an HHS secretary who hasn’t a single health-care-adjacent policy accomplishment to his name evidently undermines that supposed commitment to advancing public health.

In my latest column at the Catholic Herald, I point out how Biden’s choice to nominate and Senate Democrats’ choice to confirm Becerra has put the lie to the notion that the president intends to lead a moderate executive branch.

At HHS, Becerra is in the chief administrative slot for imposing progressive orthodoxy on a host of social issues including abortion, religious liberty, and conscience rights — and his political career has illustrated exactly how radical he’ll be in each of those areas. More from my column:

During his time in Congress, serving as a U.S. representative from California, Becerra quickly demonstrated his dedication to causes much beloved of the far left. He managed to score a 100 percent rating from Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America, with votes such as when he opposed the federal ban on heinous and medically unnecessary partial-birth abortions. . . . As attorney general of California, Becerra was known most of all as a radical culture warrior. He lost a case at the Supreme Court after championing a California law that compelled crisis-pregnancy centers to advertise for the state’s free or low-cost abortion program — despite those groups’ fundamental opposition to abortion and related commitment to providing women with alternatives. Becerra has spent the last several years persecuting the people who exposed wrongdoing in the abortion industry. He led a coalition of states in suing the federal government, an effort to ensure that abortion companies such as Planned Parenthood could continue receiving federal funding. He led a second crusade attempting to force the Food and Drug Administration to loosen safety regulations on the chemical-abortion drug.

Though West Virginia senator Joe Manchin decided to vote for Becerra on the grounds that the nominee promised to respect the Hyde amendment — which prevents federal funding from directly underwriting elective abortions — there is no reason to believe that will be the case.

Instead, Becerra is all but certain to immediately begin undoing every pro-life Trump-administration policy, as well as to reimpose the HHS Obamacare mandate, which requires all employers to subsidize contraception and abortion-inducing drugs. The new secretary is so passionate about enforcing the mandate, in fact, that he sued the Trump administration for having instated religious exemptions to it.

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The choice to nominate and confirm Becerra illustrates that Democrats care far less about acting as unifiers and addressing the pandemic than they do about using executive power to impose progressive orthodoxy on abortion.",-0.7878824481592095
"Former President George W. Bush in Washington, D.C., January 20, 2021 (Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters)

Former President George W. Bush said the January 6 Capitol riot made him “sick to my stomach” and that he continues to be “disturbed” by it.

“I can’t remember what I was doing, but … I was sick to my stomach … to see our nation’s Capitol being stormed by hostile forces,” Bush said in an interview with The Texas Tribune that was recorded February 24 and published Thursday. “And it really disturbed me to the point where I did put out a statement, and I’m still disturbed when I think about it.”

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Bush said the siege “undermines rule of law and the ability to express yourself in peaceful ways in the public square.”

“This was an expression that was not peaceful,” he added.

Authorities have arrested more than 300 people in connection with the Capitol riot, which left five people dead, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer, and injured more than 100 law enforcement officials.

After a pro-Trump mob breached the Capitol in January, Bush released a statement saying, “This is how election results are disputed in a banana republic — not our democratic republic.”

“I am appalled by the reckless behavior of some political leaders since the election and by the lack of respect shown today for our institutions, our traditions, and our law enforcement,” he said then. “The violent assault on the Capitol — and disruption of a constitutionally mandated meeting of Congress — was undertaken by people whose passions have been inflamed by falsehoods and false hopes.”

Bush also told the newspaper that he did not believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

“I think the election, all elections have some kind of improprieties,” he said. “I think … the results of this election, though, were confirmed when Joe Biden got inaugurated as president.”

Asked directly whether the election was stolen, the former president said just, “No.”

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He offered the same response when asked if the Trump administration put democracy at risk in the wake of the 2020 election.

“What’s putting democracy at risk is the capacity to get on the internet to spread … all kinds of stuff,” he said. “But checks and balances work. It’s a, you know, a balanced system. The courts work. The legislative process needs a little work, particularly on immigration reform … No, I thought the system worked fine.”

Bush also noted that while “we’re at a period of time … when there’s a lot of anger in the system, which then causes people to worry about the future of our democracy,” that he believes it’s “going to eventually work its way out of the system.”

“History and the United States has shown these populist movements begin to fritter over time, and so I’m optimistic about democracy,” he said.

Send a tip to the news team at NR.",-0.060280746121209226
"Why Chinese diplomats threw a tantrum in Anchorage.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE W hen the Chinese Communist Party’s top diplomats met Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national-security adviser Jake Sullivan last night for talks in Anchorage, Alaska, they put on a dishonest tantrum.

During an unscripted squabble, Yang Jiechi, the CCP’s top foreign-affairs official, requested that media remain in the room to cover a second set of remarks by him and Wang Yi, the foreign minister, after Blinken and Sullivan had spoken a second time to rebut a 17-minute-long speech by Yang that far exceeded the agreed-upon two-minute time limit.

“I think we thought too well of the United States. The United States isn’t …",-0.7225681048642696
"Yang Jiechi, director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office for China, addresses the U.S. delegation in Anchorage, Alaska, March 18, 2021. (Frederic J. Brown/Reuters)

U.S. and Chinese officials exchanged tense criticisms of each other’s countries on Thursday, as officials from both countries met in-person for the first time since President Joe Biden took office.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National security adviser Jake Sullivan clashed with the Chinese Communist Party foreign affairs chief, Yang Jiechi as two days of talks in Alaska got underway on Thursday.

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While Blinken said the Biden administration had joined with its allies to combat China’s increasing authoritarianism and assertiveness at home and abroad, Yang accused the U.S. of being hypocritical in its critique of Beijing on human rights and other issues.

The meeting comes amid rising tensions between the two countries over a number of issues: trade, human rights, the coronavirus pandemic, and China’s actions in the South China Sea.

Blinken said China’s actions in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan, as well as cyberattacks on the U.S. and economic coercion against U.S. allies all “threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability.”

“That’s why they’re not merely internal matters, and why we feel an obligation to raise these issues here today,” he said.

Sullivan similarly said China has perpetrated an “assault on basic values.”

“We do not seek conflict but we welcome stiff competition,” he said.

Yang accused Blinken, Sullivan and other U.S. officials of “condescension” and hypocrisy, saying the U.S. has not dealt with its own human rights issues and domestic discontent.

“We believe that it is important for the United States to change its own image and to stop advancing its own democracy in the rest of the world,” he said. “Many people within the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States.”

“China will not accept unwarranted accusations from the U.S. side,” he said.

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He noted that recent events had sparked “a period of unprecedented difficulty” in the countries’ relations and that “has damaged the interests of our two peoples.”

“There is no way to strangle China,” he said.

Blinken hit back, saying after speaking with world leaders on his trip to Japan and South Korea he had come away with the opposite impression of how the world views the U.S.

“I’m hearing deep satisfaction that the United States is back, that we’re reengaged,” Blinken said. “I’m also hearing deep concern about some of the actions your government is taking.”

Send a tip to the news team at NR.",-1.1085473426578958
"The European Union is crashing into a vaccine debacle.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE T he race to vaccinate has major political and economic consequences. Handling the process competently is a sign of the trustworthiness of governments in a crisis. And the sooner national populations feel comfortable going out into the world again, the sooner national economies can begin sprinting toward a real recovery.

Israel is the obvious vaccine champion so far and is rapidly reopening. But among other world powers, a split is happening.

As I write, 12 percent of the U.S. population is now fully vaccinated for COVID-19. Nearly 60 million Americans — roughly 22 percent of the population — have received at least the …",1.3793322931163643
The national media may not want to look too closely at which states rank at or near the bottom of the vaccination effort.,-0.43906060202905667
The national media may not want to look too closely at which states rank at or near the bottom of the vaccination effort.,-0.3646994606181623
The national media may not want to look too closely at which states rank at or near the bottom of the vaccination effort.,0.3401611988597524
The national media may not want to look too closely at which states rank at or near the bottom of the vaccination effort.,-1.5320029369563632
"Across the first two eras of Disney animation — the Snow White to Sleeping Beauty years of Walt himself, and the great revival that began with The Little Mermaid in 1989 — the template for an animated movie was so consistent as to barely require elaboration: a familiar fairy tale as scaffolding, a prince or princess in the leading part, a romance, a comic-relief sidekick, friendly animals, a menacing villain, a bumbling henchman, songs, swordfights, cut.

With the release of Raya and the Last Dragon, we can say that the third era of Disney — the computer-animated era, now just over …",-0.84424938008073
"Eddie Murphy in Coming 2 America. (Paramount Pictures)

Coming 2 America restores our sense of humor.

In 1986, my negative review of Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America, written for The City Sun, the country’s most politically engaged black-owned newspaper, caused a controversy that went media-wide (this was before the phrase “going viral”). Murphy responded with full-page ad rebuttals. Even Time and Playboy reported the exchange. Since then, Murphy outgrew his early-career brashness (he walked the thin line between ignorance and insensitivity) and eventually proved himself one of the all-time great American movie actors in such rich comedies as Life, The PJs, Bowfinger, Norbit, The Nutty Professor, The Klumps, Meet Dave, A Thousand Words, and Mr. Church. His Coming to America sequel, filmed as The Quest (revealed in the blooper end-credits), confirms Murphy’s pursuit of comic excellence and represents a career peak. Despite its insipid new title, Coming 2 America deserves plaudits.

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Retooling the 1988 plot about African prince Akeem (Murphy) traveling to the U.S. to find a bride, 30 years have passed. Now King Akeem, the father of three daughters, seeks his patrilineal heir via another transcontinental mission. He finds Lavelle Junson (Jermaine Fowler), his “bastard son.” That rude phrase evokes the disintegration of black family relations as normalized by the politically correct “single parent” euphemism, but Murphy’s rude, comic epithet is necessary. It corrects several recent black pop-culture regressions.

Coming 2 America’s father-son plot obviously parodies the sanctimonious sentimentality of The Lion King (Disney’s anthropomorphic spectacles and especially Beyoncé’s patronizing Black Is King iteration). Murphy’s satire is right for this era of disingenuous race consciousness. It also rejects Black Panther’s humorless self-importance about African heritage and black governance. (A #MeToo subplot is more routine than offensive, but at least it’s acted warmly.) Each rounded character — from Arsenio Hall’s majordomo Semmi and Wesley Snipe’s greedy tribal dictator Izzy to Leslie Jones’s bodacious babymama Mary and Tracy Morgan’s wily Uncle Reem — shows the funny side of either uppity Motherland pride or vulgar urban-ghetto candor.

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Restoring our lost sense of humor is Murphy’s triumph in Coming 2 America. Since 2008, the nation has been forced to view everything judgmentally as race-based, whether a private achievement or a personal offense. This manipulation worsened when the fantasy film Black Panther caricatured ethnic pride and its sci-fi comic-book nonsense was taken seriously. The Black Lives Matter generation projected their political whims upon Wakanda, a nonexistent African kingdom that was a Millennial version of faux-naïf Africa (which young Murphy once equated to Tarzan movies), seemingly unaware that, before they were born, Murphy had already proposed the country of Zamunda — and had played an African king in Michael Jackson’s Remember the Time music video.

At that time, Zamunda meant less to me than Eighties pop music by Michael Jackson, Prince, Public Enemy, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, the movies Purple Rain, A Rage in Harlem, Hollywood Shuffle, and music videos that vivified the complexities of what Prince called “pop life.” But now, Zamunda’s fantasy must fight off Wakanda’s brainwashing effect. Vague ideas of “hope and change” can’t compete with Coming 2 America’s funny, refined expression of Afrocentric desire — and black self-reflection.

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After the misfire of Dolemite Is My Name, Murphy and director Craig Brewer find their own comic sensibility. Murphy’s matured instincts, assisted by his longtime screenwriter Barry Blaustein and by the friendly eye of Brewer, uncover surprising details of the black diaspora. A fascinating dynamic occurs between conservative, regal Akeem and hip-hop-raised, American Lavelle. Murphy strikes his own handsome, amusing profile while Fowler recalls the suave Clyde McPhatter — two examples of African and American manners, from political ambition to showbiz polish. There are such familiar sequences as Murphy and Hall revisiting their old-men stunts at the My-T-Sharp barber shop, site of timely quips about Mitt Romney and Geek Squad–Antifa (“They want to kill everybody!”). But the movie really spins when it revives cultural touchstones: appearances by En Vogue, Salt-N-Pepa, Gladys Knight, and Morgan Freeman, whose dignity and officialdom raise the roof of the resplendent Zamunda palace. This sequence (less radiant than John Singleton’s Remember the Time video) is anchored to a genuine cultural heritage — made venerable by age and time — rather than sci-fi Afro-futurism.

Black film culture has changed since 1988: Murphy has become a sage wit, and Spike Lee epitomizes the shameless race hustling of the moment. Novice Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther suggested he was so caught up in political fashion that he could not distinguish fact from fantasy. Sadly, an entire generation followed him off the cliff. Murphy and Brewer’s affectionate comedy provides emotional sustenance about family and ethnicity (the comic cast holds promise, especially Snipes’s “Idiot Amin” despot). Coming 2 America is hilarious and sane — and that goes deeper than pretend pride. Bravo, Eddie Murphy.

",-0.4684624214645245
"Kelly Marie Tran and Awkwafina in Raya and the Last Dragon(2021) (Photo by Disney)

With Raya and the Last Dragon, Disney can now throw another princess of color into its toy and book collections. Merchandising mission accomplished.

‘I’m not, like, the best dragon,” confesses one of the title characters in Disney’s new animated film Raya and the Last Dragon. Indeed not. Voiced by Awkwafina, the elongated lavender shape-shifting dragon-fish Sisu looks like an eel crossed with a feather duster, and she talks like an annoying TikTok teen. Sold separately through Disney+, this one is a third-tier production from the House of Mouse that seems more like an instance of performative “inclusiveness” and box-checking than the results of a story that was aching to be told.

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The movie starts out well enough: The opening act is a factory-standard Disney mix of formula elements with bits of Lord of the Rings and Wonder Woman. We’re in a pre-modern China where the people and dragons once happily coexisted. Every dragon bar one died fighting the Druun, a malignant force that looks like angry purple tumbleweeds and turned most of the people to stone. Sisu, the very last dragon, gave its last breath to gather all dragon energy into the form of a magical gemstone that defeated the Druun and restored life to the stone people. Five hundred years later, stability has come about through hegemony: A single, benevolent tribe, Heart, owns the gemstone, and the stasis resembles what used to be known as Pax Americana.

As the film begins, Raya (voiced by Kelly Marie Tran, who was widely but not unfairly ridiculed for the role she played in the latest Star Wars movies) is a girl whose dad, Chief Benja, (Daniel Dae Kim) is the custodian of the gemstone coveted by all five tribes. In the spirit of idealistic liberals everywhere, Benja decides to throw away stability in favor of a kind of League of Nations gambit. “We were once unified harmoniously as one,” notes this supreme king. “If we don’t stop and learn to trust one another again, it’s only a matter of time before we tear each other apart.” Not surprisingly, when Benja invites his archrivals over for soup, they instead try to steal the gem, which is barely guarded and quickly gets broken into five pieces distributed to the various tribes, unleashing the Druun again, which turns most people back to stone. To undo her dad’s idiotic decisions, Raya has to bring the five pieces of the gem together. But she has help: It turns out that Sisu the dragon is not dead, merely resting.

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The opening act seems to promise a kind of Asian Lion King, with a youngster dutifully inheriting the throne after treachery destroys the old man, but whatever mythic mojo there is in that opening act fizzles out when we meet Sisu the dragon. When it comes to playing scaly sidekicks, it turns out that Awkwafina is no Eddie Murphy. I’m not sure that even a comedy genius could have done much with Sisu’s lines — “I’m wicked when I hit that liquid. . . . I slaughter when I hit the water” and so on — but Awkwafina does not generate hilarity. And her steel-wool, Patty-and-Selma voice is abrasive to the ears. As much as I was praying for better jokes, I was also hoping someone would pass the dragon a lozenge.

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As Raya, meanwhile, Tran has a perfectly pleasing voice but the character is a Mary Sue. Worse, she spends most of the movie functioning as the straight man for Sisu’s dumb jokes. Disney these days operates under tweet terror: Someone out there might remark that some aspect of a minority character represents an unflattering stereotype, so the company errs on the side of making such figures irredeemably dull. The movie’s sidekicks are even less interesting than the principals: Raya’s ride is some sort of mollusk-aardvark, a boringly obnoxious little boy is thrown in as a sop to the boys in the audience (or maybe just the obnoxious ones), and there’s a mischievous toddler that amounts to a poopy diaper of writing ability. Comic interludes range from the lame (everyone has a hard time with spicy food) to the very lame (Sisu goes on a shoplifting spree because she doesn’t understand the concept of credit). Efforts to maintain an atmosphere of medieval magic and wonder collapse under all of the suburban-teen-speak (“Using your baby charm to rip people off is super-sketchy.”). Somebody says, “I’m not Dang Hai. I’m Chai. The flower guy?”

The movie’s trust-your-enemies theme is so insipid I’m surprised Woodrow Wilson isn’t credited as one of the writers, although just about everybody else is (it took eight people to come up with this sludgy story), and the movie ends without even bothering to answer the question that got things going, which is who among the five tribes gets to control the single gemstone. None of this much matters, though. Since Disney can now throw another princess of color into its toy and book collections, this is a case of merchandising mission accomplished.",0.5871456024476308
"Khaite FW21 (Fusion Entertainment)

He accidentally exposes COVID-era class differences.

Sean Baker, the NYU-trained writer-director celebrated for indie films about people on the margins of American society (Tangerine, The Florida Project), has shifted to a new far-left political move. His latest film, Khaite FW21, showcases the Fall/Winter 2021 Collection of designer Catherine Holstein’s Khaite fashion brand. Livelier and even more facetious than Baker’s feature-length films, this short celebrates the COVID social transformation that’s made America entirely marginal.

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Jokingly publicized as Baker’s “all new epic film,” Khaite FW21 is a series of cinematic scraps — a continuous montage of models strutting the streets, swanning through “subterranean corridors . . . collapsing past and present to evoke a city defined by extremes — perilous yet alluring, raw yet resilient.” Baker and a gang of models reenact New York’s bad-old-days — the crime and graffiti-ridden 1970s — that look just like the city’s COVID present. Baker’s brief credit sequence imitates Walter Hill’s 1979 street-gang classic The Warriors: fake nostalgia, fake news.

The fashion industry often depends on perception and prescience. Khaite FW21 cunningly (accidentally?) depicts national urban suffering and self-loathing that the mainstream corporate media, always promoting political mandates, gussies up as “news.” The models’ tough-gal, aggressive postures, meant to be chic and entertaining, seem bizarre considering that contemporary New Yorkers have knuckled under arbitrary tyrannical mandates.

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With The Warriors title font, Baker invokes Walter Hill’s colorful, kinetic analogy that connected modern, downwardly-mobile urban youth to the desperate societal objectives of Xenophon’s Anabasis, written in 370 b.c. Baker then switches to “New York Groove,” a ’70s hit by KISS, to serenade COVID realities, though the former go-getter groove has been destroyed by local and state policies and violent anarchists. Baker, Holstein, and model girls try to turn ruinous signs of anarchy (blasted store fronts, empty streets, wanton destruction) into punk style. (Instead of KISS, Baker might better have used the 1973 prêt-a-porter hit “Living for the City,” by Stevie Wonder, an audio-cinematic narrative about police brutality and urban anomie that is ready-made for Black Lives Matter exploitation. But fashionistas don’t go deep into R&B except to imitate Beyoncé’s baseball-bat-wielding feminism in the “Hold Up” video for Lemonade.)

Baker was commissioned to make Khaite FW21 for this year’s Fashion Week, which was held virtually, yet his film falsifies reality as much as old Hollywood backlot street scenes imitating NYC did. Baker’s runway conceit reveals the haut-bourgeois attitude that separates the classes in New York and throughout COVID America. (Manhattanites annually suffered an oppressive motorcade of limousines bearing press, designers, and models during we-versus-you Fashion Week.) Only the rich can afford this urban pretense. Baker perversely goes back to the filthy, gritty 1970s in order to promote acceptance of the wreckage that has befallen an America where the economy has tanked, small businesses are decimated, and rioters rule.

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Khaite FW21 displays the fashion elite’s blasé attitude toward corrosive political reality. It congratulates haut-Hollywood’s steady employment and wealth, where “urban” essentially means “pied-à-terre.” Making a fashion show of privilege has become Hollywood’s new means of messaging. Last week’s virtual Golden Globes telecast presented its own fashion show where the Hollywood Foreign Press Association ordered that all celebrities dress up for their remote Brady Bunch–style screen appearances. In-studio celebs from Jamie Lee Curtis to Jane Fonda to Bryce Dallas Howard put on the dog as if red carpet life was back to normal — and don’t you wish you had one?

Our social demarcations are now clearer than ever. We endure the world of celebrity elites where designers and performers reign, where Meghan Markle and Oprah Winfrey are besties and John Legend and Chrissy Teigen audition to be the new Barry and Michelle. You’re left outside of their circle, worshipping petty media royalty because that’s the only kind that’s left.

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Sean Baker is paid to pay tribute to this new aristocracy. So the same filmmaker whose breakthrough was the homeless transsexual exploitation film Tangerine, followed by the public-assistance tale The Florida Project, where the welfare system was juxtaposed to Disney World, now takes residence among the enviable affluent. But Baker hasn’t switched allegiances. “Haunts of the Rich, Famous, and Resentful” is Baker’s new demimonde.

Lady Gaga witchily droned, “We’re all in the shallows now.” Fact is, we’re all in the margins now. After the fashion industry disgraced itself by banishing Melania Trump, this latest debauch comes as no surprise. Khaite FW21 disproves the deceptive COVID slogan “We’re going through this together,” which actually only means: We’re going through this simultaneously.",0.9074940133016826
"Director Oliver Stone attends the premiere of Snowden in New York City in 2016. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters)

Surveying the career of a gonzo filmmaker, the fierce commitment stands out as much as the craziness.

I love Oliver Stone. He’s gonzo, gung-ho, and gangsta. He breaks the rules. He spits fire. He writes from his viscera. The movies he wrote for other directors — Midnight Express, Conan the Barbarian, Scarface — go over the top and just keep going. I forgive the silly posturing about capitalism in Wall Street because it’s entertaining. Stone and Val Kilmer nailed Sixties mysticism-turned-self-destructive-excess in The Doors, he and Woody Harrelson created a chilling study of murderous American minds in Natural Born Killers, and he and Tom Cruise got close to the heart of how the moral compromises and lies of Vietnam crushed our spirit in Born on the Fourth of July. And JFK may be the most insane picture ever released by a major studio.

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I loathe Oliver Stone. His movies barely make sense. His cinema is like his personal life — a senseless, ugly scramble to get to the next drug rush. His cinematic coke binge packaged as neo-noir U Turn is one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. His snarky George W. Bush picture W. is a feeble, brainless caricature. His hagiographic Snowden is an embarrassing paean to anti-patriotism. Even his acclaimed Platoon is war porn, an overwrought melodrama. Stone turns the movie screen into billboards onto which he pours all his crazed contempt for America as angrily and artlessly as Jackson Pollock spattering a canvas, or maybe a horse emptying his bladder on the road. And JFK may be the most insane picture ever released by a major studio.

I feel something of a bond with Stone: We’re both sons of World War II veterans, both went to Yale, both joined the Army without being forced to, and both went to war. Our tastes and paths diverged a bit: Stone was completely indifferent to Yale and dropped out of it twice to go to Southeast Asia — the first time to teach English, the second to be an infantry grunt. I dearly loved Yale and signed up for the Army to pay for it, which resulted in my being sent, not enthusiastically, to a war in Southwest Asia.

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Stone was as deeply scarred by his war as I was completely untouched by mine, and he emerged from it hating our country. I love it. Curiously enough, though, of the two of us, I’m not the one who voted for Ronald Reagan. Stone cast his lot for Reagan in 1980 out of disappointment with Jimmy Carter and an affinity for Reagan’s sunny personality, then regretted the choice out of a belief that Reagan was militaristic. I abstained in 1984, the year I turned 18, but if forced to choose, I probably would have ticked the box for Walter Mondale out of a belief that Reagan might well reinstate the draft, which had been halted only eleven years earlier, and send me to die fighting Communists in Central America.

Still, the shivery shamanism of Stone’s memoir, Chasing The Light: Writing, Directing, and Surviving Platoon, Midnight Express, Scarface, Salvador, and the Movie Game, has me loving Stone all over again. Reading his fantastically bonkers book, I came to a critical realization about Stone: He has no sense of humor whatsoever. This is not the same as being serious; he’s deeply unserious a lot of the time. But he is committed. There is no ironic distance or detachment from anything, ever, and here he and I differ rather dramatically again. Still, I am awed by this raw self-portrait in hypercharged fervor.

A frenzied neo-Romantic, Stone feels everything, ever since he fell apart emotionally when his parents broke up while he was at boarding school, and later, in a sort of soul coma, volunteered for the nerve-exploding chaos of infantry life in Vietnam. He survived a dizzying firefight (on January 1, 1968) that he describes in a woozily detailed account of absolute confusion. He never fired a shot nor saw an enemy combatant in that battle, yet there were bodies everywhere when the sun came up, and he helped bury and burn enemy corpses. When he got home, he immediately wound up in a San Diego jail, facing five to 20 years on drug-smuggling charges after bringing back two ounces of weed from Mexico. (A lawyer got the charges dismissed.) Back on the sidewalks of Manhattan, “I was coiled and tight, a jungle creature, ready for anything, living 24/7 on the edge of my nerves.” Except that he would dive for cover whenever a car backfired. He started writing screenplays as a therapeutic way to face his demons.

In his cinema, he takes a rusty hunting knife and flays our national nerves, trying to get us to feel something like what he feels. How can you not admire a mad pagan Hollywood barbarian who deals with career setback like this:

One shining, bright cold winter day I bought a cooked lamb and, in a bizarre homage to Odysseus . . . laid out its severed parts on my lawn, offering it with fire, incense, and prayer to the gods to wipe clean whatever I had done to offend them. I begged forgiveness, especially of Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom. It was a strange and solitary ceremony, witnessed only by my two ravenous dogs. I meant every word I chose judiciously, my heart so earnest to end this self-inflicted pain I was feeling as a frustrated writer, dramatist, whatever I was. When I finished, I allowed the dogs to devour the offering. After all, what did the Greeks go with all those fine oxen and sheep that were sacrificed on Homer’s pyres?

Immediately after this ceremony, which happened during a period when Stone was “heartbroken by Scarface and its Hollywood reception” (things certainly turned around for that picture, which grew to be acclaimed as a signature movie of the era), the Greco-Hollywood gods answered by hiring Stone to write another movie: Year of the Dragon. This launched a series of events that made Stone an Oscar-winning director. Tastes caught up to Oliver Stone; America was ready to be kicked in the crotch and punched in the neck. The Eighties and Oliver Stone were made for each other. But I’ll come to that in my next essay.",1.8937840253215916
"Today on The Editors, Rich, Charlie, Maddy, and Jim discuss the latest uproar concerning women in the military, Europe’s temporary delay on the AstraZeneca vaccine, and Amazon’s reasons for banning books questioning trans ideology. Editors’ picks: • Rich: Phil Klein’s post “Public Behavior Led the Way on COVID-19 Lockdowns — and It Will Lead Us Out” • Charlie: Dan McLaughlin’s piece “The Populist Dilemma on Free Speech and Cancel Culture” • Maddy: MBD’s piece “National Review Is Irrelevant” • Jim: Rich’s piece “It’s Trump’s Fault” Light items: • Rich: The latest NR fund-drive • Charlie: Going skeet shooting • Maddy: Talking to her great-uncle about the Great Books • Jim: His boys both being back in-person for school Sponsor: Freshly The Editors is hosted by Rich Lowry and produced by Sarah Schutte.",1.1726547469655086
"Kevin and Charlie discuss Charlie’s new NR position, dumb complaints about their writing, the death penalty, Charlie’s last cover story, and much more.",0.6926097441425372
"Kevin and Charlie discuss Charlie’s new NR position, dumb complaints about their writing, the death penalty, Charlie’s last cover story, and much more.",1.5952937048236004
"Kevin and Charlie discuss Charlie’s new NR position, dumb complaints about their writing, the death penalty, Charlie’s last cover story, and much more.",-1.0873311583960235
"Duration:00:37:15

Kevin and Charlie discuss the new COVID relief bill and give lawmakers some helpful (but sure to be ignored) financial advice.",1.400339261188691
"New York Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks during a daily briefing following the outbreak of the coronavirus in New York City, July 13, 2020. (Mike Segar/Reuters)

Today on The McCarthy Report, Andy and Rich discuss the New York COVID data coverup and the hole Governor Cuomo keeps digging for himself concerning the sexual harassment allegations.",-1.4502032315861502
"Victor discusses the fallout from the riots at the U.S. Capitol, the impact on the legacy of Donald Trump, the media’s relentless double standards, and more.",-0.5090119425617841
"(David Bowie)

Scot and Jeff discuss the third and final part of David Bowie’s career (1982-2016) with Damon Linker.

Introducing the Band:

Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Damon Linker, Senior Columnist for The Week. Read Damon’s work here and follow him at @DamonLinker on Twitter.

Damon’s Music Pick: David Bowie

Political Beats knows when to go out, and when to stay in, and we’re asking you to stay in and listen to us discuss the brilliant adventure of the latter part of David Bowie’s career from the moment when he first became a true multi-platinum global superstar with Let’s Dance. He then lost the plot for several years after getting captured and trapped by his newfound audience, and struggled to work himself back up into wakefulness in fits and starts, first with his hard rock pseudo-democratic band Tin Machine, then with a series of variant 1990s albums that openly nodded toward his younger peers, and finally with a completely new and full bloom of genius in the 2000s with Heathen, Reality, The Next Day, and his swansong Blackstar. This is the story of a man who finally achieved everything he ever wanted only to realize it was a largely Pyrrhic victory, but then slowly rebuilding himself back up to artistic greatness once again. David Bowie left us in 2016 at a peak equal to anything he had done during his Seventies heyday, and with his final album placed a capstone on an artistic legacy that stands uniquely among the modern era’s musical landscape. Join us as we celebrate it, and drink to a better future.",0.3864669383642699
"Duration:02:55:46

Scot and Jeff discuss the second part of The Who's career (from 1970 to 1982 and afterwards, thereabouts) with Ben Domenech.",-0.2346649125753437
John J. Miller is joined by Desmond Jagmohan of the University of California at Berkeley to discuss Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery.,0.041166376974914605
John J. Miller is joined by Desmond Jagmohan of the University of California at Berkeley to discuss Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery.,-0.7733167542017332
"Duration:00:37:12

John J. Miller is joined by Bradley Birzer of Hillsdale College to discuss J. R. R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring. This is a rerelease of episode 28 with some additional discussion of the book.",0.29577956529448346
"National Review’s Radio Free California Podcast is a show about the perilous state of the Golden State -- and what that means for you, wherever you live.",-1.2498912741543435
"Duration:01:13:56

Stanford University’s lefty professors work overtime to take down the affiliated free-market Hoover Institution. David says if the ACLU is to mean anything, it ought to at least stand for each of the nouns in its name. Will says public-safety unions are more concerned about conservative lawmakers than lefty Defund Police campaigns. California’s auditor says the state air-resources board isn’t hitting its own goals and has turned to alternative facts to say that it is. Also: Teachers' union...",0.5078635260066913
"Everything Will Be Okay by Dana Perino (Twelve/Amazon)

John J. Miller is joined by Dana Perino to discuss her book, Everything Will Be Okay.",-0.6868823462743271
"President Martin Van Buren, c. 1860-1862 (Library of Congress)

Picking up with Martin Van Buren in Jackson’s cabinet, Jay and Luke trace the Little Magicians rise to the vice presidency, his political knife fighting with John C. Calhoun, and his successful introduction of the party convention system. His presidency, bedeviled by the Panic of 1837 at home and trouble abroad with Britain and Mexico, gave rise to the hotly contested election of 1840 that saw the Whigs get organized and the ticket of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler take the White House. We move quickly through Tyler’s presidency (after Harrison’s death thanks to an inaugural address given in freezing rain) and see Van Buren aim for and nearly win the Democratic Party nomination in 1844. We look at his work forming the Free Soil Party, his increasing hostility to slavery, and his failure to defeat the rise of the slaveocracy within the Democratic Party. In the end, Van Buren remains one of the most consequential figures of his age, and deserves far more attention from the history books than he has received.",-0.4930898136889187
"Judith, a girl with Down syndrome, plays with her sister at a playground in Berlin, Germany, in 2019. (Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters)

Too many around the world reject the humanity of those with Down syndrome.

As we celebrate World Down Syndrome Day, it’s critical that we recognize the equal dignity and worth of our brothers and sisters with Down syndrome. Sadly, here in the United States and in many places throughout the world, the failure to acknowledge this begins before these individuals are even born. It’s beyond time that our laws reflect the truth that a person’s entrance into the world shouldn’t hinge on whether he or she has an extra chromosome.

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Yet that is what expectant parents of unborn babies with Down syndrome often hear from doctors who wrongly presume those with the condition are of less value. Parents often feel pressured to abort babies with Down syndrome. Often this pressure comes from doctors, but also from family and friends. None of us, doctors included, should ever assume some people’s lives are any less worthwhile.

The truth is that people with Down syndrome love life, are intensely happy, and their joy is a gift to our world.

Dr. Brian Skotko, a board-certified geneticist and director of the Down-syndrome program at Massachusetts General Hospital, in 2011 published findings that the overwhelming majority of those with Down syndrome are more than satisfied with their life and happy with themselves.

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What’s more, respondents overwhelmingly expressed love for their parents and siblings, and want expectant parents processing the news of their preborn infant’s Down syndrome diagnosis to take heart and to think of their growing child in a positive light.

“In our qualitative analysis, people with Down syndrome encouraged parents to love their babies with Down syndrome, mentioning that their own lives were good. They further encouraged healthcare professionals to value [unborn babies with Down syndrome],” reads the report.

Bias in the medical community against people with Down syndrome extends to the greater culture as well. Many countries have utterly failed to appreciate this whole class of people. Iceland, for example, has virtually eliminated its Down syndrome population through selective abortions. Similarly, Denmark has a 98 percent termination rate for babies diagnosed with Down syndrome, and the United Kingdom is right behind at 90 percent. It has been said that you can judge the advancement of a culture or nation by how it treats its most vulnerable. These trends are not just sad; they are repulsive.

The reasons for these astronomically high rates of selective abortion are complicated, but often the decision comes down to concerns about the quality of life of the child and the burden placed on families. Many prominent voices argue for abortion, including columnists and editorial boards in major newspapers and the Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins. Our cultural elites seem to believe those with Down syndrome are destined to live miserable lives burdening those around them.

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Women who are pregnant with a little one who has tested positive for Down syndrome in utero (an imperfect test) often feel that they have no other options besides abortion. There is far too little discussion about the joys of raising a child with Down syndrome. Many women never see research such as Dr. Skotko’s or other studies such as one by Vanderbilt Kennedy Center researchers which discovered parents of children with Down syndrome are less likely to get divorced.

Just because someone with Down syndrome is different from society’s expectations doesn’t mean their life is any less valuable. People find meaning in many different ways, and there is no one path to living a meaningful or productive life.

As one living with Down syndrome, Regan Reinertson, a 15-year-old from Bolingbrook, Ill., exemplifies this positive approach to life. She stole the show at the 2019 March for Life and was featured in its theme video. She has done print ads, social-media ads, and commercials working with Mattel (American Girl), Vision Works, Oberweis Ice Cream, All State, and JP Morgan Chase. She has also competed in the Special Olympics, winning a gold medal in rhythmic gymnastics and also competing in equestrian, and participated in a theater group for kids with special needs, playing parts in Beauty and the Beast and Wizard of Oz. Regan loves school, she’s very social, and she is loved by everyone. She loves to swim and go on vacations to the beach. Self-proclaimed medical experts might not see it, but she is a precious gift bringing joy to everyone around her. She is one of the most uplifting people I have ever met, and she shows that Down syndrome doesn’t stand in the way of a happy life. She and many who share her diagnosis have brought joy and meaning to people everywhere, and we must continue guarding those with Down syndrome from extermination.

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Some lawmakers in statehouses across the country have introduced legislation that, if enacted, would prohibit discriminatory abortions prompted by a pre-natal Down syndrome diagnosis. That would be a step in the right direction and show the path forward for defending those with Down syndrome. It would be a tragedy for the world to lose any more of these exceptional souls.",-0.8756642316364646
"Museums in Dublin, London, Paris, and Florence lead in progress, justice, and engagement.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE H ow rare is that headline? Things in the Old World, after all, tend to land on “dire” on the spectrum of grim to buoyant, especially these days. I read the news, as you do. Mutti is out of gas. Macron is morose — he’s behind Le Pen in the polls. The EU’s vaccinated fewer people than Zimbabwe. The pope’s best bud is Greta Thunberg, who acts like the girl in The Exorcist.

People are locked up, joblessness is sky-high, the Dutch are all potheads, and Putin is Putin. The Greeks rattle sabers at the Turks, the Catalonians at Madrid, the Flemings …",-0.26095486549729763
"(Movus/Getty Images)

The science behind memory formation and forgetting

I wish I could prescribe Lisa Genova’s new book, Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting, to everyone who comes into my clinic asking about why that hard-to-get name sits at the tip of their tongue or why they walk into a room and immediately forget the reason they entered it in the first place. Each one of these patients has one question on their mind: Is this dementia? If you want to understand how memories are formed, appreciate the difference between normal age-related memory lapses and Alzheimer’s, or learn how to improve your memory and reduce the risk of developing dementia, then this is the book for you.

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Lisa Genova, a neuroscientist and author of such critically acclaimed books as Still Alice, brings her expertise in brain science and her powers as a storyteller to the cognitive domain of memory. Without feeling like a self-help book, the book offers evidence-based how-to’s for boosting recall. One of its key aims is normalizing forgetfulness. Providing outlier examples such as the case of Yo-Yo Ma, the acclaimed cellist who can commit to “muscle memory” thousands of notes yet forgot his prized cello in the trunk of a New York cab, and that of a regular 65-year-old man who decided to memorize over 100,000 digits of pi but forgot his wife’s birthday, Genova explains why lapses like these aren’t so very different from our own misplaced glasses or missed appointments. Why? She explains that “we often forget not because it’s efficient for our brains to do so but because we haven’t supplied our brains with the kinds of input needed to support memory creation and retrieval.” She explicates these faulty inputs, such as our failing to deploy enough attention in the first place or leaving a memory flimsy by not reflecting on its meaning or salience to us, and she gives techniques on how to improve them. One success of the book is that it grounds the discussion in physical terms. Every step of the process of memory formation and functioning — encoding, consolidation, storage, and retrieval — is articulated in jargonless prose. Genova explains how these steps are grounded in physical structures in the brain, identifying the neural circuits that we currently believe undergird memory and its important but often maligned foil, forgetting.

The art and science of forgetting is another important theme. Simply put, it can be a blessing to forget. Through extreme examples, such as the intrusive memories that accompany post-traumatic stress disorder and the mental clutter of mnemonist savants, Genova makes the connection to commonly shared experiences like punching in your expired password automatically even though you changed it two weeks ago. She argues that forgetfulness plays an important role in keeping the rest of our mental processes unburdened by the weight of useless recollections, and even hints at ways to improve our forgetting of events we’d rather not remember.

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Remembering and forgetting are not simply cast as a binary in Genova’s account; she also explores the quality and veracity of memory. There is a fascinating investigation into so-called “flashbulb memories” like the ones people have of JFK’s assassination or 9/11. Such memories of “stunningly unexpected, personally important, and emotionally charged experiences . . . that feel resistant to fading and can be readily recalled years later” turn out not to be impervious to manipulation. When recalling an experience, we reactivate pathways in the brain that facilitated the making of the memory in the first place. In a physical sense (as far as some parts of our brains are concerned), we are re-experiencing parts of the event. But we don’t remember all the details in exactly the same way. Sometimes we miss a few details in the retelling, overemphasize other details, or are introduced to new information, and so, when the memory reconsolidates, a new version replaces the old.

Genova cites the work of Ulric Neisser, who asked his college psychology students, on the day that the Challenger exploded, to answer experiential questions about what they were doing and whom they were with when it happened. He found that two and a half years later, when asked to perform the same exercise, no students gave the same answers as they had initially, and 25 percent of students were 100 percent inconsistent in their answers. A year later, when shown both sets of answers in their own handwriting, a subset of students dismissed outright their earliest recollection and stuck to their more recent stories.

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Memories, even emotionally powerful ones, are malleable in the fullness of time. But recall can also be manipulated by the prompt. Genova relays one study in which people watched a video snippet of two cars about to collide. In questions asked about the cars’ approximate speed, substitution of verbs like smashed for ones like bumped influenced observers’ recollections (and therefore their estimations) of the cars’ speed. The experiment also illustrated the power of memory insertion. Those asked questions containing verbs like smashed were more likely to remember seeing broken glass than those who were asked with verbs like bumped. The video didn’t show broken glass. Their memories of broken glass were false.

After working through how memories are formed and why forgetting happens, the book switches gears to compare how the deterioration of memory and a person’s response to forgetting in clinical dementia differs from natural aging. There’s forgetting your keys and finding them on the sideboard, which makes you recall setting them down to answer an unexpected phone call, as opposed to losing your keys until you get your frozen dinner out of the fridge and find them in the ice box. There’s forgetting how to spell a rarely used word, and then there’s forgetting how to draw a letter of the alphabet. Folded into Genova’s explication of the mechanics of memory are useful tips readers can incorporate into their everyday lives — and for those who forgot them as they read, there’s an appendix in the back of the book. Genova also debunks commonly repeated pharmacologic fables — such as the notion that eating chocolate or drinking wine will salvage your memory (it won’t).

For those familiar with the greater Boston area, the book is an especial treat, as many of her examples include familiar landmarks. In writing about the nth time she traveled from Kendall Square to a vacation spot on Cape Cod, Genova relates that she realized she couldn’t remember driving over a particular bridge, and yet she knew she must have. Does this mean she’s losing her memory? No, in fact she never made a memory of it in the first place, because the entryway to memory is not just perception — she certainly saw the bridge on her drive — but attention. The familiar landmarks of overlearned drives just fade into the background, as they are without consequence or interest. We become habituated to them.

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The goals of Remember are important, and its message is as wise as it is hopeful. In some ways, it’s a kind of public-service announcement that can capture a reader’s attention, and Genova’s hope to humanize forgetting comes to fruition through her warm, conversational prose. Memory is seen by many as such an enormous building block to our identity that to forget is to self-destruct, but, to quote the author, “If we can embrace the notion that forgetting is a normal part of being human, then Alzheimer’s won’t be such a dramatic fall from grace.”",0.2527200558714739
"Author Mark Gerson (Book cover via Amazon)

Like the Haggadah itself, Mark Gerson’s book The Telling is an invitation to find meaning in the ancient ritual meal that is the seder.

The Telling: How Judaism’s Essential Book Reveals the Meaning of Life, by Mark Gerson (St. Martin’s Essentials, 352 pages, $29.99)

The seder has become America’s most beloved Jewish ritual. Sedarim, or “seders,” as the term is typically pluralized in English, have spread far beyond their roots. Among Christians eager to explore the Judaic roots of their faith, the seder, the ritual meal that many believe to be what Jesus hosted as his Last Supper, has assumed expanded significance. Spiritual Americans with weak or even no adherence to an organized religion now conduct seders to express gratitude or extol freedom (themes extracted easily from the Haggadah, the text on which the ritual is based), as well as to advocate peace or environmentalism (themes whose connections to the original are far more tenuous).

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That some traditionalists decry this cooptation of a quintessential Jewish ritual is hardly surprising. The conflict between universalism and particularism is one of the defining features of our time, playing a central role in America’s polarized politics. Western Jews have been fighting that battle at least since the start of the Haskala, or Jewish Enlightenment, roughly 250 years ago.

American Jews in particular have long stood on opposing sides of a deep chasm. One side defines Judaism in terms of fidelity to Jewish particulars: Torah, halacha (Jewish law), Talmudic education, and Jewish tradition. The other sees Judaism as an abstract set of values oriented toward making the world a better place, or tikkun olam.

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This rift manifests itself in many clear ways, from family size to community structure to politics. When it comes to Jewish texts, however, the distinction is subtler — and therefore potentially far more interesting.

Walk into any room designated for Jewish prayer service, from a Chasidic shtibl to a high-Reform temple, and you can count on finding (at least) two texts: a siddur (prayer book) and a Torah scroll. It is worth contemplating how we treat these two ubiquitous texts. The siddurim will vary. Traditional siddurim maintain a common core, although those deriving from different parts of the world are noticeably distinct. Conservative, Reform, and other liberal Jewish denominations take those distinctions even further. They appoint periodic committees to revise the liturgy in line with changing beliefs about society and theology.

Torah scrolls, on the other hand, remain unchanged and identical to one another. No Jewish denomination has (yet) edited the Torah. Rabbis and congregations far prouder to display the LGBT rainbow flag than the flags of either the United States or Israel still house Torahs declaring homosexuality an abomination. It seems that even to these universalistic, tikkun olam Jews, there are still texts so sacred that to edit them would be inconceivable. (Although current trends suggest that this attitude may not persist, it remains noteworthy that it has lasted this long).

That sharp distinction between the siddur and the Torah reflects a shared belief that some texts are open to editing and updating and that others must remain untouched. Which other Jewish texts belong to which category?

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In The Telling, Mark Gerson places the Passover Haggadah squarely in the “fixed” category. He notes — correctly, to the best of my knowledge — that there is only one Haggadah. Yes, there are alternative guidebooks and source materials for hosts who turn to the original only for inspiration, but those are not true Haggadahs. Unlike the siddur, or even the laws of Pesach, the Haggadah knows neither regional variations nor committee updates.

Furthermore, as Gerson explains at length, the Haggadah is an emphatically Jewish text. Its central story, divinely mandated, is the foundational story of the Jewish nation, the Exodus from Egypt. In the Haggadah, the chosen mechanism for telling that story is Jewish metaphor and history, grounded in Talmudic anecdotes and the accompanying deliberations of rabbis and sages. It’s hard to think of a clearer expression of Jewish particularism.

Yet Gerson uses that uniquely Jewish source text to explain, in the words of his subtitle, “how Judaism’s essential book reveals the meaning of life.” Needless to say, curiosity about the meaning of life is hardly restricted to Jews. In fact, it’s hard to think of a clearer expression of Jewish universalism.

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In his book about a book, Gerson weaves these strands together masterfully. He works his way through the Haggadah, showing the uniquely Jewish roots of some deeply universal messages. He brings life and relevance to seemingly arcane passages, providing insights capable of enlightening and enlivening any seder — from the deeply traditional to the generically spiritual and political. In so doing, he also provides a narrow bridge across the chasm, a ray of hope to those of us who believe that there is no need more pressing for Judaism, American society, or the world at large than a reconciliation of our particular and our universal tendencies.

The Telling, like the Haggadah itself, is an invitation. The Haggadah proclaims: Let any who are hungry come in and eat! Let any who are needy come in and make Pesach! In The Telling, Gerson implies: Let any who hunger for meaning come find it in Pesach. It’s an invitation well worth accepting.",-1.599659072665423
"Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D., N.Y.) arrives for an event in New York, March 18, 2021. (Seth Wenig/Reuters)

The FBI is investigating whether the Cuomo administration provided false data to the Department of Justice as part of its investigation into the administration’s handling of COVID in nursing homes.

FBI investigators have contacted lawyers representing Cuomo aides and have subpoenaed the office for documents related to the transmission of data to the DOJ, four people familiar with the probe told The New York Times. The aides could be criminally charged if they are found to have lied to the DOJ.

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The development comes as Cuomo finds himself battling dual scandals, one stemming from his aides’ efforts to conceal the true number of COVID nursing home deaths in the state, and another resulting from multiple allegations of sexual harassment leveled against him by former aides and other women he met during social engagements.

Cuomo’s aides reportedly doctored a state health department report released in July to limit its downside political risk. As part of that effort, they artificially lowered the number of nursing home deaths by as much as 50 percent by leaving out nursing home residents who died in the hospital.

The alleged cover-up took place as Republicans and New Yorkers who lost loved ones to COVID began attacking the governor’s policy requiring nursing homes to accept COVID-positive residents returning from hospitals. The policy may have resulted in as many as 1,000 additional deaths, according to the non-profit government watchdog group The Empire Center. Cuomo and his allies have argued that the policy was a reasonable response to the fear that hospitals would be overwhelmed by COVID patients.

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The state only revealed the true number of nursing home deaths, which stands at roughly 15,000, after attorney general Letitia James exposed the undercount in a January report.

“The families have been waiting for an entire year for any semblance of an investigation, a true, deep investigation into what happened,” Vivian Zayas, whose mother died in April after contracting COVID in a Long Island nursing home, told the Times. “We’ve been asking for an investigation with subpoena power at the state level, and the calls have fallen on deaf ears.”

Send a tip to the news team at NR.",0.32974984157370446
"Chemdawg marijuana plants grow at a facility in Smiths Falls, Ontario, Canada October 29, 2019. (Blair Gable/Reuters)

We all knew there’d be consequences to Joe Biden picking Kamala Harris as his running mate, but who could have predicted the crackdown would begin so soon? According to Scott Bixby, Asawin Suebsaeng, and Adam Rawnsley over at the Daily Beast, a pot purge is underway at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. From their story:

Dozens of young White House staffers have been suspended, asked to resign, or placed in a remote work program due to past marijuana use, frustrating staffers who were pleased by initial indications from the Biden administration that recreational use of cannabis would not be immediately disqualifying for would-be personnel, according to three people familiar with the situation. The policy has even affected staffers whose marijuana use was exclusive to one of the 14 states—and the District of Columbia—where cannabis is legal. Sources familiar with the matter also said a number of young staffers were either put on probation or canned because they revealed past marijuana use in an official document they filled out as part of the lengthy background check for a position in the Biden White House. In some cases, staffers were informally told by transition higher-ups ahead of formally joining the administration that they would likely overlook some past marijuana use, only to be asked later to resign. “There were one-on-one calls with individual affected staffers—rather, ex-staffers,” one former White House staffer affected by the policy told The Daily Beast. “I was asked to resign.” “Nothing was ever explained” on the calls, they added, which were led by White House Director of Management and Administration Anne Filipic. “The policies were never explained, the threshold for what was excusable and what was inexcusable was never explained.”

Obviously, continued drug use should be incompatible with a White House job, but should any indication of prior use really necessitate this kind of response? Press Secretary Jen Psaki responded like this:

We announced a few weeks ago that the White House had worked with the security service to update the policies to ensure that past marijuana use wouldn’t automatically disqualify staff from serving in the White House. As a result, more people will serve who would not have in the past with the same level of recent drug use. The bottom line is this: of the hundreds of people hired, only five people who had started working at the White House are no longer employed as a result of this policy.

You don’t have to agree with the National Review’s editors to wonder why five people were asked to resign; or why many more were suspended and asked to work from home; or to see that Psaki’s statement doesn’t answer these questions. The best question of all, though, is this: What distinguishes those punished for their past behavior from Vice President Harris, who boasted about her own experiences with marijuana on the campaign trail in 2019?",0.3123594053280977
"For the love of God, someone please help Joe Biden up the stairs.

It would be, and I say this in all sincerity, a national disaster if Biden seriously hurt himself after needlessly walking up a giant flight of stairs alone to get on Air Force One. Would you let your septuagenarian grandfather or father walk up those stairs? Help the man.

Joe Biden just fell 3 times in a row trying to go up the stairs to Air Force One pic.twitter.com/gTUTckUH32 — Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) March 19, 2021

Not one of us is immune to the consequences of time, and Biden is not only the oldest president in American history, he’s also older than any of the past four living presidents right now. While no one should recklessly speculate about a person’s health, it is completely reasonable to note a politician’s age and acuity in public life. The national political media seems to agree, as long as the president happens to be a Republican.

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You may recall that after Donald Trump was caught gingerly walking down a ramp at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point last year, an entire news cycle was spent pondering his health. “The president also appeared to have trouble raising a glass of water to his mouth during a speech at West Point a day before he turned 74,” reported the New York Times, “the oldest a president has been in his first term.”

CNN even covered Biden mocking Trump: “Look at how he steps and look at how I step. Watch how I run up ramps and he stumbles down ramps. Come on.”

On liberal infotainment shows like Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski claimed that walk had “sparked some concerns” about Trump’s health, to which Joe Scarborough responded that there were “a lot of people talking about the president’s health” and such talk “undercuts” the Republican “argument that Biden is an old man.”

Fact: Joe Biden is an old man.

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Democrats have tried to blame Biden’s failing memory and incoherence on a childhood stuttering problem – “facts” become “fat” and so on. This ailment only made a significant appearance in the narrative in 2020, around 50 years into his political career, though it had apparently induced the president into a lifetime of fabulism and nonsensical assertions. This is a bit different. It certainly doesn’t help that Biden was allowed to spend the entire 2020 campaign hiding from reporters, and then refusing for months to give a single press conference. Only this past week, Biden seemed to forget Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s name and called Kamala Harris the president again. We don’t know what all that means about his mental sharpness. We rarely see him. But we all know how such events would be covered if the president were a Republican.",-2.2216342002025042
"White House press secretary Jen Psaki gives a briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., March 17, 2021. (Leah Millis/Reuters)

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Wednesday said there is “no question” that the Trump administration’s “damaging rhetoric” has led to “elevated threats against Asian Americans.”

“I think there’s no question that some of the damaging rhetoric that we saw during the prior administration — blaming, calling COVID the ‘Wuhan virus’ or other things led to perceptions of the Asian American community that are inaccurate, unfair and … has elevated threats against Asian Americans,” Psaki said during a press briefing.

WH Press Sec. Jen Psaki says there's ""no question"" that the Trump admin's rhetoric ""led to perceptions of the Asian American community that are inaccurate, unfair, has elevated threats …"" pic.twitter.com/LBOwQEWxz2 — The Recount (@therecount) March 17, 2021

The press secretary’s comments came one day after a Tuesday-night shooting spree at three Atlanta-area spas that left eight people dead, including six Asian-American women. However, officials said Wednesday the attack may not have been racially motivated as previously thought.

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Shooting suspect Robert Aaron Long took “full responsibility” for the shootings, police said, adding that while the rampage was initially believed to be part of a rising number of hate crimes against Asian Americans, Long allegedly opened fire at the spas because he saw them as “an outlet for him” to feed a sex-addiction temptation that he was trying to “eliminate.”

Psaki noted that while authorities have said it is too early to say whether the attacks were a hate crime, that “doesn’t change the fact that this news is horrific and, broadly speaking, there has been an increase … in attacks and crimes and hate crimes as well in other circumstances against Asian Americans.”

She noted that the Department of Justice is conducting listening sessions with members of the Asian American community to “determine how that should impact policies moving forward.”

Psaki added that there is an “ongoing review of domestic violent extremism that is wide-ranging.”

A November FBI report revealed hate crimes in the U.S. rose to the highest level in more than a decade in 2019, a year that also saw the highest number of hate-motivated killings since the FBI began collecting that information in the early 1990s.

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In 2019, there were 51 hate crime murders, including the deaths of 22 people who were killed in a shooting that targeted Mexicans at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. Authorities say the El Paso shooter’s intention was to attempt to scare Hispanic people into leaving the U.S.

The perpetrators of a number of racially motivated massacres, including the El Paso shootings, as well as the 2015 killing of nine members of the historically black Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina, have left behind manifestos detailing their motivations.

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article said that eight women were killed in the shootings in Atlanta on Tuesday, when in fact seven women and one man were killed in the shootings. We regret the error.

Send a tip to the news team at NR.",-1.7866168375271347
"President Biden speaks at the White House in Washington, D.C., February 5, 2021. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Americans who have been hoping that the supposedly “moderate” President Biden will stand up to his party on something concrete will have to wait yet a little longer. Having reaffirmed as recently as yesterday afternoon that he still favored the Senate filibuster, the president told George Stephanopoulos last night that he was now open to changing his mind. At the very least, Biden suggested, the filibuster should be amended so that senators have to keep talking in order to sustain it. Why? Because “Democracy is having a hard time functioning.”

Is it, though? And, if so, when did this start? All told, there is an unavoidable whiff of “for me, but not for thee” about the Democratic Party’s approach to the Senate’s rules. Biden served in the upper chamber for three and a half decades, during which time he participated enthusiastically in an untold number of filibusters. Looking back on his career in 2005, Biden suggested that one of the most important lessons he had learned in 1975 was that, even when considering minor rules changes (in that case reducing the cloture threshold from 67 to 60), any “rules change by a simple majority vote” was “misguided.” “The Senate,” Biden said, “ought not act rashly by changing its rules to satisfy a strong-willed majority acting in the heat of the moment.” Having left the vice president’s office in 2017, Biden persisted in this belief, looking on contentedly as his party used the filibuster in order to stymie the lion’s share of the Trump agenda and stating during last year’s presidential election that “ending the filibuster is a very dangerous move.” That only now, having become president, Biden believes that a simple majority should change the rules is curious, to say the least.

Alas, Biden is not alone in his overnight conversion. Unlike Mitch McConnell and his Republican colleagues, who resisted intense anti-filibuster pressure from President Trump, the Democratic Party has folded, almost to a man, within seven weeks. In 2017, 31 of the 48 senators who caucus with the Democrats — including figures such as Kamala Harris, Ed Markey, Mazie Hirono, and Cory Booker — signed a bipartisan letter affirming their opposition to “any effort to curtail the existing rights and prerogatives of Senators to engage in full, robust, and extended debate.” Introducing the letter, which ultimately received more than 60 signatures, its co-author Senator Collins cast it as a defense of “an important tradition of the Senate that recognizes the rights of the minority.” Perhaps she should have appended a few extra words: “even if that minority is Republican.”

Principle aside, the timing of Biden’s change is strategically dubious. The Senate is currently split 50-50 been the parties, with the vice president breaking any ties. The House is as closely divided as it has been in decades. Already, Democrats are having trouble getting to 50 votes — a problem that is only likely to grow as the honeymoon phase wanes. It would take just a single death or retirement within the Democratic caucus to render the move against the filibuster either perilous or moot.

And it is the Democratic Party, not the Republican Party, that has most recently benefited from the safeguards accorded to the minority. In 2017, despite having an outright Senate majority and a long list of priorities, Mitch McConnell instinctively understood that the pendulum can swing fast and that the best legislative rules take stock of that fact. Is Chuck Schumer unable to resist as did McConnell?

Obviously, passions in our politics are particularly high right now. It was, of course, precisely for moments such as these that our patchwork quilt of checks and balances was contrived. At such times, presidents should reflect their position as the only nationally elected player in the system and remind the country of its longer-term commitments. Joe Biden once enjoyed playing that role in the Senate, admonishing would-be reformers of the filibuster in stringent terms:

I’ve been in the Senate for a long time, and there are plenty of times I would have loved to change this rule or that rule to pass a bill or to confirm a nominee I felt strongly about. But I didn’t, and it was understood that the option of doing so just wasn’t on the table. You fought political battles; you fought hard; but you fought them within the strictures and requirements of the Senate rules. Despite the short-term pain, that understanding has served both parties well, and provided long-term gain. Adopting the “nuclear option” would change this fundamental understanding and unbroken practice of what the Senate is all about.

Now, when his influence is as large as it is ever going to be, Biden looks increasingly willing to join the crowd seeking to curtail or end the filibuster. There are many words for such an approach, but leadership is not among them.",-0.9031282812022638
"Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson speaks during a news conference held by the National Rifle Association (NRA) in Washington, D.C., December 21, 2012. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters )

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, said Sunday that vaccine hesitancy among supporters of former President Trump is the result of a “natural resistance to government,” calling the reluctance to get the vaccine “worrisome.”

On CNN’s State of the Union, host Dana Bash asked Hutchinson what he believes is causing the hesitancy seen among Trump voters, noting that half of the 45th president’s supporters have said they do not plan on receiving a coronavirus vaccine.

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“Well I’ve thought a lot about that and I think it’s a natural resistance to government and skepticism of it,” Hutchinson said. “But you look at the breadth of support here in Arkansas for President Trump, and you have rural voters, you have minority voters and their hesitancy is worrisome, not just here but all across the country.”

“And I expect, as a country, we’ll get the 50 percent vaccination rate of the population, but we’re going to have a harder time getting from 50 percent to 70 percent, and it’s about overcoming the skepticism,” he added.

However, as National Review‘s Jim Geraghty noted earlier this week, while a recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey showed that nearly half of Republican men said they wouldn’t choose to be vaccinated if a vaccine was made available to them, that same survey also showed 24 percent of all self-identified Republicans 20 percent of all self-identified Republican men had already received the vaccine.

“Self-identified Republican men made up 13 percent of the sample,” Geraghty writes. “So if slightly less than half of this demographic really does turn down the vaccine when offered, we’re looking at 6 to 7 percent of the overall adult population.”

Asked if Trump should be more proactive in encouraging his supporters to receive the vaccine, Hutchinson said he is “delighted” that the president recently indicated that his supporters should get the vaccine.

While Trump did not participate in a public service announcement with other former U.S. presidents that encouraged Americans to get vaccinated, Trump did support vaccination in an interview last week.

“I don’t know the story behind as to why he wasn’t in the PSA with the other presidents,” Hutchinson said. “Any message is helpful and I think we have to have our leaders, we have to have sports figures, we have to have different representatives of our community, including our political leaders, say [the] vaccine is important.”

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Hutchinson also reiterated his plans to lift his state’s mask mandate by the end of March.

He defended the decision to Bash, who asked why the mandate would be rescinded in light of evidence that has showed the efficacy of mask use in mitigating the spread of the virus.

“We’re a year into this and we know so much more today than we did a year ago,” he said. “And so we had to educate people understand the importance of the mask, and I expect even though we take the mask mandate away that people will continue to use the mask when you cannot safely distance.”

Send a tip to the news team at NR.",-0.5753407016081803
"Michael Mann on Real Time with Bill Maher in 2015 (via YouTube)

If you wait nearly a decade, the courts might finally do what’s obviously been right all along.

That’s one of the lessons of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia granting National Review’s motion for summary judgment in Michael Mann’s seemingly interminable lawsuit against us.

For eight long years, we have watched as all remained quiet on the Western Front. Nothing had seemed to make a difference — not the anti-SLAPP laws that were designed to prevent this sort of legal harassment of publications, not all the amicus briefs in our behalf, not our motions and appeals going all the way to the Supreme Court, not the First Amendment itself. Instead, we were stuck in a grinding battle of attrition, in which the only change was the ever-growing size of our attorney fees — just as Mann intended.

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The climate scientist launched the suit in response to a Mark Steyn blog post in 2012 criticizing his work, and boasted privately that the suit was an opportunity to “ruin” NR.

The ruling today is a victory for free speech, but a limited one. The court held that, as a publisher, we cannot be held to an “actual malice” standard for the words of a non-employee whose post wasn’t reviewed prior to publication. This is a commonsensical standard that is well-established in the law. If it were otherwise, it would significantly increase the legal exposure of publishers and chill free speech.

That Mann was able to bleed us of millions in legal fees for so long should be a blot on the American escutcheon. There are a host of provisions within American law designed to prevent precisely this sort of vexatious litigation, and yet almost none of them seemed to have fired properly in this case. The venue Mann chose is governed by an anti-SLAPP statute, the explicit purpose of which is to ensure that plaintiffs cannot try to “ruin” their political opponents by bleeding their finances dry. And yet it took nearly ten years before we were able to start to extricate ourselves from his web.

The First Amendment exists to ensure that imperious and thin-skinned figures such as Mann are unable merely to declare what is true and what is false and silence anyone who dares to disagree. And yet, until now, our repeated appeals to its authority were left hanging.

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As Justice Alito observed in his dissent from the Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari, “a journalist who prevails after trial in a defamation case will still have been required to shoulder all the burdens of difficult litigation and may be faced with hefty attorney’s fees,” which, after a while, would “deter the uninhibited expression of views that would contribute to healthy public debate.”

Having spent so much in our defense, we know exactly what Alito means.

If today is good news, it would have been much better if Mann’s suit had been dismissed in its entirety. Instead, Mann’s meritless and vindictive pursuit of Mark Steyn and the Competitive Enterprise Institute continues (Steyn quoted a CEI critique of Mann in his post). Friends of the First Amendment, whether right, left, or center, should rally to the defense of Steyn and CEI.

As for NR, this saga is far from over for us. Mann may well appeal today’s ruling. Also, Mark Steyn’s legal fees have always been covered by our legal insurance, and still are. Finally, we have the presumptive right for Mann to pay our legal fees for some of the case, an option that, as it happens, would require even more expenditures in the short term.

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Our legal insurance has never covered all of our fees, and the policy is not inexhaustible. So, perversely, even after Mann’s suit has finally been found by a judge to fail a threshold standard, he is still going to be able to drain us of time and resources — which, once again, is his purpose.

This lawsuit has been a disgrace from beginning to end. It’s good that a judge has ruled against a big part of it, but justice won’t truly be done until the entire thing is discarded and crushed under foot.",-0.26038226606926584
"What is clear is that around 2.3 million of the 4.3 million doses of the vaccine delivered have actually been administered. Between 140,000 and 200,000 doses have made it into people’s arms in recent days, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The bumpy J&J rollout highlights the challenges the White House still faces ensuring a timely and steady administration of Covid-19 vaccines with President Joe Biden eyeing July 4 as ""Independence Day"" from the virus. Because it takes just two weeks to achieve immunity with the J&J shot — compared with five or six weeks for two-dose shots from Pfizer and Moderna, respectively — the absence of enough ""one and done"" vaccinations has a ripple effect, slowing the overall pace of the rollout.

Biden administration officials had repeatedly warned the initial J&J deployment would be rocky, since there was only a limited supply of shots available in the opening weeks. Problems could also be compounded by reporting lags. But they expect the distribution to smooth out when more vaccine becomes available at the end of this month.

“You can’t distribute the vaccine equitably if there aren’t enough doses to distribute,” one senior health official said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Because states have final say in how their allotments are distributed, some are using the J&J vaccine on populations harder to reach for a second-shot appointment. Others are putting speed over equity and sending out the shots broadly.

“It may be a little bit slower rollout because everybody is trying to decide how to best use this particular vaccine,” said Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

West Virginia is initially using the J&J shot to inoculate its homeless and homebound population, as well as those with intellectual and developmental disabilities living in congregate settings. By next week, health officials anticipate they will use up the entire first shipment of 15,500 J&J shots, and those vaccine appointments are already lined up, according to Clay Marsh, West Virginia’s Covid-19 czar.

“I think that people are getting a feel for how to do this the best,” Marsh said. “We’re just trying to build that framework, the logistics, the processes so that we can most effectively and efficiently take advantage of this new opportunity.”

Pennsylvania is using its 107,600 doses of J&J to vaccinate teachers and other school staff in an effort to get kids back into classrooms. As of Friday, nearly 83,900 shots have been administered, according to a health department spokesperson.",-0.09627170621860981
"President Joe Biden talks with staff members manning a coronavirus vaccination site during a visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., January 29, 2021. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

On the menu today: It’s the most mind-boggling figure, tucked deep in a Politico story on a Saturday: The Biden administration “is still trying to locate upwards of 20 million vaccine doses that have been sent to states.” Meanwhile, around the country, stories of vaccine doses being administered to hospital donors, boards of directors, and other wealthy not necessarily priority recipients start to pile up.

The Case of the Missing Twenty Million Vaccine Doses

On the campaign trail and before his inauguration, President Joe Biden and his team offered a consistent, bold, clear promise: They were ready to step into the executive branch of government and quickly increase the pace of vaccinations from coast to coast — even if the Trump administration had left a mess.

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Then-candidate Joe Biden, June 30: “If I should have the honor of being elected president, on the day I’m sworn in, I’ll get right to work implementing all aspects of the response that remain undone. I’ll have more to say about my day one COVID-19 agenda in the weeks to come. But my response will begin well before I take the oath of office. It will start as soon as the election is decided.”

From the Biden campaign’s COVID plan: “Biden will be ready on Day One of his Administration to protect this country’s health and well-being.”

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November 18: “‘We will be ready on day one,’ Rick Bright, a member of President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board, told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on Wednesday, when she asked about what they would do if there was no plan from the Trump administration for vaccine distribution.”

President-elect Biden, December 8: “‘[My health-care team] going to be ready on Day One to spare not a single effort to get the pandemic under control, so we can get back to work, get back to our lives, and get back to our loved ones,’ Biden said at a press conference in Wilmington, Delaware. ‘They’ll lead the COVID-19 response across the government to accelerate testing, fix our supply chain, and distribute the vaccine.’”

President-elect Biden, January 14: “We’ll have to move heaven and earth to get more people vaccinated, to create more places for them to get vaccinated, to mobilize more medical teams to get shots in peoples’ arms.”

Despite the promises, heaven and earth remain unmoved.

Politico, Saturday:

“After a week on the job, Biden’s team is still trying to locate upwards of 20 million vaccine doses that have been sent to states — a mystery that has hampered plans to speed up the national vaccination effort. They’re searching for new ways to boost production of a vaccine stockpile that they’ve discovered is mostly empty. And they’re nervously eyeing a series of new Covid-19 strains that threaten to derail the response.” Only a small percentage of those unaccounted for doses — roughly 2 million, two officials said — is due to lags in data reporting, the Biden team believes. That would mean the rest of the crucial supply is boxed away in warehouses, sitting idle in freezers or floating elsewhere in the complex distribution pipeline that runs from the administration to individual states.

Politico goes on to explain: “Instead, once the vaccine shipments are delivered to the states, responsibility for tracking them has been left up to states’ individual public health systems. The administration then only gets an update once the doses are actually administered and an official record is submitted.” A comment from an unnamed Biden adviser to the Financial Times echoes this assessment: “We inherited 57 different distribution strategies, some of which were working and some of which weren’t, and that’s what we had to work with,” the adviser said, referring to the plans adopted by the different states and territories.

Which states received vaccines and then have them sitting in a warehouse somewhere? We can’t be certain, but right now, the states with the smallest percentages of vaccines administered on the Bloomberg tracker are Rhode Island (52.6 percent), Kansas (53.6 percent), Alabama (53.6 percent), the District of Columbia, (54.2 percent), and Idaho and Massachusetts (tied at 54.6 percent). Notice there is no simple geographic or political connection among the states on the bottom of the list; you can’t dismiss this as a “Deep South” problem or blame it on red-state governors.

Some of those unused shots may be second doses that are being held for use on those who received the first dose. On the other hand, it’s hard to believe that all of the unused doses are in that category. We’re starting week seven of the vaccinations, so everyone who received the first shot in the first month or so should be getting their second shot soon. And for what it’s worth, the Biden administration doesn’t want states to sit on piles of unused vaccine to ensure the second-shot process will run smoothly:

They’ve also sought to persuade health providers to stop holding doses in reserve, a practice borne out of concerns people wouldn’t be able to get the second shot of their two-dose regimen — but one that’s no longer necessary and has only contributed to the confusion, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. On a call with White House officials Tuesday, Arkansas Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson vented that some states are bearing the brunt of the blame for the uneven rollout because of those reserves — a nuance not reflected in the federal numbers, according to notes of the call obtained by POLITICO. The complaint prompted a pledge from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky to issue clearer guidance for how states should manage their allocated vaccines.

One possibility that the Politico article didn’t mention is that the vaccines are being administered, just in a way that some people would rather not appear in official records. Unfortunately, there is mounting evidence that those distributing the vaccine are playing favorites, and in some cases, even stealing supplies.

The Vaccine Black Market?

There’s not quite a vaccine “black market” in the form of vaccination speakeasies or some shady guy on a street corner who says he can hook you up with the latest good stuff from Pfizer in exchange for cash. But there is an increasing number of anecdotes of medical personnel who have access and authority to distribute the vaccine helping out their friends, and hospitals bumping their donors to the front of the line.

In Santa Clara County, Calif.:

Santa Clara County officials are investigating the South Bay’s Good Samaritan Hospital after it offered Los Gatos teachers COVID-19 vaccinations in what the county has called a “problematic” series of events. “Good Samaritan’s actions are problematic for multiple reasons,” wrote Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, the county’s testing and vaccine officer, in a Friday letter to the hospital obtained by this news organization. While the county will provide the hospital enough doses to complete vaccinations for those who have received the first, it will hold back “any additional doses unless and until Good Samaritan provides sufficient assurances it will follow state and county direction on vaccine eligibility and provides the county with a concrete plan through which Good Samaritan will do so.” On Thursday morning, teachers in the Los Gatos Union School District received an email from Superintendent Paul Johnson informing them of an “exciting development”: The offer of vaccines via Good Samaritan, which Johnson framed as a thank-you after the district raised funds for 3,500 meals for frontline workers, including at Good Samaritan, at the start of the pandemic.

In New York City:

At NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, one of the most highly regarded hospitals in New York City, a rumor spread last week that the line for the coronavirus vaccine on the ninth floor was unguarded and anyone could stealthily join and receive the shot. Under the rules, the most exposed health care employees were supposed to go first, but soon those from lower-risk departments, including a few who spent much of the pandemic working from home, were getting vaccinated. The lapse, which occurred within 48 hours of the first doses arriving in the city, incited anger among staff members — and an apology from the hospital.

And elsewhere in New York:

Garnet Health offered COVID-19 vaccination shots to community members who serve on boards for its two hospitals and fundraising arm, even though most appear to have been ineligible under a state priority system that restricted those doses to health care workers. A spokesman for Garnet, which operates the former Orange Regional Medical Center in the Town of Wallkill and former Catskill Regional Medical Center in Harris, has confirmed that the health system made the vaccine available to its 16-member board of directors and the 25-member board for the Garnet Health Foundation, which raises money for hospital equipment and programs.

In Florida:

At least three South Florida hospital systems — Jackson Health, Mount Sinai Medical Center and Baptist Health — have already reached out and offered vaccines to some donors in advance of the general public, while in the process of dispensing vaccines to front-line employees, patients with chronic illnesses and other stakeholders connected to their health systems. In carefully crafted statements, hospitals confirmed that donors were among those receiving the vaccine in advance of the general public — but they insist that those who received them were within the age group prioritized by Florida and the Herald found no evidence to the contrary.

The silver lining to these stories is that even wealthy hospital donors and lower-risk hospital workers need to get vaccinated. Those of us who have the “just start jabbing as many people as possible as quickly as possible” philosophy have to accept that this means vaccinating some non-priority people ahead of higher-risk groups. Every person vaccinated, regardless of age or health status, gets us one step closer to herd immunity. The problem is that we already feel like a society where wealth and connections can get you anything, and the “we’re all in this together” cliché about the pandemic was already insufferable in all of those celebrity sing-along videos.

For almost eleven months now, we’ve been saluting doctors and nurses and watching their TikTok dances — celebrating a group of people who prioritized care for others beyond making money and getting ahead. Hearing that some doctors and nurses could be breaking the rules on something as important and serious as vaccine distribution is particularly irksome.

And then there’s flat-out theft, seen elsewhere in Florida:

A Florida fire captain accused of stealing COVID-19 vaccines meant for first responders turned himself in Wednesday afternoon, sheriff’s officials said. Polk County Fire Rescue Captain Anthony Damiano, 55, faces a felony charge of falsifying an official record as a public servant and misdemeanor petit theft, according to a Polk County Sheriff’s Office news release. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a news conference Tuesday that paramedic Joshua Colon, 31, was arrested Monday for covering up Damiano’s theft. Polk County Fire Rescue had been delivering the coronavirus vaccines to first responders, and Colon, who had been honored as the county’s “paramedic of the year” earlier this month, was administering the shots, Judd said. Colon forged the vaccine screening and consent forms to help cover up the theft of three doses of the Moderna vaccine, Judd said.

You can’t explain 20 million missing doses through theft and off-the-books distribution driven by favoritism. But those factors might be small pieces of the puzzle.

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ADDENDUM: For many years, I thought of John Weaver as the campaign consultant “who kept running guys named ‘John’ as the Republican candidate for people who can’t stand Republicans.”

It turns out the truth was so, so, so much worse.",-1.2071922206185592
"Dr. Michelle Chester from Northwell Health prepares to administer a Pfizer coronavirus disease vaccine at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y., December 14, 2020. (Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters)

Ugh. Yesterday I noted that the percentage of distributed vaccinations had declined from 83.9 percent on Monday to 75 percent Thursday, and the number of in-transit or unused doses increased from about 12.2 million doses Monday to 22.2 million doses Thursday.

This morning, the numbers are even worse. The percentage of administered doses is down to 74 percent, and the number of in-transit or unused doses is now up to 23.3 million doses.

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As the mid February winter storms recede in our collective rearview mirror, “bad weather” makes less sense as an explanation for the building backlog. Pfizer and Moderna seem to have overcome weather-related issues to get the doses distributed to the states. So why is it so much harder to get the distributed doses administered?

Are we sure it’s just weather issues? In a scenario that should trigger flashbacks to the days of Healthcare.gov, Vice President Kamala Harris is doing a photo op at a Washington, D.C., pharmacy to encourage people to use the District of Columbia’s pharmacy vaccination registration website . . . the website crashed, then started sending erroneous messages telling people they weren’t eligible yet, and users quickly found all appointments had been booked.

Some states were less enthused about the Biden administration’s proposal for giant federally run vaccination centers when they learned those centers wouldn’t come with additional doses; states were expected to supply the doses from their own allocated stockpiles. States argued that offering more tents and cots and vaccinators but not more vaccines didn’t really help them much.

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But . . . according to the data, some states have received plenty of vaccine doses and just haven’t gotten them into arms. Kansas has received 839,575 doses and hasn’t used 297,142 yet. Mississippi received 801,035 and hasn’t used 275,054 yet. Maryland received 1,795,785 doses and hasn’t used 596,642 yet. Biden’s home state of Delaware received 289,515 and hasn’t used 93,981 yet.

Pennsylvania received 3.6 million and still has 1.1 million waiting to be used. And Harris’s home state of California received 10.9 million and hasn’t used almost 2.9 million doses. Texas received 7.3 million and hasn’t used 2.27 million yet.

Yes, this is a complicated logistical effort and human errors will occur, and many of those doses are in transit, being distributed to the particular hospitals, medical centers, pharmacies, and other places where vaccinations are ongoing. But too many states remain a black box where lots of vaccines go in but a much smaller trickle gets into arms. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have used less than 75 percent of their allocated doses so far. This vaccination program began in mid December!

We have a country full of millions of people who want the vaccine, manufacturers pumping out doses as fast as they can, we’re in a race against new variants that are more contagious, and . . . somehow vast swaths of our national effort are at the mercy of some glitchy websites?",-0.08312145313692253
"The phrase “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” is a loaded one; it does not signify noncontroversial principles, as might be assumed, but instead describes a radical political agenda.

Throughout academia, programs and standards based on DEI are proliferating at a rapid pace; this is, in effect, a surreptitious political takeover of the Ivory Tower by academia’s most radical and unhinged elements that has dire repercussions for our society. New directives mandate that, to be hired or promoted, faculty must adhere to—or at least meekly submit to—the tenets of this agenda. Faculty must conceal any reservations they have about the DEI philosophy to be considered for employment or advancement.

Such imposed unanimity of opinion is one of the basic conditions of a totalitarian system.

The University of North Carolina system has not been immune to the spread of the DEI mindset. One alarming development revealing the intention to advance the DEI agenda at UNC-Chapel Hill is a missive from chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz informing the faculty that they will be required to take DEI training.

The message begins: “We remain committed to fostering a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community where everyone feels welcome and inspired to do their best work.” On the face of it, that sounds like a fair goal. But, as explained above and in the first part of this article series, the phrase “diverse, equitable, and inclusive community” does not denote the meaning most people would derive from it.

Next, Guskiewicz says that his administration is starting a new training program, part of which is to “provide our community with a set of common terms.” The message then informs that “subsequent required training” scheduled for the summer of 2021 “will offer common language to better understand how the world shapes and informs our shared values and experiences and will use an interactive platform to explore such topics as identity, power, privilege, and communication.”

This training is directed at faculty, a group of people who are highly educated and possess the vocabulary to discuss issues with considerable facility; the only common language they need is the English language. To provide such a community with a set of common terms to address social issues is to drastically limit the discussion.

For those familiar with the left’s manipulation of language to achieve its political goals, a set of common terms is a means to frame issues in ways that preclude dissenting perspectives. It means altering definitions and limiting language to a narrow set of opinions and giving nonpolitical terms political meanings. It assumes “shared values and experiences” without stating explicitly what those values are. However, we can derive what they really mean from the phrase “such topics as identity, power, privilege, and communication,” which sounds as if it comes straight from critical theory, a cultural Marxist perspective.

This required training is not only condescending to faculty but again suggests that what is intended is indoctrination for those who are not already in agreement—and intimidation for those who actively stand in opposition.

The initial training session is titled “Managing Bias.” The intent is to teach “participants…how biases affect their actions and impact others when left unchecked, including creating unhealthy work environments and reinforcing unjust practices.” Again, this may sound reasonable, until it becomes apparent that, to the academic left, nonconforming opinions are usually due to bias.

Consider the question of group disparities in achievement that has been front-and-center in educational discussions in recent years. Any deviation from the prevailing campus orthodoxy that differences between group performances are the result of bias—either past or present—is greeted with alarm. Yet, there is an overwhelming body of evidence that counter-productive group cultural practices are contributing factors in group performances, yet they are considered to be beyond the pale when discussing these differences. Treating valid opinions based on evidence and logic as bias defies the spirit of free inquiry that is necessary for higher education to function properly.

This training is “part of a series of actions to support campus-wide dialogue, healing, and structural change.” “Dialogue,” in this sense, does not mean an exchange of opposing perspectives in order to reach a decision or compromise based on evidence and logic, the way ordinary people use the word. Anybody on the Chapel Hill campus who mistakes the dialogue proposed by the chancellor for an actual dialogue and expresses opinions contrary to the DEI agenda will very likely find him- or herself facing a firestorm of accusations. What this usage of the word “dialogue” means is a variety of people all promoting the same agenda.

Furthermore, “structural change” means advancing the system of racial preferences that already exists on campus.

What this usage of the word “dialogue” means is a variety of people all promoting the same agenda.

If one were to take a look at the actual structures on campus, it would become apparent that they actually favor African Americans. The average SAT scores of black UNC-Chapel Hill students are roughly 130 points lower than their white counterparts. There are scholarships specifically for black students and none for whites. There are multiple organizations for black students centered on their racial identity—the Black Student Movement, the Black Law Students Association, the Organization For African Students’ Interests And Solidarity, the Black Student Graduate and Professional Association. There is also the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History.

No such comparable organizations exist for white students based on their identity. In fact, to even speak of a white identity in positive terms would be a cause for campus-wide condemnation and ostracization—and maybe even punitive action. Yet, despite these existing disparities in the treatment of racial groups, the administration intends to push them further.

The message from Guskiewicz to the faculty provides links to other documents, such as the university’s strategic plan, “Carolina Next: Innovations for the Public Good.” The links reveal that, behind the scenes, the university is moving forward with the DEI agenda—one that would likely not pass muster with the state’s voters if its real intentions were publicly known.

A second troubling document at UNC-Chapel Hill is a new set of guidelines at the School of Medicine for hiring and promotion.

It flatly states: “All faculty are expected to contribute to diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI). These contributions are to be described in the “Department Chair’s letter and C.V.” The curriculum vitae must include a “one-half to full page document summarizing the faculty member’s contributions to promoting DEI.” Examples of contributions include “caring for underserved populations and efforts to reduce health disparities; teaching, mentoring, or coaching underrepresented students, trainees, or colleagues; and/or other activities.”

The document indicates that assistance in completing a DEI statement can be found in the appendix and in the Office of Faculty Affairs and Leadership Development’s website. That website merely points back to the original document; however, the appendix lists some (but not all) “DEI scholarly activities for basic science and clinical faculty.” These include:

Application of material learned in DEI trainings (e.g. Safe Zone, Unconscious Bias, Implicit Bias, etc.) to promote an environment of cultural awareness, knowledge, and sensitivity.

Performing DEI or social justice-focused lectures to students, residents, or peers.

Leading a discussion or professional development activity on DEI topics.

Facilitating “Problem Based Learning” or other group sessions that address DEI.

Presenting teaching rounds or patient conferences that include DEI topics.

Participating in local postgraduate or continuing medical education DEI courses.

Preparing DEI or social justice curriculum materials.

Building a course reading list to incorporate concepts, readings, and scholarship on issues of gender, race, and other perspectives relevant to the course material.

Mentoring under-represented (UR) groups of learners; mentor under-represented students in SOM pipeline programs; participate in campus-wide scientific or educational outreach activities focused on under-represented or under-served groups (e.g., Science Enrichment Preparation, Project Uplift, etc.).

Hosting a scientific seminar speaker from an UR group.

Serving on SOM or hospital DEI Committees (e.g., Departmental DEI liaison; Task Force to Integrate Social Justice into the Curriculum, etc.).

Participating in DEI activities that support SOM DEI Initiatives (e.g., working with under-represented youth/students to promote STEM careers)

Participating in recruitment efforts focused on UR students, trainees, faculty, or senior leaders (e.g., search team, Carolina First Look, Rising Star Program, MED, IMSD, and similar programs).

Demonstrating cultural competence in clinical, diagnostic, procedural, or other professional work by using the Tool for Assessing Cultural Competence Training (TACCT) Domain 5-Cross-Cultural Clinical Skills.

Being recognized as culturally competent by students, residents, and peers by understanding Domain 1-Cultural Competence Rationale, Context, and Definition in the Tool for Assessing Cultural Competence Training (TACCT)

Being actively involved in clinical or basic science research focuses on DEI or social justice; filling a key role in clinical or basic science research that impacts UR populations; demonstrating evidence of application for externally funded research that impacts UR populations.

Inviting a scientific speaker to discuss research results that impact UR populations.

Essentially, these DEI statements suggest that there is now a political litmus test for advancement at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Perhaps there is some wiggle room in which a savvy professor can successfully maneuver the minefield of political correctness without destroying his or her career. But that is part of the problem: The new DEI guidelines create the sort of oppressive political environment in which one has to compromise or veil one’s beliefs in order to have high-level employment—the sort of situation that occurs in repressive regimes.

The above are only two of the many such documents and initiatives that UNC-Chapel Hill is establishing as policies; they are just appearing without approval from taxpayers or trustees. The next part of this series will explore DEI initiatives at some other schools in the UNC system.

Jay Schalin is director of policy analysis at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.",-1.002047906164093
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Russian strongman Vladimir Putin has released 'tough guy' images as he launches a terrifying new campaign to silence critics of his authoritarian regime - six of whom live in Britain.

An anonymous Russian intelligence officer who warned Salisbury novichok victim Sergei Skripal was being targeted by the Kremlin has spoken out to warn dissidents they are on the 'kill list'.

The six anti-Putin opponents who are living in Britain include businessman Bill Browder and former MI6 officer Christopher Steele, whose dodgy Trump dossier made him a household name.

Russia's relations with Western governments are at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War, marred by allegations of election interference and sweeping cyberattacks.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson last week described Moscow as an 'active threat' to British and European security, and vowed to raise the cap on the number of nuclear weapons in response.

US President Joe Biden refused to apologise after calling the Russian leader a 'killer' amid an escalating war of words between the two countries. President Putin snapped back by wishing his American counterpart 'good health' and recalling the Russian Ambassador from the United States.

In another provocative move, the Russian President appeared on stage Thursday during a concert marking the seventh anniversary of Crimea annexation, despite strong condemnation of the 'occupation' by the G7.

President Putin has now released new photographs of himself wearing sheep skin to go on manoeuvres in Siberia as he drives an all-terrain vehicle and crossing a shaky suspension footbridge over a frozen river.

Then he joined defence minister Sergey Shoigu, a native of the mountainous Tuva region of Siberia, for a picnic in the wilderness, with empty vodka glasses on the table, and animal skins to warm the seats.

Vladimir Putin was seen dressed in a sheep skin to go on manoeuvres in Siberia with his defence minister

The Russian President was seen driving an all terrain vehicle and crossing a shaky suspension footbridge over a frozen river

Then he joined defence minister Sergey Shoigu - a native of the mountainous Tuva region of Siberia - for a picnic in the wilderness, with empty vodka glasses on the table, and animal skins to warm the seats

Putin routinely appears on state television participating in various outdoor pursuits to project the image of a healthy and robust leader capable of leading the country for many years to come

Russian envoy says UK nuclear arms plan is illegal and relations with London are 'nearly dead' Russia's ambassador to Britain has accused the UK government of breaking its international treaty commitments with a plan to increase the country's nuclear arsenal and said the political relationship between Moscow and London is 'nearly dead'. In a foreign and defence policy review published on Tuesday and endorsed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Britain said it needed to increase its nuclear arsenal in the face of evolving global security threats. Britain said it would raise the upper limit on its nuclear warhead stock to 260 from 180. The same report also classified Russia as 'the most acute threat to our security' in the Euro-Atlantic region. The Kremlin said at the time that it regretted the British nuclear decision, which it suggested would harm international stability, while the Russian foreign ministry described the move as a serious blow to international arms control. Andrei Kelin, Russia's ambassador to Britain, went further in an interview due to be broadcast on the London-based LBC radio station on Sunday, saying the plan looked illegal. 'You are increasing the number of warheads by 40 per cent. This is a violation of the treaty of non-proliferation and many, many other agreements that are saying only a decline or a reduction in the number of nukes,' Kelin told LBC, according to a partial transcript on the radio station's website. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which Britain has ratified, came into force in 1970. The UK government has said its plans do not violate the pact. Russian news agencies cited Kelin as saying that political relations between London and Moscow, which have become strained from events from Russia's jailing of opposition politician Alexei Navalny to the poisoning in 2018 of a Russian double agent and his daughter, were 'nearly dead'. They cited Kelin as saying that only cultural and economic ties remained, while LBC cited him as saying that the last time he had spoken to British foreign minister Dominic Raab was in December 2019. Advertisement

The Russian President routinely appears on state television participating in various outdoor pursuits to project the image of a healthy and robust leader capable of leading the country for many years to come.

His bare-chested exploits, which infamously included horse-riding, are thought to have conjured for many Russians an image of the strongman as an in-shape role model.

The six critics in Britain being targeted by the Kremlin are Bill Browder, Christopher Steele, Vladimir Ashurkov, Mikhail Khordorkovsky, Evgeny Chichvarkin and Boris Karpichov.

Mr Steele, 56, is a former MI6 officer who came to global attention after making unsubstantiated claims of Russian spies holding videos of US President Donald Trump with prostitutes.

Mr Browder, also 56, is a long-standing Putin critic and was deported in 2005 after being branded a threat to Russian security.

Mr Ashurkov, 49, was granted asylum by Britain in 2015 after he was forced to step down in his position as an investment banker in Russia because he had ties to Putin's main political opponent, Alexei Navalny.

Mr Khordorkovsky, 57, was charged with fraud in 2003 but freed from jail in 2014 after Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience (someone imprisoned because of their race, sexual orientation, religion, or political views). He has lived in the UK since 2015 and is fighting to secure free and fair elections in Russia.

Mr Chichvarkin, 46, founded Russia's largest mobile phone company, Yevroset and is believed to have paid for Alexei Navalny's medical bills after he was poisoned with a nerve agent last year and treated in a hospital in Germany.

Mr Karpichkov, 62, used to work in the Cold War-era spy service, the KGB, and was a major in its successor, the FSB. He moved to the UK in 1998 and has already survived two poisoning attempts.

The Russian spy who has come forward to warn the world that President Putin's agents are hunting his opponents works for the FSB, Russia's version of the British intelligence agency MI5.

The source, who is understood to be able to mask his identity using complex technology, warned that a Russian special ops team are getting ready to cross into Britain from Ireland. He told the Mirror: 'Due to Covid almost all overseas operations were frozen. Now they are starting to activate them again.'

He uses pay-as-you-go phones which he can throw away easily to warn people in Britain that there is a message waiting for them on a USB drive. Messages are then automatically sent with an undetectable email. It is believed that two of the targets have told British police about the hitlist.

It comes as the head of the British Army said the UK's Special Forces will be tasked alongside MI6 to counter activities of Russian military intelligence in a major defence shake up.

General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith suggested the Special Air Service (SAS) and Special Boat Service (SBS) would be put on a 'different trajectory' in a major overhaul of the armed forces to be announced on Monday.

The overhaul could see Special Forces soldiers operating alongside MI6 to mount surveillance operations against Russian intelligence and military units.

The Army chief said some of their traditional roles would now be taken over by a new Ranger Regiment announced on Friday ahead of the publication of the Defence Command Paper. He said that in future Special Forces 'will be tracking the changing and accelerating nature of the threat.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said armed forces needed to adapt to counter threats which had 'changed beyond recognition' in the past 30 years. He pledged additional investment for 'intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance' as well as for electronic warfare.

The National Cyber Force will be expanded, there will be a new Space Command to co-ordinate military and commercial operation and the Royal Navy will get a new Multi Role Ocean Surveillance ship (MROSS) protect vital undersea cables. General Carleton-Smith told The Sunday Telegraph: 'The most persistent and lethal threats are those associated with hostile state actors.

Mikhail Khordorkovsky (left), 57, is on the 'kill list'. He was charged with fraud in 2003 but was released from jail in 2014 after Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience (someone imprisoned because of their race, sexual orientation, religion, or political views). Bill Browder (right), 56, works with the Hermitage Fund - once the largest foreign investor in Russia. He is a long-standing Putin critic and was deported in 2005 after being branded a threat to Russian security

Boris Karpichkov (left), 62, used to work in the KGB and was a major in its successor, the FSB. He moved to the UK in 1998 and has already survived two poisoning attempts. Vladimir Ashurkov (right), 49, was granted asylum by Britain in 2015 after he was forced to step down in his position as an investment banker in Russia

Evgeny Chichvarkin (left), 46, founded Russia's largest mobile phone company, Yevroset and is believed to have paid for Alexei Navalny's medical bills after he was poisoned with a nerve agent last year. Christopher Steele (right), 56, is a former MI6 officer who made unsubstantiated claims of Russian spies holding videos of Donald Trump with prostitutes

His latest exploit comes as the Russian intelligence officer who warned that Salisbury novichok victim Sergei Skripal was as assassination target has spoken out to warn new targets

Russian President Vladimir Putin walks through snow during a holiday in the Siberian wilderness

Russian President Vladimir Putin spends his leisure time in the Siberian Federal District

The Kremlin said it regretted the UK's decision to increase its nuclear arsenal, after Britain unveiled plans to bolster its stockpile from 180 warheads to 260 by the end of the decade. Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin

'So they're tracking a different trajectory and what they leave behind is a vacuum where they need to hand off tasks, missions and responsibilities to a second echelon force. The Rangers will fit neatly into that.'

It is likely that Special Forces units will be tasked alongside MI6 with uncovering the activities of Russian military intelligence - the GRU - thought to be responsible for the Salisbury nerve agent attack on former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, The Telegraph reports.

Elite units could also be charged with countering the activities of the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary organisation widely thought to act as proxies for the Kremlin.

Also writing in the paper, Mr Wallace added: 'We can no longer take for granted the superiority of Western capabilities. Our enemies have infinitely more options,' he said.

'Encryption, precision, and information operations complicate the threat picture. We find ourselves constantly confronted in the 'grey zone' - aggressive actions below the threshold of open conflict.'

While the Army would get an additional £3billion, there are also understood to be cuts with a reduction of around 10,000 troops expected as well as cuts to armoured fighting vehicles and the last remaining C-130J Hercules transport aircraft.

The White House has spent weeks telegraphing a tougher posture toward Russia under a Biden administration. and Moscow has once again bristled at accusations that it serves as a 'malign' influence in global affairs.

Fueling the rising tensions is a startling new assessment by US intelligence that lays out Russia's campaign to influence the 2020 elections - on the heels of the Treasury Department slapping sanctions on officials as retaliation for the poisoning of Navalny with a chemical agent.

Among those hit with sanctions was the director of Russia's foreign intelligence service, the FSB.

And the comments mark the latest time when the new Biden team has sought to draw a sharp line on Russia distinguishing it from former President Donald Trump - who repeatedly praised President Putin and even appeared to take his side when he denied allegations of election interference during their infamous summit in Helsinki.

Earlier this month an MI5 counter-intelligence officer used a Sky News podcast to warn that the Kremlin is still taking 'quite an active interest' in a number of people in the UK

Six of those on the hitlist live in the UK: Vladimir Ashurkov, Mikhail Khordorkovsky, Evgeny Chichvarkin, Boris Karpichov, Bill Browder and Christopher Steele",2.1927873933432047
"Soldiers of the ‘People’s Liberation Army’ in China listen to a speech at the ‘Great Hall of the People’ in Beijing, July 9, 2008. (Claro Cortes IV / Reuters)

On China and Hong Kong; the shifting reputation of George W. Bush; a new infrastructure marvel; an Impromptus anniversary; and more

China has a legislature — the National People’s Congress. Did you know that? One of those pretend parliaments. Anyway, this congress rubber-stamped new laws saying that only “patriots” may participate in Hong Kong’s government.

And who will determine the patriotism and non-patriotism? A new vetting panel, composed of “patriots,” i.e., loyal servants to the Communist Party.

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Until now, said China’s state media, “anti-China, destabilizing forces and radical localists in Hong Kong have manipulated the electoral system to enter the governance structure.” I will offer a translation: Hong Kong’s government has been democratic, or largely so.

More and more, I think that “patriot” is one of the most abused words in the world. I wrote about this several times two or three months ago — both before the assault on the Capitol and after.

Over and over, President Trump spoke of “the 75 million great patriots who voted for me.” Are we sure that all 75 million are patriots, to say nothing of “great patriots”? Did any other voter qualify as a “patriot”?

On January 5, a planeful of Trump ralliers shouted at Mitt Romney: “Traitor! Traitor!” They called themselves “patriots.” In his rally speech the next day, Trump had a little comment about Romney: “I wonder if he enjoyed his flight in last night.”

Charlie Kirk, the young Republican leader, said that his organization was proud to have sent “80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president.”

Etc., etc. A lot of people call themselves “patriots” and wear American-flag lapel pins and the like. Better, I think, simply to be patriotic, and act that way.

You have, no doubt, known genuine patriots in your life. Did any of them ever go around saying how patriotic he was?

• Last December, the European Union adopted a Magnitsky act. You recall what such an act is. It allows a country — or, in the recent case, a union of countries — to impose sanctions on individual human-rights abusers. These sanctions usually take the form of asset freezes and travel bans.

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These abusers like to park their money in nice, stable countries. They like to vacation there, too. And send their children to colleges there.

“Magnitsky” was Sergei Magnitsky, the Russian tax lawyer and whistleblower who was murdered in prison in 2009. He worked for William Browder, who has dedicated his life to the cause of Magnitsky acts. (I wrote about Browder and his extraordinary family three years ago, here.)

It took the EU a long, long time to adopt a Magnitsky act. Why? Because one government, Viktor Orbán’s in Hungary, blocked it. He relented, however, when pressured by a U.S. senator, Roger Wicker. Wicker is a Mississippi Republican, and an advocate of Magnitsky acts. Orbán prizes his support on the American right. Wicker said, in effect, Cut it out, or I will make a public stink.

To read about this, consult a report in the Wall Street Journal, here.

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Orbán can still block specific sanctions, however, because the EU requires unanimous consent. Every government has a veto. In recent days, Orbán has blocked sanctions on Russian officials responsible for Sergei Magnitsky’s death. But — other sanctions went through, including on Chinese officials involved in the persecution of the Uyghurs.

These Magnitsky sanctions are really an inspired tool. They target individual wrongdoers, rather than peoples generally. I hope they have an important effect on the world, and they may have already.

• One more Magnitsky note. There is a man named Dan Gertler, an Israeli billionaire who made his pile through crooked dealings with the Congolese dictatorship. He and Joseph Kabila, the longtime dictator, were friends and partners in crime.

In December 2017, the Trump administration imposed Magnitsky sanctions on Gertler. But just before the inauguration last January, the administration lifted those sanctions, after lobbying by Alan Dershowitz and others working for Gertler. Those who keep an eye on such things were shocked.

The new administration has now restored the sanctions, which is a relief.

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• In 1985, Richard Nixon published a book called “No More Vietnams.” It is a good book, as I recall. Nixon wrote a lot of those, from Six Crises onward. They very much include his memoirs (“I was born in the house my father built”).

I thought of No More Vietnams when reading a tweet from Richard Haass. He is president of the Council on Foreign Relations. After 9/11, he held the position of “U.S. coordinator for the future of Afghanistan.”

In that tweet, Haass wrote that our policy in Afghanistan is “increasingly resembling” our policy toward Vietnam 50 years ago: signing a pact “that was more about U.S. withdrawal than peace” and “now pressuring our government partner more than the adversary.”

Yeah.

• For reasons I could get into, I was perusing a history of the Nobel Peace Prize — and I was reminded of something. These days, especially on the right, George W. Bush is thought of as an internationalist, U.N.-lovin’ “globalist.” But back when . . .

When Obama was elected, many people said that, after an eight-year hiatus, America would rejoin the world. In their view, Bush was an insular, nationalistic, chest-thumping cowboy who had turned his back on the world. Obama would be just the opposite. In the weeks before the election, I debated a professor at Yale, who stressed that “the world” wanted Obama to be president. Polls had shown that “they,” “the world,” would elect Obama in a landslide. What more was there to say? Well, you could say this: that the election, for better or worse, was national.

I could cite chapter and verse (and did, in that history). What a strange trip it has been, these last ten or fifteen years.

• In an interview with a friend at Fox this week, Trump said, “Our Supreme Court and our courts didn’t have the courage to overturn elections.” I appreciated his use of that word “overturn.”

• In December 2015, Joe Scarborough questioned Trump about Putin. Scarborough mentioned, among other things, that Putin kills journalists who annoy him. Trump answered, “Well, I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe.”

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Shortly after the inauguration in 2017, Bill O’Reilly said the same thing: “Putin is a killer.” Trump answered, “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, you think our country’s so innocent?”

This week, George Stephanopoulos said to President Biden, “So, you know Vladimir Putin. You think he’s a killer?” Biden answered immediately, “I do.”

In my estimation, this is realism — and non-slander of one’s own country.

• Shift to infrastructure — where there is big news. Exciting news, even.

Construction of the world’s first shipping tunnel will soon get underway in western Norway . . . The 1.7 kilometer (1.06 miles) tunnel will be large enough to allow cargo vessels and most ships in the coastal voyage fleet to pass through. It will allow vessels to bypass the dangerous waters of Stad, an exposed area of ocean along the Norwegian coastline with a notorious reputation.

How long has this been going on?

According to the Norwegian Coastal Administration, the Vikings pulled their ships over land to avoid sailing around Stad in bad weather.

(To read this story in full, go here.)

I don’t know anything about engineering, but I like to think I know enough to be awed by it.

• I am awed by Zoom, too. I know we’re all down on it — too much Zoom, especially in education. But when I was a kid, there were TV shows and movies — futuristic — that imagined things like Zoom. Talking to people thousands of miles away, while looking at them, on a screen.

And here we are. Routine.

• The New York Times obituarized Norton Juster, the children’s author. I loved a couple of things, including this:

As a child Norton particularly enjoyed the “Wizard of Oz” book series, but he also dived into the books he found in his parents’ collection. “They had several shelves of huge Russian and Yiddish novels all translated into English,” he told the children’s literacy site Reading Rockets, “but, you know, 1,200, 1,500 pages. And I would read them and have no idea what I was reading, but I just loved the language and the way you read it and how the words sounded.”

Norman Podhoretz was a similar kind of kid. He loved words — their sounds, the way they looked on a page. When he was about seven, his parents bought a portable typewriter for his older sister. She was taking a “commercial” course in school. Norman was forbidden to play around with the typewriter, but, as he recounts, “I just couldn’t keep my hands off it.”

In a stroke of inspiration, his parents forced his sister to teach him to type. That way, he would not destroy the machine. Norman typed and typed, copying items out of the newspaper, for example. Eventually, when he got bored with that, he started writing poems and stories.

Okay, the final two paragraphs from the Norton Juster obit:

Mr. Juster would sometimes be faulted for his use of big or unfamiliar words in his children’s books, but he thought that challenging young readers was part of the point. “To kids,” he said, “there are no difficult words, there are just words they have never come across before.”

So wonderful.

• On Twitter, Dan Amira of The Daily Show wrote, “‘Pastime’ is spelled wrong.” This reminded me of an old friend of mine, who always had trouble with “threshold.”

When I pointed this out, someone said, “I’m withholding judgment.” Ha, perfect.

Which reminds me: On the North Fork of Long Island, N.Y., there is a village called “Southold.” Would that be South-old or South-hold? People say the latter.

• A little sports? When Stan Van Gundy was coach of the Detroit Pistons (my NBA team), I loved listening to him. I loved hearing his remarks to the press after games. He was amazingly candid. I mean, amazingly so. I learned a lot about basketball.

But I always wondered, “What if I played for him? He is so blunt about the team, talking to the press. Would I resent it? This ‘coaching in public,’ to borrow an old phrase? Is such coaching counterproductive?”

Today, SVG is the coach of the New Orleans Pelicans. He is unchanged: utterly — but rightly? — candid. Check him out, here. Refreshing? Inappropriate? Both?

Anyway, I like that Stan is Stan.

• Let’s have a little music. For a post on a chamber concert — livestreamed — by members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, go here. If you can’t give orchestral concerts, you can give chamber ones — masked and “socially distanced.”

By the way, the Indiana University music school is staging operas. The singers are masked, in rehearsals, performances, everything. Word is: There is, remarkably, no difference in sound.

Go figyah (and go ahead and make jokes involving Un ballo in maschera — A Masked Ball — the Verdi opera).

• My friend Vivek forwarded me an article from the Detroit Free Press, saying, “Found your Ann Arbor home.” (I mean, Vivek said that, not the article.) The headline: “$2.5M Ann Arbor home’s landscape is replica of famous golf course grounds.” That would be Amen Corner, at Augusta National.

Sold.

• I can’t remember the exact date — it’s probably findable, somewhere, by someone — but Impromptus began in March 2001. So, the column is now 20 years old. Happy anniversary to us, dear Impromptus-ites, and thank you. See you later.

If you’d like to receive Impromptus by e-mail — links to new columns — write to jnordlinger@nationalreview.com.",0.5097563347084864
"Mikhail Khodorkovsky

A visit with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, ex-oligarch and ex–political prisoner

Editor’s Note: The below is an expansion of an article that appears in the current issue of National Review.

I can’t help noticing that security around Mikhail Khodorkovsky seems very light. I tell him I have known people in the crosshairs (including Russians): Some are fatalistic about their security, others are vigilant. Where does he fall on that spectrum? On the fatalistic end, he says. If a decision to kill him is made in the Kremlin itself, there is very little he can do to defend himself.

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But there is this consolation, he says, with a smile: “I know how unprofessional everybody in Russia is.” By tradition, every Russian seems to be an expert in everything, Khodorkovsky continues. “You would never hear a Russian say, ‘Oh, I’m not an expert in this field, so I cannot answer your question.’”

If a team of assassins came to get him? “With some basic security measures in place, and a bit of luck, I could make their lives difficult.”

Mikhail Khodorkovsky has a sang-froid, and a dark sense of humor, not unknown to Russians . . .

• He is a human-rights leader these days, but he still has the air of a business titan, an air of command. This is accompanied by a certain restlessness. At the same time, he is thoughtful — so much so, in fact, that he will think for a long time before answering a question. He does not fill the air with words as he’s gathering his thoughts, as so many of the rest of us do.

• In 2009, when Khodorkovsky was a political prisoner — the most prominent in Russia — Arvo Pärt, the great Estonian composer, dedicated a symphony to him. Pärt made some remarks, explaining the dedication. He began, “It would seem to me that the person of Mikhail Khodorkovsky needs no introduction.” Yet it does, certainly at this remove, and I will provide the briefest of biographical sketches.

• Khodorkovsky was born in 1963 to parents who were engineers in a factory. His dad was Jewish, his mother Christian. The family lived in Moscow. From childhood, the future titan had a nose and desire for business. Paradoxically, perhaps, he was a fervent Communist. In college, he was an officer in the Komsomol, the Party’s youth league.

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Sitting with him in London, I ask, “Did you think that Communism was forever?” “Of course,” he answers. And yet: “We did not think that Communism had really and truly arrived.” He recalls a slogan, which he saw on a pavilion at an exhibition in Moscow — the Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy. The slogan came from Khrushchev, uttered at the 22nd Congress in 1961. But his name was nowhere to be seen now. The slogan read, “The Party solemnly promises that this generation of the Soviet people will live under Communism.”

Like a great many, Khodorkovsky turned against this ideology, the ideology that was long a state religion.

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Yet, when he speaks of Communism, he does not speak in totally denunciatory tones. Another slogan, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” is a powerful concept, one that human beings keep wrestling with and trying to realize, in their various ways.

• When Gorbachev took power in 1985, he loosened things, and Khodorkovsky, barely into his 20s, began his businesses: first a café, then an import-export business, and so on. I ask, “Do you think you were born with a business gene, the way some people are born for music, science, or sports?” He thinks for a while. “I’m not sure,” he says. “I don’t know.” He continues, “My talent in business was not innovation — there were other people who were always coming up with new ideas. But I was always able to know which of these would be successful. Also, I was not averse to risk.”

One more thing: “Organizationally, I was very successful, but that’s the result of training.”

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(I might mention, at this point, that Khodorkovsky understands a lot of English, but prefers to speak Russian in interviews. As his interviewer — me — does not speak Russian, he, and I, are using a translator.)

• In 1989, Khodorkovsky and partners founded Menatep, one of the first private banks in Russia. During the Wild ’90s, Menatep acquired the controlling interest in Yukos, an oil company. The company was a rarity in Russia, business writers say, in that it operated in accordance with Western practices, or perhaps I should say “Western”: transparency, honest bookkeeping, etc. In time, Khodorkovsky became the richest man in Russia, by some estimations — worth about $15 billion.

The boss, Vladimir Putin, had a rule: Do what you want on the playgrounds of business, but stay well clear of politics. (By the way, Putin would far surpass Khodorkovsky, and possibly everyone else in the world, in billions.)

Khodorkovsky flouted the rule, repeatedly. In 2001 — a year into Putin’s reign — he founded Open Russia, whose mission was to foster democratic values. It was based in London, and among its trustees was Henry Kissinger. Khodorkovsky fingered the Kremlin for corruption. He funded independent media. He funded opposition parties. He was even talked about as a presidential challenger to Putin.

By October 2003, the boss had had enough: Khodorkovsky was arrested, by a small army, some of them masked, at the airport in Novosibirsk. He would not be out of prisons and prison camps for a decade.

In 2013, on the eve of his 50th birthday, when he was still a prisoner, he was interviewed by Yevgenia Albats of The New Times, a Russian magazine. She asked him a hypothetical question. It went, roughly, Knowing what you know now — knowing what would happen to you, over the course of the next ten years — what would you have done in Novosibirsk, before the arrest? “I’m afraid I would have shot myself,” answered Khodorkovsky. “My current experience would have been a shock for the me I was back then.”

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• He was tried for tax evasion and sentenced to nine years. Then he was tried again, for embezzlement, and was sentenced to another thirteen and a half (later reduced to twelve). Putin was making an example of Khodorkovsky. The message to other oligarchs was: Politics is mine. They got the message.

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• At the culmination of his second trial, Khodorkovsky said that he and other Russians looked forward to living, one day, in “a land of freedom and law,” where “human rights will no longer be contingent on the whim of the czar, whether he be kind or mean.”

This entire statement is worth reading — is amazing to read, actually. Find it here, in a translation from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

• I ask Khodorkovsky, “Was everything done on Putin’s say-so?” Did he direct the entire farce? The answer, in short, is that he did not specify every move — but did he direct the overall farce? Sure.

• Mikhail Khodorkovsky was an unexpected thing: the oligarch as political prisoner and human-rights symbol. Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience (in other words, someone imprisoned for his views, not for an actual crime). Elie Wiesel and Yelena Bonner, among others, campaigned for his release. Arvo Pärt dedicated that symphony to him, saying the following:

It would seem to me that the person of Mikhail Khodorkovsky needs no introduction. His name, and the story connected with it, have received widespread attention in the West. With my composition, I would like to reach out my hand to the prisoner, and, through him, to all those imprisoned without rights in Russia. I dedicate my Fourth Symphony to Mikhail Khodorkovsky, wishing him peace of soul and vigilance of mind; anything more is beyond my power. I do not know whether he will ever be able to hear this composition. Nevertheless, I hope that my carrier pigeon does reach faraway Siberia one day.

If you yourself would like to hear the symphony, go here.

When in prison, Khodorkovsky wrote sketches of people around him, later published in a book called “My Fellow Prisoners.” The sketches are startling and moving. When the book was published, the author wrote a foreword, beginning, “There were many times in prison, and later in the camp, and then again in prison, and then again in the camp, when I really wanted to listen to a live performance of classical music.”

• Four times, Khodorkovsky went on hunger strike — in order to secure better treatment for his fellow (and less famous) prisoners. One of these was Vasily Alexanian, another former executive at Yukos, who was dying of AIDS. The authorities were brutalizing him.

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“In a Russian prison,” Khodorkovsky tells me, “the only way you’ll get anywhere is if you’re ready to gamble your life. If you’re not ready to gamble your life, you will never get anywhere. You should be prepared to say, ‘Do this or I’m ready to die.’ And you must be ready to die, if you want them to do it. If they don’t do it and you don’t die? Then you’ve lost all your weaponry — your whole arsenal. I gambled my life four times like that in prison and won each time.”

• I have interviewed a fair number of ex–political prisoners (and other prisoners). I have learned to ask, “How did you keep your sanity?” When I put the question to Khodorkovsky, he thinks a long, long time before speaking.

Finally, he says, “I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth.” He had become a multi-billionaire, yes — probably the richest man in Russia — but he had not always lived in comfort. He remarks that his room at home, when he was growing up, was not much bigger than his prison cell. True, “the food in prison wasn’t as good as my mom’s — but she cooked only a couple of times a week, and the rest of the time I ate school dinners, and school dinners, believe me, were not much better than prison food.”

His main problem, he says, was not knowing when he would be released or whether he would be released, ever. “You feel kind of like the living dead. As though you’ve been buried alive. And that is the hardest thing.”

“What keeps you sane is letters, from various people, and visits from your family. The very fact that people haven’t forgotten you is important. Because this is what they try to create [the authorities do], the impression that the whole world has forgotten you and nobody needs you anymore.

“So when people ask me, ‘How can I help an inmate?,’ I say, ‘Write letters. That is the least you can do.’ Psychologically, letters are very important.”

• At the end of 2013, with the Winter Olympics in Sochi coming up shortly, Vladimir Putin issued pardons for several high-profile political prisoners. One of them was Khodorkovsky, who immediately went into exile in the West.

Thank you for reading, ladies and gentlemen. I will conclude with Part II tomorrow.",-0.12239720768645672
"Mikhail Khodorkovsky

A visit with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, ex-oligarch and ex–political prisoner

Editor’s Note: The below is an expansion of an article that appears in the current issue of National Review. Part I was published yesterday, here; Part II is the final installment.

Some prisoners emerge untouched by their experience, or essentially untouched. They are in balance. They are without mental and emotional scars. Other prisoners emerge very touched indeed.

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To many of us, Mikhail Khodorkovsky seems in the former category: untouched, balanced, happy, serene. What does he say? He says, “I think my family was much more touched than I was.”

• In the course of our conversation, I mention “home.” Then I realize that “home” can be a complicated concept to an exile. Where’s home for Khodorkovsky? “Home is where my family is, or a majority of them. If they went to live somewhere else, I’d feel at home there, too.”

• He now lives in Britain, and, as I’ve mentioned, we are talking in London. On the very day he arrived in this country, the Russian state hit him with a murder charge: the murder of a Russian mayor in 1998. They do this, the Russian state, comical as it may seem to outsiders.

Asked about the murder charge against him, Khodorkovsky quips, “I’m rather upset because Bill Browder has been accused of several murders while I am charged with only one.”

True, true. Browder — the financial investor who turned human-rights campaigner — stands accused of several murders, including the one of his own lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, whose murder by prison authorities turned Browder into a human-rights campaigner in the first place.

• In 2014, Khodorkovsky relaunched his Open Russia, designed to promote democratic values, including the rule of law, in Russia. More recently, Khodorkovsky launched Justice for Journalists, whose purpose is signaled in its name. (The same is true of Open Russia, to be sure.) Russian journalists have a strangely short lifespan. Khodorkovsky is tired of seeing them killed with impunity, and he would like to do something about it.

When he started Justice for Journalists, he said, “All my life I lived in a country where the most dangerous people are not the bandits or the criminals, but the government. And that’s why I see the most important role of journalism as balancing the government.”

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• I wonder how his fellow Russians abroad treat him. Do they regard him as a hero, an inspiration, an embarrassment, a villain, or what? It depends, says Khodorkovsky. In the U.K., about half the Russians are pro-Putin and about half of them anti-. In other parts of Europe — Germany, for example — the majority of Russians are pro-Putin. They have business interests back home and so on.

Obviously, the anti-Putin Russians like Khodorkovsky more than the pro-Putin Russians do. But he can and does talk to anybody, as long as there is good will. The extreme Putinites are out of the question. But with others, he says, “I always find a common language quite easily.”

• I wonder how many people in Russia know about Khodorkovsky and his Open Russia movement. It is hard to give a precise answer, but whatever it is: It is a lower percentage than you might think, or than I would have thought. Khodorkovsky smiles and says, “I think Stalin was unique in that most people knew who he was. At the moment, 97 percent of Russians know who Stalin was.” I tell him, “I wonder about the other 3.”

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He then tells me a story — a joke from Soviet times. A woman wants to travel abroad, and, to do this, she must sit in front of a committee and answer some questions — questions regarding the history of the Soviet Union and of the Communist Party.

The first question is: When was the 25th Congress of the Party? The woman says, “I have no idea.”

The committee says, “Okay, tell us when the Communist Party was founded.” Again, “I have no idea.”

The committee finally says, “Do you know who Brezhnev is, at least?” The woman says, “Sorry, no.”

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The head of the committee asks her where she lives. She names an obscure provincial town. He sighs, “I want to go live there.”

• Khodorkovsky says that Russians as a whole are alienated from politics — “the result of so many years of not being able to influence what happens in politics.” This, says Khodorkovsky, “is the problem of contemporary Russia.”

• Was he ever harmed or impeded by anti-Semitism? If you look at responses to him on Twitter, he says, you will find lots of anti-Semitism (par for the course). And he heard about anti-Semitism “in successive Russian governments, including Yeltsin’s.” He heard about statements and grumblings behind the scenes, when he was not present.

“But in practice, I did not really experience anti-Semitism or have problems with it in my life.”

• People wonder how much money Khodorkovsky has, from his former fortune. I wonder too — but I don’t ask. News reports estimate hundreds of millions. In any case, it is a fortune, though not like before.

Does he have a business itch he would like to scratch, amid his human-rights work? Does the entrepreneur in him need to start another company? No, he says. “I have no impetus, no stimulus. I have plenty of money. The desire to do something grand, something really large-scale, such as I did in Russia, has disappeared.”

I have the impression that, if he went broke next week, he could make it back in about a year. He does not disagree with me, citing his record. “It’s like a skill, which I have.”

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• We talk at length about the last three leaders in the Kremlin — from 1985 to the present: Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Putin. (Dmitry Medvedev was a placeholder for Putin for a few years.) Khodorkovsky has had personal dealings with all of them, and has watched them closely. He considers each of them, in his way, a tragic figure.

“My attitude toward Gorbachev is multi-faceted, not straightforward,” says Khodorkovsky. Gorbachev did a lot of good for the country, in Khodorkovsky’s view — but not necessarily on purpose. This is in interesting contrast with Yeltsin.

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“My personal opinion of Yeltsin is quite high,” says Khodorkovsky. “I was there with him on the barricades twice. He was no coward. And that was the most important thing for me. But if we assess him objectively: Putin is, in fact, the inheritor of what Yeltsin put in place. Putin made good use of the things that Yeltsin put in place. So, this extreme presidential control is not the invention of Putin; it is Yeltsin’s.”

Yeltsin’s great, tragic problem, says Khodorkovsky, was that he could not imagine a Russia that departed from the monarchical paradigm: the czar, the master of the Russian lands. Yeltsin did not believe in monarchical dynasty. He did not hand power over to a son. (He had only daughters, regardless.) He did hand power over to Putin.

“Yeltsin,” says Khodorkovsky, “will be remembered as a very Russian czar.”

So, consider Gorbachev and Yeltsin, in the reverse order: “Yeltsin tried to do what was best for the country, but was not quite capable of it. He was a bit too old and not particularly sober by the time he arrived in power. Gorbachev was the opposite. He did not want what was best for the country, but it somehow turned out that he did it.”

Putin? Believe it or not, Khodorkovsky feels pity for him. He believes that Vladimir Putin is utterly unsuited to the leadership of Russia; that he is in way over his head. Putin is a classic KGB man, Khodorkovsky says, trained to see threats everywhere. He is unable to see the opportunities (except for personal corruption). He has no vision of the future of Russia. He has no sense of what it would take to lift Russia up.

Putin is like a guard dog, Khodorkovsky says, very well trained. He knows how to do one thing: guard the master. But when the master collapses on the floor, the dog will not let a physician reach him — and the patient, the master, dies. Putin thinks he is protecting Russia, says Khodorkovsky, but he is doing the country no good. Quite the opposite.

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Yeltsin, in effect, told Putin, “Take care of Russia.” And Putin is doing so in the best way he knows how, which is a tragic way. Retrograde.

Having no vision of the future, Putin is holding on to Soviet ways — going into Africa, for instance. Russia needs great change, but Putin is not willing to implement it. Not willing to dare it. International politics — foreign policy — is safer ground for him. The person who brings change to Russia, says Khodorkovsky, will not be loved or liked. Certainly not at first.

• Mikhail Khodorkovsky very much wants to change Russia. He wants, in the words of his organization, an open Russia. He sees no reason that Russia cannot be a democratic state — observing the rule of law, affording the rights that people enjoy throughout the world. Russia is not genetically or otherwise barred from joining the family of democratic nations.

What does he want to accomplish with his Open Russia movement? He does not want “to accelerate Putin’s departure,” he says. Putin will eventually go, one way or another. “The key question is, What’s going to happen after his departure? We have a quite unpleasant tradition in Russia of getting rid of one czar, only to see him replaced by another. So what I want to do is try to change that tradition.”

In the eyes of many of us, this is a noble way to spend one’s time — and money — after 17 years in business (so brief a career) and another ten in Russian prisons. At this stage, Khodorkovsky could be putting his feet up, perhaps on a Caribbean island. No one would blame him. Instead, he is in the trenches, on the battlefield. He has his critics, who don’t do half as much good, or who, more likely, do none at all.",-0.16107041963774654
"Why that $600 boost last year turned out okay.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE L ast year, as the pandemic was just striking the U.S., there was a minor kerfuffle over Congress’s plan to give the unemployed an extra $600 a week. Some Republicans initially assumed it was a drafting error, because it would give many laid-off workers more money than they’d made while working.

It was actually intentional. States’ unemployment systems run on creaky old technology, and they can’t quickly switch to complicated new formulas. When COVID-19 kicked a bunch of people out of work, the only way to boost their benefits — which normally replace only a fraction of their earnings — was to …",1.0867662056431568
"The National Association of Scholars (NAS) is proud to announce the creation of the Civics Alliance, a new coalition dedicated to defending and restoring true civics education across the United States. The Civics Alliance will unite education reformers, policymakers, and every citizen of the United States who wants to preserve civics education that teaches the founding principles and documents of the United States, the key events of American history, the structure of our self-governing federal republic, the functions of government at all levels, how our governing institutions work, and the spirit of liberty and tolerance that should animate our private interactions with our fellow citizens. Such civics education should teach students to take pride in what they share as Americans—an exceptional heritage of freedom, a republic that has succeeded in making liberty a fundamental principle of our government, and the joyful accomplishments of their common national culture.

By the time students leave high school, they should comprehend the rule of law, the Bill of Rights, elections, elected office, checks and balances, trial by jury, grand juries, civil rights, military service, and many other points in the traditional American civics curriculum. College undergraduates, and especially graduates of education schools, should also learn how these civic fundamentals emerged from Western Civilization, including through developments in Western political theory and American history.

This conception of civics education should not be controversial. The Civics Alliance is necessary because American civics education is under sustained assault by radical activists. Their New Civics uses the pedagogy of service-learning to teach action civics, also known by names such as civic engagement, civic learning, community engagement, global civics, and project-based civics. The New Civics threatens to replace traditional civics education with Neo-Marxist “social justice” propaganda, vocational training for left-wing activism, and Alinsky-style community organizing techniques adapted for use in the classroom.

Not every advocate of the New Civics consciously works for all these goals. The true radicals enlist many Americans who think these pedagogies and subject matters are more innocuous. Some New Civics advocates even consciously steer clear of entanglements with initiatives such as the 1619 Project Curriculum. But the radicals will provide the programmatic details that put the New Civics’ vague rhetoric into practice. The New Civics will have a revolutionary effect, regardless of the good intentions of some of its advocates.

The New Civics will obliterate from our children’s memory the America worth loving and defending and will create a cadre of trained activists dedicated to replacing the American republic with a Neo-Marxist “social justice” regime. The New Civics will impose this new curriculum with all the coercive power of government—and will do so at taxpayer expense. The Civics Alliance will rally opposition to the immediate danger posed by the New Civics and will work for constructive programs of traditional civics education at the different levels of American government—the localities, the states, and the federal government.

The New Civics builds on radical activists’ steady extension of service-learning and civic engagement into America’s education system, dating back to the 1960s, mightily expanded in the 1980s, and becoming eligible for federal funding in 1990s. The New Civics received a federal imprimatur in 2012 when the U.S. Department of Education issued the report A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracy’s Future, which called for a “New Civics” that celebrates diversity, embraces of the “sustainability” movement, and teaches children how to be “citizens of the world”—to replace the traditional civics instruction that taught students the facts and principles necessary to assume the responsibilities of American citizenship.

The U.S. Department of Education’s simultaneous push for the nation’s schools to adopt “The Common Core State Standards,” which encouraged teachers to reduce history and civics to modules in English Language Arts, facilitated the removal of traditional civics instruction from America’s schools. New Civics, increasingly known as “action civics,” filled the resulting gap with a curriculum that denied students the chance to acquire knowledge of how our governing institutions work or why they were created, and instead taught partisan political commitment, protest, and activism, often with the guidance of overtly partisan teachers. This partisan commitment was almost exclusively toward radical ideological causes such as “sustainability” and amnesty for illegal immigrants.

The last eighteen months have made painfully apparent the acid effects of the New Civics and its allied educational movements on America’s national cohesion and heritage of liberty. In August 2019, the New York Times launched The 1619 Project, which called for “reframing” all of American history (and civics) as the story of white supremacy and black subjection. The Times published this as a special issue of its Sunday Magazine, which concluded with the announcement that a 1619 Project Curriculum was already being sent out by the Pulitzer Center to teachers and schools as a supplementary curriculum.

Within months, the 1619 Project Curriculum became established in thousands of classrooms across the country. The 1619 Project Curriculum already promotes action civics lesson plans, such as political activism to soften criminal laws and/or amnesty criminals, on the grounds that America’s justice system is tainted by “systemic racism.” Generation Citizen now promotes action civics to promote the revolutionary Black Lives Matter movement.

The U.S. government’s 1776 Commission stated in its The 1776 Report (2021) what had now become apparent to every American willing to face facts. Radicals who espouse identity politics, and those who espouse such overlapping ideologies of critical race theory, multiculturalism, so-called “anti-racism,” and Neo-Marxist forms of “social justice,” seek to annihilate our liberty, our republic, and the national culture that underpins them both. Their favored educational tactic is to remove traditional civics from our schools and to replace them with New Civics, which inculcates the successor ideology of identity politics instead. These radicals seek to do so by packaging their radical agendas under labels such as “anti-racism”—although Americans already reject racism as part of their capacious and welcoming nationalism. The American creed is already e pluribus unum—America forges its citizens from all the nations of the earth.

The activists who champion New Civics now use every level of government to assault all components of civics education. The federal government, as noted above, has supported New Civics since the Education Department published A Crucible Moment in 2012. Stanley Kurtz has summarized how action civics is taking over our K-12 schools, by way of state laws such as in Massachusetts and Illinois, and via nonprofit organizations such as Generation Citizen. The NAS’s own report Making Citizens details how the New Civics works at the undergraduate level, and particularly how education departments combine the New Civics with teacher training. The College Board’s AP United States Government and Politics Advanced Placement Examination now requires students to complete a Project Requirement of action civics. The New Civics has already infiltrated America’s education system and is on the verge of taking it over.

The New Civics has also received unwitting support from education reformers who do not realize that radicals who invoke “civics” are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor founded iCivics, but iCivics now endorses action civics and so-called “antiracism.” Education reformers must not enter into coalitions that endorse fatal compromises with radicals who would hollow out the civics education our citizens need to sustain our constitutional republic. They must not endorse supposedly nonpartisan New Civics education that provides a fig-leaf for anti-American identity politics and vocational training for left-wing activism. Education reformers must instead form their own coalition that endorses rigorous civics education that explicitly excludes the New Civics and prohibits its favored pedagogy of service-learning.

The Civics Alliance is the birth of this coalition. The members of the Civic Alliance endorse the Civics Education Open Letter and Civics Curriculum Statement. These provide a coherent vision of the principles that should guide civics education, from kindergarten to education school. They also provide enough programmatic detail to guide education reformers and policymakers as they work constructively to renovate traditional civics education and to ensure that civics education reform will preclude both the New Civics and myopic attempts to compromise with the advocates of the New Civics. These documents emphasize what can be done at the state and local levels, both because New Civics advocates currently guide federal policy and because the state governments and the localities still control the bulk of public education. Yet the Civics Alliance will work at whatever level of government offers the opportunity for constructive civics education reform.

The Civics Education Open Letter and Civics Curriculum Statement emphasize the following principles:

Civics education should consist of large amounts of required factual knowledge and the study of primary sources.

Civics education should ban “service-learning,” the essential component of New Civics pedagogy. This ban should be expanded into an explicit ban of “action civics” if necessary.

Civics education should be subject to external tests, to ensure that teachers actually teach what they are supposed to teach and that students actually learn what they ought to learn in their classes.

Civics legislation should aim to remove all education bottlenecks where radicals can force New Civics on students, such as curriculum standards, general education requirements, and teacher licensure requirements.

Civics legislation should seek to use special commissions to create and enforce proper civics standards, so as to bypass predictable sabotage from radical activists within education department bureaucracies.

Civics legislation should focus on dual-courses, core transfer curriculums, general education requirements, and the mutual recognition of civics courses among states, because they are the essential administrative means to convey civics education.

Civics education should emphasize the principles of federalism and localism, both to fit civics education to local preferences and so as to avoid creating coercive education systems that New Civics advocates can capture.

These two documents emphasize principles. The Civics Curriculum Statement provides programmatic details, but some of the signatories prefer different programmatic specifics, such as curriculum standards and testing controlled at the local level rather than the state level. Independent commissions are favored by some but not others. The signatories endorse the Civics Curriculum Statement as a series of exploratory options designed to inspire initiatives by states, local communities, schools, and patriotic citizens, rather than as a binding legislative program. The concern that unites them is the need for legislation that prevents New Civics from retaining any power within America’s schools.

These documents prepare the ground for more detailed political campaigns to come. NAS in particular will build upon this initial statement with several model bills, which will address different aspects of the policies supported in this statement. We expect other members of the Civics Alliance to spearhead their own campaigns. We also expect that policymakers in different states will follow their own paths as they translate the principles of these documents into legal language. The members of the Civics Alliance will support different efforts to restore civics education, confident that they will all lead to roughly the same destination—the preservation of civics education that sustains our republic and our nation.

The members of the Civics Alliance also recognize that civics education isn’t the only political priority in the world. For example, Americans should also work to prevent radical Ethnic Studies courses from entering into our public schools, and to counter the various campaigns by Neo-Marxist “social justice” activists, who are trying to transform every discipline, including the sciences and mathematics. For another example, Americans should also work to cap the number of General Education Requirements at public universities, since they can impose a serious financial burden on college students and their families—and this goal may sometimes come into tension with our aspiration to increase the number of civics General Education Requirements. The members of the Civics Alliance will work to restore civics education with a due sense of proportion, and of the need to work in harmony with other political goals.

I invite every American to sign up as a member of the Civics Alliance, and to pass on word of it to other Americans. We must act together now to restore America’s civics education—and this Open Letter and Curriculum Statement will be only the beginning of a long campaign. The work of the Civics Alliance will be essential for the salvation of our republic.

Join The Civics Alliance

Editor's Note: The National Association of Scholars is proud to announce The Civics Alliance, a new coalition of education reformers, policymakers, and concerned citizens dedicated to preserving traditional civics education against the threat of New Civics. What follows is an explanatory article detailing the motiviations and principles of The Civics Alliance. To read The Civics Alliance Open Letter and Civics Curriculum Statement, click here. To join The Civics Alliance as a signatory, click here. To take immediate action to support traditional civics education, click here to view our toolkit.

Signatories of the Civics Alliance Open Letter and Curriculum Statement sign as individuals. Organizational affiliations and positions are listed for identification purposes only.

Image: Sharefaith, Public Domain",-1.1536836292844137
"Editor's Note: The model state-level legislation below was authored by Stanley Kurtz, a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. NAS’s endorsement of this model can be found here, and Kurtz’s explanation and defense of it can be found here.

WHEREAS, true civic education is not political action itself but rather preparation for, and prerequisite to, mature political life; and

WHEREAS, respect for the liberties of students and teachers, the views of a politically diverse citizenry, and the tradition of institutional neutrality that flows from these, means that political activism has no place in formal education; and

WHEREAS, the free speech, conscience, and religious liberty rights of teachers ought to be respected; and

WHEREAS, the ability of the citizens of the state of [state name] and its school districts to control K-12 curriculum content in courses on history, civics, social studies, and similar topics through their elected representatives should not be ceded to private entities; and

WHEREAS, concepts that impute fault, blame, a tendency to oppress others, or the need to feel guilt or anguish to persons solely because of their race or sex violate the premises of individual rights, equal opportunity, and individual merit underpinning our constitutional republic, and therefore have no place in training for teachers, administrators, or other employees of the public educational system of [state name]; now, therefore,

BE IT ENACTED:

SECTION A:

(1) The following is required for graduation from [state name] high school:

(a) Three years in history, government, economics, and geography [or social studies]. These years must include at least 1 year of U.S. history and at least 1 half-year term of U.S. government.

SECTION B:

(1) No teacher of history, civics, U.S. government and politics, social studies, or similar subject areas, whether for regular credit or advanced placement credit, shall be compelled by a policy of any state agency, school district, or school administration to discuss current events or widely debated and currently controversial issues of public policy or social affairs.

(2) It shall be the policy of this state that teachers who choose to discuss current events or widely debated and currently controversial issues of public policy or social affairs shall, to the best of their ability, strive to explore such issues from diverse and contending perspectives.

(3) In any course on history, civics, U.S. government and politics, social studies, or similar subject areas, whether for regular credit or advanced placement credit, no school shall require, make part of such course, or award course grading or credit to, student work for, affiliation with, or service learning in association with, any organization engaged in lobbying for legislation at the state or federal level, or in social or public policy advocacy.

(4) In any course on history, civics, U.S. government and politics, social studies, or similar subject areas, whether for regular credit or advanced placement credit, no school shall require, make part of such course, or award course grading or credit to, lobbying for legislation at the state or federal level, or any practicum, or like activity, involving social or public policy advocacy.

(5) No private funding shall be accepted by state agencies or school districts for curriculum development, purchase or choice of curricular materials, teacher training, professional development, or continuing teacher education pertaining to courses on history, civics, U.S. government and politics, social studies, or similar subject areas, whether for regular credit or advanced placement credit.

(6) No teacher shall be compelled by a policy of any state agency, school district, or school administration to affirm a belief in the so-called systemic nature of racism, or like ideas, or in the so-called multiplicity or fluidity of gender identities, or like ideas, against his or her sincerely held religious or philosophical convictions.

(7) No teacher, administrator, or other employee in any state education agency, school district, or school shall be required to engage in training, orientation, or therapy that inculcates any form of race or sex stereotyping or any form of race or sex scapegoating, including the concepts that (a) one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex; (b) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously; (c) an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex; (d) members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex; (e) an individual’s moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or sex; (f) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex; (g) any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex; or (h) meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by a particular race to oppress another race.

DEFINITIONS:

1) “School” means K-12 public school.

2) “Race or sex stereotyping” means ascribing character traits, values, moral and ethical codes, privileges, status, or beliefs to a race or sex, or to an individual because of his or her race or sex.

3) “Race or sex scapegoating” means assigning fault, blame, or bias to a race or sex, or to members of a race or sex because of their race or sex. It similarly encompasses any claim that, consciously or unconsciously, and by virtue of his or her race or sex, members of any race are inherently racist or are inherently inclined to oppress others.

Image: Louis Velazquez, Public Domain",1.3074586152324343
"We have just the perfect solution for American kids' deep ignorance about their nation's founding principles, system of government, and history. It's making them into political activists!

It’s deja vu all over again. A coalition of government- and billionaire-funded nonprofits has a “bipartisan” plan for national curriculum goals, this time concerning U.S. history and government. Today this “state-led” coalition is releasing a major report they hope will get the attention of the Biden administration and state governors to “collaboratively” enact their vision nationwide.

Remember, these sorts of national plans are supported by people on the right and left, so there can be no need for further investigation or any public questioning. The experts have got this problem all figured out. Your children and the nation’s future are in their hands. Trust them, these are experts under whose leadership the nation’s civic and historical knowledge not only hasn’t improved but may be at the worst point in possibly all of American history, because of — oops, I mean in spite of their best efforts!

More than 300 “leading scholars” have spent 17 months putting together a “roadmap” for “what and how to teach integrated K-12 history and civics for today’s learners.” It’s a “cross-ideological conversation about civic learning and history at a time when our country needs it the most,” so don’t worry your pretty little heads about anything and let the experts sort it out! What could go wrong?

What, you heard that the Smithsonian is saturating its exhibits and materials with social-justice saturated fake history and forking over good taxpayer money for racist propaganda, and therefore you’re a bit concerned about their involvement in this project? What’s wrong with you, the Smithsonian is an old and venerable American institution! Republican senators are putting billions of dollars behind its promotion of cultural Marxism!

Did we mention this project is also bipartisan? The education secretaries for Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama are all on board, of course. They presided over a massive decline in U.S. education quality and increase in bureaucracy, so you know it’s a good idea!

The DC uniparty has just the perfect solution for American kids’ dangerous ignorance about their nation’s founding principles, system of government, and history. It’s making them into political activists! It’s called “action civics.” Isn’t that exciting? Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were big fans. Remember them? So are Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, those models of respect for the U.S. Constitution!

No, kids don’t need to know anything to lobby their local, state, and national governments, that would ruin the effect. Everyone knows learning is boring! What’s fun is action! Action civics! You know, like the nation saw in the past year or so, all those refreshing young people protesting in the streets for racial justice.

That’s the kind of civic entrepreneurship we’re looking for, not the boring conventional entrepreneurship these civic entrepreneurs destroyed to the tune of an estimated $2 billion. That’s old news, just like the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Didn’t you hear those were written by slaveowners like George Washington to keep black people in chains?

No, what we want is democracy. That’s why this project is called Educating for American Democracy. Out with that old constitutional republic stuff, it’s so racist. RAY-CIST. What’s new and hip is a living constitution, just like RBG fought for. The Educating for American Democracy Project has a brilliant new report, see, all about why the nation’s dearth of civic knowledge demands a solution from “cooperative federalism,” just like Common Core was the obvious solution to the nation’s shamefully poor-quality math and English education!

Even though this initiative is being created in almost exactly the same way the Common Core rules for math and English were created, this is nothing at all like Common Core. For one thing, it was created by committees of unelected participants funded partially by government and partially by private organizations not subject to transparency laws like open meetings and open records requests. Wait, that’s just like Common Core.

But this is NOT, let me repeat, NOT a national curriculum at all. It’s only a set of guidelines, lesson plans, curriculum design frameworks, and stuff like that — just like Common Core. Um, I mean… This is just like Common Core but it’s totally NOT AT ALL LIKE COMMON CORE. Just trust me, brand-name Republicans are involved. Just like with Common Core!

Why would anyone on the right oppose this — almost every single committee for this project includes the one conservative guy we could find to put his name on this thing so we could introduce him to Republicans nervous about this idea. Okay, actually, it’s maybe 10 conservatives out of more than 300. They’re not really always comfortable identifying themselves, not sure why, especially since they are paid to be “cross-partisan,” just like those super-useful Never Trumpers we rent out for special events at a great discount.

Regardless, 10 conservatives would never get steamrolled on a project like this, right? Just ask the five genuine subject-area experts who signed onto the Common Core project and then retracted their support after it in no way resembled defensible curriculum requirements. They weren’t used and then discarded in a cynical attempt to hide this project’s flaws under the veneer of “transpartisanship” until it was too late. No way. Lefties never do that to conservatives. Ever.

No way action civics will get into place in states and then this project will be cited as the reason for far-left curriculum like that already happening in Massachusetts under the test run for this national project. That was touted as “bipartisan,” too, and run by the many of same people and organizations that are about to boost this national project.

Too bad, conservatives, you kicked at Leftist Lucy’s football again, ha! Thanks for playing! We love this game. Kick again, please! We’re counting on it.

I mean, Common Core was foisted on states by the Obama administration in exchange for federal funds. Joe Biden was there when that happened, and he would never govern like Obama, now, would he? No way, he’s way more aggressive than Obama was! And he yanked that divisive 1776 Commission Report on his first day in office, so you know his U.S. Department of Education supports what is best for children, not all that jingoistic “loving your country” crap!

Unity in hating America, that’s the goal here, and we’ve almost achieved it. We just need a bit more tinkering, okay, we haven’t got the formula quite right yet, those insurrectionist Trump voters are clouding Republican senators’ view a bit too much still. We’ve almost trained some to swat them away like gnats. John Cornyn, for sure. Just a few more years of cranked-up indoctrination combined with open borders in Texas, and Beto can finally replace him.

So for the sake of unity, just go along with reinforcing public schools as leftist indoctrination factories. Sing kumbaya with us and none of your precious little public school funds will get threatened. You wouldn’t want anything to happen to that money, would you? It’s for the children. And civics. Conservatives like civics, right? Pay no attention to all the leftists behind the curtain.",-0.9024874695813545
"Students rally against white supremacy at Syracuse University in New York, November 20, 2019. (Maranie Staab/Reuters)

House Democrats are offering a bill ludicrously titled the “Civics Learning Act of 2021” to fund the likewise misnamed enterprise of “action civics.” The price tag is $30 million a year. Whether it’s called “action civics,” “civic engagement,” or “project-based civics,” the real goal of the new “civics” is to get students protesting and lobbying for leftist political goals on school time, and now on the federal dime.

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The Civics Learning Act has 49 co-sponsors to date, all Democrats. That tells you a lot. Just last week I slammed three former Republican secretaries of Education for endorsing the “Educating for American Democracy” initiative, a supposedly bipartisan project in fact controlled by the country’s leading leftist proponents of action civics. Too many Republicans are lulled by bogus calls for national unity via “civics” into endorsing a movement that sponsors one-sided political protests in our schools. Meanwhile the same action-civics advocates who send students out to protest and lobby for policies they’ve never studied from both sides are busy pushing divisive Critical Race Theory at America’s teachers.

If you read the various components of the “Educating for American Democracy” (EAD) report, you’ll see that action civics (where students protest and lobby for things like gun control and the Green New Deal) and “service learning” (where students intern with leftist community organizations) are mentioned, but downplayed. You find these practices endorsed but relegated to appendices, or buried in the studies the report relies on but keeps to end-notes. The authors of EAD are the leading advocates of action civics in the country. They know it’s controversial, however, so they play it down.

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The Civics Learning Act gives away the game, although even here you have to read through the euphemisms. The bill begins with the usual appealing distractions, statistics about students who know next to nothing about our constitutional system, along with some moaning about partisan polarization. Then come the proposals, which throttle actual civic education and fund ideologically partisan advocacy instead.

In the crucial section [(B)(2) on page 4], the bill lists the activities to be funded. They include, “hands-on civic engagement activities for teachers and students.” Most readers won’t even notice that “hands-on civic engagement” means teachers leading students on protest and lobbying expeditions outside of school. Then there’s, “before-school, during school, after-school, and extracurricular activities.” That provision officially redefines “civics” to include after-school protests for course credit. Next comes, “activities that include service learning and community service projects that are linked to school curriculum.” This is a practice in which students intern for (invariably leftist) advocacy groups then retroactively make it part of the “curriculum” by writing an essay for class about their out-of-school lobbying and protest activities. The bill also funds civic learning by video-games, which means millions of dollars for the supposedly non-partisan but in fact sharply left-leaning group, iCivics, and its highly political partners. (The iCivics group makes civics video games, but its real focus is leading the national coalition for action civics.)

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Then comes the cleverest trick of all. The bill specifies that preference for grants will be given to programs that carry out the various listed activities. An annual report must also detail the extent to which each grantee was able to fulfill each of the listed activities, almost all of which are practiced only by the leftist groups that promote action civics. So, it’s a cinch that this proposed annual $30 million appropriation will go overwhelmingly to leftist action-civics groups rather than to purveyors of traditional civics. The bill purports to be a bipartisan effort to teach kids about the three branches of government and such, when in fact it’s about indoctrinating school-children by pushing them into leftist protest and lobbying.

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Curiously, the bill’s main sponsor is Representative Alcee Hastings, who was impeached by the House, convicted by a Democrat-controlled Senate, and removed as a federal judge after being charged with perjury, evidence tampering, and accepting bribes. This is the Democrats’ champion of “civics.” Prominent Democrats like Jerrold Nadler, Jamie Raskin, Sheila Jackson-Lee, and Ilhan Omar are signed on to Hastings’ bill as co-sponsors. Conceivably, the Dems may find a Republican co-sponsor or two to join in down the road, but this will likely be because most Republicans have no idea what action civics actually is.

It gets worse. Last session, Republican senator John Cornyn co-sponsored a “bipartisan” bill that would have put $1 billion in funding toward civic education. Republican representative Tom Cole sponsored companion legislation in the House. (Yes, $1 billion, with a “b”.) The lion’s share of that money would have gone to the same leftist action-civics groups slated for funding under the Hastings bill. The Cornyn bill would also have subsidized the creation of teacher certification programs in history and civics at the same leftist schools of education now churning out woke curricula in Critical Race Theory. Let us hope that Senator Cornyn wakes up to the reality of action civics and has the good sense not to reintroduce this bill in the current Congress.

The action-civics community is actively working to dupe naïve conservatives, with their love for traditional civics, into subsidizing partisan leftist political protest and lobbying that have no proper place in America’s schools. Sadly, a few establishment conservatives go along knowingly and willingly as well, for the sake of creating a “bipartisan” civics and history version of Common Core.

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Conservatives need to derail the leftist civics scam before it’s too late. In the absence of strong opposition, the Dems will likely succeed in sending tens of millions of dollars, at least, to the advocates of action civics. That will make it all the more essential for red-state legislatures to oppose maneuvers to write action civics into state standards. (Model state-level legislation to block action civics can be found here and here.) School-districts will also need to remain vigilant against the hijacking of their curriculum by the increasingly well-funded action-civics community. But first let’s try to block this ill-conceived appropriation.

The thoroughgoing politicization of our colleges and universities is now well more than halfway through the door of K-12 education. The alarm is sounding. It’s time to push back.",-0.19920559349771128
"( Halfpoint/Getty Images)

With last week’s introduction in Congress of the misleadingly named Civics Secures Democracy Act, we are headed toward an epic clash over the spread of uber-controversial pedagogies — Critical Race Theory and Action Civics — to America’s classrooms. I don’t know whether the country will wake up to the danger of this legislation before or after it passes. Sooner or later, however, the truth will out. When it does, the culture war will have merged with K–12 education-policy disputes to a degree never before seen.

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Because this new legislation is a backdoor effort to impose a de facto national curriculum in the politically charged subject areas of history and civics, the battle will rage in the states, at the federal level, and between the states and the federal government as well. The Biden administration’s Education Department will almost certainly collaborate in this attempt to develop a set of national incentives, measures, and penalties that effectively force Critical Race Theory and Action Civics onto states and localities. The likelihood of education controversies moving from third-tier to first-tier issues in federal elections has never been greater.

The Republicans who have co-sponsored the “Civics Secures Democracy Act” in the Senate (John Cornyn) and the House (Tom Cole) have been hornswoggled and hogtied into backing legislation that is about as far from conservative as a bill could be. It should be said in extenuation of their decision that the bill is careful to bury its true ends under anodyne jargon. You have to know a lot about Action Civics, for example, to understand that this bill is designed to force it onto the states. Most conservatives don’t even know what Action Civics is, much less understand its misleading jargon. The very term “Action Civics” is a euphemism for political protests for course credit, something close to the opposite of a proper civics course. That’s one reason why the “Civics Secures Democracy Act” is so egregiously misnamed.

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There have, of course, been many important education battles in our time. The conservative movement was founded by William F. Buckley’s 1951 book, God and Man at Yale, an early attack on the secular socialism of the university. Cultural issues remained important to movement conservatism, yet the focus soon turned to politics and policy in the ordinary sense. The 1960s gave birth to a series of intense cultural battles, with universities as epicenters of controversy. Yet many of the clashes were over the war and the draft. For the most part, the federal government kept out of higher-education controversies in that era.

The battle over the teaching of Western Civilization at Stanford in 1987 kicked off a decade-long culture war over multiculturalism and political correctness, the ancestor of our clashes today. At this point, education battles began to seep into national politics, especially via the actions of Education Secretary William Bennett and National Endowment for the Humanities chair Lynne Cheney. Even so, universities incubating what eventually was to become today’s woke culture were largely insulated from government intervention by academic freedom.

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The Obama administration pushed the K–12 Common Core on states, but the founders of Common Core made a calculated decision to omit the controversial subjects of history and civics from that effort. They understood the dangers of mixing education policy with high-intensity culture war issues. Now, however, in an attempt to complete the creation of a de facto national curriculum, the top supporters of Common Core (including, sad to say, a few conservatives) have formed an alliance with the top national advocates of Action Civics and Critical Race Theory. The result is what we see in the “Civics Secures Democracy Act” — and what we’re likely to get very soon from the Biden administration — a de facto national curriculum in Action Civics and Critical Race Theory. And all of this is happening as woke culture is spilling out of the campuses and into the wider society. Once the reality of this new push for education “reform” comes into the open, we will see the culture war merge with the details of federal education policy in unprecedented fashion.

What does the not-so-civic “Civics Secures Democracy Act of 2021” actually do? Above all, it appropriates $1 billion for federal grants to support K–12 curriculum development, teacher training, and research on the K–12 teaching of history and civics. Sounds good, if expensive, until you look at the fine print. Priority for grants is decided according to two basic criteria.

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First of all, priority goes to grants that support “evidence-based practices.” The bill goes on to list these supposedly evidence-based practices, which are essentially the menu of troubling teaching techniques favored by the movement for Action Civics (Bill Page 5, Line 16-Page 6, Line 5). These are the very same practices I have written model legislation to block at the state level. They include: 1) directing teachers to discuss current social and political controversies in class; 2) out-of-class political protests and lobbying (nearly always for leftist causes) for course credit (in the bill, called “projects” and “experiential learning”) and 3) internships with (invariably leftist) lobbying and advocacy organizations for course credit (in the bill, called “service learning”).

Programs in “media literacy” are also marked as a priority. These programs ostensibly warn students away from dangerous conspiracy theories. In practice, however, they discourage students from looking at conservative sources and hold up mainstream media fact-checkers (largely left-biased) as sources of ultimate authority. Essentially, “media literacy” programs favored by advocates of the new civics inculcate the Democratic Party’s position on “fake news.”

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The upshot is that the lion’s share of this billion-dollar jackpot will support mandatory leftist protest, lobbying, and indoctrination, while supporters of traditional civics and history will be frozen out.

The second criterion for priority applies to grants that “improve knowledge and engagement” among “traditionally underserved” students, as well as grants that promise to “close gaps in knowledge and achievement among students of different income levels, racial and ethnic groups, and native languages.” This gives the inside lane to Critical Race Theory, while largely disqualifying those who believe that American history and civics can unify if presented in a broadly similar manner to students of all incomes, races, and ethnicities.

That may sound too strong. Keep in mind, however, that the main public justification for the controversial, Critical Race Theory-based “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards” just approved in Illinois was that they would be more likely to attract minority teachers and more likely to appeal to minority students, thereby closing achievement gaps. Yet those standards force teachers to call America systemically racist, affirm the “fluidity” of gender, “mitigate” their Euro-centrism and whiteness, and substitute activism for achievement when grading students. Finding creative ways to present traditional civics to minorities is one thing. Teaching radical activism is quite another.

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Yet the movement for Critical Race Theory in education essentially presents itself as fulfilling both priority criteria for grants listed in this bill: “experiential” advocacy projects designed to appeal to minority students. We are talking about Black Lives Matter protests outside of police stations for course credit. And the grants will be disbursed by President Biden’s Education Department, sure to be staffed by left-leaning bureaucrats who believe — as does the president — that our country is “systemically racist.” Put together the priority criteria and a Democrat-controlled Department of Education and you will see a tremendous number of grants going to Critical Race Theory-based political advocacy programs, all under the label of “civics.”

Critical Race Theory, of course, is antithetical to the classically liberal principles upon which our constitutional republic rests. Teaching it is actually a form of anti-civics. Yet that is what hundreds of millions of dollars disbursed by the “Civics Secures Democracy Act” is going to be used for.

So, the “Civics Secures Democracy Act” is a massive boondoggle in support of politicizing students and teaching them to trade away equality and individual liberty for identity politics and the redistribution of . . . well, pretty much everything. But there’s more. On top of its billion-dollar lure, the bill revamps a key national test as a backdoor way of imposing a de facto national curriculum on the states.

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The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), famous as “the nation’s report card,” is the national test that allows us to tell how well the states are doing at teaching basic knowledge and skills. NAEP allows us to see that, whereas America’s reading and math scores had once been headed up, Common Core has brought them down. Yet NAEP was never intended to create a national curriculum. On the contrary, NAEP was deliberately designed to make it difficult or impossible to link its results to state or local curricula. If anything, by revealing the failure of Common Core, NAEP has already discredited the very idea of a de facto national curriculum.

For decades, however, some have dreamed of using NAEP as a way of imposing what amounts to a national curriculum on the states. If NAEP could be aligned to specific history or civics standards, and administered in such a way as to facilitate state-by-state comparisons between results, the test could effectively force a federal curriculum on states and localities. Variable state NAEP results could then be tied to the awarding of federal grants. State-by-state rankings would have a profound effect on parental satisfaction with schools, and thus on migration in and out of state by both individuals and businesses.

The Civics Secures Democracy Act of 2021 is very much part of an effort to use NAEP to force a revisionist history and civics curriculum down the throats of unsuspecting states and localities. The bill would increase and regularize NAEP assessments in history and civics, facilitate state-by-state comparisons, and condition grants on the willingness of a state to participate in the history and civics portions of the test on a regular basis. Grant renewals would also be conditioned on statewide performance on the reorganized NAEP.

Combine this with the ambitions of the new, supposedly bipartisan, Educating for American Democracy (EAD) initiative (aptly described as a “Trojan Horse for Woke Education”). The leftist leaders of EAD, who just happen to be the chief public backers of the Civics Secures Democracy Act of 2021, issued a draft report on implementation that I have seen, but that seems not to have been released to the public in final form. That draft report calls for NAEP to be redesigned to align with EAD. This would be an inexcusable national power-grab and an affront to the proper purpose of NAEP. It’s clear, however, that this is exactly what the bogus leftist “civics” coalition wants. (For a new report by the Heritage Foundation critical of EAD and its national ambitions, go here. For more critiques of EAD, go here and here.)

In effect, we are looking at an effort to impose a new federal Common Core in the politically explosive subject areas of history and civics. Worse, the program in each of these areas does more than just lean a bit toward the left side of the political spectrum. Instead, it sharply breaks with fundamental assumptions in American education, first by promoting illiberal Critical Race Theory, and second by turning what should be a politically neutral classroom into a training ground for leftist advocacy and lobbying.

All around us, the culture war has broken the bounds of the university and spilled into our day-to-day lives. Conservatives and traditional liberals are rightly up in arms about the woke assault on our most fundamental freedoms, extending to inculcating guilt and shame in elementary-school students for the color of their skin. The Democrats in Congress, in league with the Biden administration and the leftist Action Civics movement, are about to supercharge this culture war by injecting it into the heart of federal education policy. Whether sooner or later, this is destined to become the greatest education battle of our lifetimes.",1.9945692091460534
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Thomas Smith, a corporate law professor at University of San Diego Law School since 1992, is the target of a malicious and dishonest smear campaign by students falsely claiming that in a blog post Prof. Smith disparaged the Chinese ethnic group.

In fact, any plain reading of the post demonstrates that the criticisms were directed at the Chinese government, not at Chinese people as an ethnic group. Nonetheless, Dean Robert Schapiro disgracefully denounced Prof. Smith and an investigation has been launched by the law school and university into alleged violation of anti-bias rules.

This another example of the student mob mentality that is sweeping academia and almost always directed at right-of-center professors. In almost all of these cases, the pattern is the same: Students weaponize their hurt feelings to demand destruction of a professional career over political comments with which they disagree, exploiting administrative weakness by falsely claiming bias against the professor. In the face of such contrived bias claims, administrators crumble and publicly shame the professor through ritual denunciations, occasionally leading to actual employment termination.

It is reminscent of the worst days of the Maoist Cultural Revolution, in which students were the most aggressive in demanding ideological obedience from professors, with public shaming one of the tools used to humiliate the target and scare others into silence.

Some of the cases we have covered include St. Joseph’s Math Professor Gregory Manco, Harvard Law Professor Adrian Vermeule, Cornell Chemistry Prof. David Collum, UCF Psychology Prof. Charles Negy, U. Chicago Geophysicist Prof. Dorian Abbot, McGill Univ. Anthropology Emeritus Prof. Philip Carl Salzman, U. Miami Law Prof. Dan Ravicher, USC Business Prof. Greg Patton, Princeton Classics Prof. Joshua Katz, several Skidmore College professors, University of North Texas Music Theory Prof. Gregory Jackson, Michigan State Physics Prof. Stephen Hsu, and of course, me.

Add Prof. Thomas Smith to the list.

The Right Coast Blog Post

Prof. Smith has run the The Right Coast blog for as long as I can remember. The blog is a traditional blog, mostly reprinting excerpts of news stories packaged with a little commentary added. Because Prof. Smith is viewed as right-of-center, he is watched. I’m pretty sure there was some prior kerfuffle involving his blog, though I can’t find a link to it. There are students who have spent a lot of time scrutinizing his writings.

On March 10, 2021, Prof. Smith ran this post excerpting a Wall Street Journal article, Wuhan Lab Theory a Dark Cloud on China – WSJ (emphasis added):

Wuhan Lab Theory a Dark Cloud on China – WSJ

By Tom Smith Alas, the World Health Organization mission is turning into a case of disaster foretold. A credible inquiry requires China’s full cooperation, not just cooperation with those lines of inquiry that are consistent with its own propaganda. And couldn’t somebody have put Peter Daszak, team member from New York City’s EcoHealth Alliance, under permanent mouth quarantine? To insist that human encroachment on nature is the great risk tells us nothing about what happened in this particular case. To insist, as he did on NPR, that China’s manhandling of the delegation with greeters in full hazmat garb, its forcing of the visitors into 14-day quarantine, was merely testament to China’s Covid rigor overlooks another possibility: China was seeking to intimidate and dominate the investigators because of the colossal importance it places on controlling the virus narrative. via www.wsj.com If you believe that the coronavirus did not escape from the lab in Wuhan, you have to at least consider that you are an idiot who is swallowing whole a lot of Chinese cock swaddle. At least Peter Daszak has good personal and financial reasons, not to mention reasons of career preservation, for advancing what he must know is a facially implausible thesis. But whatever. Go Science! UPDATE: It appears that some people are interpreting my reference to “Chinese cock swaddle,” as a reference to an ethnic group. That is a misinterpretation. To be clear, I was referring to the Chinese government.

Was the pejorative term “Chinese cock swaddle” a smear of the Chinese people as an ethnic group, rather than the Chinese government? There is no plausible claim that Prof. Smith was disparaging Chinese people as an ethnic group, as UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh points out through a plain reading of the text:

In context, it seems clear that the post’s reference to “Chinese” is indeed a reference to the Chinese government, not to people of Chinese extraction…. Even without the UPDATE, it’s clear that the reference to “Chinese cock swaddle” must be a reference to the government of China, not to Chinese-Americans or to people of Chinese extraction. The title of the post is about China, and the quote refers four times to China (“China’s full cooperation,” “China’s manhandling of the delegation,” “China’s Covid rigor,” “China was seeking”). Though “Chinese” sometimes refers to the government, sometimes to the nation, and sometimes to the ethnic group, here the referent is clear, and it isn’t to Chinese-Americans or to USD law students from China or anything like that…. Yet I stress again that the blog post is not “disparaging language” or “epithets, derogatory comments, or slurs based on race or national origin” towards any “members of the [USD] community” (students, faculty, or staff). It is disparaging language towards China, in context referring to the government of China.

Student Petition for Termination

There does not appear to have been any reaction or complaint immediately after the blog post was published. Just in the past couple of days, however, law school students launched into a campaign to get Prof. Smith fired over the comment.

The Asian Pacific American Law Students Association (APALSA) delivered a lengthy, heavily footnoted demand letter (pdf.) to Prof. Smith dated March 19, 2021, which requested “an Apology on Behalf of All the Affinity Groups You Have Harmed”:

You are now likely aware of the tremendous amount of reaction and response that this post has generated from the student body, our school’s various organizations, our school’s alumni, and the larger community of San Diego. We are extremely hurt by your words. We want this letter to educate you on how your words have a greater, adverse impact on your own students at USD and the community at large. Specifically, we are writing to express the depth of hurt and disappointment you caused to the Asian Pacific Islander (API) community…. Your blog post promoting a conspiracy theory that COVID-19 originated in a lab from Wuhan, China, has detrimental consequences for students you teach and beyond. Based on your update to the blog post[1], you still have not grasped the severity of the issue or its wider implications for the community that you inhabit. At this point, the origins of COVID-19 are still largely speculative. We are not here to say that any conclusion about the origins of COVID-19 is right or wrong. That deflects from the point. The point is that your speculation of COVID-19 originating from a lab in China only perpetuates an “us versus them” mentality that negatively impacts the API community…. We came to law school hoping we could arm ourselves against such indignities, and yet we are asked to endure them from our own professors under the guise of academic and scholarly debate…. Please consider your position as a community leader who represents the law school. Please consider the diverse students at USD Law and how unsafe they may feel learning from you. Please recognize the difference between intent versus impact. We recognize it may not have been your intent to cause harm, but you did. Take ownership, listen, learn, and do better. All law students are required to take an oath of professionalism prior to law school and our professors must be held to the same standard….

While APALSA did not call for Prof. Smith’s termination in the letter, a student petition does just that. It reads:

Petition for USD School of Law to Terminate Contract with Professor Tom Smith To the Leadership at the University of San Diego and the School of Law, The legal field demands from its professionals an ethical obligation to comply with the requirements and standards of both their institution and the greater field of law. Law professors are subject to the regulations of the institutions at which they teach and to professional guidelines that are more generally applicable to attorneys as a whole. Their responsibilities extend beyond the classroom. We as future legal professionals recognize our ethical obligation to understand how our words and our actions will reflect upon our profession, and the institutions we represent. Law professors are charged with molding the next generation of attorneys, imparting a strong ethical code, and abiding by the same Oath of Professionalism every USD Law student is asked to adhere to on our first day of law school. However, it seems that USD Law has decided students must be held to a higher standard than the professors they employ to teach. This Oath of Professionalism asks law students to recite: “ . . .I commit to serve my community and to study law with diligence and integrity. I will uphold the highest standard of ethics and conduct myself with dignity befitting an advocate and counselor in this noble profession. I will be a zealous advocate, but will engage collegially and respectfully with students, faculty, staff, and other members of my community. In all I do, I will honor the shared values of the legal profession.” As such, Professor Tom Smith is responsible to and for the students at USD Law and should have a strong sense of the obligations that attach to this calling. Rather than recognizing his responsibility to serve others, Professor Smith’s actions demonstrate that his vocation is limited to the pursuit of self-interest. His words in his blog and his conduct in the classroom have time and time again fallen short of the obligation he owes to the students that he teaches, the law school that employs him, and the legal profession that he claims to represent. Professor Smith demonstrates an unwillingness to engage collegially, respectfully, or conduct himself with dignity as an advocate or counselor. In Professor Smith’s offensive blog post on March 10th, he noted “If you believe that the Coronavirus did not escape from the lab in Wuhan, you have to at least consider that you are an idiot who is swallowing [a whole lot of] Chinese cock swaddle.” This corrosive blog post mirrors the same unfounded conspiracy theory peddling that has contributed to the nearly 4000 hate incidents reported against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States over the last year. The egregiousness of Professor Smith’s rhetoric transcends its profanity; it expresses a fundamental disconnect from the realities that our API law students encounter during every moment of their personal and professional lives. Over the last several years, USD Law students have raised formal complaints with our law administration about offensive commentaries included on Professor Smith’s blog, which until last year was linked directly to the USD Law’s website on a webpage showcasing faculty scholarship and achievements. USD Law students have confronted Professor Smith about previous commentaries in class and in private meetings, but none of our previous efforts compelled a disciplinary response from our leadership that could have prevented the vulnerability and helplessness that so many in our law community have experienced this week. Accordingly, it is crucial to acknowledge this truth: Professor Tom Smith works for us. We pay his salary. We demand better from the institution we pay to educate us. The University of San Diego prides itself on developing “Changemakers” who are willing to bravely step into discomfort to meet the needs of our world and our communities. USD Law students continue to take on the weight of this advocacy absent concrete action and support from our institution, recognizing its implications on our mental health, our capacity to balance our studies, and our ability to prepare for our futures in the legal profession. To the salaried faculty, salaried administration, salaried staff, and alumni of the University of San Diego who claim to be willing to support USD Law students when they are at their most vulnerable: It is your turn to be brave. It is your turn to make change. We stand behind the API students within our law and university communities who have already experienced great fear of xenophobic violence and discrimination because of the influx of racist rhetoric and conspiracy peddling in communities across our country this year. Professor Smith must either resign or have his contract with USD Law terminated. Any other response from the University and School of Law is shameful and performative, and protects neither the safety of our students nor the integrity of our institution. Robert Ponce,

USD Law Student Bar Association President, 2020-2021 Meena Kaypour,

USD Law Student Bar Association President, 2021-2022

Denunciation By Dean And Investigation

The law school Dean Robert Schapiro issued a denunciation of Prof. Smith. While the denunciation did not mention Prof. Smith’s name, it clearly was about him and would have been so understood by the law school community.

In an email to the community (via 10 News report), Dean Schapiro asserted that the statements by Prof. Smith are directed at “people from China” and reflect “bias” that “demeans a particular national group” possibly in violation of USD policies (emphasis added):

Dear Law Students, It has come to my attention that a faculty member made a blog post concerning the origin of COVID-19, using offensive language in reference to people from China. As I wrote to you in a previous message, COVID-19 has been associated with an alarming increase in hate crimes directed against the Asian and Pacific Islander (API) community, with racist commentary relating to the virus and its origins. While the blog is not hosted by the University of San Diego, these forms of bias, wherever they occur, have an adverse impact on our community. It is especially concerning when the disparaging language comes from a member of our community. Scientists are investigating the exact origins of COVID-19. Whatever the realm for debate by experts about this scientific question, there is no place for language that demeans a particular national group. Such language undermines our shared commitment to creating an inclusive, welcoming community. A core value of the University of San Diego School of Law is that all members of the community must be treated with dignity and respect. University policies specifically prohibit harassment, including the use of epithets, derogatory comments, or slurs based on race or national origin, among other categories. I have received formal complaints relating to the faculty member’s conduct, and in accordance with university procedures, there will be a process to review whether university or law school policies have been violated. I will be meeting as soon as possible with leaders of the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association and the Student Bar Association to discuss further steps. In addition, I will continue to work with faculty, students, staff, and alumni over the course of this spring and beyond to develop and implement plans to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion at the law school. This occurrence reminds us again of the importance and urgency of this project. I will be sending you more information about plans as they develop. It is clear that we have much work to do together to repair and enhance our community. That work must begin by acknowledging the harm caused by this kind of demeaning language. Sincerely yours,

Robert

The denunciation and investigation have received widespread local news coverage, including in The San Diego Union Tribune:

A student brought the post to the attention of the Asian Pacific American Law Student Association at USD, and the group filed a formal complaint with the help of the Student Bar Association. The groups met with school officials Thursday [March 18]. “In law school we come here to be taught to be wordsmiths and to make educated arguments,” said Ashley Thompson, a second-year law student and board member of the Asian and Pacific Islander association. “He did the opposite. He stooped to use dangerous rhetoric. That is part of reason this so disturbing and hurtful.” … A USD spokesperson said the conduct of the professor — who wasn’t named in the [Dean’s] letter — would be reviewed to determine if university or law school policies were violated. “A core value of the University of San Diego School of Law is that all members of the community must be treated with dignity and respect,” the spokesperson said. “University policies specifically prohibit harassment, including the use of epithets, derogatory comments, or slurs based on race or national origin, among other categories.” Some time after the original blog post went up, an update was added to Smith’s commentary: “It appears that some people are interpreting my reference to ‘Chinese **** swaddle,’ as a reference to an ethnic group. That is a misinterpretation. To be clear, I was referring to the Chinese government.” Smith did not respond to a request for comment in emails sent to him and his assistant Friday. For Benjamin Cope, a first-year law student representative of the Asian and Pacific Islander student association, the impact of the words outweighs the intent. “Maybe it wasn’t his intent, but he chose very, very specific, unique, colorful language,” Cope said. “I know everyone will have their opinion, but as someone who will and has been affected by people’s words like this, I feel comfortable saying it was racist, it was offensive.” The student groups are asking for Smith to be terminated, or that he issue a formal apology and that students be allowed to opt out of his courses. Other requests include the university hire more diverse faculty. The students also wrote an open letter to Smith asking for an apology.

San Diego News 7 further reports:

USD Student Bar Association President Robert Ponce … said such remarks are among those causing concerns about Asian discrimination. “I would describe it as xenophobic in nature. I certainly think there is a line of bigotry that underlies that statement and similar statements made across the country,” Ponce said…. “This statement is conspiracy peddling like we have seen around the country and it’s ugly and egregious,” Ponce said. In part of an emailed statement from the University, spokesperson Elena Gomez told NBC 7 the school is aware of these comments. “These forms of bias, wherever they occur, have an adverse impact on our community. It is especially concerning when the disparaging language comes from a member of our community,” Gomez said. Ponce said the Student Bar Association and the Asian-Pacific American Student Law Association are preparing a list of disciplinary demands for the university. “We respect, that tenured professors are able to publish what they want about any topic of their choosing. However, they have a responsibility to the university, the student body and to uphold a set of standards that are not met now,” Ponce said. The school received formal complaints about the blog and is reviewing whether university or law school policies have been violated.

Questions That Remain Unanswered

I sent the following request to Dean Schapiro:

Dear Dean Schapiro, I have read about the investigation of Professor Thomas Smith, including your email to the community which has been published online. I will be writing about this incident, and the school’s response, for my website, Legal Insurrection. I’d like to understand the impetus for you issuing a community email as well as the content. If you could provide me with a response to these questions by 7 p.m. Eastern today, that would be appreciated so I can include your position when I write this up for publication tonight. 1. What role did the student petition and complaints play in your decision to issue the community email? Had there been no petition or complaints, would you still have issued the community email? 2. You say that the blog post used “offensive language in reference to people from China” and compared it to “language that demeans a particular national group.” Do you believe that the language in question (“cock swaddle”) was directed at Chinese as a people, or China as a government? Does that make a difference in your view? If the language in question had said “Chinese government cock swaddle” instead of “Chinese cock swaddle” would you have issued the community email and still criticized Prof. Smith? 3. In an Update to his blog post, Prof. Smith writes: “UPDATE: It appears that some people are interpreting my reference to “Chinese cock swaddle,” as a reference to an ethnic group. That is a misinterpretation. To be clear, I was referring to the Chinese government.” Do you accept that clarification? Does it make a difference in your view? 3. In your view, is the use of the language in question (“cock swaddle”) in itself, if used not in any way regarding an ethnic group, sufficiently objectionable for a professor to be condemned to the community by the law school? 4. Do you consider Prof. Smith raising the possibility that the coronavirus leaked from a lab in Wuhan (something widely reported as a possibility by Chinese university researchers, the mainstream press in the United States, and the U.S. government) in itself unacceptable, or is it the specific language in question that was used on his blog? 5. What is the process at USD now that complaints have been filed? Is it the law school or university’s intention to seek termination of Prof. Smith? 6. Do you consider Prof. Smith’s writing at his blog, including this particular post, protected by academic freedom? If not, why not, since it is an extramural writing on a matter of public importance? If so, why isn’t that the end of the school’s inquiry? 7. What is the current status of the investigation and possible employment action against Prof. Smith? I hope that you will provide answers to these questions. If there is any other statement you wish to provide, you can do so as well.

The Dean did not respond, instead I received the following from Media Relations:

The University of San Diego School of Law is aware of the blog post of the faculty member. While the blog is not hosted by the University of San Diego, these forms of bias, wherever they occur, have an adverse impact on our community. It is especially concerning when the disparaging language comes from a member of our community. A core value of the University of San Diego School of Law is that all members of the community must be treated with dignity and respect. University policies specifically prohibit harassment, including the use of epithets, derogatory comments, or slurs based on race or national origin, among other categories. We have received formal complaints relating to the faculty member’s conduct, and in accordance with university procedures, there will be a process to review whether university or law school policies have been violated. Here is more information on the review process: https://www.sandiego.edu/law/about/consumer-information/student-complaints.php Elena Gomez

Associate Director of Media Relations, Media Communications

University of San Diego

Ms. Gomez followed up:

Hello William, I wanted to send an update to my email. The complaints reference both law school and university policies. The process for addressing complaints relating to law school policies is here. The process for addressing complaints relating to university policy is here. Thank you,

Possibly Illegal Treatment of Prof. Smith

Prof. Volokh, in the post linked above, notes the illogical and possibly illegal conduct of the law school:

To the extent people who feel some connection to China find it offensive, that is no basis for the university to prohibit such speech, or even investigate a faculty member for such speech—just as a university has no business investigating a faculty member for sharp criticism of the government of Israel (or of other Israeli institutions), or of Russia or, back in the day, South Africa or whatever else. I’ve heard some suggestion that such harsh condemnation of the Chinese government might increase the risk of hate crimes against Asians. I’m skeptical that this is likely so, especially in a blog post such as this. But in any event, faculty or student speech like this can’t be suppressed simply because it has a supposedly bad tendency to inflame a few of its readers in a way that might cause them to commit crimes: Harsh criticism of the police might lead to violent attacks on the police.

Harsh criticism of the Israeli government (or of “Israel” generally) may lead to violent attacks on Jews.

Harsh criticism of the U.S. government might lead to criminal attacks on government institutions, whether from the Right (as with the Capitol riot) or from the Left (as with the riots in Portland). Yet such speech remains protected by academic freedom and free speech principles. In particular, besides the promises of academic freedom (which I think covers public commentary and not just scholarship) that USD, alongside most other private academic institutions, provides, the California Labor Code protects “political activities” even by private employees ….

Conclusion: Post-Truth World

We have seen this movie before.

At many universities and law schools, we live in a post-truth world. The truth here is that Prof. Smith was disparaging the Chinese government, not Chinese people as an ethnic group. But the truth doesn’t appear to matter to the students seeking Prof. Smith’s dismissal because they obviously have been taught that what matters most is their feelings, not reality.

There can be no such excuse for Dean Robert Schapiro and other senior adminstrators at the law school and university. They know better.

We will continue to follow this case.

UPDATE

(3-21-2021)

Shortly before this post went live Prof. Volokh posted the text of a letter he says was sent by “several” USD law professors to the Dean. I had not seen it when my post went live, so I’m adding it now:

Dear Robert, We have read your email to the law school community as well as your email to one of us. Here is our reaction. The faculty member in question made a political comment in forceful language. He has the right and perhaps the obligation as a citizen and an academic to comment on matters of public concern such as the Chinese government’s handling of COVID, and to do so in evocative and forceful language. No fair, much less lawyerly way of reading what he wrote would conclude anything other than that “Chinese cock swaddle” was referring to propaganda of the Chinese government and surely not denigrating people of Chinese origin or descent. The context makes this perfectly clear. Blog posts by academics fall within the bounds of academic freedom as defined by the AAUP. Student concerns about discrimination should always be considered soberly. Yet, an academic institution committed to free inquiry cannot allow misplaced accusations of bigotry to become an all-purpose tool for silencing critical comment. To allow such accusations to undermine academic freedom ultimately ensures an environment of fear and suspicion for all members of the academic community, undermining rather than ensuring a welcoming and respectful discourse. Describing the disputed comments in this case as “offensive language in reference to people from China” of a piece with “hate crimes directed against the Asian and Pacific Islander (API) community [and] racist commentary” inevitably creates the impression that judgment has been rendered in advance and the outcome of the promised review has been predetermined. We are concerned that treating these complaints the way you are doing validates student reactions and strained interpretations that are misguided, that reflect a lack of critical thinking, and that will chill faculty members’ teaching and scholarship. We sincerely hope it will be possible to work together to find a better way.

It is very good to see that several professors took a principled position and spoke up.

That stands in contrast to what happened to me at Cornell Law School, where some professors colluded with students targeting me, and not a single faculty member spoke out against the misrepresentations of my writings by then-Dean (and soon-to-be President of Seattle University) Eduardo M. Peñalver and 21 colleagues who signed a statement against me. While George Washington U. Prof. Jonathan Turley and the National Association of Scholars wrote scathing takedowns of the actions by faculty and the Dean, respectively, there was faculty silence as I was maligned by other faculty and the administration, and students organized a boycott of my course (the boycott failed).

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"Hear me out.

Think about a grandmother who’s received, say, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Trial research indicates that the second shot reduces her risk of serious illness by about 95 percent. Her risk of death goes way down too, although the trials were not geared toward reaching a conclusion on that point. (The Pfizer control group recorded zero deaths.)

Different vaccines yield different results, but all of the vaccines approved by the FDA (Pfizer-BioNTech’s, Moderna’s, and Johnson & Johnson’s) are very effective, which is why the CDC has indicated that vaccinated individuals can interact unmasked with other vaccinated individuals. It hasn’t yet commented on flying, but I’m guessing the CDC will relax its flying advisories for vaccinated individuals in the next few weeks. It will continue to recommend masks, for the sake of protecting the unvaccinated population, because the science on transmission by the vaccinated is still hazy.

Now think about your child. The CDC has published some risk assessments by age. For comparison’s sake, I’ll phrase the findings the way I would the results of a vaccine trial: Being a child aged 5 to 17 is 99.9 percent protective against the risk of death and 98 percent protective against hospitalization. For children 0 to 4, these numbers are 99.9 percent (death) and 96 percent (hospitalization).

The central goal of vaccination is preventing serious illness and death. From this standpoint, being a child is a really great vaccine. Your unvaccinated first grader appears to have about as much protection from serious illness as a vaccinated grandmother.

Comparisons are more difficult when it comes to the risk of any infection at all. An Israeli study undergoing peer review found that the Pfizer vaccine reduces infection in asymptomatic cases by about 90 percent, and in symptomatic cases by almost 94 percent. Child case counts haven’t been well documented, in part because asymptomatic infection appears to be so common among kids. However, the available data suggest that children are less likely than adults to contract the coronavirus, but more likely to contract it than a vaccinated grandmother. (Below, I’ll address the latest thinking on variants, and research on the possible long-term effects of less-than-serious infections, which remains murky, and controversial.) This news may feel a little mixed: Yes, kids are protected from serious illness, just like their vaccinated grandparents, but they are not as protected from contracting the virus at all.

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The

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Since I mask up as duly commanded, I don’t suffer the obloquy of the self-appointed Public-Health Commissars. But. The other day I was crossing the street on the outskirts of downtown Minneapolis, where I work. …",-0.9882244883210358
"Oprah Winfrey: Wait, wait. They said this to you?

Bugs Bunny: Well, no one said it outright, of course. I mean, this is Holly­wood, right, Oprah? We’re all supposed to be progressive and liberal and —

Oprah Winfrey: But you’re saying the studio executives knew you were trans?

Bugs Bunny: We didn’t have that word back then. But they knew something was . . . different about me. I mean, watch the footage. I’m in a dress, like, most of the time.

Oprah Winfrey: I guess what I’m trying to understand is, why now? Why the book, why the lawsuit?

Bugs Bunny: Oprah, it’s not …",-0.2249704837984234
"On a day with no breeze

we found a shack in a forgotten field

littered with stones and husks of ancient corn.

We were afraid,

but we broke through the ragged bamboo fence

and went inside.

Even now I wish that I had shut my eyes,

not to look upon the poverty of that man’s house.

In the half darkness under the low tin roof

we saw his single cot, a dirty blanket folded,

a faded picture of a man in white,

and a glass of water, swimming with motes of dust,

which we shattered, and ran,

leaving the splintered bamboo to cast

long shadows like spears into the afternoon.

But had we sought the …",0.023881053379280027
"In sophomore year of high school, the English reading list given to us included Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. I was somewhere east of miserable in that class and turned the pages with all the pleasure of chewing overcooked broccoli. A decade or so later, I was an actor hired to play one of the novel’s central characters and read it again, this time with more appreciative eyes.

In light of recent trends, the book came to mind, practically begging to be recommissioned as an analogue for woke culture. Little tweaking is needed. With breathless zeal for prosecuting public sin, our …",-0.15472176134260504
A former student (very former) Zooms in with two beloved professors from his freshman year.,1.0884857918990147
"U.S. soldiers conduct a joint foot patrol with Canadian and Afghan National Army troops in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, in 2009. (Omar Sobhani/Reuters)

A response to Bing West.

In his National Review article “Three Wars, No Victory — Why?” (February 18, 2021), Bing West, my former colleague at the Pentagon and the Naval War College, lays out a compelling case for why the U.S. — which he argues is the most powerful country in the history of the world — has lost the three major wars it has fought over the past 50 years: Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Bing divides blame for each of these losses among three hubs — namely, the military, the policy-makers, and the popular mood among the people of the country. He argues correctly that the policy hub, or the policy-makers, were primarily responsible for the failures.

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While I have some experience in each of these conflicts, having served in Vietnam and having visited Iraq three times and Afghanistan once, it does not match that of Bing, who is one of the bravest people I have ever known. However, I still believe that he presents a sometimes incomplete and misleading picture of why we lost these three wars.

For example, in analyzing the Vietnam disaster, he ignores the fact that the war was fought under false pretenses. President Johnson received congressional authorization in 1964 to begin the massive escalation in Vietnam in response to an alleged attack by the North Vietnamese on an American ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. But, even before the congressional investigation, it was clear to any experienced naval officer that what the administration claimed had happened was bogus. I remember my commanding officer in VP-1, who had flown combat missions in World War II and Korea, telling us that the attacks did not happen the way it was claimed. This was something that Vice Admiral James Stockdale, who was Bing’s and my boss at the War College and who received a medal of honor for his courage as a POW in Vietnam and who was in the area at the time, also affirmed. As did a naval officer who convinced Senator Wayne Morris (D., Ore.) to become one of the two senators who voted against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. (Both lost their next election.). When this came to light, it also increased opposition to the war among the American people.

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Another reason we failed in Vietnam is that the war was never winnable in the first place. Bing argues that our poor military strategy from 1965 to 1968, bad policy decisions, and the popular mood doomed the Vietnam War. These factors played a role, but in truth only heightened an already existing reality — a reality made clear to me in 1966, when my colleagues and I got lost coming back from a meeting with SWIFT-boat officers in the northern part of Cameron Bay, South Vietnam. As we rode around aimlessly trying to find our way back to our base, we came upon a Catholic monastery. A priest there gave us directions and fed us. But as we were leaving, one of the monks asked me in French (which I had studied in school) why we thought we were going to make out any better in Vietnam than the French. President Eisenhower was conscious of this when he refused to bail out the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, even though most of his national-security advisers, including then–Vice President Nixon and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Radford, recommended it. But Army chief of staff General Matthew Ridgway, who prevented us from losing in Korea, helped convince Eisenhower not to intervene, because he, like the monks I met, believed Vietnam was unwinnable.

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Similarly, the majority of the American people turned against the war in Vietnam not just because there was a draft, as Bing correctly points out, but because of how the privileged were able to avoid the draft, thus leaving it to the lower class to bear most of the burden. For example, the four most recent presidents who could have served in Vietnam avoided that war and the draft by dubious means. Bill Clinton pretended to join the Army ROTC; George W. Bush used political connections to get into the Air National Guard, when President Johnson made it clear that the reserve component would not be activated to fight the war; Donald Trump, of course, had his family physician claim he had bone spurs, (Trump himself cannot remember which foot); and Joe Biden claimed that the asthma he had in high school prevented him from serving even though he brags about his athletic exploits while in high school.

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Similarly, in his analysis of why we did not win in Iraq, Bing ignores the fact that the Bush administration got the U.S. into war falsely claiming that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, in criticizing the Obama administration for withdrawing from Iraq in 2011, Bing ignores the fact that Obama had no choice. He did this because in 2008 the Iraqi government, which we had helped install, made it clear to us that it would not sign a Status of Forces Agreement unless we agreed to withdraw completely by the end of 2011.

I saw this firsthand when I worked in the Obama campaign and in the summer of 2008 met with Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister. When I asked him about the agreement to withdraw, he told me it was a non-negotiable demand. When I relayed this to Denis McDonough, who was on the campaign trail with Obama and eventually became his chief of staff, he was surprised and asked me if I was certain about what I heard. In 2009, while on a visit to Iraq, I brought this up with several Iraqi government officials in the parliament and the executive branch and received the same answer. Finally, in December 2011, when Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki came to Washington to finalize the deal, I and several others, including Obama’s first national-security adviser General David Jones and future Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, met with him. I asked him directly if there was anything President Obama could have done to keep the troops in Iraq. He essentially said that Bush made an agreement and the U.S. must stick to it. At the meeting, Jones said Obama was willing to leave 10,000 troops.

Bing also ignores the fact that the Bush administration never publicly or privately praised Iran for its help in Afghanistan but actually publicly criticized that nation. I saw this myself. On 9/11, I was working at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. After the attacks, the Iranian ambassador to the U.N. invited me to dinner and told me to let our government know that Iran detested the Taliban and would be willing to help us in Afghanistan. I relayed this to the Bush administration, and Bush’s representative to the Bonn Conference in December 2001, which established the Karzai government, told me that the Bush administration would not have succeeded without the Iranians. Iran’s reward? In early 2002, Bush put the country on the axis of evil. It is an understatement to say that as a result Iran no longer played a positive role in the region.

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Finally, in his Afghanistan analysis, while Bing correctly points out that our military could never transform Afghanistan, he is wrong to argue that we should remain indefinitely in the country to avoid damaging our reputation. Many who fought in this 20-year war already believe our reputation is damaged and want us to leave before it is damaged further. Sunk-costs logic should not apply here.

How bad will it be if we agree to leave on May 1, as Trump agreed to, and the Taliban takes over, especially for women? When I visited Afghanistan in 2011, I asked a Taliban official how they would treat women if or when they took over. He told me not to worry — that they would not treat them any worse than our allies, the Saudis.

Bing’s article should be read by all those who believe that the U.S. can develop and sustain democracies by using military power. However, they should keep in mind that there are some other factors that also play into this decision.",-0.3434750442847975
"U.S. soldiers attend welcoming ceremony for NATO troops near Orzysz, Poland, in 2017. (Kacper Pempel/Reuters)

The accusation that the military is full of racists and extremists is false, and damaging.

During the 1960s and ’70s, those of us who fought in Vietnam became accustomed to having many of our fellow countrymen slander us as, at best, victims of a government that sent its poor to fight a criminal war and, at worst, war criminals ourselves, complicit in the routine commitment of atrocities. But the pendulum began to swing back the other way in the 1980s, and continued in the same direction through the Gulf War and 9/11 until, by the time of George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers had been elevated to the status of “secular saints.”

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My fellow Vietnam veterans and I would no doubt have preferred such reverence to the chilly reception we received after the war, but secular sainthood has created its own set of problems — isolation from American society at large, unequal burden sharing, and a belief in the moral superiority of those who serve over those who haven’t — that threaten to undermine the bond between service members and veterans on the one hand and American society at large on the other. After all, healthy civil-military relations depend on mutual trust between soldiers and the society they serve.

Now, the pendulum seems to be swinging back to the bad old days of slandering the military, as part of broader claims that Donald Trump normalized “white supremacy” and other forms of right-wing extremism. The fact that there were veterans among the rioters who unlawfully entered the Capitol on January 6, the persistent claim that Trump appealed to extremist groups, and Trump’s popularity with the military form the basis for proliferating allegations that the military has become a friend to racism and extremism.

Indeed, some have even raised the specter of active duty and National Guard troops constituting an “insider threat.” For example, Representative Steve Cohen (D., Tenn.) told CNN that:

The [National] Guard is 90-some-odd percent, I believe, male. Only about 20 percent of white males voted for Biden. You gotta figure that in the Guard, which is predominantly more conservative, and I see that on my social media . . . they’re probably not more than 25 percent of the people that are there protecting us who voted for Biden. . . . The other 75 percent are in the class that would be the large class of folks who might want to do something. And there were military people and police who took oaths to defend the Constitution and to protect and defend who didn’t do it who were in the insurrection. So, it does concern me.

Cohen added that people on social media had referenced and reminded him of the assassination of then-Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981.

Responding to a question about white supremacy during his CNN Town Hall on February 16, President Biden said:

I would make sure that my Justice Department and the Civil Rights Division is focused heavily on those very folks, and I would make sure that we, in fact, focus on how to deal with the rise of white supremacy. And you see what’s happening, the studies that are beginning to be done, maybe at your university as well, about the impact of former military, former police officers, on — on the growth of white supremacy in some of these groups.

To address concerns about extremism in the ranks of the military, Biden’s secretary of defense, retired Army general Lloyd Austin, has called for a “stand down” across the force to address the issue. “I really and truly believe that 99.9 percent of our servicemen and -women believe in [their] oath. They believe, embrace the values that we are focused on, and they’re doing the right things,” Secretary Austin said on February 19. “I expect for the numbers [of extremists in the ranks] to be small, but quite frankly, they’ll probably be a little bit larger than most of us would guess. . . . But I would just say that, you know, small numbers, in this case, can have an outsized impact.”

But Kash Patel, the former chief of staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, argued that the problem has been overstated. “They have self-admitted that the problem doesn’t exist, to their knowledge, and that’s because it doesn’t,” Patel said on Fox News:

White supremacy is not rampant throughout the Department of Defense. That is outrageous and offensive to our men and women in uniform. . . . The Biden Pentagon is trading in politics instead of logic and fact. . . . Their own spokesperson and their own secretary of defense, they have said they do not know the problem and whether it exists. They don’t have a name for it. They don’t have a solution for it. But they’re going to label it anyway.

There is indeed a “real problem”; it’s just not the one people are talking about. It is instead that political and military leaders have failed to define their terms.

Racism vs. Racial Prejudice

Let me be clear: There have been serious racial incidents involving military service members in the past, and military leaders were quick to deal with the perpetrators appropriately. But the idea that racism is somehow pervasive in the military is nonsense.

The problem with this latest campaign is that most of the recent claims about racism in the military conflate true racism and white supremacy on the one hand and racial prejudice on the other.

The former has traditionally referred to membership in, or sympathy with, the KKK, neo-Nazis, skinheads, or other groups that preach violence. The U.S. military has long been vigilant about the possibility of extremist groups taking advantage of military training to advance their own goals. Background checks have always been a part of the recruitment and enlistment processes. And the services have been quick to separate individuals whose background checks raise red flags.

The latter is a manifestation of what both Plato and Aristotle called “love of one’s own,” a feature of human nature. The Greeks preferred their ways to those of the Persians. The Athenians preferred their own laws to those of the Spartans. All humans prefer their own families and communities to others’.

Racial prejudice arises from generalizations about other racial groups, and is not unique to any one group. It has been my own experience that military service undermines such prejudice. Because service members learn to work toward a common goal with others from different backgrounds, the service often teaches them to rise above their preexisting prejudices.

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It is also the case that although the services reflect the racial attitudes of Americans at large, they have done well in overcoming racial problems. As the late military sociologist Charles Moskos observed a quarter-century ago, the United States Army is the only American institution in which black men routinely give orders to white men. The military is, by necessity, a meritocracy, which gives it a leg up on other institutions in grappling with the problem of prejudice.

Extremism

Although extremism and racism overlap in many cases, they are different phenomena. In the current debate, “extremism” apparently does not include the groups that instigated mayhem across America in the summer of 2020, rioting, looting, and committing arson. The media has persisted in representing those groups as “peaceful protesters,” and since peaceful protesters can’t be extremists, the term is reserved for right-wing militia groups and the like.

But even when one confines the discussion to one side of the political aisle, where does one draw the line? Is supporting the Second Amendment or advocating smaller and less intrusive government “extremist”? Is a service member or veteran who supported President Trump an extremist? Is it extremist to be skeptical of the single-minded quest for “diversity”? Ironically, the military’s attempts to address an alleged lack of diversity in the ranks, like all identity politics, risks dividing people rather than unifying them by suggesting that justice is a function of attributes such as skin color rather than individual character. In the military, where institutional effectiveness depends on cohesion born of trust between and among service members, this is a serious problem.

Undermining Trust

Thus, the claim that extremism and white supremacy are widespread in the military undermines trust on two levels: First, between the American people and the military as an institution; and second, between the military rank-and-file on the one hand and their leaders on the other.

Advertisement

Americans hold the military in high regard, perhaps too high. But if civilians have tended to place members of the military on a pedestal, implying that extremism and white supremacy are rampant in the military can only engender civilian disrespect for the armed forces and lead to unjust condemnation. This, needless to say, does not bode well for healthy civil-military relations.

Advertisement

Regarding trust within the force, what is the rank-and-file soldier to think when both politicians and especially senior officers seem to suggest that supporting President Trump or traditionally conservative ideas such as gun rights and smaller, less intrusive government might make him or her a threat to the country? What will be the consequences for morale and discipline if the ranks believe that senior leaders have sold them out by their apparent willingness to go along with such accusations?

Advertisement

I am personally aware of increasing disillusionment on the part of service members who feel betrayed by their senior leadership. Individuals join the military for a variety of reasons, but a dominant one is a sense of patriotism, which is undermined if service members believe that senior officers are willing to sacrifice them to trendy political ideas.

It is disheartening to note that no senior officer to my knowledge has stepped forward to denounce this latest slander against the American soldier. While real instances of extremism and white supremacy must be identified and perpetrators separated from the service, as has been the practice in the past, suggesting that white supremacy and extremism are rampant in the military is a disservice to the force. Both political leaders and senior officers owe it to the country in general and the military in particular to define extremism, identify actual cases, and provide data supporting their claim that a real problem does in fact exist. To do otherwise is to contribute to a calumny against those they claim to lead.",-0.48483613774461487
"U.S. soldiers attend welcoming ceremony for NATO troops near Orzysz, Poland, in 2017. (Kacper Pempel/Reuters)

The accusation that the military is full of racists and extremists is false, and damaging.

During the 1960s and ’70s, those of us who fought in Vietnam became accustomed to having many of our fellow countrymen slander us as, at best, victims of a government that sent its poor to fight a criminal war and, at worst, war criminals ourselves, complicit in the routine commitment of atrocities. But the pendulum began to swing back the other way in the 1980s, and continued in the same direction through the Gulf War and 9/11 until, by the time of George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers had been elevated to the status of “secular saints.”

Advertisement

My fellow Vietnam veterans and I would no doubt have preferred such reverence to the chilly reception we received after the war, but secular sainthood has created its own set of problems — isolation from American society at large, unequal burden sharing, and a belief in the moral superiority of those who serve over those who haven’t — that threaten to undermine the bond between service members and veterans on the one hand and American society at large on the other. After all, healthy civil-military relations depend on mutual trust between soldiers and the society they serve.

Now, the pendulum seems to be swinging back to the bad old days of slandering the military, as part of broader claims that Donald Trump normalized “white supremacy” and other forms of right-wing extremism. The fact that there were veterans among the rioters who unlawfully entered the Capitol on January 6, the persistent claim that Trump appealed to extremist groups, and Trump’s popularity with the military form the basis for proliferating allegations that the military has become a friend to racism and extremism.

Indeed, some have even raised the specter of active duty and National Guard troops constituting an “insider threat.” For example, Representative Steve Cohen (D., Tenn.) told CNN that:

The [National] Guard is 90-some-odd percent, I believe, male. Only about 20 percent of white males voted for Biden. You gotta figure that in the Guard, which is predominantly more conservative, and I see that on my social media . . . they’re probably not more than 25 percent of the people that are there protecting us who voted for Biden. . . . The other 75 percent are in the class that would be the large class of folks who might want to do something. And there were military people and police who took oaths to defend the Constitution and to protect and defend who didn’t do it who were in the insurrection. So, it does concern me.

Cohen added that people on social media had referenced and reminded him of the assassination of then-Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981.

Responding to a question about white supremacy during his CNN Town Hall on February 16, President Biden said:

I would make sure that my Justice Department and the Civil Rights Division is focused heavily on those very folks, and I would make sure that we, in fact, focus on how to deal with the rise of white supremacy. And you see what’s happening, the studies that are beginning to be done, maybe at your university as well, about the impact of former military, former police officers, on — on the growth of white supremacy in some of these groups.

To address concerns about extremism in the ranks of the military, Biden’s secretary of defense, retired Army general Lloyd Austin, has called for a “stand down” across the force to address the issue. “I really and truly believe that 99.9 percent of our servicemen and -women believe in [their] oath. They believe, embrace the values that we are focused on, and they’re doing the right things,” Secretary Austin said on February 19. “I expect for the numbers [of extremists in the ranks] to be small, but quite frankly, they’ll probably be a little bit larger than most of us would guess. . . . But I would just say that, you know, small numbers, in this case, can have an outsized impact.”

But Kash Patel, the former chief of staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, argued that the problem has been overstated. “They have self-admitted that the problem doesn’t exist, to their knowledge, and that’s because it doesn’t,” Patel said on Fox News:

White supremacy is not rampant throughout the Department of Defense. That is outrageous and offensive to our men and women in uniform. . . . The Biden Pentagon is trading in politics instead of logic and fact. . . . Their own spokesperson and their own secretary of defense, they have said they do not know the problem and whether it exists. They don’t have a name for it. They don’t have a solution for it. But they’re going to label it anyway.

There is indeed a “real problem”; it’s just not the one people are talking about. It is instead that political and military leaders have failed to define their terms.

Racism vs. Racial Prejudice

Let me be clear: There have been serious racial incidents involving military service members in the past, and military leaders were quick to deal with the perpetrators appropriately. But the idea that racism is somehow pervasive in the military is nonsense.

The problem with this latest campaign is that most of the recent claims about racism in the military conflate true racism and white supremacy on the one hand and racial prejudice on the other.

The former has traditionally referred to membership in, or sympathy with, the KKK, neo-Nazis, skinheads, or other groups that preach violence. The U.S. military has long been vigilant about the possibility of extremist groups taking advantage of military training to advance their own goals. Background checks have always been a part of the recruitment and enlistment processes. And the services have been quick to separate individuals whose background checks raise red flags.

The latter is a manifestation of what both Plato and Aristotle called “love of one’s own,” a feature of human nature. The Greeks preferred their ways to those of the Persians. The Athenians preferred their own laws to those of the Spartans. All humans prefer their own families and communities to others’.

Racial prejudice arises from generalizations about other racial groups, and is not unique to any one group. It has been my own experience that military service undermines such prejudice. Because service members learn to work toward a common goal with others from different backgrounds, the service often teaches them to rise above their preexisting prejudices.

Advertisement

It is also the case that although the services reflect the racial attitudes of Americans at large, they have done well in overcoming racial problems. As the late military sociologist Charles Moskos observed a quarter-century ago, the United States Army is the only American institution in which black men routinely give orders to white men. The military is, by necessity, a meritocracy, which gives it a leg up on other institutions in grappling with the problem of prejudice.

Extremism

Although extremism and racism overlap in many cases, they are different phenomena. In the current debate, “extremism” apparently does not include the groups that instigated mayhem across America in the summer of 2020, rioting, looting, and committing arson. The media has persisted in representing those groups as “peaceful protesters,” and since peaceful protesters can’t be extremists, the term is reserved for right-wing militia groups and the like.

But even when one confines the discussion to one side of the political aisle, where does one draw the line? Is supporting the Second Amendment or advocating smaller and less intrusive government “extremist”? Is a service member or veteran who supported President Trump an extremist? Is it extremist to be skeptical of the single-minded quest for “diversity”? Ironically, the military’s attempts to address an alleged lack of diversity in the ranks, like all identity politics, risks dividing people rather than unifying them by suggesting that justice is a function of attributes such as skin color rather than individual character. In the military, where institutional effectiveness depends on cohesion born of trust between and among service members, this is a serious problem.

Undermining Trust

Thus, the claim that extremism and white supremacy are widespread in the military undermines trust on two levels: First, between the American people and the military as an institution; and second, between the military rank-and-file on the one hand and their leaders on the other.

Advertisement

Americans hold the military in high regard, perhaps too high. But if civilians have tended to place members of the military on a pedestal, implying that extremism and white supremacy are rampant in the military can only engender civilian disrespect for the armed forces and lead to unjust condemnation. This, needless to say, does not bode well for healthy civil-military relations.

Advertisement

Regarding trust within the force, what is the rank-and-file soldier to think when both politicians and especially senior officers seem to suggest that supporting President Trump or traditionally conservative ideas such as gun rights and smaller, less intrusive government might make him or her a threat to the country? What will be the consequences for morale and discipline if the ranks believe that senior leaders have sold them out by their apparent willingness to go along with such accusations?

Advertisement

I am personally aware of increasing disillusionment on the part of service members who feel betrayed by their senior leadership. Individuals join the military for a variety of reasons, but a dominant one is a sense of patriotism, which is undermined if service members believe that senior officers are willing to sacrifice them to trendy political ideas.

It is disheartening to note that no senior officer to my knowledge has stepped forward to denounce this latest slander against the American soldier. While real instances of extremism and white supremacy must be identified and perpetrators separated from the service, as has been the practice in the past, suggesting that white supremacy and extremism are rampant in the military is a disservice to the force. Both political leaders and senior officers owe it to the country in general and the military in particular to define extremism, identify actual cases, and provide data supporting their claim that a real problem does in fact exist. To do otherwise is to contribute to a calumny against those they claim to lead.",-1.8374354647864315
"(utah778/Getty Images)

On his personal blog, Professor Thomas Smith of the University of San Diego Law School wrote a post that was sharply critical of Chinese government policies. Shortly thereafter, the academic mob accused him of ethnic bias against Chinese people.

You would think that law students should be able to distinguish between the two, but either their previous education has left them incapable of making such distinctions or they are so intent on finding a pretext to attack a non-woke professor that they will say any foolish thing.

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So, the dean of the law school, Robert Shapiro, has to decide what to do — tell the students that their claims about Smith are ridiculous or appease them with a promise to investigate him for thought crimes. If you guessed the latter, you understand the nature of higher education in America today.

Writing on Legal Insurrection, Bill Jacobson has the story (and links to many similar ones). He notes, “It is [reminiscent] of the worst days of the Maoist Cultural Revolution, in which students were the most aggressive in demanding ideological obedience from professors, with public shaming one of the tools used to humiliate the target and scare others into silence.”

He’s right. The great “progressive” project of turning our education system into one for indoctrinating young people so they’ll unthinkingly do what the revolution requires is far along.",-0.1569873948746667
"The GOP cabinet official and wife of Mitch McConnell was essentially cleared, but she hardly received the Hunter Biden treatment.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE F or reasons I can’t possibly imagine, the media that wouldn’t cover the Hunter Biden scandals before the election have continued to ignore them in the months since his father, their candidate, was elected president. But just to recap a bewildering coincidence, it seems that whenever the Obama administration made then-vice president Joe Biden its point person on foreign policy related to a notoriously corrupt country — say, China, Russia, or Ukraine — people and entities in those countries, for some hard-to-fathom reason, found it expedient to pay Hunter Biden millions of dollars, his patent lack of experience and stability notwithstanding.

With …",-1.1068365023523525
"The invaluable Robby Soave over at Reason nails the press, especially Aaron Rupar at Vox, for retailing a completely misleading account of what the police spokesperson said about the Atlanta spa murderer:

“He was pretty much fed up, kind of at the end of his rope, and yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did,” said Baker.

The comment struck many people as overly sympathetic toward Long, as if Baker was making excuses for someone who stands accused of killing eight Asian-American women in cold blood. A 20-second video clip of Baker’s statement was shared on Twitter by Vox journalist Aaron Rupar and swiftly went viral, earning widespread condemnation. Many saw it as evidence that cops are desperate to discount the culpability of white male criminals. For instance, Kimberlé Crenshaw, a law professor and inventor of the term “intersectionality,” described Baker’s comments as “bone-chilling,” and castigated him for refusing to acknowledge “the misogynistic dimensions of anti-Asian racism.”

A police officer excusing Long’s actions as merely the result of him having a “bad day” would indeed be contemptible. But that’s not what Baker did. In fact, many of the people so infuriated about the quote were misled by Rupar’s edit of the video.",0.10109289858348625
"President Donald Trump speaks to the media in Washington, D.C., January 6, 2019. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

Per David’s post below on Biden and the steps, the media were obsessed not just with Trump walking gingerly down the ramp at West Point, but ran items on how Trump was obsessed with the media’s obsession. Maybe this was, in part, a function of the constant media frenzy during the entirety of the Trump years, but I imagine if, say, a President Dole had had a stumble like that we’d be hearing a lot more about it, too.",-1.6448892540467999
"Our arbiters in the fourth estate sound the klaxons over the latest ‘threat’ to their good standing.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE T he first rule of Monopoly Club is that nobody else is allowed to be in Monopoly Club.

How else to understand the growing resistance to Substack — an online service that permits writers to bypass the traditional media and distribute newsletters and articles directly to subscribers — than as white-hot antipathy toward an upstart rival? Over the last few weeks, the eyes of the establishment have been focused on the platform and its renegade users, and, boy, have those eyes found it wanting. Summing up the opprobrium, Dr. Sarah Roberts of UCLA described Substack as “a dangerous threat to traditional news …",-0.17456622279814443
"Xiyue Wang, a Chinese-American who was detained by Iran from 2016 to 2019, speaks at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., January 12, 2021. (Andrew Harnik/Reuters Pool)

At The Atlantic, Graeme Wood has an extraordinary interview with Xiyue Wang, the American academic who was held hostage by the Iranian regime for 40 months. Wang had been doing archival research in Tehran when he was taken into custody for allegedly spying on behalf of the U.S. government.

Since his time in captivity, Wang, a former proponent of engagement with Iran, has taken the side of those who advocate a tougher policy — hence, “The Accidental Hard-Liner,” the title of Wood’s piece. With his vociferous pushback against the Biden administration’s Iran policy, he’s become a prominent voice among certain hawkish foreign-policy circles on Twitter.

Wood describes how Wang came to this view over the course of his lengthy imprisonment in the country:

His captors’ complete indifference to his actual guilt or innocence rapidly revealed itself. They told him, matter-of-factly, that he was being kept solely for purposes of exchange. The regime that held him, Wang came to feel, had no intention of altering its behavior if the United States made concessions: This was its true self, and not the product of American aggression. He said he once thought that the dreadful state of Iran was “all because of something we did wrong to them,” and that a thawing of ties would empower Iranian moderates. But that view relied on what he called a “mirage” of moderation within the Iranian government. “I slowly saw: They don’t want to be our friends. They don’t want to reconcile.” In prison he watched a great deal of state propaganda. “They say it clearly,” he told me. “They want us as an enemy, because that is the reason for their existence.” To hope that Iran will stop behaving like an enemy is to hope that it will suddenly decide not to exist anymore.

Wang also told Wood about an epiphany he had concerning those who seem to have a soft spot for the Islamic Republic:

He reflected on his months in prison but also on his months as a free man in Tehran, when he spent more time among Iranians than nearly any other American who is not a dual national. During that period, he said he met no regime supporters. “But to my surprise, when I came back to the United States, there were many sympathizers with the regime,” he said. These were in some cases people who disliked America — “people who thought because Iran is anti-American, there must be some redeemability there,” Wang told me. “Can you imagine how furious this makes me, every single day?”

When it comes to confronting U.S. adversaries, it’s often people like Wang, who have seen such regimes up close, who understand why proponents of appeasement are willfully blind to their true nature.",0.6248213825498325
I'm really not sure what the point is in having a show called The Talk if it gets shut down the moment that its participants decide to do just that.,-0.8475562380068025
"Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., told Newsmax TV on Monday that he's ""very grateful"" to former President Donald Trump for endorsing his challenge to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger after Trump said that the congressman ""leads out front with integrity.""

Hice told ""The National Report"" that the response to Trump's endorsement ""has just been overwhelming.""

""I can't keep up with the messages that are coming in from all over the place, online, on my phone, all over place,"" Hice said. ""We're just really excited and appreciative of the support that's coming, and people in this state are keenly aware that we had some major problems in this past election cycle.

""And look, the free country that we have rests upon the ability of the people to cast their votes for those that they want to represent them. And when that voting process is in question, when the confidence of the voting process is taken away, we've got a serious problem. That has been the issue here in Georgia. We've got to restore the confidence and the voters, and we've got to restore the integrity of the process. And I'm looking forward to be able to take that battle and come out securing the voters of this state that their votes count.”

Hice also said that ""we just all watched the disaster take place in ... this past election in Georgia, and right at the center of all that was our own secretary of state. He just made some horrible decisions and opened wide the door for potential fraud in this state, and I believe many people walked through that. It's time to restore trust and integrity in the office of the secretary of state, to renew confidence of the voters of Georgia that when they cast a vote, it's going to count.""

Hice said ""this is something that we've been wallowing around for quite a while, and my wife and I decided this is a time for us to jump in this. And we're very grateful to likewise have the support and the endorsement of the president.”

The congressman added when asked what his first steps would be to ensure that the state’s elections are secure, that ""the bottom line is we're very fortunate and we're blessed right now that the general assembly of Georgia's doing their work to close the gaping holes that were created by Brad Raffensperger. And so, we're going to wait and see what kind of laws and election reforms that come out of this session of the general assembly.

""But from that perspective when we'll take those laws and enforcement, we've got to make sure that only legal votes are cast and only legal votes are counted in this state, and we did not have that assurance in the past. We're going to close some of the gaping holes, we're going to enforce the law, we're going to go after those who fraudulently cast votes in the state of Georgia, so I'm looking forward to being able to have that opportunity and hope that the voters of Georgia will entrust me with that responsibility.""

When asked if Georgia is ""turning blue"" based on Democrats’ recent Senate wins in the state, Hice said, ""there's no question Georgia is growing, we are the number one state in the country for business, and we have a lot of businesses coming here,"" but added, ""no, I don't believe Georgia has gone blue.""

Hice said that ""we've got hundreds, literally hundreds of thousands of voters who have lost their confidence in the voting system here. There are some half a million who did not vote in that Senate race that you referenced who did vote in the presidential election.""

He went on to claim that ""we just had absolutely wide-open door for all sorts of questionable behavior to take place in this past election, and it is for that reason that the general assembly now is addressing those issues. Those issues should have never occurred; it should have never happened. It's unfortunate that we find ourselves in a place that we should never have been in, and yet we are here because of horrible decisions from our secretary of state, and it is for that reason that he needs to be replaced.""",-0.24542043017697035
"Former President Donald Trump endorsed Rep. Jody Hice Monday in a bid to unseat Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in the 2022 Republican primary.

In a statement issued shortly after the Georgia Republican announced his candidacy, Trump said:

""Unlike the current Georgia Secretary of State, Jody leads out front with integrity,""’ adding that ""Jody will stop the Fraud and get honesty into our Elections!""

Hice, a frequent guest on Newsmax TV, also is one of the state's best-known conservative members of Congress. He has represented Georgia's 10th District, located in the northeastern part of the state, since 2015.

Trump has publicly spoken out against Raffensperger after the November election, in which the secretary of state refused to support the then-president's claim that the state's 16 electoral votes had been stolen from him.

Trump also pushed Raffensperger in a phone call in early January.

Raffensperger and other Georgia election officials certified Biden’s election after conducting several recounts.

Hice has strongly supported Trump's election claims in Georgia and also called the push to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill violence ""bogus.""

Last week, Hice told The Covington News that he was ""exploring options"" regarding a race for the secretary of state seat and his decision could come ""within a few days.""

The congressman also said on former Rep. Doug Collins' radio show that Trump is ""supportive"" of his potential campaign, the newspaper reported.

Hice said in a news release in December he was not happy with Raffensperger, saying that the secretary of state ""largely dismissed"" the ""legitimate concerns"" of millions of Americans concerning the Trump-Biden election.

Trump has also been trying to recruit a potential primary opponent against Gov. Brian Kemp, who he says did not do enough about the vote count in his state, and has publicly encouraged former NFL running back Herschel Walker to run for Senate against Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia's 2022 race.",0.731761680636643
"A controversial December phone call between then-President Donald Trump and a top Georgia official was initially ""misquoted"" by The Washington Post and then widely disseminated before the release of the call's audio last week prompted a major mea culpa.

Audio of the approximately 6-minute call between Trump and Frances Watson, the chief investigator of the Georgia Secretary of State's office, was published by The Wall Street Journal on March 11 and shows Trump never told anyone on the call to ""find the fraud,"" as was reported at the time.

In the recording of the Dec. 23 call, Trump told Watson she had the most important job in the country at the time and urged her investigators to review signatures going back several years, according to the recording, the Journal reported.

While her audit was focused on Cobb County, he said she should look at Fulton County, the state's most populous county that includes most of Atlanta.

""If you can get to Fulton, you are going to find things that are going to be unbelievable,"" Trump said, the recording showed.

Later on March 11, the Post, above its report about the newly released audio, added a correction for its original story.

""The recording revealed that the Post misquoted Trump's comments on the call, based on information provided by a source,"" it said. ""Trump did not tell the investigator to 'find the fraud,' or say she would be 'a national hero' if she did so.

""Instead, Trump urged the investigator to scrutinize ballots in Fulton County, Ga., asserting she would find 'dishonesty' there. He also told her that she had 'the most important job in the country right now.'""

The news outlet said both the headline and text of the original story ""have been corrected to remove quotes misattributed to Trump.""

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is conducting a criminal investigation into Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 election.

The Georgia secretary of state's office is also conducting a probe after multiple calls Trump made to Georgia state officials about tracking down potential voter fraud that could flip the presidential vote.

""All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes,"" Trump told Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a Jan. 2 call, referencing a number that would hand Trump victory in the state, according to a video transcript.

As part of the Fulton County investigation, Willis sent out letters to state officials in February asking them to preserve relevant documents, the Washington Examiner reported.

Officials found the recording between Trump and Watson in a trash folder on Watson's device, the Washington Examiner noted.

Watson, in an interview with WSB-TV after the audio was released, said she was surprised by Trump's Dec. 23 call – but did not feel pressured.

""It is something that is not expected, and as I mentioned in the call, I was shocked that he would take the time to do that,"" she said.",-0.7024086709696122
"The United States on Monday announced sanctions on two more Chinese officials linked to China's Xinjiang region, where Washington says Uyghur Muslims have been the victims of ""serious human rights abuse.""

A Treasury Department press release named the officials as Wang Junzheng and Chen Mingguo.",0.5554166417031323
"""We proudly handed the Biden administration the most secure border in history. All they had to do was keep this smooth-running system on autopilot. Instead, in the span of a just few weeks, the Biden administration has turned a national triumph into a national disaster. They are in way over their heads and taking on water fast.

""The pathetic, clueless performance of Secretary Mayorkas on the Sunday Shows today was a national disgrace. His self-satisfied presentation — in the middle of the massive crisis he helped engineer — is yet more proof he is incapable of leading DHS. Even someone of Mayorkas' limited abilities should understand that if you provide Catch-and-Release to the world's illegal aliens then the whole world will come.

""Furthermore, the Mayorkas Gag Order on our nation's heroic border agents and ICE officers should be the subject of an immediate congressional investigation. But it's clear they are engaged in a huge cover-up to hide just how bad things truly are. The only way to end the Biden Border Crisis is for them to admit their total failure and adopt the profoundly effective, proven Trump policies.

""They must immediately complete the wall, which can be done in a matter of weeks — they should never have stopped it. They are causing death and human tragedy. In addition to the obvious, drugs are pouring into our country at record levels from the Southern Border, not to mention human and sex trafficking. This administration's reckless policies are enabling and encouraging crimes against humanity. Our country is being destroyed!""",-0.7082857345291032
"Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Monday it regretted that the United States did not support President Vladimir Putin's proposal to hold video talks with President Joe Biden on March 19 or 22.

""Another opportunity is missed for finding a way out of the deadlock, caused by Washington, in Russian-American relations. Responsibility for this lies entirely with the United States,"" the foreign ministry said in a statement on its website.

Putin said Thursday that he and Biden should hold live online talks in the coming days after Biden said he thought the Russian leader was a killer, and diplomatic ties sank to a new post-Cold War low.",-1.5252213828583059
"President Joe Biden says he plans to visit the U.S.-Mexico border ""at some point"" for a first-hand look at conditions as the entry of migrants seeking refugee status in the U.S. rises sharply.

The comment, made to reporters at the White House on Sunday, came after the U.S. Homeland Security secretary said he is not worried about setting a precedent on open borders by allowing thousands of unaccompanied minors to enter the country.

""At some point I will, yes,"" Biden said about a border visit.

Asked if he wanted to see first-hand what is happening at overcrowded migrant processing centers, he added, ""I know what's going on in those facilities.""

The president's schedule for the coming week, released by the White House, shows no plans for a border visit through Thursday.

The influx of crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border has become a political liability for the 2-month-old Biden administration, which reversed many of former President Donald Trump's hard-line immigration policies. Republicans blame Biden's approach for encouraging a new wave of migrants while the administration says Trump left behind an inhumane and inadequate system that cannot keep up.

Alejandro Mayorkas, the U.S. Homeland chief, spoke on 4 Sunday talk shows as pressure mounts over what many see as deteriorating conditions on the border.

""The border is closed,"" Mayorkas said on NBC's ""Meet the Press,"" adding, immigration authorities are expelling families and single adults, but not children who cross the border alone.

""We will not expel into the Mexican desert, for example, three orphan children whom I saw over the last two weeks,"" Mayorkas said.

A major focus for the Biden administration, he said, is rebuilding ""orderly systems"" in Mexico and Central America to discourage would-be migrants from traveling to the U.S. border.

""It takes time, because the entire system was dismantled"" by the prior administration, he said on ""Fox News Sunday."" Biden also referred to re-establishing ""what existed before.""

""We are elevating our messaging, so that the individuals do know that they cannot come to the border,"" Mayorkas told CNN’s ""State of the Union.""

Mayorkas traveled to El Paso, Texas, on Friday with 2 Democrat and 2 Republican senators to view first-hand the processing and housing for unaccompanied minors.

That closed out a week in which the White House heard from members of both parties describing the U.S. southwest border situation as a mess.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., a hardliner on immigration, blamed the border surge on the new administration's move to end Trump policies that sent families, children, and other border crossers back to Mexico or flown to their home countries.

""The border right now is wide open because the Biden administration dismantled the very effective policies of the Trump administration and the agreements we had with Mexico and other Latin American countries,"" Cotton told ""Fox News Sunday.""

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, also urged the administration to revisit Trump's Migration Protection Protocols. Asked about abuses of would-be migrants kept away from the U.S. border under those deals, he said: ""It's a good policy because it deterred.""

Republican lawmakers are streaming to the southwest border to highlight the problems, including Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who planned to visit an Arizona border outpost Sunday. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has already made the trip with a group of GOP colleagues.

One of the 2 Republicans who traveled with Mayorkas on Friday, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, tweeted about ""dismantling"" the Trump administration's policies with no thought to the ramifications.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., tweeted he ""fought back tears"" from what he saw on the trip.

""The Biden administration is trying their best to uphold the rule of law with humanity,"" he tweeted. ""They have a ton of work ahead to clean up the mess Trump left them, but their intentions are true.""

Mayorkas refused during an appearance Wednesday before the House Committee on Homeland Security to agree that the problems had reached the level of ""a crisis,"" aggravating some Republicans.

The U.S. has seen a dramatic spike in the number of people encountered by border officials in recent weeks. That includes 18,945 family members encountered in February alone, an increase of 168% from January, according to the Pew Research Center.

Officials are looking for ways to boost capacity to house and care for migrants now in federal custody.

Axios reported Saturday that the Biden administration has awarded an $86 million contract for hotel rooms near the border to hold about 1,200 migrant family members. The Washington Post reported that customs officials are considering flying migrants to states near the Canadian border for processing.

Asked about the report, Mayorkas said on CNN that ""we don’t have those plans in place now. But what we are doing is, we are putting all options on the table, as it is our responsibility to do.""

The biggest challenge faced by Biden’s administration is that of unaccompanied children. They’re allowed to enter the country in the custody of Customs and Border Protection, even as most adults and families are sent away. More than 9,600 entered the U.S. in February, triple the number who arrived in February 2020, according to data released earlier this month.

On CNN, Mayorkas said three facilities had been established in the last week to help move children out of border patrol stations.

McCarthy told reporters on Thursday, ""This entire crisis is created simply by Joe Biden’s actions and words."" On Saturday he tweeted that Democrats need to ""DO SOMETHING.""

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.",-0.798107187665909
"Some migrant families arriving in the United States will be housed in hotels under a new program managed by nonprofit organizations, according to two people familiar with the plans, a move away from for-profit detention centers that have been criticized by Democrats and health experts.

Endeavors, a San Antonio-based organization, will oversee what it calls ""family reception sites"" at hotels in Texas and Arizona, the two sources said. The organization, in partnership with other nonprofits, will initially provide beds in seven different brand-name hotels for families deemed vulnerable when caught at the border.

Tae Johnson, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said the agency had signed a short-term, $86.9 million contract with Endeavors to provide temporary shelter and processing services for migrant families. The contract provides 1,239 beds and other necessary services, he said in a statement.

The opening of the reception centers would mark a significant shift by the administration of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, away from the detention of migrant families in for-profit facilities.

In January, Biden issued an order directing the Justice Department not to renew its contracts with privately operated criminal detention facilities. However, the order did not address immigration jails run by ICE.

Roughly 1,200 migrants were being held in two family detention centers in Texas as of Wednesday, according to an ICE spokeswoman. A third center in Pennsylvania is no longer being used to hold families.

The number of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border has climbed in recent weeks as Biden has rolled back some of the hard-line policies of former President Donald Trump, a Republican.

Biden, who took office on Jan. 20, has faced criticism from Republicans for reversing those policies. At the same time, some Democrats opposed Biden's administration reopening a Trump-era emergency shelter for children.

The hotel sites, set to open in April, will offer COVID-19 testing, medical care, food services, social workers and case managers to help with travel and onward destinations, according to the two sources, who requested anonymity to discuss the matter. Staff will be trained to work with children.

It remained unclear whether migrants would be required to wear ankle bracelets or be subject to any other form of monitoring, the people said.

The families will arrive at Border Patrol stations and then be sent to the hotel sites to continue immigration paperwork, the two sources said. They could leave the reception centers as early as six hours after arrival if paperwork is completed, they test negative for COVID-19 and transportation has been arranged.

Biden officials have said migrant families will be ""expelled"" to Mexico or their home countries under a Trump-era health order known as Title 42. But more than half of the 19,000 family members caught at the border in February were not expelled, with many released into the United States.

“Our border is not open,” ICE’s Johnson said in the statement. “The majority of individuals continue to be expelled under the Centers for Disease Control’s public health authority.”

The housing of some migrants in hotels was reported by Axios earlier on Saturday.

Endeavors will also operate a new 2,000-bed shelter for unaccompanied children in Texas, the sources said.

The Biden administration has struggled to house a rising number of unaccompanied minors arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. There were more than 5,000 unaccompanied children in crowded border facilities as of Saturday, according to government data seen by Reuters.

The new family and child facilities are expected to ramp up bed capacity gradually, the people familiar with the effort said.",1.883584403543433
"Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers warned that the U.S. is suffering from the “least responsible” macroeconomic policy in four decades, pointing the finger at both Democrats and Republicans for creating “enormous” risks.

In his latest attack on the recent rush of stimulus, Summers told David Westin on Bloomberg Television’s “Wall Street Week” that “what was kindling, is now igniting” given the recovery from Covid will stoke demand pressure at the same time as fiscal policy has been aggressively eased and the Federal Reserve has “stuck to its guns” in committing to loose monetary policy.

“These are the least responsible fiscal macroeconomic policy we’ve have had for the last 40 years,” Summers said. “It’s fundamentally driven by intransigence on the Democratic left and intransigence and the completely irresponsible behavior in the whole of the Republican Party.”

Summers, a top official in the past two Democratic administrations, has emerged as one of the leading critics among Democrat-leaning economists of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic plan. Summers warned in the interview the U.S. was facing a “pretty dramatic fiscal-monetary collision.”

He said there is a one-in-three chance that inflation will accelerate in the coming years and the U.S. could face stagflation. He also saw the same chance of no inflation because the Fed would hit the brakes hard and push the economy toward recession. The final possibility is that the Fed and Treasury will get rapid growth without inflation.

“But there are more risks at this moment that macroeconomic policy will cause grave risks than I can remember,” said Summers, who is a paid contributor to Bloomberg.

Administration officials have pushed back against the critique, saying the Biden bill aims to provide relief to those in need and won’t overheat an economy still suffering from high unemployment. Fed officials have broadly echoed that view -- flagging the risk of delivering too little fiscal support, and signaling they have no intention of tightening monetary policy anytime soon.

Also speaking on “Wall Street Week,” Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman rejected the theory that the U.S. will witness a 1970s-style inflation surge because of the stimulus.

“It took really more than a decade of screwing things up -- year after year -- to get to that pass, and I don’t think we’re going to do that again,” Krugman said, adding the Fed has the tools to tackle price pressures if needed.

The worst-case scenario out of the fiscal stimulus package would be a transitory spike in consumer prices as was seen early in the Korean War, he said. The relief bill is “definitely significant stimulus but not wildly inflationary stimulus,” he said.",-2.403677029513748
"With the Biden administration and a Democrat-controlled Congress pushing through its agenda with no Republican support, the 26 Republican state attorneys general are taking the matters into their own hands.

""We're standing up and fighting back,"" Missouri Republican AG Eric Schmitt told Politico of his states coalition suing President Joe Biden over the blocking of the Keystone XL Pipeline among other immigration, and climate change policies.

Among the other legal points of contention are Biden's $1.9 trillion spending package under the guise of COVID-19 relief and the Democrat-friendly H.R. 1 election-law bill that federalizes elections, usurping an authority that was once designed to be the states' domain.

Schmitt, vice chair of the Republican Attorneys General Association, told Politico that his members ""play a very important role in checking a very aggressive administrative state that's been unleashed.""

Ohio Republican strategist Mark Weaver hailed the ""the rise of the Republican AGs as a counterweight to the Biden administration's overreach.""

""This is the natural tension and the balance of power, right?"" Weaver told Politico. ""Leaders in government will use whatever levers of power are available to them to advance their policy goals. And state Republican attorneys general have the ability to bring lawsuits. And that's what they're doing.""

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott once famously said in 2013, per Politico: ""I go into the office in the morning. I sue Barack Obama, and then I go home.""

It is a cycle of political opposition to the sitting president, after the countless lawsuits hurled at the Trump administration by Democrat state attorneys general.

""The other side of the coin from the Democrats bringing literally hundreds of lawsuits against the Trump administration, which in turn built on a trend,"" former president of the National Association of Attorneys General Rob McKenna told Politico.

Excessive use of executive orders over pushing legislative bills is the root of this disturbing trend, McKenna continued, ""so they leave themselves open to legal challenges.""

""On the political side, the base of each party, Democratic and Republican, expects their attorney general to step up and fight for issues that the base believes in,"" McKenna told Politico.

""There's a higher expectation now that the AGs are going to be active, and if you don't step up, you're likely to come under fire from people in your own party.""

Co-chair of the Democratic Attorneys General Association, Maura Healey, the Massachusetts attorney general notices the escalation.

""There can be fights,"" Healey, who helped lead the resistance to former President Donald Trump, told Politico. ""There can be challenges to figuring out the scope or the extent of federal authority over a state, for example, right? And there may be a Republican philosophy around that and a Democratic philosophy around that. So, we're used to those battles, OK? But this is something different.""

""Unfortunately, it seems,"" she continued, ""there are certain Republican AGs who seem hell-bent on trying to stop the Biden and Harris administration from moving forward, and I think it's unfortunate.""

Ultimately, it is up to the White House to ease the division, and President Biden did stress ""unity"" in his Inaugural Address, only to force through executive orders that would struggle to pass a slim majority in Congress.

The GOP pushback ""really depends on how aggressive this administration wants to get in pushing the envelope relating to the separation of powers,"" Alabama's Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall told Politico.",0.06455711581262545
"Pointing to over 1,000 arrests in one of the nation’s top party spots, Miami Beach officials warned Sunday that the unruly spring break crowd gathering by the thousands, fighting in the streets, destroying restaurant property, and refusing to wear masks has become a serious threat to public safety.

During a last-minute meeting Sunday, city officials voted to extend a highly unusual 8 p.m. curfew for another week along famed South Beach, with the possibility of extending it well into April if needed, and stressed this isn’t the typical spring break crowd. They said it’s not college students, but adults looking to let loose in one of the few states fully open during the pandemic.

Law enforcement officers from at least four other agencies, along with SWAT teams, were added to help contain the raucous crowds, but it wasn’t enough. After days of partying, including several confrontations with police, Miami Beach officials enacted a highly unorthodox curfew Saturday from 8 p.m. until 6 a.m., forcing restaurants to stop outdoor seating entirely during the three-day emergency period, and encouraging local businesses to voluntarily shut down.

More than half of the more than 1,000 arrests were from out of state, said City Manager Raul Aguila, adding many are coming “to engage in lawlessness and an ‘anything goes’ party attitude.” He also noted that the crowds weren’t eating at restaurants or patronizing businesses generating badly needed tourism dollars, but merely congregating by the thousands in the street.

Officers in bullet proof vests dispersed pepper spray balls Saturday night into a defiant, but mostly nonviolent crowd, refusing to submit to the curfew that had only been enacted four hours earlier. Some people responded by jumping on top of cars, twerking, and throwing money into the air.

A military style vehicle was seen rolling down the palm-tree lined Ocean Drive as outnumbered Miami Beach police officers struggled to disperse the raucous crowds Saturday. Tourists were urged to stay inside their hotels and pedestrians or vehicles were not allowed to enter the restricted area after 8 p.m.

Miami Beach Police Chief Richard Clements initially became concerned last Monday when the crowds seemed larger than normal on what is typically a quieter day. A group of vehicles blocked the street “and basically had an impromptu street party,” he said. By Thursday, the crowds were growing, fights were breaking out, setting off dangerous stampedes of people fleeing for safety.

“We couldn’t go on any longer,” Clements said during Sunday's meeting, defending the city’s curfew. “I think this was the right decision.”

By Friday night, police said the partying was out of control. One restaurant was “turned upside down” in the melee, “chairs were used as weapons,” and broken glass covered the floor.

Next door, the iconic bar, the Clevelander South Beach, announced it was temporarily suspending all food and beverage operations until at least March 24 after crowds crammed Ocean Drive, breaking out into street fights.

After gunshots were fired, a young woman cut her leg so badly in a stampede that she was transported to the hospital where they initially thought she had been shot, police said.

“How many more things are we going to allow to occur before we step in,” said Clements.

Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber said he has trouble sleeping at night, worried about the out-of-control parties.

“When hundreds of people are running through the streets panicked, you realize that’s not something that a police force can control,” he said during a commission meeting Sunday.

Local officials have struggled to enforce COVID-19 ordinances. Florida has no statewide mask rules, limits on capacity, or other such restrictions, courtesy of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pro-business stance.

“I think there are very few places that have been open as our state have been open,” said Gelber. “We’re in the middle of a pandemic. The virus is still very present in our community. We have 1,000 infections a day on most days.”

One commissioner asked whether a toll could be levied on nonresidents to discourage visitors. Several said it was time for a new marketing campaign to help rebrand South Beach as a party city, pointing to the small handful of arrests in nearby Fort Lauderdale over spring break.

Local officials and businesses have struggled to balance courting tourists to boost the economy while doing so safely amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Local residents complained they spent three to four hours in traffic after bridges were closed during the curfew and some restaurants asked for permission to continue food delivery after the curfew.

Miami tourism officials say billions of dollars were lost when the pandemic first erupted last year, canceling spring break and forcing beach closures across the Sunshine State. The city's tourism arm just spent $5 million on its biggest national advertising campaign in 20 years.

At the same time, local officials banned alcohol from the beach, along with all alcohol sales after 10 p.m. in an effort to curb partying. The city even sent cellphone text messages to tourists warning, “Vacation Responsibly or Be Arrested.”

“I just feel like it’s really not fair,” tourist Heather Price told NBC 6. “People paid a lot of money to come all the way out here, just to not be able to do the activities they wanted to.”",0.37922195656961094
"Former President Donald Trump Monday accused the Biden administration's policies on the border of ""destroying the country"" and leading to death and tragedy.

""We're bringing the violence to our country, because many of the people coming in are not non-violent people,"" Trump said in an interview with Fox News' Harris Faulkner. ""They are violent people ... these countries don't send out their finest and in some cases, I'm sure you have wonderful, fine people, but you also have criminals, you have murderers, you have sex traffickers, you have a lot of very bad people coming into our country, and they are doing nothing about it.""

The Biden administration announced on Sunday that it will let immigrants go free into the United States pending their court appearances, said Trump, and ""it is crazy.""

""They are destroying our country,"" he said. ""This is just like with the vaccine where they say let's blame Trump. We had record positive numbers and frankly in another couple of weeks we could have finished up the wall. They ended construction and the only reason it didn't get finished (was because) it took me 2 1/2 years to win the 11 lawsuits that we had, many of them by the Democrats in Congress.""

But in the parts of the nation where the border wall has gone up, ""it has been incredible,"" said Trump, but there must be some entry points to allow workers to enter the country, he stressed.

""You have people coming in helping the farmers,"" he said. ""They've been coming in for years. If we ever stopped that with our farmers, the farmers would go out of business in California, wine country, various other places. So you take them in. But what happens is you do have some open points because obviously, we have people coming back and forth. But you also have in some cases areas which weren't completed like gate areas and other areas which would have been completed very quickly. You could have had it done in a month.""

But now, contractors whose jobs were cut off are going to want to be paid not to finish the job, and ""it's a shame,"" said Trump. ""We had unbelievable numbers and we will have numbers like nobody has had once the rest of the wall is closed up. It will be many, many times worse. It will only get worse.""

Trump also pointed out that the Biden administration blaming him for the border situation is ""just like"" its comments on the coronavirus vaccine.

""They didn't produce anything,"" he said. ""All they did is take our policy. Our policy was incredible. Operation Warp Speed was incredible. All they did was take our policy. They are saying they did the vaccine. They didn't do the vaccine. I did the vaccine by pushing the FDA (on approval.) It would have taken 5 years and they probably never would have had a vaccine and I got it done in 9 months.""

Meanwhile, Trump has called on Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to resign, and he said Monday that the secretary is in ""way over his head.""

""All he had to do is sit down in his chair,"" said Trump. ""The systems were taking care of themselves. We had great people there. A lot of those people were removed. The policies were removed. We had 'stay in Mexico' because what happened is hundreds of thousands of people were coming into our country. Our laws were so bad. We had to change and get things changed.""

And as a result, he said, the numbers on the border were ""so beautiful.""

""Now it was just announced they are allowing everybody to walk through and just come in and they're not taking anything,"" said Trump. ""They have no information about the people. That's the people they know about. How about the people they don't know about? All those thousands of people that are coming in where there is no protection? The Border Patrol, who are phenomenal, and ICE they are like babysitters right now. Mexico is no longer protecting us.""

Trump said that he still thinks ""we won the election, as far as I'm concerned"" and said his administration was going to make the immigration requirements even more stringent ""with the understanding that we want people to come into our country, but they have to come in legally. Very simple.""

But, Trump said that ""what we did was incredible.""

""I do want to start off by saying they built the cages,"" said Trump. ""They built cages in 2014 but that was during the Obama administration. And they blamed them on us. We didn't build the cages. They did. Very sad when they had a picture in The New York Times of children in cages and it turned out it was them.""

Meanwhile, Trump said that when Obama was in office, the United States was paying Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, ""approximately $500 million a year. Who knows what they were doing with the money. You can imagine. They were supposed to use that money for economic development and keep people there. It sounds good but it wasn't being used for that. People were flowing in.""

Trump, though, said to ""stop payment"" because the countries wouldn't take back MS-13 gang members, and then the countries changed their stance.

""I got along very well with those three countries and really well with Mexico. The president of Mexico is a friend of mine, a great guy,"" said Trump.

But now, under Biden, Mexico is having a ""field day.""

""Why are we supposed to take care of the world?"" he said. ""In many cases the world's criminals, they're coming over not from the three countries plus Mexico. They're coming from Yemen, from the Middle East. Who the hell knows what we're taking in? These people are destroying our country. I said it was going to happen during the campaign. That's why I got 75 million votes. Probably much more than that.""

But, Trump pointed out, when he took over, ""it was a disaster. I built 500 miles of wall and now you have vast sections. You see some openings, but the openings get closed ... this is not a wall that should be torn down. This wall has made a tremendous difference of stopping sex traffickers, human traffickers, drug dealers, drugs.""",0.2532735567139836
"Former President Donald Trump blasted his successor’s “inhumane” immigration policies and predicted the worst is yet to come at the southern border.

Trump pointed to President Joe Biden’s failure to finish the border wall and Democrats’ dismantling of the tough rules Trump enacted in the region as the impetus for the explosion of illegal immigrants just two months into Biden’s tenure.

“As I said before, you have some very bad hombres coming up and we’re taking them into our country, and it’s insane,” Trump said on Monday’s iHeartRadio “The Truth with Lisa Boothe” podcast. “They’re destroying our country, Lisa, they’re destroying our country.”

Trump specifically linked the immigration surge to Biden’s abandonment of several Trump administration policies, such as the Remain in Mexico program, which forced those who wanted to apply for asylum in the U.S. to stay on the other side of the border.

“The Remain in Mexico – right now they’re remaining in the United States and they’re never going to leave,” Trump said. “And we have no idea who these people are, but I can tell you, when countries send people up, and they do send them up, when they send them up they’re not sending up their finest.”

“… You have some very good people coming up, but you have some really bad one’s coming too. Really dangerous criminals coming up. And we’re allowing them to come into our country. It’s insane. And it’s nothing compared to what it’s going to be in the coming months.”

Illegal immigration has long been a central issue for Trump. He spoke out against it before finally jumping into politics and then, starting in 2015, made it a key plank of his campaign en route to winning the White House. His four years in Washington, D.C. saw a constant battle between his administration and Democrats who sought to prevent him from building or completing the border wall he’d vowed to build and who decried his policies at the border.

Now with Biden’s team seemingly flailing as it’s forced to reckon with a flood of immigrants, Trump is able to look back and describe his own administration’s border policy as working like “an absolute science” — before Biden rolled back the rules Trump put in place.

And as the crisis continues, with little being done on the federal level to stem the tide of illegal immigrants streaming into the U.S., Trump said the current mess is only the beginning.

“When you see it now, enjoy it,” Trump said. “Because it’s much better now. When you see it in two or three months — because they’re just starting to come — they’ll be coming up in the millions.”

He added: “As bad as it is now, it’s really good compared to what it will be in a few months.”",-1.4119716348084743
"Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Tesla CEO Elon Musk are sparring over where the wealthy tech entrepreneur’s big bucks are better spent — on space travel or balancing income inequality here on Earth.

""We are in a moment in American history where two guys — Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos — own more wealth than the bottom 40% of people in this country,"" Sanders tweeted Thursday.

Musk has shot up the wealth ladder to land alongside Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos; Musk's net worth climbed to $188 billion in January, edging ahead of Bezos, who had been wealthiest since 2017, Business Insider reported.

Progressives like Sanders have called for higher taxes on billionaires, tweeting Wednesday, ""We are in a moment in American history where two guys — Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos — own more wealth than the bottom 40% of people in this country. That level of greed and inequality is not only immoral. It is unsustainable.""

The same day, at a Senate budget committee hearing Wednesday, Sanders noted both tech titans ""now own more wealth than the bottom 40%. Meanwhile, we're looking at more hunger in America than at any time in decades"" BI reported at the time.

In a commentary Saturday on the website Clean Technica, writer Zachary Shahan refuted Sanders’ twitter critique.

""I think Bernie Sanders’ dedication to fighting this and many of his preferred policies to address it are completely sensible — and it’s just sad that the United States is so far behind most European countries in creating a more human society and a higher quality of life,"" Zachary Shahan wrote. ""That said, this is a shockingly idiotic tweet.""

Musk, who also runs SpaceX, said last year he wanted to send a million people to Mars by 2050, creating ""a lot of jobs"" on the Red Planet, BI reported — and that he was ""highly confident"" the first SpaceX Starship may land on Mars in 2026.

""I am accumulating resources to help make life multiplanetary & extend the light of consciousness to the stars,"" Musk wrote Sunday in defense of his wealth and lofty space dreams.

Sanders responded that ""Space travel is an exciting idea, but right now we need to focus on Earth and create a progressive tax system so that children don't go hungry, people are not homeless and all Americans have healthcare.""

""The level of inequality in America is obscene and a threat to our democracy,"" he asserted.

According to a White House economic aide, President Joe Biden’s tax plan will feature higher levies on corporations and wealthy Americans, with relief eyed for middle-class households, including those in the $110,000-a-year income range.

""The key here is that the president believes strongly that the biggest corporations and those folks who have done extremely well over the last several decades should pay a bit more,"" Bharat Ramamurti, deputy director of the National Economic Council, said last Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg Television.",-0.8278028119851731
"The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider the U.S. Justice Department's bid to reinstate Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's death sentence for helping carry out the 2013 attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others.

The department's appeal, filed before former President Donald Trump left office in January, challenged a lower court's decision ordering a new trial over the sentence Tsarnaev should receive for the death penalty-eligible crimes for which he was convicted.

President Joe Biden's administration has given no indication it plans to reverse the Trump administration's approach to the case, as it has done in several other cases pending at the court.

The 27-year-old Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, precipitated five days of panic in Boston when they detonated two homemade pressure cooker bombs at the marathon's finish line on April 15, 2013, and then tried to flee the city. In the days that followed, they also killed a police officer. Tsarnaev's brother died after a gunfight with police.

Jurors in 2015 found Tsarnaev guilty of all 30 counts he faced and later determined he deserved execution for a bomb he planted that killed Martin Richard, 8, and Chinese exchange student Lingzi Lu, 23. Restaurant manager Krystle Campbell, 29, was also killed.

The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the trial judge ""fell short"" in screening jurors for potential bias following pervasive news coverage of the bombings.

The Justice Department appealed that ruling, which ordered a new trial over the sentence to be given for the death penalty-eligible charges. The department argued that the appeals court adopted a standard that wrongly denied trial judges the ""broad discretion"" to manage juries provided for by Supreme Court precedents.

Prosecutors said that if the ruling stands, it would have to retry the death penalty phase of the case and ""victims will have to once again take the stand to describe the horrors that respondent inflicted on them.""

The justices will hear oral arguments and issue a ruling in the court's next term, which starts in October and ends in June 2022.",2.354249009476104
"AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine provided strong protection against sickness and eliminated hospitalizations and deaths from the disease across all age groups in a late-stage study in the United States, the company announced Monday.

AstraZeneca said its experts did not identify any safety concerns related to the vaccine, including finding no increased risk of rare blood clots identified in Europe.

Although AstraZeneca's vaccine has been authorized in more than 50 countries, it has not yet been given the green light in the U.S. — and has struggled to gain public trust amid a troubled rollout. The study comprised more than 30,000 volunteers, of whom two-thirds were given the vaccine while the rest got dummy shots.

In a statement, AstraZeneca said its COVID-19 vaccine had a 79% efficacy rate at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 and was 100% effective in stopping severe disease and hospitalization, though it has not yet published full data. Investigators said the vaccine was effective across all ages, including older people — something previous studies in other countries had failed to establish. Two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were given to people four weeks apart.

“These findings reconfirm previous results observed,” said Ann Falsey of the University of Rochester School of Medicine who helped lead the trial. “It’s exciting to see similar efficacy results in people over 65 for the first time.”

The AstraZeneca shot is a pillar of a U.N.-backed project known as COVAX that aims to get COVID-19 vaccines to poorer countries, and it has also become a key tool in European countries’ efforts to boost their sluggish vaccine rollouts.

The early findings from the U.S. study are just one set of information AstraZeneca must submit to the Food and Drug Administration. An FDA advisory committee will publicly debate the evidence behind the shots before the agency decides whether to allow emergency use of the vaccine. In the past, the time between a company revealing efficacy data and a shot being authorized in the U.S. has been about a month.

Julian Tang, a virologist at the University of Leicester who was not connected to the study, described the results as “good news” for the vaccine.

“The earlier U.K., Brazil, South Africa trials had a more variable and inconsistent design and it was thought that the U.S. FDA would never approve the use of the AZ vaccine on this basis, but now the U.S. clinical trial has confirmed the efficacy of this vaccine in their own clinical trials,” he said.

Scientists have been awaiting results of the U.S. study in hopes it will clear up some of the confusion about just how well the shots really work, particularly in older people. Previous research suggested the vaccine was effective in younger populations, but there were no solid data proving its efficacy in those over 65, often those most vulnerable to COVID-19.

Britain first authorized the vaccine based on partial results from testing in the United Kingdom, Brazil, and South Africa that suggested the shots were about 70% effective. But those results were clouded by a manufacturing mistake that led some participants to get just a half dose in their first shot — an error the researchers didn’t immediately acknowledge.

Then came more questions, about how well the vaccine protected older adults and how long to wait before the second dose. Some European countries including Germany, France, and Belgium initially withheld the shot from older adults and only reversed their decisions after new data suggested it was offering seniors protection.

AstraZeneca’s vaccine development was rocky in the U.S., too. Last fall, the Food and Drug Administration suspended the company’s study for an unusual six weeks, as frustrated regulators sought information about some neurologic complaints reported in Britain; ultimately, there was no evidence the vaccine was to blame.

Last week, more than a dozen countries, mostly in Europe, temporarily suspended their use of the AstraZeneca shot after reports it was linked to blood clots. On Thursday, the European Medicines Agency concluded after an investigation that the vaccine did not raise the overall risk of blood clots, but could not rule out that it was connected to two very rare types of clots. It recommended adding a warning about these cases to the vaccine's leaflet.

It's not unheard of for such rare problems to crop up as vaccines are rolled out since trials typically look at tens of thousands of people, and some issues are only seen once the shot is used in millions of people.

France, Germany, Italy, and other countries subsequently resumed their use of the shot on Friday, with senior politicians rolling up their sleeves to show the vaccine was safe.

AstraZeneca said it would continue to analyze the U.S. data before submitting it to the FDA in the coming weeks. It said the data would also soon be published in a peer-reviewed journal.

The AstraZeneca vaccine is what scientists call a “viral vector” vaccine. The shots are made with a harmless virus, a cold virus that normally infects chimpanzees. It acts like a Trojan horse to carry the spike protein’s genetic material into the body, which in turn produces some harmless protein. That primes the immune system to fight if the real virus comes along.

Two other companies, Johnson & Johnson and China’s CanSino Biologics, make COVID-19 vaccines using the same technology but using different cold viruses.",0.3451291864343049
"Former U.S. President Donald Trump plans to launch his own platform in two to three months, one of his senior advisers told Fox News on Sunday.

Jason Miller, a spokesman for Trump's 2020 campaign, told the network that Trump would re-enter the social media space with a new platform of his own that would ""completely redefine the game.""

Miller provided no further details, and no comment was immediately available from officials with the Trump Organization.

Twitter last week said it would seek public input on when and how it should ban world leaders, saying it was reviewing policy and considering whether the leaders should be held to the same rules as other users.

Twitter, Facebook and others have been under scrutiny for the way they handle accounts of politicians and government officials after their ban of Trump for inciting violence.

Facebook, which indefinitely suspended Trump in January, has asked its independent oversight board to decide whether the ban should stand.",-0.6782809590631904
"Former President Donald Trump endorsed Rep. Jody Hice Monday in a bid to unseat Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in the 2022 Republican primary.

In a statement issued shortly after the Georgia Republican announced his candidacy, Trump said:

""Unlike the current Georgia Secretary of State, Jody leads out front with integrity,""’ adding that ""Jody will stop the Fraud and get honesty into our Elections!""

Hice, a frequent guest on Newsmax TV, also is one of the state's best-known conservative members of Congress. He has represented Georgia's 10th District, located in the northeastern part of the state, since 2015.

Trump has publicly spoken out against Raffensperger after the November election, in which the secretary of state refused to support the then-president's claim that the state's 16 electoral votes had been stolen from him.

Trump also pushed Raffensperger in a phone call in early January.

Raffensperger and other Georgia election officials certified Biden’s election after conducting several recounts.

Hice has strongly supported Trump's election claims in Georgia and also called the push to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill violence ""bogus.""

Last week, Hice told The Covington News that he was ""exploring options"" regarding a race for the secretary of state seat and his decision could come ""within a few days.""

The congressman also said on former Rep. Doug Collins' radio show that Trump is ""supportive"" of his potential campaign, the newspaper reported.

Hice said in a news release in December he was not happy with Raffensperger, saying that the secretary of state ""largely dismissed"" the ""legitimate concerns"" of millions of Americans concerning the Trump-Biden election.

Trump has also been trying to recruit a potential primary opponent against Gov. Brian Kemp, who he says did not do enough about the vote count in his state, and has publicly encouraged former NFL running back Herschel Walker to run for Senate against Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia's 2022 race.",0.2844196549770029
"An organization heading a campaign for having Senate Democrats eliminate the filibuster is a project of the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a powerful dark money network used by the left, according to a new report.

Fix Our Senate, which in recent days has added dozens of groups to its coalition as the call to eliminate the filibuster grows, is in charge of 60 progressive groups pushing to pressure moderate Democrats to eliminate the filibuster, reports The Washington Free Beacon.

According to business reports obtained by the publication, Fix Our Senate falls under the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a nonprofit incubator that is managed by Arabella Advisors, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm, whose funding network is used by wealthy liberal donors who are secretly bankrolling progressive initiatives.

""This coalition of groups is disingenuous when in reality these are just trade names of the Sixteen Thirty Fund — a branch of the overarching behemoth Arabella Advisors,"" Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of Americans for Public Trust, told the Washington Free Beacon. ""These groups are trying to imitate local grassroots groups, but are backed by Arabella to influence public policy.""

President Joe Biden says he supports filibuster reform, not cancellation, and wants to see the Senate return to a more traditional ""talking filibuster"" but White House press secretary Jen Psaki says Biden is still open to hearing other ideas on the filibuster.

Under current Senate rules, 60 votes are needed so that legislation can be debated and passed, meaning Democrats must have support from at least 10 Republicans before bills can advance.

Democrats say the filibuster will hold up agenda items on issues such as immigration reform and voting rights and are calling to either eliminate the procedure or change the rules. The filibuster has evolved since its beginnings to become a procedure invoked by the Senate's minority party to stop bills that won't pass without at least 60 votes.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has warned that if Democrats eliminate the filibuster, ""we will make it difficult still in a 50-50 Senate for them to pass hard-left legislation.""

Meanwhile, the Fix Our Senate's coalition has launched a six-figure ad buy nationally that makes the case that the filibuster is a racist tool that was a ""long-favored procedural tool of segregationists (and) has prevented voting rights and civil rights from passing the U.S. Senate.

""We want to make sure voters understand that the filibuster, an abused and outdated ‘Jim Crow relic,' is a big part of what is broken about our government and we are encouraging them to make their voices heard and call on their senators to choose progress, not more gridlock,"" Eli Zupnik, spokesman for Fix Our Senate, said in a press release.

Fix Our Senate, as a subsidiary of the Sixteen Thirty Fund, also doesn't have to register as a nonprofit with the IRS. This means it doesn't have to disclose its donors or file tax forms that would have information about board members, contractors, or financial activities.

Liberal billionaire donor George Soros and others involved in the secretive donor club Democracy Alliance use the Sixteen Thirty Fund, the Washington Free Beacon also reports, adding that the Sixteen Thirty Fund, New Venture Fund, Windward Fund, and Hopewell Fund, all managed by Arabella, facilitated $715 million in dark money in 2019. Each of the funds provides its tax and legal status to the groups sitting beneath them.

The Fix Our Senate coalition includes groups involved in gun control, immigration, and healthcare, and one of the coalition's members, Demand Progress, is also housed by the Sixteen Thirty Fund.

Fix Our Senate did not respond to the Washington Free Beacon's request for comment.",0.6331193072641262
"Two Americans accused of helping former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn jump bail and escape from Japan were indicted on Monday and face up to three years in prison.

The father-son pair arrived in Japan earlier this month from the United States after losing their battle to avoid extradition.

Both Michael Taylor and his son Peter face a single charge of helping a criminal escape.

The pair, along with a third man still at large, is believed to have masterminded the operation that saw former international jet-setter Ghosn packed into an audio-equipment case and onto a private jet to jump bail in December 2019.

Ghosn is now beyond the reach of Japanese justice in Lebanon, which does not have an extradition treaty with Tokyo.

But the Taylors were arrested in the U.S. last year after Japan issued a warrant for them.

They sought to block Tokyo's extradition request by claiming they would face torture-like conditions while in custody in Japan, but the U.S. Supreme Court struck down their appeal in February.

Tokyo's Deputy Chief Prosecutor Hiroshi Yamamoto declined to comment on their possible bail and a timetable for their trial, telling reporters: ""I want to refrain from commenting their statements or arraignment as it is related to details of our investigation.""

- 'Brazen and well-orchestrated escape' -

Ghosn was a global business superstar and head of an auto alliance joining Nissan, Renault, and Mitsubishi Motors before his career came crashing to an abrupt end in November 2018, when Tokyo investigators stormed his private jet to arrest him.

The French-Lebanese-Brazilian national was eventually charged with four counts of financial misconduct over claims he hid compensation and misused Nissan funds.

Having spent months in detention, Ghosn was out on bail awaiting trial on the charges — which he denies — when he fled the country in what Japanese prosecutors termed ""one of the most brazen and well-orchestrated escape acts in recent history.""

The details of his escape proved embarrassing to Japanese authorities — with the former tycoon allegedly having boarded a train to Osaka before evading security checks at Kansai airport by boarding a private jet packed into an oversized box that was not scanned.

After his arrival in Lebanon, Ghosn claimed that he had been forced to escape because he feared he would not get a fair hearing.

While Ghosn remains at large, the repercussions of both the original case against him and his escape from Japan continue.

In Tokyo, his former close aide at Nissan, Greg Kelly, is currently on trial for his alleged role in underreporting Ghosn's income. Nissan itself faces charges in the case and has pleaded guilty.

And a Turkish court has sentenced two pilots and another employee of a small private airline to four years and two months in prison for their role in Ghosn's escape.

Ghosn transited in Turkey, switching planes on his way to Lebanon, and the three Turks were charged with involvement in conspiracy to smuggle a migrant.

Two other pilots and two flight attendants on trial in Turkey were acquitted.",0.32590175441605185
"Public schools in Los Angeles are set to reopen from next month, after a teachers' union approved a plan for a physical and hybrid return to classes.

Many schools continue to teach students remotely more than a year after the novel coronavirus prompted widespread closures across the United States, and the Biden administration has been aiming to reopen in-person learning for millions of public school students without sparking coronavirus outbreaks.

Education officials at the Los Angeles Unified School (LAUSD) district are tentatively planning for physical classes to restart at elementary and preschools by mid-April, while grades 7-12 are scheduled to return by about the end of April.

""While the improving COVID-19 situation is still fragile, we believe this agreement puts LAUSD on the path to a physical reopening of schools that puts safety first,"" United Teachers Los Angeles union president Cecily Myart-Cruz said in a statement.

Under the agreement, elementary teachers will be expected to teach from their classrooms unless they have a verified medical reason to stay remote, while secondary teachers will teach most classes virtually.

The union said the district was also considering using outdoor tents for exceptionally large class sizes.

On Friday, the U.S. government updated its COVID-19 guidelines, halving the acceptable distance between students who are wearing masks to at least three feet from at least six feet.

The teachers' union said this change would not impact the agreement or its other safety measures — which include personal protective equipment, improved ventilation, daily cleaning, and disinfection.",2.058054621859163
"Jury selection was due to continue on Monday in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged in the death of George Floyd last year in a violent arrest that spurred nationwide protests against racism.

Twelve jurors and one alternate have been seated since the trial began two weeks ago: five white women, two white men, three Black men, one Black woman, and two multiracial women, according to court records.

Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill said he wants to find two more alternates before opening arguments, which are scheduled to begin on March 29.

A bystander's video showed Chauvin, who is white, with his knee on Floyd's neck as Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, begged for his life during the arrest on May 25, 2020.

Cahill and the lawyers in the case have questioned more than 60 potential jurors in court to weigh their impartiality as Chauvin, dressed in a suit and tie, took extensive notes on a yellow legal pad.

Potential jurors all completed an unusually detailed 16-page questionnaire last year asking them their knowledge of the arrest and their opinions of Chauvin, policing, the media, and the Black Lives Matter movement for racial justice.

All of them have said they were aware of video. Almost all said they had seen at least some of the footage, which sparked global protests against police brutality and racism.

Chauvin has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. He faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted on the most serious charge.",-0.24747703989015157
"Facebook Inc said on Monday it took down 1.3 billion fake accounts between October and December and that it had over 35,000 people working on tackling misinformation on its platform.

The company also removed more than 12 million pieces of content about COVID-19 and vaccines that global health experts flagged as misinformation, it said in a blog post.

False claims and conspiracies about the coronavirus vaccines have proliferated on social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter during the pandemic.

Facebook's disclosure of data on misinformation comes ahead of an inspection by the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce into how technology platforms including Facebook are tackling misinformation.",-0.1682017677359152
"Federal investigators have found evidence that would likely allow the government to file sedition charges against some of those involved in the deadly Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, a Justice Department official told CBS's ""60 Minutes"" on Sunday.

""I believe the facts do support those charges,"" said acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin for the District of Columbia. ""I think that, as we go forward, more facts will support that.""

Hundreds of people, including supporters of then-President Donald Trump, stormed the Capitol in a failed bid to stop Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden's presidential election victory, sending lawmakers fleeing.

The Justice Department has already filed cases against 400 suspects involved in the assault, but none have yet been accused of sedition, the crime of opposing the authority of the U.S. government through force.

Since announcing a task force to investigate the rioters six days after the attack, Sherwin has said he will pursue sedition charges. So far, most arrested in connection with the storming of the Capitol have been charged with trespassing or assaulting officers, with a smaller number charged with conspiracy to obstruct Congress.",0.3436623862597404
"Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, on his first visit to Afghanistan as Pentagon chief, said Sunday the Biden administration wants to see ""a responsible end"" to America's longest war, but the level of violence must decrease for ""fruitful"" diplomacy to have a chance.

With questions swirling about how long U.S. troops will remain in the country, Austin said that ""in terms of an end date or setting a specific date for withdrawal, that's the domain of my boss."" He said his stop in Kabul, the capital, where he met with military commanders and senior Afghan government officials, including President Ashraf Ghani, was intended to let him ""listen and learn"" and ""inform my participation"" in reviewing the future of the American force.

President Joe Biden said last week in an ABC News interview it will be ""tough"" for the U.S. to meet a May 1 deadline to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. But Biden said that if the deadline, which is laid out in an agreement between the Trump administration and the Taliban, is extended, it wouldn't be by a ""lot longer.""

Austin, who arrived after a visit to India, said: ""There's always going to be concerns about things one way or the other, but I think there's a lot of energy focused on, you know, doing what's necessary to bring about a responsible end, a negotiated settlement to the war.""

The Taliban on Friday warned of consequences if the United States doesn't meet the deadline. Suhail Shaheen, a member of the Taliban negotiation team, told reporters that if American troops were to stay beyond May 1, ""it will be a kind of violation of the agreement. That violation would not be from our side.

""Their violation will have a reaction.""

A statement released by the presidential palace on the Ghani-Austin meeting said both sides condemned the increase in violence in Afghanistan. There was no mention of the May 1 deadline. Washington is reviewing the agreement the Trump administration signed with the Taliban last year and has been stepping up pressure on both sides in the protracted conflict to find a swift route to a peace agreement.

""It's obvious that the level of violence remains pretty high in the country,"" Austin said. ""We'd really like to see that violence come down and I think if it does come down, it can begin to set the conditions for, you know, some really fruitful diplomatic work.""

In a sharply worded letter to Ghani earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it was urgent to make peace in Afghanistan and that all options remained on the table. He also warned it was likely the Taliban would make swift territorial gains if U.S. and NATO troops withdrew. The United States spends $4 billion a year to sustain Afghanistan's National Security Forces.

The Taliban warned America against defying the May 1 deadline, at a news conference in Moscow, the day after meeting with senior Afghan government negotiators and international observers to try to jumpstart a stalled peace process to end Afghanistan's decades of war.

Washington has given both the Taliban and the Afghan government an eight-page peace proposal, which both sides are reviewing. It calls for an interim ""peace government"" that would shepherd Afghanistan toward constitutional reform and elections.

Ghani has resisted an interim administration causing his critics to accuse him of clinging to power. He says elections alone would be acceptable to bring a change of government.

Both the U.S. and Kabul have called for a reduction in violence leading to a cease-fire. The Taliban say a cease-fire would be part of the peace negotiations. The insurgent movement has not attacked U.S. or NATO troops since signing the agreement.

But U.S. military commanders and NATO leaders have argued that the Taliban have not lived up to their part of the peace agreement, which includes a reduction in violence and a separation from al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

Austin said he was confident in the ability of Gen. Austin Miller, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, to accomplish his mission ""with the resources he has"" and to protect American troops.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said last month that the alliance ""will only leave when the time is right"" and when conditions have been met.

""The main issue is that Taliban has to reduce violence, Taliban has to negotiate in good faith and Taliban has to stop supporting international terrorist groups like Al Qaeda,"" he said.

Austin has said little on the record about the stalemate. After a virtual meeting of NATO defense ministers, Austin told reporters that ""our presence in Afghanistan is conditions based, and Taliban has to meet their commitments.""

Austin's stop in Afghanistan was his first return to a U.S. war zone in the Middle East since taking the Pentagon post. But he spent a great deal of time in the region during his service as an Army commander.

Austin, a retired four-star general, served in Afghanistan as commander of the 10th Mountain Division. From 2013-2016 he was the head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Afghanistan visit comes at the end of Austin's his first overseas trip as secretary. After a stop in Hawaii, he went to Japan and South Korea, where he and met with their defense and foreign counterparts.",1.0824473574752855
"When Alexi McCammond resigned as Teen Vogue's editor on Thursday – six days before she was set to start the job, and due to a handful of controversial, decade-old tweets – the 27-year-old ex-politics reporter wound up as the most recent casualty of ""cancel culture.""

The destructive trend doesn't discriminate with its victims, stalking everyone and everything from presidents to cartoon characters to iconic sports teams.",1.2513805852693682
"China came to Alaska for a 2-day meeting with the Biden administration late this week to exert their authority over the United States, according to Far East foreign affairs expert Gordon Chang.

""The Chinese delegation,"" Chang told Sunday's ""The Cats Roundtable"" on WABC 770 AM-N.Y., ""rolled into Anchorage not to have meaningful discussions with the Biden administration,"" but instead ""they came in to dictate the terms of the relationship going forward.

""They had to tell the world that China is the dominant power, not the United States,"" Chang added to host John Catsimatidis.

""This looks like an attempt on the part of [Chinese President] Xi Jinping to make sure the Chinese people know that they've got a strong leader and that they are prepared for a conflict.""

Chang called the U.S. relations under President Joe Biden ""exceedingly dangerous right now.""

""Thursday night the Chinese foreign ministry issued a statement talking about how there was 'The strong smell of gunpowder' after the first day of the Alaska meeting,"" Chang said. ""I think what's essentially going on there is that the Chinese regime is preparing the Chinese people for a conflict.""

This could mushroom into a regional battle, with other nations taking advantage of unrest, and potential war, Chang added.

""If there's a conflict with China, it will be very difficult to keep it localized,"" he said.

""You'd see North Korea get involved. Russia might move against Ukraine. This could spread around the world very fast. And it's not necessarily going to stay conventional, especially if the Chinese are on the losing end of it. There are very few scenarios we can rule out. I'm not saying war will start. I'm saying that we're seeing a militant regime threatening war. And we know from history when those types of ruling groups do this, they often start wars.""

Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Xi ""are testing Biden,"" Chang said, ""because they don't respect him.""

""They are creating a dangerous dynamic because they are telling the Chinese people they are prepared to go to war, and that creates public markers for them,"" he continued. ""It makes it very difficult to walk back any sort of incident.""

Biden needs to not only talk tough with China, but vow to stand with our allies in the region, according to Chang.

Biden must stress to the Chinese, ""we will not permit China to engage in unacceptable behavior,"" Chang said.

""The Chinese leaders need to hear that from the President of the United States,"" he concluded. ""They've got to respect us. If they don’t respect us, this will be a time that history will remember.""",0.9478396254286687
"Britain’s Prince Harry has written the foreword for a new book aimed at the children of frontline workers who died in the COVID-19 pandemic, sharing the pain he suffered as a boy after the death of his mother, Princess Diana.

Harry wrote that losing his mother at age 12 left “a huge hole inside of me,” according to excerpts of the book printed in the Times of London. Diana died in a Paris car accident in August 1997.

“Hospital by the Hill,’’ by Chris Connaughton, is the story of a young person whose mother worked at a hospital and died during the pandemic. It is being given to children who have experienced similar losses.

“While I wish I was able to hug you right now, I hope this story is able to provide you comfort in knowing that you’re not alone,” Harry wrote in the foreword. “When I was a young boy I lost my mum. At the time, I didn’t want to believe it or accept it, and it left a huge hole inside of me. I know how you feel, and I want to assure you that over time that hole will be filled with so much love and support.”

Harry has on several occasions reflected on the enduring pain he experienced from his mother’s sudden death. He has made mental health awareness a key part of his charitable work.

“We all cope with loss in a different way, but when a parent goes to heaven, I was told their spirit, their love and the memories of them do not,” Harry wrote. “They are always with you, and you can hold on to them forever. I find this to be true.”",0.8170401144419496
"The number of U.S. air passengers screened topped 1.5 million Sunday for the first time since March 2020, as air travel continues to rebound from a pandemic-related drop, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration said Monday.

COVID-19 devastated air travel demand, with U.S. airline passengers down 60% in 2020. But with a growing number of Americans getting vaccinated, demand and advanced bookings have started to rise in recent weeks.

TSA said it screened 1.54 million people Sunday, the highest single day since March 13, 2020 and the 11th consecutive day screening volume exceeding 1 million per day.",0.5901394275867031
"Kent Taylor, founder and CEO of the Texas Roadhouse restaurant chain, has died. He was 65. His family and the company say he took his own life after suffering from symptoms related to COVID-19, including severe tinnitus.

Taylor's family and the company on Sunday confirmed his death in a statement.

Tinnitus is a common condition involving ringing or other noises in one or both ears. Experts say the coronavirus can exacerbate tinnitus problems.

""Kent battled and fought hard like the former track champion that he was, but the suffering that greatly intensified in recent days became unbearable,” the statement said.

Taylor recent committed to funding a clinical study to help military members suffering with tinnitus, the statement said.

“Kent leaves an unmatched legacy as a people-first leader, which is why he often said that Texas Roadhouse was a people company that just happened to serve steaks,” the statement said.

Taylor opened the first Texas Roadhouse restaurant in 1993 in Clarksville, Indiana, coming up with the idea on a cocktail napkin. It currently operates 610 restaurants in 49 states and 10 other countries. Texas Roadhouse is based in Taylor's hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.

“Kent’s kind and generous spirit was his constant driving force whether it was quietly helping a friend or building one of America’s great companies in @texasroadhouse,” Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said on Twitter. “He was a maverick entrepreneur who embodied the values of never giving up and putting others first.”

Taylor, who died Thursday, is survived by his parents, Powell and Marilyn Taylor, three children, and five grandchildren. Texas Roadhouse spokesman Travis Doster said a small private service is planned this week.",0.3238495488619312
"The new head of the Small Business Administration says she expects to make changes at the agency that she says will enable it to further help small companies devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Friday, two days after she was sworn in, Isabella Casillas Guzman said her immediate focus is implementing the small business provisions in the $1.9 trillion coronavirus rescue package President Joseph Biden signed into law last week.

The country has lost 400,000 businesses since the start of the pandemic, Guzman said, warning that ""many more are at risk.""

Guzman expects small business provisions in the rescue package to help, including $10 billion to support state lending to companies, and $100 million for a new program called Community Navigator aimed at giving education and advice to struggling business owners. But, she said, more vaccinations against the coronavirus and the $1,400 stimulus payments millions of Americans are receiving will also ultimately aid business by helping the economy recover.

Those are indirect aid programs. The rescue package also included direct help in the form of additional money for the Paycheck Protection Program and more than $28 billion in grants for restaurants hammered by government-ordered shutdowns during the virus outbreak.

Guzman already knows how the SBA operates, having been a deputy chief of staff at the agency during the Obama administration.

""We'll be looking at our overall programs to see a path forward for small businesses,"" she said. Guzman acknowledged that the SBA's role has changed dramatically as a result of the pandemic; she said the agency has gotten attention it never had in the past.

The SBA's lending focus over the past year has been the PPP, which has approved nearly 8 million loans worth more than $700 billion. Before the pandemic, the agency's main lending vehicles were its 7(a) and 504 programs that owners turned to for loans to start and build their businesses. Those traditional lending programs may see some changes, Guzman said.

The administrator's agenda also includes improving SBA technology to make it more accessible to businesses; she noted that many businesses adopted or upgraded their technology in order to survive the virus outbreak.

""We just need to ensure that we’ve modernized the SBA,"" she said.

The SBA plans to use Community Navigator to gather information to help it determine what changes it needs to make, Guzman said. The program is aimed at working with community financial institutions and SBA-sponsored Small Business Development Centers to help struggling and disadvantaged businesses.

""That will provide us with a strong feedback loop from small businesses about what their needs are,"" Guzman said.

Before coming to the SBA, Guzman also served as director of California’s Office of the Small Business Advocate. She has held positions at companies including ProAmerica Bank, a commercial bank in California, and GovContractPros, a consulting firm based in Chevy Chase, Maryland, that she co-founded.",-1.8448399206849757
"Canadian Pacific Railways Ltd.'s Keith Creel for years followed in the footsteps of Hunter Harrison, an industry legend whose revolutionary efficiency strategy became the standard at all the major North American railroads.

Now, the protege has a good shot at achieving a major merger — something that Harrison, who died in late 2017 at age 73 during a turnaround effort at CSX Corp., couldn't after several failed tries.

Canadian Pacific on Sunday agreed to buy Kansas City Southern for $25 billion, creating the first railroad to traverse Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. If Creel, the Canadian railroad's 52-year-old chief executive officer, can complete the deal next year as he envisions, it may very well be the last chapter in a rail-merger saga that was kicked off by deregulation in 1980s and was credited with saving a dying industry.

""This is the only merger left that could potentially be a stabilizing one and not a destabilizing one,"" said Tony Hatch, a rail-industry consultant. ""This is one that takes Kansas City Southern out of play and combines the two smallest railroads.""

The timing follows a global pandemic that made companies rethink the risk of having overseas supply lines. The supply chain was frozen by China's initial lockdown last year to control the coronavirus, and the subsequent reopening created a maritime logjam at U.S. ports. A cloud over trade was lifted in July with a renegotiated trade pact among Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is seen as less likely to issue trade threats by Twitter than predecessor Donald Trump.

""The stars have aligned to make this deal happen,"" Creel, an Alabaman who followed Harrison to three companies, told analysts on a call Sunday.

Kansas City Southern surged 17% to $262.25 before the start of regular trading Monday in New York, on pace for its biggest closing gain since last March. The stock had advanced 93% in the 12 months through March 19 while the S&P 500 index of four U.S. railroads climbed 76%. Canadian Pacific was indicated down 3.4% to C$458 before the open Monday in Toronto.

Railroads have been central to North America's industrial development. Industry lore is almost always told from the East looking West: A “Golden Spike” united the first transcontinental railroad in the U.S. in 1869, and the “Last Spike” did the same in Canada in 1885.

Some 150 years later, Creel is writing a North-South story.

The tie-up announced Sunday would create a 20,000-mile, T-shaped network, giving Canadian Pacific access to Kansas City Southern’s sprawling Midwestern rail system that connects farms in Kansas and Missouri to ports along the Gulf of Mexico. The network would also let CP reach deep into Mexico, which made up almost half of Kansas City Southern’s revenue last year, and benefit from the 16 different automotive factories along its tracks there.

Under the deal — the biggest Canadian purchase of a U.S. asset since 2016 — Kansas City Southern investors will receive 0.489 of a CP share and $90 in cash for each share they hold, valuing the U.S. railroad’s stock at $275 apiece. That's 23% more than Friday's record close, according to a statement from the companies.

Creel will be CEO of the new company, to be based in Calgary, Alberta, and plans to stay at the helm until at least early 2026. The new entity, to be called Canadian Pacific Kansas City, or CPKC, will have revenue of about $8.7 billion and almost 20,000 employees. Shareholders of CP will hold 75% of the combined company.

The companies — whose boards unanimously approved the deal — say they expect to get final approval from regulators by mid-2022. In the U.S., the Surface Transportation Board will have the biggest say.

Rail combinations reached a fever pitch in the 1990s, with some causing such chaos that the transportation board raised the bar for approving deals in 2001. But one small railroad got an exemption from stricter rules — Kansas City Southern.

""We've got complete confidence in this deal and the review process,"" regardless of which set of rules the STB applies, Creel said. ""We think that the facts are so compelling that when the STB rules and weighs the facts, they will come to the same conclusion.""

The two networks don't overlap, and won't reduce customers’ rail options, Creel said. The combination also will help reduce emissions by attracting freight from truck to rail, which is about four times more fuel efficient. Some 80% of the production from the Mexican auto plants along the network crosses the border north to the U.S. and Canada and can be hauled in one shot by the new entity, the companies said.

The tie-up would leave Canada with two railroads that have similar coast-to-coast networks that reach down to U.S. ports on the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. would have four railroads balanced almost equally between two larger ones in the West and two smaller ones in the East.

While it's impossible to say never to further industry consolidation, it probably wouldn’t happen for a decade or more if at all, said Lee Klaskow, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence. That round of consolidation would be more complicated because companies would be jockeying not to miss out of the few deals left to be made. The Canadian Pacific offer to buy Kansas City Southern is much more straightforward, mostly because the two networks don’t duplicate track, Klaskow said.

""They interchange in one location,"" Klaskow said. ""It's the easiest deal to get done.""

But railroad deals aren’t always easy.

While Hunter Harrison was CEO of Canadian Pacific, he tried to buy CSX and Norfolk Southern. He declined to pursue a combination with Kansas City Southern at the time because of its large operations in Mexico. Harrison didn’t like the currency risk, nor the lack of legal and regulatory transparency.

Creel is betting that Harrison was wrong.

""If anybody knows Hunter Harrison and has experience with him, it's me,"" Creel said in an interview. ""He's a human being. He didn't get everything right.

""I would just say that he wasn't seeing these same compelling facts, and this perfect time to combine these two companies, or I’m certain that he would align and agree with what we're doing.""",0.1952155627089209
"LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A hangover from Trump-era tariff disputes could become even more painful for American whiskey distillers unless their entanglement in a trans-Atlantic trade fight is resolved soon.

Bourbon, Tennessee whiskey and rye whiskey were left out of recent breakthroughs to start rebuilding U.S. trade relations with the European Union and the United Kingdom in the wake of Donald Trump's presidency. Tariffs were suspended on some spirits, but the 25% tariffs slapped on American whiskey by the EU and UK remain in place. And the EU's tariff rate is set to double to 50% in June in the key export market for U.S. whiskey makers.

A leading spirits advocate is imploring top U.S. trade envoy Katherine Tai to not leave whiskey producers behind. The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States urged her to press for an immediate suspension of the European tariffs and to secure agreements removing them.

“Swift removal of these tariffs will help support U.S. workers and consumers as the economy and hospitality industry continue to recover from the pandemic,” the council said in a recent statement after Tai was confirmed by the Senate.

American whiskey makers have been caught up in the trans-Atlantic trade dispute since mid-2018, when the EU imposed tariffs on American whiskey and other U.S. products in response to Trump’s decision to slap tariffs on European steel and aluminum.

Since then, American whiskey exports to the EU are down by 37%, costing whiskey distillers hundreds of millions in revenue between 2018 and 2020, the council said. American whiskey exports to the UK, the industry's fourth-largest market, have fallen by 53% since 2018, it said.

The tariffs amount to a tax, which whiskey producers can either absorb in reduced profits or pass along to customers through higher prices — and risk losing market share in highly competitive markets.

Amir Peay, owner of the Lexington, Kentucky-based James E. Pepper Distillery, said American whiskey has become “collateral damage” in the trade disputes. It's cost him about three-fourths of his European business, and the looming 50% EU tariff threatens to drain what's left.

“That could possibly end our business in Europe as we’ve known it over the years,” Peay said in a phone interview Thursday.

He's already curtailed some whiskey shipments to Europe as a hedge against the potential doubling of the EU tariff. His distillery’s signature bourbon and rye brand is James E. Pepper 1776.

Peay spent years and significant money cultivating European markets, especially in Germany, France and the UK. He was planning to double his European business before the trade disputes hit.

""The way things are going, everything that we invested to date looks like it could be destroyed,” he said.

The tariffs have hurt spirits industry giants as well.

“We estimate that our company ... has borne roughly 15% of the entire tariff bill levied against the U.S. in response to steel and aluminum tariffs,” Lawson Whiting, president and CEO of Louisville, Kentucky-based Brown-Forman Corp., said recently. “They have become a big problem for us and it’s imperative that we get it resolved as soon as possible.”

Brown-Forman's leading product is Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, a global brand.

For Kentucky bourbon producers, tariffs slashed their exports by 35% in 2020, with shipments to the EU plummeting by nearly 50%, the Kentucky Distillers’ Association said.

The EU had traditionally been the largest global market for Kentucky distilleries, accounting for 56% of all exports in 2017. It’s now about 40%, the association said.

“Our signature bourbon industry has sustained significant damage for more than two years because of a trade war that has nothing to do with whiskey,” KDA President Eric Gregory said. “And it will get much worse if we can’t deescalate this dispute.""

Kentucky distilleries craft 95% of the world’s bourbon supply, the association estimates.

The thaw in the U.S. disputes with the EU and UK were part of an effort to resolve a longstanding Airbus-Boeing dispute. The tariff suspensions applied to duties that had been imposed on some spirits producers on both sides of the Atlantic. But the breakthroughs left plenty unresolved, including disputes that led to the retaliatory tariffs still hitting American whiskey.

The suspended tariffs mean some European spirits producers can ship their products into the U.S. duty free, while American whiskey makers are still subject to tariffs, Whiting said.

“We just want a level playing field for American whiskey,” he said.",2.965715699426114
"The scientist who won the race to deliver the first widely used coronavirus vaccine says people can rest assured the shots are safe, and the technology behind it will soon be used to fight another global scourge — cancer.

Ozlem Tureci, who founded the German company BioNTech with her husband Ugur Sahin, was working on a way to harness the body's immune system to tackle tumors when they learned last year of an unknown virus infecting people in China.

Over breakfast, the couple decided to apply the technology they'd been researching for two decades to the new threat.

Britain authorized BioNTech's mRNA vaccine for use in December, followed a week later by the United States. Dozens of other countries have followed suit and tens of millions of people worldwide have since received the shot developed together with U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.

“It pays off to make bold decisions and to trust that if you have an extraordinary team, you will be able to solve any problem and obstacle which comes your way in real time,” Tureci told The Associated Press in an interview.

Among the biggest challenges for the small, Mainz-based company were how to conduct large-scale clinical trials across different regions and how to scale up the manufacturing process to meet global demand.

Along with Pfizer, the company enlisted the help of Fosun Pharma in China “to get assets, capabilities and geographical footprint on board, which we did not have,"" said Tureci.

Among the lessons she and her colleagues learned was ""how important cooperation and collaboration is internationally.""

Tureci, who was born in Germany to Turkish immigrants, said the company reached out to medical oversight bodies from the start, to ensure that the new type of vaccine would pass the rigorous scrutiny of regulators.

“The process of getting a medicine or a vaccine approved is one where many questions are asked, many experts are involved and there is external peer review of all the data and scientific discourse,” she said.

Amid a scare in Europe this week over the coronavirus shot made by British-Swedish rival AstraZeneca, Tureci dismissed the idea that any corners were cut by those racing to develop a vaccine.

“There is a very rigid process in place and the process does not stop after a vaccine has been approved,” she said. ""It is, in fact, continuing now all around the world, where regulators have used reporting systems to screen and to assess any observations made with our or other vaccines.”

Tureci and her colleagues have all received the BioNTech shot themselves, she told the AP. “Yes, we have been vaccinated.”

As BioNTech's profile has grown during the pandemic, so has its value, adding much-needed funds the company will be able to use to pursue its original goal of developing a new tool against cancer.

The vaccine made by BioNTech-Pfizer and U.S. rival Moderna uses messenger RNA, or mRNA, to carry instructions into the human body for making proteins that prime it to attack a specific virus. The same principle can be applied to get the immune system to take on tumors.

“We have several different cancer vaccines based on mRNA,"" said Tureci.

Asked when such a therapy might be available, Tureci said “that’s very difficult to predict in innovative development. But we expect that within only a couple of years, we will also have our vaccines (against) cancer at a place where we can offer them to people.”

For now, Tureci and Sahin are trying to ensure the vaccines governments have ordered are delivered and that the shots respond effectively to any new mutation in the virus.

On Friday the couple is taking time out of their schedule to receive Germany's highest award, the Order of Merit, from President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a trained scientist herself, will attend the ceremony.

“It’s indeed an honor,"" Tureci sad of the award. ""Both my husband and I are touched.""

But she insisted developing the vaccine was the work of many.

“It’s about the effort of many, our team at BioNTech, all the partners who were involved, also governments, regulatory authorities, which worked together with a sense of urgency,” she said. ""The way we see it, this is an acknowledgement of this effort and also a celebration of science.”",-2.3270723273316762
"Preschoolers who spend a lot of time watching movies and shows on TVs and other screens are more likely to develop emotional and behavioral problems by age 5, a Finnish study warns.

But despite their reputation, video games did not appear to promote any emotional problems in youngsters, researchers concluded.

""We found that high levels of screen time at the age of 1.5 years is related to peer problems at 5 years, and that high levels of screen time is related to more psychosocial problems at 5 years, including emotional and behavioral symptoms as well as attention difficulties and hyperactivity,"" said senior researcher Dr. Juulia Paavonen, deputy chief physician for child psychiatry at Helsinki University Central Hospital. ""This was mainly related to program viewing rather than playing games.""

The findings are troubling because preschoolers' use of mobile phones and tablets tripled between 2013 and 2017, with many 4-year-olds now playing games, using apps, or watching videos on these devices every day, researchers said in background notes.

For their study, Paavonen and colleagues examined data on nearly 700 children participating in a long-term pediatric health study in Finland.

The data showed that 23% of 18-month-olds and 95% of 5-year-olds in Finland spend more than an hour each day on an electronic device, in excess of World Health Organization screen time guidelines.

By 18 months of age, toddlers were spending an average 32 minutes per day on devices. This increased to 114 minutes a day — nearly two hours — by age 5.

More than two-thirds of 5-year-olds watched shows and movies for more than an hour a day, while about 1 in 10 spent more than an hour a day playing video games.

Paavonen said the kids who racked up the most screen time were more likely to have:

Emotional symptoms, such as anxiety, depression, low mood, and fearfulness.

Behavioral symptoms, like quarrels, anger management issues, and oppositional behavior.

Attention problems, such as difficulty concentrating, overactivity, and impulsive behavior.

However, this only held for time spent passively watching shows. These effects were not associated with time spent on video games, after controlling for other factors.

Viewing programs was associated with a more than doubled risk of hyperactivity; a 91% increased risk of attention and concentration difficulties; and a 71% increased risk of emotional problems, for example.

There are several potential explanations for these effects, Paavonen said.

""Screen time may replace significant other activities, like socializing with peers and family members, which can be problematic because children learn social skills by practice in everyday life,"" she said. ""Screen time, particularly in the evening, can replace sleep time, and it is in other studies related to delayed bedtimes and sleep onset problems and thus lack of sleep, which in turn is related to worse emotional regulation.""

Video games might not produce the same effects as watching shows because they are more interactive, said Dr. Jaeah Chung, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, who reviewed the findings.

""Some of the games are based on physical activity, like Wii, and others are more based on problem-solving or more interactive,"" she said.

Chung suggests that parents screen all content for their kids, and watch along with them to make the experience more thoughtful and less passive.

""Depending on the age, they may not understand what's going on in the media, so it's good to ask questions like what do you think is going on, or how do you think that character felt,"" she said.

Parents also should limit media use in the house, setting aside mealtimes as screen-free and requiring that kids only use devices in a common area like the living room so they can monitor what's being viewed, Chung added.",-0.25847820969100743
"Dental cavities could significantly increase the risk of a life-threatening stroke from bleeding in the brain, according to new research.

Past studies have shown a link between gum infection and stroke, but few studies have looked into what role dental cavities might play. In the new study, researchers looked specifically at cavities and intracerebral stroke, which occur when an artery in the brain bursts and floods surrounding tissue with blood.

Researchers looked at data from 6,506 people without stroke, and then followed them for 30 years. For the first 15 years, those who developed cavities had a slightly higher risk for stroke from brain bleed, but their risk shot up dramatically in the next 15 years.

In the second half of the study period, people with cavities had 4.5 times higher risk of a stroke from brain bleed than those without cavities, after adjusting for age, gender, race, and high blood pressure.

Dr. Souvik Sen, co-author of the study, said it was one of the first times cavities and intracerebral stroke had been studied in people. While brain bleeds, also called as intracerebral hemorrhages, account for only 10% to 20% of all strokes, they're more deadly than the more common ischemic strokes, which occur when blood flow through an artery is blocked.

While doctors can manage the risk for ischemic stroke in several ways, options are limited for brain bleeds, he said.

""This study throws more light on how we can address and prevent this more devastating form of stroke,"" said Sen, professor and chair of the department of neurology at University of South Carolina School of Medicine.

South Carolina medical student Elizabeth LaValley presented the research this week at the American Stroke Association's virtual International Stroke Conference. It was one of two studies Sen and his colleagues offered for the conference on the topic of oral disease and stroke. The second study showed gum disease is associated with damage to the brain's tiny blood vessels. Study findings are considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Sen said gum disease can be caused by 20 to 30 different types of bacteria, but cavities are predominantly caused by one: Streptococcus mutans, which has been shown in animal studies to be linked with brain bleeds.

While Streptococcus mutans was the most likely ""culprit"" in the study's results, Sen said, a limitation of the research is that it didn't pinpoint the type of bacteria responsible for the dental cavities. He's currently researching that question in another study, and he'd like to see future work done on whether antibiotics or other treatments for dental cavities that may lower the risk of intracerebral stroke.

Today, the only real preventive strategy for cavities is to seek dental care regularly, Sen said. ""Maybe we need to start thinking about how we can treat people with Streptococcus mutans aggressively in the early stages.""

Dr. Robert P. Friedland, who has researched the link between oral bacteria and stroke, said the new study underscores the need for medical professionals to take the topic seriously.

""I've been disturbed that many stroke doctors don't counsel patients about it. It's just not something in their toolbox,"" said Friedland, the Mason C. and Mary D. Rudd Endowed Chair and a professor of neurology at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. He was not involved in the current research.

""I discuss it with every patient I see, regardless of what they're seeing me for,"" he said. ""I tell them 'Take care of your teeth: It's important for the health of your teeth, but more so, it's good for the health of your brain and your heart.'""",0.1832901832719302
"For people hoping to prevent the heart rhythm disorder known as ""a-fib,"" new research shows that taking vitamin D or fish oil supplements won't help.

A-fib, also known as atrial fibrillation, affects more than 33 million people worldwide and is the most common type of abnormal heart rhythm. It can cause symptoms that affect a person's quality of life, result in blood clots that can cause a stroke, and also lead to heart failure.

For the study, the researchers examined whether taking vitamin D supplements or omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil might affect different kinds of a-fib, and whether some patients would be more likely to benefit or be harmed by the supplements.

Overall, the results were mostly consistent across the different types of a-fib and patient groups, according to lead author Dr. Christine Albert and colleagues. Albert is chair of the cardiology department at Smidt Heart Institute in Los Angeles.

The study, published March 16 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, follows a presentation by Albert at an American Heart Association conference last year.

""Our recommendation remains the same,"" she said in a JAMA Network news release. ""We do not support taking fish oil or vitamin D supplements to prevent atrial fibrillation.""

However, ""unlike other recent trials that found increased risks of atrial fibrillation with higher-dose omega-3 fatty acid supplements, our study did not find a significantly increased risk of atrial fibrillation with one gram of fish oil per day, which is good news for individuals taking low-dose fish oil for other health conditions,"" Albert said.

Her team also found that vitamin D supplements at 2,000 international units per day did not increase a-fib risk.",0.1777393083746359
"Facebook and other social media are censoring not only politically controversial speech ; they are also censoring cartoons, jokes, irony and other forms of humor.

This is not because the people who run the social media necessarily lack a sense of humor or irony, but because they have delegated the role of sensor to robots: algorithms, computer software, and other forms of non-human decision-making.

It turns out, however, that these robot’s, brilliant as they are at playing chess and identifying potential terrorists, can’t tell the difference between advocacy of violence and mocking such advocacy.

Nor can they tell the difference between hate speech and humorous ethnic jokes that employ benign stereotypes (as almost all ethnic humor does).

Although the humans who program the robots eventually permitted some of the cartoons to go on line, by the time they did so, the contemporaneous impact was lost.

With censorship as with humor, timing is everything.

Employing robots to censor is a natural extension of human censorship.

So much content passes through social media every minute that human censorship is nearly impossible as a first line defense against prohibited speech.

Nor is it likely that robots will soon be programmed so as to be able to identify humor, irony and benign stereotyping.

More likely robots will be given more and more censorial tasks by social media platforms.

Facebook recently censored several political cartoons based on the inability of their robots to distinguish satire from offensive speech. Other social media platforms are doing the same.

The New York Times featured this new censorship under the headline: ""For political cartoonists, the irony was that Facebook didn’t recognize irony.""

The story included several of the censored cartoons and jokes which seemed inoffensive to reasonable humans but that apparently set off alarms among the entirely non-reasonable (or non-reasoning) non-human censors.

The other side of the coin is that some really offensive and/or dangerous material evades robot censors, because humans have figured out how the algorithms work and how to circumvent their censorship.

So the end result is that robots both over censor and under censor.

In the terms used by scientists, they produce both false positives and false negatives.

That would be true of human censors as well as robots, but human censors are less likely to mistake humor for deliberately hateful or otherwise dangerous speech.

They are also less likely to be circumvented by clever human attempts to use euphemism or circumlocution to fool the censor.

The problem with humans is that we are too damn slow and to limited in our captivity to monitor billions of messages.

So we are stuck with robots as the first line censors. The one thing we can teach them is to err on the side of free speech and against censorship.

We can program them to accept the principle of ""when in doubt, let it out.""

We should also ""program"" human censors — in universities, corporations, media and life — to err against censorship.

It's not only robots that lack a sense of humor.

Extremists of every stripe refuse to laugh at themselves.

At the risk of offending, let me repeat an old joke that stereotypes: ""How many radical feminists does it take to change a light bulb?""

The answer: ""That’s not funny."" Actually it is funny, and insightful. And yes it stereotypes.

That stereotype reminds me of a class I taught in which I mentioned that in Canada, affirmative action applied only to ""visible minorities.""

A student asked whether Jews were a visible minority?

I replied, ""No. We are an audible minority.""

A number of students took offense at my stereotyping Jews, but most laughed at what they regarded as self-deprecating humor.

Many standup comedians refuse these days to perform on university campuses, for fear of being accused of sexism, racism, homophobia and other sins.

And this is without robot censors.

The sad truth is that the robots with no sense of humor are probably censoring less than humans who drown their sense of humor in a sea of zealotry.

Follow Alan Dershowitz on Twitter: @AlanDersh

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Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of ""Guilt by Accusation"" and ""The Case Against the Democratic House Impeaching Trump."" Read Alan Dershowitz's Reports — More Here.",-1.6162420797347596
"As a life-long Texan who recently endured uncommon hazardous road conditions due to snow and ice, let me share with you some sage advice I've gained about the rules of the road in winter:

Don’t panic, don’t overcorrect.

Seems rather simple, right, but the reality is that while most will hear or have heard those words, too many do not apply them when in the heat of the moment, often resulting in peril.

To that end, let’s recognize that good advice in one situation can often be applied in others.

Much like when driving on icy roads, don’t panic and don’t overcorrect is also a good rule of thumb when hazardous economic conditions are afoot.

Slamming on the brakes or excessive acceleration are the exact opposite of what should be applied to the markets.

Yet panic selling, FOMO buying, and pulling out all the stops on stimulus seems to be what is called for when the reality it is over-reaction.

This leads us to an uncomfortable truth about the last year (pre-pandemic): we were due for a market correction.

The economy was booming, but there were several IPO’s and bubbles that were getting ready to pop (looking at you, rental prices in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, etc), but thanks to policies put forth by the Trump administration, as the rest of the world was beginning to see an economic pullback, the U.S. had was in ""extra innings"" of the ongoing bull market.

Growing up, we all learned that what goes up, must come down.

The same can be said from time-to-time about the market.

In a free-market system, various parts of the market must be free to go up, but it also needs to be free to go down. That part is never fun (at least for those within the ""bearish"" sectors), but it’s the truth — and it’s necessary.

For there to be winners, there must be losers.

Politicians, however, really don’t like that — especially if they are the ones in power.

No Democrat or Republican wants to be at the helm during a correction, instead, they want to take the credit on the ride up.

These are our enablers, our drug dealers so to speak, who want us to buy, buy, buy, and not to worry about what keeping those positive ""highs"" and never ""lows"" and stimulus has become their drug of choice.

The U.S. economy is dangerously close to becoming addicted to a stimulus (if we are not there already).

In the same way that drugs, alcohol, or other dependencies eventually yield their devastating impact, the cost of stimulus addiction could be catastrophic.

The American national debt is now approaching $30 trillion; visualized differently, to be paid off, every single American adult would have to pay nearly $225,000 to buy us back out.

While economists argue (don’t they always?) on the degree of inflation, they generally agree that it is coming.

Your dollar will be worthless, your cost of goods will be increased, your rent, your mortgage, your car payments, gasoline, even milk, and eggs all will all go up in cost.

Inflation reduces buying power and can have a dire impact on jobs, effectively yielding less economic access for the average American.

As if this trajectory weren’t bad enough, it is coming on the heels of the most disturbing engagement by the state displayed in their lockdowns this past year. In plain terms, they manipulated the markets, massively.

Not stocks, per se, but entire industries were shut down while others weren’t.

In a seemingly intentional fashion, small businesses were targeted while large corporations like Amazon, Target, and Walmart were able to gain market share and reach record profits.

This will have a detrimental impact on the long-term economy, and when economic growth is slowed due to a market correction and bad economic policy at the same time as inflation, that’s when we see stagflation, and that’s when things get really bad.

Going back to the snow theme from earlier, America only has so much gasoline saved up to run the generators, but our elected leaders seem to want to use it all now rather than saving stimulus for the long nights and the possible cold days ahead. “We can’t let the economy go down, not during a pandemic!” is the sentiment, but never letting the economy correct is not a long-term option, there is always a reason why now isn’t a good time.

Corrections occur to adjust for extenuating circumstances; we are living in those circumstances. Compounding the recklessness would be passing the infrastructure plan, being discussed by Buttigieg and Biden as it is ridiculously timed.

We need to let the economy dip and stabilize on its own before unveiling multi-trillion-dollar building projects.

This leads us back to the core of the problem: the politician; always striving for re-election, regardless of the consequences.

The Biden administration is looking to spend it to an early grave trying, to bump their numbers as we approach the 2022 senatorial and congressional races.

I understand that politicians on either side of the aisle will often do whatever they can to gain an edge, but America is suffering for it.

The interest on the federal debt in 2020 was 378 billion dollars meaning roughly 8% of spending was used simply to cover the interest on our spending!

Ridiculous.

America enjoys low-interest rates because the world relies on the dollar, and essentially, they know we’re good for it. Mostly.

Under the Obama administration, however, we saw our credit rating reduced and with our reckless spending, we’re likely headed there again.

This abuse will ruin our credibility, and with that, our credit. We do not want to create an opportunity for a country like China to step in and utilize their currency as the global standard.

In the end, the way out of addiction is usually detox or death — let’s hope America does not go the latter route.

We must be however independent again, free of liability and insurmountable debt.

We must allow the free market to be free, and we must save stimulus for when it is most desperately needed, not when convenient for buying elections and voters with ""free"" money.

Seth Denson is a Business & Market Analyst, Author and Entrepreneur. He co-founded one of the nation's most successful consulting firms and authored the best-selling book, ""The Cure: A Blueprint for Solving America's Healthcare Crisis,"" which takes a deep dive into the business structure of our U.S. health care system and how we can reform it while maintaining our free market. As a regular on-camera contributor, Seth has garnered a national presence discussing a range of topics including business and economics, politics, faith and fatherhood. Originally from West Texas but with international business experience, Seth's ""no-bull"" approach blends metropolitan thinking with good old-fashioned Texas straight talk. Read Seth Denson's Reports —​ More Here.",1.3273155630376974
"The following column originally aired on ""The Michael Savage Show"" podcast, available for download on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever podcasts are heard.

Reparations? I've been paying them all my life through affirmative action, through high taxation, through the cost of policing and prisons. Now, let me be clear. I'm an immigrant’s son. I have never taken a nickel from a slave. My family has never profited from slavery. Black people did not build anything that my family profited from ever, despite what the leftist vermin want to want you to believe. They’re telling you we all benefited from it?

Now let's look into this reparations lie. There are some rich white families who have profited from slavery and if people have grievances, that's who they should go to. There are corporations who may have initially profited from slavery. That's who they should go to. The King of Spain profited greatly from slavery. The Arabian Kings profited greatly from slavery. Let them go to the King of Spain, and the Arabian Princes, and take the money from them. Good luck.

But I, as an American, an immigrant’s son, never kept a slave, never benefited from slavery. We worked our behinds off. Now, one of the biggest lies ever promulgated by the Black Revisionist historians is the reparation lie. It is an absolute lie to say that black slavery built America. Well, that's like saying the Chinese who were conscripted to build a railroad, built California. Well, they didn't build California, they built the railroad tracks. Moreover, you never hear the Chinese screaming for reparations. When have you last heard the Chinese screaming that someone owes them something?

If it is true that their antecedents were virtual slaves, building the railroads in California, how is it that the Chinese of today have done so well in America? Two generations later, you don't hear them screaming that anybody owes them anything. They decided to make it on their own through hard work and brains.

I could say I am owed reparations for what I have paid. I encourage you to fight back. I have had jobs stolen from me as a result of affirmative action where unqualified minorities were given positions I was more qualified for.

The balance sheet is not complete. I am owed money. I don't owe anybody anything. I am an immigrant's son. How about your children not being given scholarships, but instead being given to minorities who did not score as high as they did? Think about it. Stand up to the left wing and fight back. Do you think it can’t happen under Biden? Look around. It is happening.

Until we stop the reparations rackateers, we will be reliving the nightmare so many populations have lived before us. All promised a utopia free from the oppression of capitalism and the nuclear family. We have seen this arc, beginning with the French Revolution to the American leftist revolution. It has morphed from climate hysteria to racial hysteria. In order to defeat them we must fight their ideas.

A National Radio Hall of Fame recipient, Savage has hosted his radio show for more than 25 years and launched The Savage Nation Podcast in January of 2019 with one of the most successful podcast debuts. A prolific New York Times best-selling author, Dr. Savage’s latest book is ""Our Fight for America: The War Continues."" To read more of his reports — Click Here Now.

© SAVAGE ENTERPRISES,LLC, 2021 All Rights Reserved.",0.0969129229591046
"""All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force."" — George Orwell (1903-1950)

Can you imagine the sheer gall, the arrogance and hubris a president would have to have to tell free Americans that there's ""a good chance"" they might be able to gather on our Independence Day if we obey all his unconstitutional orders?

Let me respond here and now for all Americans who remain free inside their mind and body: NO, hell no, Joe.

It's high time that Americans should not only be ignoring our meagre president but pushing back on him hard.

We all knew this unintelligible statesman would be insufferable if he managed to get into office, but this is excruciating. He can't speak in full sentences without hemming and hawing, mistakes of grammar, syntax and general diction, yet he expects us to follow his lead on this virus. It's clear somebody else is running our country.

Americans are already getting back to their lives, businesses, careers and families by completely ignoring bone-headed bureaucrats and ""experts"" with their politically-motivated garbage.

""Follow the science"" they constantly preach to us. This, from the people who think a baby is a ""clump of cells""; that the Earth will be destroyed by weather in 12 years or five years, or whatever; that we are descended from the dinosaurs, amoebas and apes; they even think they know how old the universe is. Where is the observable evidence for any of this?

Well, the Science is in.

Mask directives and brutal, Blue-state lockdowns don't work according to factual scientific reports from around the world.

All over America, people are snubbing the absurd government demands and living free again … breathing free.

In my visits to gyms and supermarkets recently, I've seen many people lowering their masks once they're inside and the staff doesn't have the gumption or desire anymore to hassle customers. This is the backlash of small businesses who once cooperated to get along, but quickly saw they were being driven out of business by corrupt officials.

Meanwhile, most rational and awake people have long been scrutinizing that people three inches from each other on airplanes have their masks down while eating, and there have been ZERO reported ""super-spreader"" flights and restaurants are producing the same lack of transmissions.

These scientific-data facts mean people have had enough. Add to this toxic mess: the rising of The People; that numerous government officials have been caught red-handed on video violating their own rules and you have the makings of a real revolution.

Closing schools, churches, small businesses of all kinds, restaurants, fitness centers and quashing medical procedures such as cancer treatments, transplants and even check-ups have proven the stupidest government diktats ever and cost many lives.

Americans still have our God-given free will. No executive order will ever take that away from us.

There've been seedlings of our exercising our freedoms for months now. People wearing masks less and frequently not at all as demanded by our runaway, Leftist government while businesses with employees are refusing to belabor the point.

The time has come to seize back our lives and families during holidays.

Who's with me?

""Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive."" — C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

(This is a story I've written. We all have our stories. If you'd like to share yours with me or you would like my prayers, I'd love hearing from you. My email is Bill@RelentlessMarketing.com)

Bill Robinson has appeared on Fox News, CNN, PBS, Bloomberg, BBC and had his own segment on SKY News. For seven years was the only Conservative columnist for the insufferably Liberal Huffington Post. Bill may be reached at: bill@relentlessmarketing.com Read Bill Robinson's reports — More Here.",1.2004355184360773
"The man who has been accused of killing Nicki Minaj's father in a hit-and-run is being sued for $150 million.

A lawsuit was filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York on Friday against Charles Polevich, 70, who has been charged with leaving the scene of an accident and tampering with evidence for the car crash that killed Robert Maraj last month. Ben Crump Law announced the news on Twitter.

""Charles Polevich was not only irresponsible and negligent in hitting Robert Maraj, but he was more concerned about running away and hiding than seeking help for the man he injured,"" the post read. ""Polevich's behavior was criminal, cowardly, and immoral. Through the filing of this lawsuit we intend to hold him responsible for his reckless actions and achieve justice for the victim's widow.""

In a statement to the outlet, Polevich's attorney, Marc C. Gann, said that the civil suit was not unexpected but the pending criminal charges had no bearing on the civil case.

""It has yet to be determined whether there was any negligence involved in the accident or the degrees of any negligence,"" he said. ""I will add that the amount demanded is shocking to say the least and I don’t believe is in any way reasonable.""

Maraj was struck by the car on Feb. 12. He was rushed to a nearby hospital in critical condition and pronounced dead the following day.

According to police, Polevich stopped his vehicle after hitting Maraj and got out to check on him. He reportedly asked if Minaj's father was all right before getting back into his vehicle and fleeing the scene. He went home and allegedly tried to hide the car with a tarp.

""He was absolutely aware of what happened,"" Nassau County Police Detective Lt. Stephen Fitzpatrick said at the time, per Entertainment Tonight. ""He got out of the car and he looked at the deceased, got into his car, and made the conscious decision to leave instead of dialling 911, instead of calling an ambulance for the man. He went home and secluded the vehicle. He’s well aware of what he did.""",0.023336604014053238
"Britain’s Prince Harry has written the foreword for a new book aimed at the children of frontline workers who died in the COVID-19 pandemic, sharing the pain he suffered as a boy after the death of his mother, Princess Diana.

Harry wrote that losing his mother at age 12 left “a huge hole inside of me,” according to excerpts of the book printed in the Times of London. Diana died in a Paris car accident in August 1997.

“Hospital by the Hill,’’ by Chris Connaughton, is the story of a young person whose mother worked at a hospital and died during the pandemic. It is being given to children who have experienced similar losses.

“While I wish I was able to hug you right now, I hope this story is able to provide you comfort in knowing that you’re not alone,” Harry wrote in the foreword. “When I was a young boy I lost my mum. At the time, I didn’t want to believe it or accept it, and it left a huge hole inside of me. I know how you feel, and I want to assure you that over time that hole will be filled with so much love and support.”

Harry has on several occasions reflected on the enduring pain he experienced from his mother’s sudden death. He has made mental health awareness a key part of his charitable work.

“We all cope with loss in a different way, but when a parent goes to heaven, I was told their spirit, their love and the memories of them do not,” Harry wrote. “They are always with you, and you can hold on to them forever. I find this to be true.”",0.05293983186945738
"Queen Elizabeth is deeply saddened by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey, but reportedly harbors no anger toward them.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex caused a stir after their sitdown with Winfrey, which included discussions about the color of their son’s skin, losing royal protection, and the intense pressures that led Markle to contemplate suicide. The revelations shook the royal family but despite the drama, sources told The Sun that the Queen was not furious.

""She is not angry, she is just sad,"" the insider said. ""They have always worried about him (Harry) and the Queen feels very protective about him. They always tried to support him when Meghan came along. They all worried less about him when Meghan was on the scene as he seemed so happy.""

In a statement released last week, the Queen said Harry, Markle, and their son, Archie, ""will always be much loved family members."" She further stated that, although ""some recollections may vary,"" the claims would ""be addressed by the family privately,"" according to People.

It is unclear whether there will be an investigation into the allegations made by Markle and Harry, but Buckingham Palace has reportedly hired an outside law firm to look into a British media report that cited former palace staff members accusing Markle of bullying, CNN reported.

""Our commitment to look into the circumstances around allegations from former staff of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex is being taken forward, but we will not be providing a public commentary on it,"" a spokesman for Buckingham Palace said on Monday.

A spokesperson for the royal couple slammed the bullying claims.

""Let's just call this what it is — a calculated smear campaign based on misleading and harmful misinformation,"" the Sussexes' spokesperson said. ""We are disappointed to see this defamatory portrayal of The Duchess of Sussex given credibility by a media outlet.""",0.9037497537169215
"President Joe Biden has explained the ""dog biting incident"" involving first dog Major and a member of White House security.

The incident took place earlier this month and, as a result, Major, 3, and Biden's second German Shepherd, Champ, who is about 13 years old, were sent back to the Biden family home in Wilmington, Delaware.

At the time, CNN reported that Major, who was adopted in November 2018 at a Delaware animal shelter, was known to show agitated behavior, which included jumping, barking, and ""charging"" at staff and security. But in an interview with Good Morning America, Biden said Major was ""a sweet dog"" who was simply startled by his new environment.

""Major did not bite someone and penetrate the skin,"" he clarified, adding that the dog was likely shaken up because there was so much security at the White House.

""You turn a corner, and there's two people you don't know at all,"" Biden continued. ""And he moves to protect. But he's a sweet dog. Eighty-five percent of the people there love him. He just — all he does is lick them and wag his tail.""

Major is now ""being trained"" in Delaware and will be returning to the White House soon. Biden explained that Major was sent home because first lady Jill Biden was out of town.

""He was going home. I didn't banish him to home,"" Biden said. ""Jill was gonna be away for four days. I was gonna be away for two so we took him home.""",-0.3130512969600353
"The economy is in a ""strong recovery"" from the pandemic shutdown, but the Biden administration wants to throw a ""wet blanket"" on a hot economy with proposed tax hikes, says former Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore.

""You have to go back to the '70s to remember when tax rates would be as high as they'd be under the Biden plan,"" Moore said Sunday during an appearance on ""The Cats Roundtable"" on WABC 770 AM-N.Y.

""We're talking about higher taxes on capital gains income. We’re talking about higher small business taxes. We're talking about our corporate rate going up to one of the highest rates in the world. There is also an increase in the death tax. There is talk of a wealth tax.

""I think this is throwing a wet blanket on a hot economy.""

Moore told host John Catsimatidis that locked down blue states like New York and industries like movie theaters and cruise lines are ready to get rolling again.

""If we want to get this economy booming again why would we be talking about $1 trillion or $2 trillion of higher taxes?"" Moore lamented.

Despite the threat of rising interest rates and massive spending after President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion spending package that passed earlier this month, Moore hailed the ""strong recovery"" the economic signs are pointing to.

""This is the worst possible time to be raising taxes on American businesses and investors and consumers; we need to let the economy grow,"" Moore said.

Democrats are taking about coming after the wealthy, but supply-side economics of the Trump administration has managed to help the U.S. economy boom before the pandemic.

Also, Moore said, the tax-hike sales pitch is pulling the wool over Americans' eyes. The tax hikes will ultimately trickle down to everyone.

""When they say we're only going to soak the rich, my line is, 'Everybody get an umbrella because they're coming after you, too,'"" Moore concluded.",0.7377302368764388
"The Federal Reserve says it will restore capital requirements for large banks that were relaxed as part of the Fed’s efforts to shore up the financial system during the early days of the pandemic.

The Fed said it will not extend the relief from what is called the supplementary leverage ratio past March 31. The easing of the regulation had been intended to give banks flexibility in what assets they could hold to meet regulatory' requirements during the turmoil of the pandemic, when banks were having to suddenly write down billions of dollars of loans.

The banking industry had lobbied for an extension of the relief but on Thursday the Fed said that since the requirements were relaxed last year “the Treasury market has stabilized.”

Shares of the large Wall Street banks fell in early trading, with JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo down around 3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 263 points, or 0.8%. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.74% from 1.70%

The supplementary leverage ratio requires large banks to hold capital equal to about 3% of their assets. The required ratio is higher — 5% — for banks that are deemed most important to the overall financial system The rule was adopted as part of regulatory reforms after the 2007-2008 global financial crisis and recession. The idea was to ensure that banks kept enough capital on hand to survive market meltdowns.

Yet the rule has also been blamed for magnifying the turmoil that erupted in the financial markets a year ago when the pandemic first hit hard. Banks, foreign central banks and hedge funds, among others, had desperately sought to dump Treasurys and other bonds to raise cash. Treasury yields spiked in response. To calm the lending markets, the Fed stepped in to buy hundreds of billions of dollars of Treasurys on its own.

The financial industry argues that the rule discourages banks from holding Treasurys because doing so increases their assets and reduces their supplementary leverage ratio. This undermines their ability to act as intermediaries in the Treasury market and facilitate trading, banks assert.

Another issue is that the Fed's Treasury purchases have flooded the banking system with cash reserves. These reserves lower a bank's SLR by increasing its assets. Total bank reserves now stand at nearly $3.5 trillion, up from roughly $1.5 trillion before the pandemic.

Treasurys are considered low risk and cash reserves are regarded as risk-free. But the SLR, unlike other bank capital requirements, doesn't take risk into account.

A year ago the Fed temporarily exempted Treasury securities and cash reserves from the SLR calculation. That exemption is set to expire March 31. Bank lobbyists argue that without an extension of the exemption, large banks will be less likely to hold Treasury securities.

If that were to happen, interest rates could rise, making loans more expensive. The yield on the 10-year Treasury serves as a benchmark for mortgage rates and other borrowing costs. Banks also say that ending the exemption will discourage them from making loans, which would reduce their capital.

But some high-profile Democrats in Congress oppose continuing the exemption, thus heightening the pressures the Fed is facing. Earlier this month, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, urged Fed Chair Jerome Powell and other top banking regulators to reject the banks' push for an extension.

“The banks' requests for an extension of this relief appear to be an attempt to use the pandemic as an excuse to weaken one of the most important post-crisis regulatory reforms,” the senators wrote.

If banks worry about running short of capital, Warren and Brown said, they could bolster their balance sheets by suspending dividend payouts.

“We are also confident that the thousands of community banks that are not subject to the SLR requirements would be happy to accept deposits that large banks may reject,” they said.",-0.47125544916998996
"Many economists and much of the public are beginning to worry about the massive increase in the money supply and the massive increase in deficit spending. With a public debt approaching $30 trillion and a money supply that has increased by 25% in the last two years, the worry seems justified. However, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) says we have nothing to worry about.

MMT says that since the US uses a currency that is not backed by anything other than faith in the government, more money can always be printed to pay off the debt. And the increase in the money supply will not necessarily lead to inflation.

Deficit spending has been a normal occurrence since the early 1960s. In fact, in the last 58 years, the federal government has had 54 years of deficit spending. The only exceptions happened from 1997 to 2000, when President Clinton reduced the capital gains tax rate from 28% to 20%.

That rate reduction triggered an investment boom which led to increased revenue from capital gains taxes and a rapid 4 ½% annual GDP growth rate during each of those four years. Because Clinton declared in his 1996 State of the Union speech that, “The era of big government is over” he was able to have budget surpluses.

Beginning in 2009, annual deficits got very large, topping $1 trillion. In 2020, the deficit got very, very large topping $3 trillion. In 2021 it is likely to go even higher. Is the $30 trillion public debt a problem?

Most economists would say it is. There are two problems associated with the huge public debt. The first is that the annual interest expense is approaching $400 billion, which is money that can’t be used for more productive purposes. The second is the potential for a capital shortage since there will be trillions of dollars taken from capital markets by government.

Worse yet, President Biden wants to raise taxes on corporations and high-income earners, where most of the new capital is generated. That will contribute to the capital shortage.

Actually, not all of the $30 trillion will be removed from capital markets, since the Federal Reserve (Fed) will have printed about $6 trillion more dollars to purchase some of the government bonds. Still, that means $24 trillion is pulled and the money supply will have increased rapidly.

Does a rapid growth in the money supply lead to inflation?

Most economists would say yes, citing the numerous historical examples. In 1981, Milton Friedman and others convinced policy makers that it was the increase in the money supply that led to the double-digit inflation of the 1970s. So, reducing the rate of growth of the money supply would reduce inflation.

Friedman’s views were implemented. Inflation dropped dramatically and has been relatively low ever since.

Most economists today are extremely concerned about future inflation. In addition to the rapid growth in the money supply, Biden’s war on fossil fuels has already driven up the cost of energy. Prices will go much higher as the coming high economic growth will fuel a large increase in demand for energy.

At the same time Biden is restricting the supply by halting drilling on federal land and by cancelling the Keystone Pipeline. Not only will that drive up energy prices, but the supply reduction will make the US dependent on not-so-nice countries.

Then there is a concern that a capital shortage will mean business may not be able to respond to the growing economy by increasing output. That means the only other response is to raise the price.

MMT says the large increase in the money supply is not a problem The money supply can increase as much as policy makers feel is needed whether that money is used to finance government spending or whether it is used to simply increase the supply of money to the public.

They say that similar monetary and fiscal policy actions were taken during the past decade and no inflation followed. They say that the most recent data indicates that increases in the money supply will not lead to inflation.

Here is why they are wrong.

When the Fed takes action, which increases the money supply, the initial increase is eventually deposited into banks, which end up lending most of those funds. That creates a multiplying effect to further increase the money supply. As long as banks can make loans, the Fed’s initial increase can finally increase the money supply many times over.

The large final increase in the money supply should be inflationary. That wasn’t the case 10 years ago. From 2010 to 2018, the Dodd-Frank bill placed severe restrictions on bank lending, which reduced the multiplying effect. That could be the reason there was no inflationary impact.

But parts of Dodd Frank were repealed in 2018, so now there should be a greater multiplying effect, likely contributing to inflation.

Rising energy prices, a rapid growth in the money supply, huge government budget deficits and a potential capital shortage all point to a future inflation problem.

Those who support MMT have reached conclusions that are simply not accurate. Continuing to print money and continuing to deficit-spend do have consequences. The first consequence is rapidly rising prices. I am afraid that is coming.

Dr. Michael Busler, Ph.D., is a public policy analyst and a professor of finance at Stockton University in Galloway, New Jersey, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in finance and economics. He has written op-ed columns in major newspapers for more than 35 years.",0.7670736472239805
"Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, recounting his fears a little over a year ago that the pandemic would exact a ""grave"" cost, said Friday in a Wall Street Journal article the U.S. would pull out of the crisis ""stronger and better, as we have done so often before.""

""Recovery is far from complete,"" Powell wrote, repeating that the Fed ""will continue to provide the economy with the support that it needs for as long as it takes.""",0.1592079571373524
"(Bloomberg) -- Denis Sverdlov, a former Russian deputy minister, was already a wealthy man from a telecom startup when he turned his attention to electric vehicles and founded Arrival Ltd. in 2015.

Four years later, he’d injected about $450 million in the truck and bus maker through an investment firm. Then in November, he merged it with CIIG Merger Corp., a Special Purpose Acquisition Corp. -- or SPAC -- led by Peter Cuneo, the former chief executive officer of Marvel Entertainment.

Arrival, which has yet to begin full production, is now worth $15.3 billion, more than double its valuation at the start of last year. Sverdlov, 42, who’ll control most of the London-based company’s stock once the deal is completed, will soon have a net worth of $11.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

An Arrival spokesperson declined to comment on Sverdlov’s wealth. CIIG shareholders are scheduled to vote on the merger Friday.

SPACs -- listed cash-shell companies that merge with private businesses in order to take them public -- have raked in about $85 billion this year. Athletes and entertainers like Alex Rodriguez, Shaquille O’Neal and Sammy Hagar have started blank-check firms, along with a host of the ultra-rich, including hedge fund manager William Ackman and former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. President Gary Cohn.

Read more: SPAC IPOs Hit Record in January, as Blank-Check Boom Accelerates

Arrival isn’t the only firm seeing huge gains from SPACs. Air taxi start up Archer Aviation’s valuation rocketed from $16 million in April 2020 to $3.8 billion through a merger announced last month with a blank-check firm. The implied valuation of electric-vehicle maker Lucid Motors Inc., which recently agreed to combine with a SPAC led by ex-Citigroup Inc. banker Michael Klein, exceeded $55 billion after the deal was announced, more than Ford Motor Co.’s market value.

“SPACs are a bonanza for those arranging them,” said Keith Johnston, chief executive officer of SFO Alliance, a London-based investment club for single-family offices.

U.S. listings have dominated the SPAC boom, but Europe’s stock exchanges are now playing catch up. The phenomenon, though, is starting to show cracks. The IPOX SPAC Index -- which tracks the performance of a broad group of blank-check companies -- has fallen almost 20% from a February high. Many see the proliferation of such firms as an outgrowth of central banks flooding economies with new money during the pandemic.

Some recent SPAC mergers have met a tepid response from investors. Cerberus Telecom Acquisition Corp. and Motion Acquisition Corp. were both trading below the traditional SPAC IPO price of $10 after announcing mergers last week.

Arrival’s valuation stems partly from the giddy assessments of electric-vehicle makers in the past year, though rising bond yields in recent weeks have weighed on the industry.

CIIG shares have fallen by more than a fifth since hitting a record high in December. Until the firms’ announced merger, Sverdlov had mostly funded the venture himself.

Arrival, which plans to begin testing some of its vehicles on public roads this year, has said it can avoid the financial pitfalls that most vehicle makers encounter by building tiny factories that cost a fraction of those constructed by large, commercial carmakers. The start up intends to have 31 plants by 2024, and hopes to begin generating a profit even earlier.

“There are more than 560 cities in the world which have a population of over 1 million people, and each of these cities could have a microfactory producing 10,000 vehicles specifically tailored for the needs of that market,” Sverdlov said recently. “This model can be as scalable as McDonald’s or Starbucks.”

(Updates with performance of other SPACs in ninth paragraph.)

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.",-0.3716349286119097
"Inspired by the high-profile campaign to unionize an Amazon.com Inc. fulfillment center in Alabama, workers in Baltimore, New Orleans, Portland, Denver, and Southern California have begun exploring ways to form unions at their own Amazon facilities. The Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union, which is leading the drive in Bessemer, Alabama, says it has heard from 1,000 Amazon workers around the country.

These efforts are nascent and may fade, but labor experts say they could presage a multi-front campaign to improve working conditions at the world’s largest e-commerce company even if the RWDSU loses in Bessemer, where the vote to unionize ends March 29. “There are strikes and elections that become historical pivot points,” says Kate Bronfenbrenner, the director of labor education research at Cornell University. “This is one of them.”

As the RWDSU focuses on Alabama, the Teamsters are taking the battle beyond Amazon’s warehouses and into its delivery operations, where drivers earn about half as much as some of their unionized counterparts. Even the construction unions, which help build Amazon facilities and have an uneasy truce with the company, are starting to find common cause with warehouse workers over workplace safety.

Union leaders also point to a favorable political climate. President Joe Biden recently backed the Alabama workers’ right to unionize, and on Wednesday a Bessemer worker activist testified before a Senate hearing on wealth inequality that Jeff Bezos — chief executive officer and the world’s wealthiest man — declined to attend.

On the other hand, Amazon has spent the last quarter-century stamping out labor activism before it could spread and constrain the company’s ability to deliver packages quickly and cheaply. Amazon is waging a fierce information war against the RWDSU in Bessemer and can be expected to do the same at other facilities if the activism takes root. In interviews, workers who support at least talking with the unions acknowledge that they fear retribution and are struggling to persuade those colleagues who believe the wages and benefits are fair.

An Amazon spokeswoman declined to comment on the potential spread of labor activism to other facilities.

During the pandemic, working conditions became Topic A in internet chat rooms where Amazon employees around the U.S. congregate. More recently the conversation has turned to the union drive in Bessemer. A warehouse worker in Portland, Oregon, last month argued with a colleague online about the pros and cons of joining a union. The conversation began when a worker posted a screenshot of a manager’s text challenging a team to a race. The fastest worker would win a $25 gift card.

To many workers on the thread, the text was a reminder of how managers pit them against each other with the chance of a small reward rather than investing in better wages to motivate the entire team. Shortly after debating another colleague about pay, the Portland worker received a private message encouraging him to “channel his discontent” into forming a union, along with contact information for a labor organizer. He followed up and has been discussing the idea with a small group of colleagues.

“I feel as though helping create a union at Amazon is something I could be meant for,” says the worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid angering his managers. “Without collective bargaining, nobody on this planet wins except for billionaires with lobbyists.”

A warehouse worker in Baltimore says he was inspired by the Bessemer campaign and began scrawling pro-union messages on an employee bulletin board. But the worker says he has received little support from colleagues, has yet to hear back from the RWDSU, and is thinking about contacting a different union. A 28-year-old New Orleans warehouse worker drove five hours to Bessemer last month to support a pro-union rally and says the workers there are creating a blueprint that their colleagues around the country can follow.

“If the most powerful company in the world can be unionized in an anti-union state like Alabama, it gives hope to people in Louisiana, in Mississippi, in West Virginia who are trying to do the same thing,” he says. “We just have to support the fight wherever it’s at because the fight is going to come to us.”

Another worker in Denver created an online chat room where workers could discuss organizing that facility but admits to being too scared to do anything further.

Workers say retaliation for organizing is a real threat. An employee in Nashville was fired in retaliation for discussing workplace conditions, and another in Illinois was pulled off of a shift “to discourage employees from engaging” in activism, according to complaints filed in February with the National Labor Relations Board. The Amazon spokeswoman declined to address the allegations that the company retaliated against the two workers.

Also in February, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit alleging Amazon had fired and disciplined two warehouse workers in Staten Island after they voiced safety concerns during the pandemic, violating state whistleblower protections and anti-retaliation laws. Amazon disputed the findings of James’s investigation and called its safety response to the outbreak “industry-leading.”

So far the labor activism is limited for a company of Amazon’s size. A Nevada warehouse worker has been following news about the union drive but says there hasn’t been any breakroom chatter about the vote. A worker in Pennsylvania says colleagues have discussed the extent to which race could be playing a role in Alabama, where most Amazon workers are Black. But she says her fellow employees haven’t considered a similar effort. “People are just trying to work and go home,” she says. “Amazon makes you very tired, drained both physically and mentally, but benefits are good.” The unions, which have targeted Amazon for years, are stepping up the pressure by trying to persuade employees they can in fact do better.

The Teamsters are recruiting Amazon delivery drivers around the country but acknowledge the company’s health benefits and a $15-an-hour starting wage make their pitch difficult. It doesn’t help that Amazon contrasts its employment package with part-time retail jobs rather than union warehouse and trucking jobs that pay much more. The Teamsters are trying to change the conversation by talking about how Amazon is eroding wages and benefits for what have long been middle-class careers.

“The message we’re hoping will resonate is, ‘You can't treat people like this in this industry,’” says Randy Korgan, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 1932 in San Bernardino where the union has been busy doing outreach with Amazon workers. “If Amazon was paying such a good wage, people wouldn’t be moving on and going to the next job. They’re just burning through the workforce and they're going to continue to burn through the workforce.”

The Teamsters are also trying to drive a wedge between Amazon and the construction unions, which have joined political forces with the company in the past — supporting the aborted plan to build a second headquarters in New York and helping defeat a proposed payroll tax designed to combat Seattle’s homelessness problem.

Now construction unions are getting noisier when Amazon’s developers use non-union contractors on construction projects, which union members say creates safety concerns. A group of iron workers in Southern California walked off an Amazon construction site in February to protest the use of non-union crews. The Merrimack Valley Building Trades Council, which represents 20,000 union workers north of Boston, has raised similar concerns about a proposed Amazon warehouse in Andover. (The Amazon spokeswoman said the company uses an open-bid process and works with union and non-union contractors.)

The Teamsters have been pushing the Merrimack Valley labor council to think beyond its own members and show solidarity with warehouse workers and delivery drivers to demand good wages and a safe workplace, says Chris Brennan, president of the council. Unions in different industries recognize they have to unite on common issues such as safety and wages to have a stronger voice against a powerful foe, he says.

“Taking on a behemoth like Amazon is going to take an army,” Brennan says.

The unions have one thing in common. They’re all losing members even as Amazon’s workforce balloons. The company employed 1.3 million people globally at the end of 2020, up 63% from a year earlier, and is now the second biggest private employer in the U.S. behind Walmart Inc.

Labor activists are hoping that the country’s increasing focus on wealth inequality will help revive a movement that has had few victories at top non-union employers in recent decades.

“People understand this is about something much bigger than Alabama and even much bigger than Amazon,” says Stuart Appelbaum, president of the RWDSU. “It’s really about the future of work and how workers are going to be treated.” He says that even if his union loses the vote in Bessemer, “this campaign will result in an explosion in organizing around the country.”",-0.8069611400984581
"A global semiconductor shortage and a February winter storm have combined to force Ford to build F-150 pickup trucks without some computers.

The company says the pickups will be held at factories for ""a number of weeks,"" then shipped to dealers once computers are available and quality checks are done.

The move is the latest ripple from the global semiconductor shortage, which earlier this week forced Honda and Toyota to announce production cuts at some North American factories. General Motors also has been forced to build pickups without some computers and install them later.

Ford's move is likely to tighten inventory of F-Series pickups, the top-selling vehicles in America. Inventories already are tight due to high demand and production losses due to last year's coronavirus-related factory shutdowns.

Ford also said it will build the Edge SUV without computers and ship them later, and it will cancel some shifts Thursday and Friday at an assembly plant in Louisville, Kentucky, where the Ford Escape SUV is made.

Automakers have said they do not expect the chip shortage to get any better before the third quarter of the year. Ford has said the shortage could cut its pretax earnings by $1 billion to $2.5 billion, even if it makes up for some of the lost production in the second half of the year.

Also Thursday, Nissan announced it would temporarily cancel production at factories in Smyrna, Tennessee; Canton, Mississippi; and in Aguascalientes, Mexico, due to the chip shortage. Some U.S. production lines will be down from Friday through Monday, while others will be idled just for the weekend. Aguascalientes Plant 1 will stop production through Tuesday.

Affected models include the Murano, Rogue, Maxima, Leaf, Altima, NV Vans, Kicks, Versa, and March.

In addition, Volkswagen and Fiat Chrysler (now Stellantis) also say they have been affected by the shortage and forced to delay production of some models in order to keep other factories running.

Industry officials say semiconductor companies diverted production to consumer electronics during the worst of the COVID-19 slowdown in auto sales last spring. Global automakers were forced to close plants to prevent the spread of the virus. When automakers recovered, there were not enough chips as demand for personal electronics boomed.",0.47278850225018765
"The Commerce Department said Wednesday it has served subpoenas on multiple Chinese companies that provide information and communications technology services in the United States to see if they pose a national security risk.

""Beijing has engaged in conduct that blunts our technological edge and threatens our alliances,"" Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in statement.

The subpoenas will gather information to ""allow us to make a determination for possible action that best protects the security of American companies, American workers, and U.S. national security.""

In response, China urged the United States to ""stop overstretching the concept of national security to politicize economic issues,"" foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a news briefing on Thursday, adding that China will take measures to safeguard the rights and interests of Chinese companies.

The U.S. statement did not name any companies. China's Huawei Technologies, and ZTE Corp were targeted by the previous administration of former President Donald Trump for removal from the U.S. telecoms infrastructure.

President Joe Biden's administration said last month it plans to allow a Trump-era rule targeting Chinese technology firms deemed a threat to the United States to go into effect despite objections from U.S. businesses.

The Commerce Department issued an interim final rule in the final days of the Trump administration aimed at addressing information and communications technology supply chain concerns and said it would become effective after a 60-day period of public comment.

Last month, the department said it would continue to accept public comment on the rule until March 22, when it would go into effect. The subpoenas would not have an impact on the interim final rule's timing, a department official said on Wednesday.

The Chamber of Commerce and groups representing major industries raised concerns in a letter to the Commerce Department in January that the interim rule gave the government ""nearly unlimited authority to intervene in virtually any commercial transaction between U.S. companies and their foreign counterparts that involves technology.""

Business Roundtable, a group representing major U.S. chief executives, said earlier the proposal is ""unworkable for U.S. businesses in its current form.""",-0.2425354560520414
"The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) was signed into law by President Biden on March 11, 2021 and seeks to address the pandemic’s impact on the uninsured in the United States.

A significant source of people who are uninsured comes from those who have lost their jobs due to the economic impact of the pandemic. It was estimated that up to 27 million employed Americans are at risk for losing their health insurance during the pandemic. The loss of health insurance is never convenient, however, during a health pandemic it can be risky.

When someone who is covered by an employer plan loses their job, their health insurance options are to accept high-cost COBRA insurance to continue their employer plan, enroll in an ACA plan, or consider other options – including the possibility of becoming uninsured. Health insurance is considered such an important employer benefit that 51% would think twice about switching jobs because of their health insurance.

As a result, the ARPA addresses health insurance for those who lost their employer coverage during the pandemic by covering 100% of the cost of the COBRA coverage.

What Is COBRA?

The Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act (COBRA) gives employees and their family members, in certain circumstances, who were covered by their employer health insurance plan the opportunity to continue to pay the premiums for their health insurance plan for up to 18 months after employment terminates or hours are reduced.

COBRA is typically expensive because the employee is now paying for the entire cost of the health insurance, without any contribution from the employer. In 2020, the average annual premium for employer sponsored health insurance was $7,470 for an individual and $21,342 for a family. As a result, although continuing health insurance is desirable, paying for COBRA can be expensive for someone who is no longer employed.

Stimulus Bill Is Covering the Cost of COBRA

Under the ARPA, the federal government will cover 100% of the cost of the COBRA premium for individuals who have been let go from their jobs since the beginning of the pandemic. The premium subsidy will extend from April 1, 2021 to September 30, 2021.

It Isn’t Too Late

For those who have already lost their job and declined COBRA, they will have another opportunity to sign up and receive their COBRA fully subsidized! This is excellent news for anyone who is uninsured or whose insurance doesn’t meet their needs.

It is important to know that under the ARPA, COBRA will cover claims for the period of COBRA coverage from April 1 to September 30. For example, if your COBRA begins on April 1, any claims made after that date and before September 30th will be paid. However, if you were laid-off several months ago, and you are electing COBRA now under the ARPA, then your COBRA begins on April 1 and if you visited the doctor on March 15, the claims prior to April 1 will not be covered by COBRA. It’s important to understand that invoking the ARPA to claim COBRA is different from the traditional way employees select it--where employees have sixty days to elect COBRA and if they select it on the very last day, they are charged the previous months premiums and medical expenses incurred during the election window are covered.

For many, employer sponsored health insurance provides excellent healthcare and its loss can be devastating. Familiar insurance plans with known doctors are important, especially during a health pandemic. In an effort that recognizes the importance of employer sponsored health insurance, the ARPA will provide subsidy free COBRA plans to many who are in need – and just in time.

Jan Dubauskas is a healthcare expert, enthusiastic insurance pro, attorney and mom serving as Vice President of healthinsurance.com",0.6852225313563681
"The good news is it appears that COVID-19 is transitioning from being a pandemic “emergency,” and on the way to becoming ""as endemic as flu.”

What that means is this coronavirus is going to circulate seasonally, much like the other four human coronaviruses do, and like seasonal influenza does.

But the bad news is: as the emergency subsides, massive economic fallout tied to the COVID-19 pandemic efforts seems to be taking shape. The economic consequences of the pandemic may become just as endemic as the COVID-19 virus itself.

It looks like a rocky road ahead for retirement savers...

“Americans’ Savings Drop to the Lowest Point in Years”

According to an article on GOBankingRates, things are already quite troubling for retirement savers. More than a third don’t even have a full paycheck in savings:

40% of Americans have less than $300 in savings. This is a drop compared to the pre-pandemic figure of $400 in savings used by the Federal Reserve as a gauge for measuring households’ financial well-being.

The article continued, revealing an even more dire picture: “Breaking down the GOBankingRates survey further, 50% of Americans have less than $600 in savings and 57.4% have less than $1,000 in savings.” That's a far cry from expert recommendations for an emergency fund sufficient for 3-6 months' worth of expenses.

This data shines a light on the challenge of saving anything at all, let alone for retirement, in our “post-pandemic” economy. But it gets worse…

Online real estate referral service Clever conducted a survey of 1,500 U.S. retirement savers that produced a shocking result:

Nearly 80% of respondents have less than $150,000 saved for retirement.

The average amount in retirement savings according to the same survey was only $177,787, which means the other 20% of respondents didn’t have much more. No matter how you look at it, retiring on that paltry sum isn’t likely to get any retiree very far into their “golden years.”

Over half of the survey respondents (56%) said they waited too long to start saving. Adding injury to insult, almost two-thirds said they retired earlier than they wanted to due to health issues.

And there's one more very important consideration: your money isn't worth as much as you think it is. Inflation might be the final factor that condemns millions of Americans to poverty.

Planning for Rising Inflation Could Prove to be a Bigger Challenge

Not saving enough to retire comfortably on is one thing. But not accounting for rising inflation is another thing entirely.

According to one model constructed by LIMRA, a 1% inflation rate could swallow up $34,406 of retirees’ Social Security benefits. If the inflation rate were to increase to 3%, the shortfall would total more than $117,000.

Right now, overall inflation is officially at 1.7%, and rising. (Wolf Richter makes some pretty compelling arguments against the official CPI calculation.)

And even if you managed to save $500,000 to retire on, according to Motley Fool, if inflation rises to 3% (which is about the 100-year average), in 30 years $505,365 of retirement savings will be worth roughly what $208,204 is right now. (That means a purchase that costs $1,000 today would cost about $2,122 in three decades). The takeaway? If you're looking 30 years down the road, you need to save twice as much as you'll need for retirement. And that's at ""average"" inflation!

(Keep in mind that healthcare spending for the elderly is about three times that of a working adult.)

Considering this, it’s a good idea to make your retirement as “inflation resistant” as you possibly can.

Don’t Let COVID Fallout Destroy Your Savings

While it seems like things don’t look easy for retirement savers, you may still have options that could help you ease into your “golden years.”

Save as much as you possibly can, diversify your assets as you see fit, and don’t forget to fortify your retirement with the ""gold standard"" of inflation-resistant assets: precious metals.

Physical assets including gold and silver have proven to be inflation-resistant in the past, and tend to preserve purchasing power even when stock markets tumble. Better yet, when you own physical precious metals, there's no counterparty risk, no default risk and no worries about accounting fraud. Sometimes it's a comfort to know your future, and your savings, are as ""good as gold.""

Peter Reagan is a financial market strategist at Birch Gold Group. As the Precious Metal IRA Specialists, Birch Gold helps Americans protect their retirement savings with physical gold and silver. Discover more by clicking here now.",0.14072795013238337
"The Federal Reserve concluded its two-day meeting on March 17 announcing that it will maintain interest rates and bond purchases while upgrading its economic forecast.

Seven officials — up from five previously — see a rate rise in 2023 and economic growth is put at 6.5% — up from 4.2% — in 2021.

This was a tricky and critical meeting for the Fed as they had to communicate a balance between a Covid-scarred economy and a booming outlook.

It was a fine line to walk and, clearly, they don’t want to hamper a recovery that’s just getting going.

Their continuing support will put markets at ease, as will the optimistic growth forecasts for the world’s largest economy as it looks ahead to the post-pandemic era.

Against this backdrop of ultra-low interest rates and potentially the fastest growth in decades, understandably investors will now be seeking to top-up their portfolios to grow their wealth.

However, those building up their portfolios should avoid being drawn into a rotation trap.

“The danger is the massive hype surrounding rotation from growth stocks – those expected to grow sales and earnings at a faster rate than the market average – into value stocks.

It should not be a case of either value or growth stocks. A properly diversified portfolio needs to have both.

As I said here recently, “It’s likely we’ll maintain some lockdown habits like working from home more often, but we’ll also be back in the gym; we’ll travel and go to public events again, but we’ll also be more conscious of the environment and hygiene procedures.

“In short, value stocks are in revival mode, but does anyone suddenly seriously think Amazon, Google, and Tesla are not companies of the future also?”

As for concerns of longer-term inflation, such fears are, for now at least, premature.

We can expect some price growth as economies reopen, but this is likely to be short term. I think, as it stands now, longer-term inflation fears, due to pent-up demand are being overplayed.

For example, people might book one trip away, but they are unlikely to book five or six in one hit.

There’s a wave of economic growth on its way and interest rates are set to remain low. Investors should use this time to build their wealth by topping up their portfolios — but they must do so judiciously.

Nigel Green is founder and CEO of deVere Group. One of the world's largest independent financial advisory organizations, de Vere does business in 100 countries and has more than $12 billion under advisement.",-0.3384259908011586
"The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened 27 investigations into crashes of Tesla vehicles, 23 of which remain active, and at least three of the crashes occurred in recent weeks.

The NHTSA confirmed Thursday that it will send a team to investigate a recent Tesla crash in the Houston area. Four of the 27 NHTSA investigations have been completed and the results published.

Earlier this week, NHTSA said it was sending its special crash investigation team to probe two crashes in Michigan, including a crash early Wednesday involving a Tesla suspected of being in Autopilot mode when it struck a parked Michigan State Police patrol car.

Tesla did not immediately comment.

NHTSA said in July that its Special Crash Investigations team ""has looked into 19 crashes involving Tesla vehicles where it was believed some form of advanced driver assistance system was engaged at the time of the incident.""

Michigan State Police said a parked patrol car was struck by a Tesla apparently in Autopilot mode while investigating a traffic crash near Lansing on Interstate-96. No one was injured and the 22-year-old Tesla driver was issued traffic citations.

On Monday, NHTSA said it was sending another team to investigate a ""violent"" March 11 crash in Detroit in which a Tesla became wedged underneath a tractor-trailer and left a passenger in critical condition.

Detroit police said Tuesday they do not believe that Autopilot was in use.

The Autopilot feature was operating in at least three Tesla vehicles involved in fatal U.S. crashes since 2016.

Tesla advises drivers they must keep their hands on the steering wheel and pay attention while using Autopilot. However, some Tesla drivers say they are able to avoid putting their hands on the wheel for extended periods when using Autopilot.

NHTSA's Special Crash Investigation team typically looks at more than 100 crashes a year with a focus on emerging technologies. Issues in recent years include performance of alternative fueled vehicles, child restraint systems, adaptive controls, safety belts, vehicle-pedestrian interactions, and potential safety defects.

Separately, the agency said it had been briefed on Tesla's ""full self-driving"" (FSD) software. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk wrote on Twitter last week that the beta FSD software had been expanded to about 2,000 owners while other drivers had access to the program revoked.

The agency said it ""will monitor the new technology closely and will not hesitate to take action to protect the public against risks to safety.""

NHTSA said the system does not make the Tesla ""capable of driving itself. The most advanced vehicle technologies available for purchase today provide driver assistance and require a fully attentive human driver at all times performing the driving task and monitoring the surrounding environment.""",-0.8737086768275946
"A global semiconductor shortage and a February winter storm have combined to force Ford to build F-150 pickup trucks without some computers.

The company says the pickups will be held at factories for ""a number of weeks,"" then shipped to dealers once computers are available and quality checks are done.

The move is the latest ripple from the global semiconductor shortage, which earlier this week forced Honda and Toyota to announce production cuts at some North American factories. General Motors also has been forced to build pickups without some computers and install them later.

Ford's move is likely to tighten inventory of F-Series pickups, the top-selling vehicles in America. Inventories already are tight due to high demand and production losses due to last year's coronavirus-related factory shutdowns.

Ford also said it will build the Edge SUV without computers and ship them later, and it will cancel some shifts Thursday and Friday at an assembly plant in Louisville, Kentucky, where the Ford Escape SUV is made.

Automakers have said they do not expect the chip shortage to get any better before the third quarter of the year. Ford has said the shortage could cut its pretax earnings by $1 billion to $2.5 billion, even if it makes up for some of the lost production in the second half of the year.

Also Thursday, Nissan announced it would temporarily cancel production at factories in Smyrna, Tennessee; Canton, Mississippi; and in Aguascalientes, Mexico, due to the chip shortage. Some U.S. production lines will be down from Friday through Monday, while others will be idled just for the weekend. Aguascalientes Plant 1 will stop production through Tuesday.

Affected models include the Murano, Rogue, Maxima, Leaf, Altima, NV Vans, Kicks, Versa, and March.

In addition, Volkswagen and Fiat Chrysler (now Stellantis) also say they have been affected by the shortage and forced to delay production of some models in order to keep other factories running.

Industry officials say semiconductor companies diverted production to consumer electronics during the worst of the COVID-19 slowdown in auto sales last spring. Global automakers were forced to close plants to prevent the spread of the virus. When automakers recovered, there were not enough chips as demand for personal electronics boomed.",3.1581399417310076
"OPEC said on Thursday a recovery in oil demand will be focused on the second half of the year as the impact of the pandemic lingers as a headwind for the group and its allies in supporting the market.

In a monthly report, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said demand will rise by 5.89 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2021, or 6.5%, up slightly from last month. But the group cut its forecasts for the first half.

""Total oil demand is foreseen to reach 96.3 million bpd with most consumption appearing in the second half,"" OPEC said in the report.

""This year's demand growth will not be able to compensate for the major shortfall from 2020 as mobility is forecast to remain impaired throughout 2021.""

The latest forecasts could bolster cautious views among OPEC and its allies, known as OPEC+, on how quickly to unwind more of last year's record oil output cuts. OPEC+ last week decided to mostly extend current curbs into April.

Oil held onto most of an earlier gain after the report was released, trading close to $69 a barrel. Prices have risen to pre-pandemic highs this month, boosted by hopes of economic recovery and OPEC+ supply restraint.

OPEC raised its forecast of world economic growth this year to 5.1% from 4.8% as activity accelerates by the end of the first half. Still, it sees the mobility restrictions continuing to dampen oil demand, despite faster growth.

""Oil-intensive sectors, especially travel and transportation, will remain disproportionately affected, with a larger negative impact on 2020 oil demand and a lower positive contribution to 2021 oil demand, relative to global economic growth,"" OPEC said.

SAUDI DELIVERS CUT

The report also showed lower OPEC oil output in February as most OPEC+ members returned to output restraint and Saudi Arabia pledged a voluntary cut of 1 million bpd for February and March.

OPEC said its February output fell by 650,000 bpd to 24.85 million bpd, driven by the Saudi move. Riyadh told OPEC it made almost all of the reduction, lowering production by 956,000 bpd to 8.147 million bpd.

Saudi Arabia as part of last week's OPEC+ decision extended the voluntary cut into April.

OPEC+ cut supply by a record 9.7 million bpd last year to support the market as demand collapsed. The producers as of February were still withholding about 8.1 million bpd.

While those curbs persist, rivals are boosting supply and OPEC raised its forecast of non-OPEC output growth to almost 1 million bpd led by Canada, the United States, Norway and Brazil - although U.S. shale output is still expected to drop.

Partly due to the higher non-OPEC supply forecast, OPEC trimmed its estimate of global demand for its crude to 27.3 million bpd this year. This would still allow for higher average OPEC production in 2021.",0.13959598655482047
"Many analysts contend that current stock valuations resemble the dot-com era. You can see it visually at CurrentMarketValuation.com. Some highlights . . .

The classic “Buffett Indicator” certainly seems to be in nosebleed territory. Notice that the valuations in 1966, the beginning of a long-term bear market, were also high.

Source: CurrentMarketValuation.com

Then there is the ever-popular price-to-earnings ratio. Notice by this measure that valuations were not all that stretched in 1966. Yet there still followed a 17-year bear market, as measured from the peak back to where it started.

Source: CurrentMarketValuation.com

This next one is unusual: valuation as measured by mean reversion. Mean reversion is the fairly unsophisticated concept that ""what goes up must come down.""

While the market’s day-to-day movements are chaotic, long-term stock market returns tend to follow somewhat predictable upward trends. But they can also deviate from the trend for years or even decades.

This isn’t a trading strategy. But it's still a useful indicator of overall market valuation relative to the past.

What's Different Now

This is not your father’s or your grandfather’s (if he was alive in 1929) overvalued market.

There are two major differences . . .

First, in the dot-com era, the Federal Reserve had let loose the dogs of easy monetary policy going into the Y2K event. That was appropriate given the uncertainty, but it clearly helped send already overvalued markets to extremes.

We had day traders piling into anything that looked like an internet stock, speculations, really easy money, and so forth. Then after January 1 passed uneventfully, Greenspan appropriately reversed the Fed’s monetary policy. Oops.

And now we have enormous federal government stimulus, soon to be about 25% of GDP in less than a year. That money ends up somewhere, but its impact is still unclear. There is no historical parallel to consider.

Overvalued… but Perhaps Not Overpriced

Jerome Powell is not Alan Greenspan.

Powell and his colleagues have made it very clear they will keep monetary policy loose and rates low for a very long time. Inflation is well down their worry list. Their top concern is unemployment, which is indeed a real problem.

The Fed is telling us it will let inflation get to 3% or more. They are looking at the average inflation over time, which means they can justify doing anything they want.

What they want is low rates, even if it overheats the economy, until unemployment returns to where it was before the pandemic.

If they really mean that, then we are going to have low rates for a very long time, as unemployment is a bigger problem than most people think.

It also means, maybe not coincidentally, the US Treasury will find it easier to refinance an ever-increasing federal deficit.

But persistent low rates might mean stock market valuations are actually in the fair value range.

Look at this chart showing S&P 500 value relative to interest rates. Interest rates are 1.6 standard deviations below the trendline.

That suggests that the S&P 500 may not be so overpriced.

While valuations tell us nothing about short-term market moves, they are actually pretty good at longer-term returns.

That being said, some smart people I follow see pockets of undervaluation (at least relative to the US) in more than a few places. If you're looking for value, you might want to start there.

The Great Reset: The Collapse of the Biggest Bubble in History

New York Times best seller and renowned financial expert John Mauldin predicts an unprecedented financial crisis that could be triggered in the next five years. Most investors seem completely unaware of the relentless pressure that’s building right now. Learn more here.",0.4383837588889606
"A chaotic selloff in the Treasuries market was spurred by a massive exodus from popular trades, heightened by liquidity concerns that could inflict more pain in coming days.

The exodus happened at a time when traders were already worried about the imminent disappearance of a support beam for the market — a regulatory exemption that has allowed banks to accumulate more U.S. bonds.

Treasury futures open interest across a range of maturities sank by a huge amount Thursday: the equivalent of $50 billion of 10-year notes. It didn’t help that this coincided with the Treasury Department selling $62 billion of seven-year notes, an auction that proved to be a disaster.

The month ahead could be rocky, too. Back in April, the Federal Reserve tweaked its rules to exempt Treasuries from banks’ supplementary leverage ratios — allowing them to expand their balance sheets with U.S. debt. But that relief ends March 31 and what happens next is something of a mystery.

“It wasn’t an orderly selloff and certainly didn’t appear to be driven by any obvious fundamental continuation or extension of the reflation thesis,” wrote NatWest Markets strategist Blake Gwinn in a note to clients. A number of more technical factors were in the mix, against a backdrop of a good-old-fashioned buyers strike, he said.

Here’s a look at some of the factors driving Thursday’s moves:

The Protagonist

The main protagonist in the bond market was the five-year Treasury note, a maturity often associated with long-term Fed rate expectations, where yields closed 22 basis point higher on the day. The so-called butterfly-spread index — a measure of how the note is performing against its two- and 10-year peers — jumped 24 basis points, the worst daily performance for the sector since 2002.

The selling was triggered after a U.S. auction of seven-year bonds saw record low demand. The bid-to-cover ratio — a gauge of investor interest — came in at 2.04, well below the recent average of 2.35. That sent five-year yields surging through 0.75%, a crucial technical level watched by investors as a signal that any bond selloff could worsen.

Unwind Rush

The yield spike sent traders scurrying to manage their positions, in particular those linked to the popular reflation trade. Bets on a steeper yield curve were hit as the curve flattened thanks to heavy losses in shorter-dated bonds.

Preliminary open interest in Treasury futures across the curve — a measure of outstanding positions — collapsed by an amount equivalent to $50 billion in benchmark 10-year notes. While there may be some muddiness to the data given potential contract rolls, it does suggest a significant unwind of positions.

The selloff paused in Asia trading hours and remained calm during Friday in New York. Some Asian traders said they had worked through New York hours right through much of Friday.

The 10-basis-point spike and subsequent retreat in benchmark Treasuries when they touched 1.5% also suggests some traders were hit with stop-losses on their long positions.

Fundamental Decoupling

The bond market’s divergence from a fundamental backdrop was most evident at the shorter-end of the curve. Eurodollar contracts — which are priced off Libor — collapsed in record volumes as traders repriced their expectations for the path of Fed rates with few obvious catalysts.

Markets now see a Fed hike by March 2023 compared to mid-2023 previously, and have priced in rates over 50 basis points higher by 2024.

But in remarks this week, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell offered reassurance that policy would continue to be supportive and look beyond a temporary pick-up in inflation, especially from a low base. While Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida expressed cautious optimism on the outlook, he said it would “take some time” to restore the economy to pre-pandemic levels.

“Today’s market dynamics look to have been fueled by technical factors and the Fed may want to let the dust settle before it judges whether there is anything really problematic here,” said Evercore ISI’s Krishna Guha and Ernie Tedeschi. “But a change of tone at least seems warranted in our view and possibly more.”

Liquidity Drought

A lack of bond market liquidity, just when traders needed it most, can also be at fault.

“We think that a steep decline in market depth contributed to the outsized moves in yields,” wrote JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategist Jay Barry in a note to clients. Barry showed how the share of high-frequency traders in the Treasury market — which has been on an increasing trend — tends to retreat rapidly as volatility spikes.

U.S. 3-month 10-year swaption volatility— a gauge of price swings in the rates market — jumped to highest in over a year on Thursday, having risen steadily all month.

“Given the natural feedback loop between volatility and liquidity, it’s likely that a steep decline in depth contributed to the outsized moves in yields,” added Barry.

Regulatory Purgatory

Bond traders were already on edge as they waited for Fed guidance ahead of next month’s expiry of a regulation that has encouraged banks to buy Treasuries. Neither Powell nor Randal Quarles, the vice chair for supervision, gave an answer as to whether the measure would be extended, which likely helped extend a clearing of positions in the swaps market.

Credit Suisse strategist Zoltan Pozsar said clarity on this situation is one of the things needed to calm long-term Treasury yields.

No matter what the Fed decides, “both would offer clarity and direction to the rates market,” he said.",0.24117683420362315
"With the technology sector growing so fast last year, many advisers have urged their clients to engage in an asset-allocation process to lower their risk exposure to the technology sector, particularly if they are getting closer to retirement. Over the past few months, many advisers have moved their clients into Blue Chip domestic value stocks and ETFs. Many value positions have great financial statements but have lagged behind the market leaders since the COVID-19 market correction, and many value positions are still well below their two-year highs. With the release of new treatments and vaccines coming, here are a few possible emerging markets investments that should pay big dividends, which are still down from their prior two-year highs,

If you are looking for international and emerging market- related diversified holdings with some growth potential and great dividends, here are some ideas. However, remember that every ETF is priced based on income, revenue, costs, risk, balance sheet, and the political-legal environment. People with high income may want to keep these ETFs in their tax-deferred accounts to avoid undue income and dividend taxes. Some retirees, however, may want to own these stocks outright, just to have the dividend income stream taxed at the dividend rates. Below are the ETF symbols and the estimated dividend yield.

Disclaimer: For any of these positions, the writer either owns the position or is thinking about buying the position. Please consult with a licensed professional before making any important decision. Dividends are subject to change at any time. Dividend yield is based on Yahoo’s projected future dividend yields.

George Mentz JD MBA CWM Chartered Wealth Manager ® is a licensed attorney and CEO of GAFM ® global education, which is an ISO 29990 Certified professional development company operating in over 50 nations. Mentz is an award-winning author and advisory board member to several companies around the world in education, charities, and FinTech Companies.",-1.2448997798704577
"The investment world may seem overwhelming at times, understandably so. There are enough fancy new terms added each year by experts and gurus holding new acronyms and titles to baffle the general public into submission. Allow me to add two comforting assertions to the matter. First, a simple statement made in a complex way does not make you dumber or the author smarter. Second, basics are just that, basics.

I’d like to address some very basic, but often misunderstood, terms within investing. Upon hearing different opportunities, prospective investors knee-jerk response is, “Well, which has a better rate of return?” As a CFP, I’ve fielded this question countless times when mentioning a particular account type or asset type. Remember, an account type (i.e., Traditional IRA, 401(k), Joint, etc.) are only accounts, think of it as the bucket you’ll be adding ingredients to. Similarly, a stock, mutual fund, or exchange traded fund is a type of asset, not indicative of a particular investment and its return.

STOCKS

Let’s start with the original and underlying ingredient for the rest of our discussion. A stock is a share of ownership in a company that may be purchased by the investor. This term could be applied to two brothers splitting up their shares of ownership in their pizzeria, or a billionaire buying a portion of Tesla. For the purposes of this article, we’ll focus on publicly traded stocks. Aside from a potential brokerage commission or trading fee, holding a stock usually does not come with an ongoing fee or management expense. The investor is completely vested in the ups and downs of that particular company. As one could gather, the question, “Do stocks have a good return or bad return?” is not entirely fair. For example, a share in Amazon may have had better performance over the past few years than a share in Macy’s, but they are both stocks. There are currently about 3,530 investable stocks in America[1] to choose from.

MUTUAL FUNDS

A mutual fund is a professionally managed pool of money collected from many investors and invested across diversified holdings. These holdings can include, stocks, bonds, and cash, and together make up the fund’s portfolio. The two main benefits touted by the industry would be allowing modest investors broad diversification and professional management. For example, an investor would have to shell out $3,318 to buy just one share of Amazon today, but the same investor could use that money to buy nine shares of VFIAX (Vanguard’s S&P500 Index Admiral Shares) and gain immediate exposure to 509 different companies. Unlike stocks, mutual funds contain fees in the form of “Loads” and management expenses. Some experts argue these fees are warranted in higher performance in good years and less downside in bad years, while others posit many funds have done no better than their benchmarks or have even underperformed in certain situations. The oldest mutual fund still in existence would be the Vanguard Wellington Fund, which debuted in 1929[2]. Nowadays, there are roughly 8,000 available mutual funds in the United States[3], so naturally, investors have experienced different successes and failures.

ETFs

Exchanged traded funds were created in the 1990s and have certainly been all the craze in recent memory. They are similar to mutual funds as far as being a diversified pool of investors’ money, but they trade throughout the day like stocks, as opposed to mutual funds that are bought and sold based on their price at day’s end. Most ETF’s are passively managed and track an index, and have lower expenses than mutual funds. The trend towards ETF’s is apparent, as evidenced by last year’s inflow/outflow disparity. Through September 2020, outflows from mutual funds totaled $317 billion over the year, whereas inflows into ETF’s were $313 billion during the same timeframe[4].

These three terms may be basic, but they are important pillars of the investing world, and cannot afford to be confused amidst the financial jargon found on the internet or 24/7 business channels. Investors should now realize that one asset type does not provide a surefire better return than the other, similar to the account type discussion. An apparently expensive mutual fund made up of tech stocks likely did far better last year than a cost-efficient ETF made up of oil stocks. But be careful of ever casting a broad generalization, inside the same tech run of 2020 that Apple gained 77%, there were companies like Xerox that lost 37%[5].

Please note, past performance does not guarantee future results.

Bryan M. Kuderna, CFP®, MSFS, RICP®, LUTCF is the host of The Kuderna Podcast and founder of Kuderna Financial Team, a NJ-based financial services firm. He is also the author of ANOROC and Millennial Millionaire.",-0.9312538092828692
"All of the talk is about inflation. Gas prices are up. Food prices are up. Interest rates are climbing, and the government is going to pass a $1.9 trillion spending bill. This will be the largest spending bill in American history. The Federal Reserve is suggesting we need to keep rates low for longer and that they can tolerate an extended period of above average inflation. The good news is the economy ─ and the markets─ will enjoy this feast in the short term. Unemployment will continue to drop, incomes will creep up, and everything will feel great during this party! That is, until inflation takes off.



Inflation: The Economic Hangover



Inflation is the hangover that overstays its welcome. Taxes will likely go up to help pay for the spending bill as well as the next spending bill that will address infrastructure. Interest rates will likely rise as well, which will increase the amount needed to service the $28 trillion in federal debt, which will lead to higher taxes again. For those who think the Federal Reserve can just shut the inflation off when they want to, I ask you to think again. The last time they did that was under Paul Volcker. Mr. Volcker did a heroic thing in raising interest rates to the point of outright pain. It was an unpopular action that was necessary to rescue the purchasing power of the dollar.

Dead Reckoning: The Rate of Change



It is well known that there are a number of asset classes that have the potential to do well in an inflationary environment. These investments include gold, TIPS (Treasury Inflation Protected Securities), and there is speculation that bitcoin might have that characteristic as well. These investments are probably a good idea, but how do you monitor the effect of inflation on your purchasing power? One of the first elements of a financial plan is a budget. Please don’t yawn. I know building budgets is a boring exercise. I know you will forget something that makes the exercise useless. I will not ask you to build a budget. Instead, I am going to introduce you to “dead reckoning.” A budget is a snapshot in time, nothing more. Dead reckoning measures the rate of change which is far more relevant during inflationary periods of time.

The term “dead reckoning” is a sailing term that is short for deduced reckoning. If I have sailed between two points on a regular basis, I have an idea of how long it will take me to get from point A to point B under normal circumstances. If I have a tailwind, I can use dead reckoning to assume I will reach point B faster than normal. With enough practice, I can become fairly accurate at my guesstimates. If the seas are extremely rough that day, I have to assume my vessel will move slower than in calm waters. The Dynamic Map method of financial planning (created by Mike Helgesen) uses dead reckoning instead of budgeting for two reasons. First, it is fast. The first time you do it will probably take about twenty minutes. Each month after that will take about three minutes. Second, it is NOT a snapshot in time. It is dynamic and measures the rate of change which helps you manage your cash flow better during inflationary environments.

The first step is the easiest. Identify how much income you receive from all sources. Almost everyone is aware of how much income they receive. If you have earned income from your employment, rental income from real estate you own, or income from investments that you use for spending, please add all of these up. Most Americans spend the income they earn, with the exception of the small amount that is set aside for their long-term investments. Add up the amounts that were spent in your variable accounts (checking account, credit cards, or brokerage account if you use that to pay bills) and subtract the total from your total income. This becomes your benchmark. For example, let’s assume I have a total of $10,000 this month in income. All of my bills are paid from my checking account and I have some debt on a credit card. The total for this month in expenses from each is $9200. However, I did contribute $1000 to my investment portfolio, which means I am running a deficit of $200. At first glance, I might feel like I need to panic. However, this is just one month.

Easier Over Time



Although it might sound like this could become a tedious exercise each month, just the opposite is true. Rather than counting each expenditure, you simply need to monitor the change in the balance of these accounts. If the checking account is constantly being drained and the credit card balance continues to rise, then you know you have a problem which requires your attention. If the checking account runs dry but the credit card balance is just moving slightly up and down from month to month, your rate of spending is actually in check. The biggest advantage to this method is it is agnostic towards who spent the money and how. Frequently, this conversation leads to fights because one spouse spends too much on things the other spouse is not aware of or doesn’t care about. Dead reckoning will only initiate that tough conversation if the spending spirals out of control.

Although we are not seeing runaway inflation at this point in time, we need to be prepared for what could show up next year. All of the necessary elements are there. It is up to each of us to enjoy the party but purchase the meds for the hangover that could be coming soon.

Jeff Mount is President of Real Intelligence LLC. Jeff has been active in the financial services business for the last 25 years.",1.1607582701158226
"It is said that the next ten years will see more dramatic innovation and change than the last 100 years combined.

This is a very promising, exciting and realistic vision for our nation given the pace of technology innovation. But what happens to our economic future during that period as we consider multi-trillion dollar deficits and punishing tax proposals growing as far as the eye can see? With historically massive government spending running full steam ahead, the repercussions remain unclear:

Is the inflation threat that damaged markets, housing, and business in the 1970s and 1980s a real danger to our savings and livelihoods sooner than we imagine?

Democratic revenue raising proposals such as the Wealth Tax, Financial Transaction Tax, higher corporate, personal income and capital gains taxes will inevitably resurface in force to the detriment of economic growth - how badly will it impact our markets, our paychecks and our savings?

Will the federal government spending spree actually accelerate dependence leading to a widening wealth gap?

Will investment dollars eventually be scared out of the market hindering the ability to power this innovation rocket ship?

The recently signed Covid relief bill is the largest expansion for the welfare state since The Great Society. Less than 10 percent of the exorbitant $1.9 trillion cost is actually dedicated to COVID related needs. The majority of the funds are directed toward state bailouts, student-debt forgiveness, health insurance subsidies, unemployment benefits, and state pension fund bailouts.

State and local government pensions have been mismanaged for decades wracking up over $4.2 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

Through poor management, failure to follow through on state contributions, and miscues on liability payouts, public pensions have long failed to properly account or repair these deficiencies.

Because multi-employer pension funds have carelessly overestimated their long term investment returns, the Biden stimulus bill will now create an $86 billion federal assistance program for 186 of these struggling pension funds with no strings attached.

It is claimed this will enable the plans to pay out full benefits for the next 30 years. But this fails to solve the issue of the sub-standard management of those plans. And politicos are comfortable dragging their feet because they know their terms expire long before major problems surface.

Taxpayers have been funding public-sector pensions for years through state income taxes, and that is where the taxpayer contribution should end. Of course, the Biden administration has now decided to ignore this and is willing to make this expensive bailout but only for UNION retirees.

What about the rest of us?

Our economy will be pulling out of the COVID-19 lockdown recession very quickly.

The markets are rightly anticipating stronger economic growth in 2021 leading to improvement in our saving and investment performance.

So a plan to stay steady and add to investments for now would be a reasoned strategy to enjoy the ride.

However, we need to focus on next year and the time to follow. These monstrously huge spending sprees never take place without consequences.

Higher taxes are definitely coming and Inflationary pressures are already being felt in material goods. We will see how this pressure eventually makes its way to our bond markets with higher interest rates and added volatility in global stock markets.

For too long, we have been told that deficits don't matter. Soon, we will see if that's true.

Massive deficits plus soaring tax rates have never equaled prosperity.

Clara Del Villar is Director of Senior Initiatives at FreedomWorks Foundation. Her financial industry career included senior roles in Investment Management, Private Asset Management, and Capital Markets. Her entrepreneurial ventures involved digital media as Founder, CEO of The Hispanic Post; energy tech as founder of InEnergy and health tech. She is a former advisor at 60Plus Foundation. Currently, she is a Board Director at General American Investors Co. and Executive Committee of Weill Cornell Women's Health Symposium. She earned a BSFS at Georgetown University. Read Clara Del Villar's Reports — More Here.",0.06448617009415468
"The cost of living in the U.S. continues to rise and many Americans are battling to keep up- especially in places where the prices for goods and services are already high.

In light of this, Reader's Digest set out to determine the most expensive U.S. states by analyzing numerous factors including varying tax rates, prices for housing and average costs of living per area. Based on the results, here are the 9 most expensive states to live in the U.S.

9. New Jersey. When it comes to housing, New Jersey ranks as one of the most expensive U.S. states with a median home value of $327,700. It does not help that the individual income tax rate is 10.75% and there is a 41¢ gas tax.

8. Connecticut. People in Connecticut are battling to keep up with the ever-increasing food and housing costs. Compounding the problem is the 2% property tax and top tax rate that is just under 7%.

7. Alaska. Residents do get a tax break but it does not make up for the high costs of food, housing and health care, which is fast making Alaska one of the most expensive states to live in the U.S.

6. Oregon. Beachfront housing is what's contributing to the ever-increasing costs of living in Oregon, where the median home value is close to $350,000.

5. Maryland. Home to several large cities, Maryland has become one of the most expensive U.S. states largely due to its rising housing costs and general costs of living.

4. Massachusetts. There are many perks to living in Massachusetts, where some of the top higher education institutions are located, but the cost of living is not one of them. In addition to the basic necessities that are unaffordable to many, the state also sports a 5.05% income tax rate as well as a gas tax of close to 27¢.

3. New York. It does not come as much of a surprise that New York City is considered to be one of the most expensive states to live in the U.S. Basic costs are above average and the price of housing is massive, with a median home value of $301,000.

2. California. Living on the West Coast comes at a price, and it is not just the basic necessities like housing, food and transport that are costing residents. Steep taxes contribute to California being ranked as the second most expensive U.S. state.

1. Hawaii. Expansive golden beaches, balmy tropical weather and laid-back way of life- what's not to love about Hawaii? It's high cost of housing for starters. As well as an 11% income tax and gas tax of 47¢.",-0.9787970730280021
"The cost of living in the U.S. continues to rise and many Americans are battling to keep up- especially in places where . . .

As you approach your golden years, the question of where to retire becomes more pronounced. Here are some of the least e . . .",-0.12193279505267723
"As you approach your golden years, the question of where to retire becomes more pronounced. You want your nest egg to last as long as possible, which is why it is important to first weigh various factors before committing to one place.

For many seniors, the cost of living plays a massive role in their decision making. This varies greatly between states and cities, so in order to determine which were the best places to retire in the U.S., WalletHub compiled a report that ranked cities and towns according to their average cost of living.

Based on the data, Laredo, Texas, was the most affordable urban area for retirees to live in. Memphis and Knoxville, Tennessee, also made the list. On the opposite end of the spectrum, San Francisco, New York, and Pearl City, Hawaii, were ranked as some of the most expensive places to retire, according to MarketWatch.

To arrive at these findings, Wallethub considered several essentials costs such as housing and utilities, groceries, transportation as well as healthcare expenses. Commenting on the results, WalletHub analyst Jill Gonzalez told MarketWatch that the reason why Laredo was viewed as one of the cheapest places to retire in all of America was because it does not ""tax Social Security or pensions, and does not have an inheritance or estate tax.""

This is advantageous to seniors looking to retire anywhere in the state because their fixed incomes will stretch much further, Gonzalez said, adding that ""Laredo also has the lowest annual cost of in-home services, and one of the lowest annual costs of adult day health care.""



Here are nine of the cheapest places to retire in America, as listed by MarketWatch:

9. Toledo, Ohio

8. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

7. Amarillo, Texas

6. San Antonio, Texas

5. Fort Smith, Arkansas

4. Huntington, West Virginia

3. Knoxville, Tennessee

2. Memphis, Tennessee

1. Laredo, Texas",-0.7261243468397269
"Consumer advocates are up in arms about new regulations proposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that were supposedly meant to limit the worst abuses in debt collection but instead would legalize a number of shady practices, HuffPost reported Wednesday.

The plan would allow debt collectors to call households every day, indefinitely, for each debt a consumer owes and could spam consumers with unlimited text messages and emails, at the same time being granted immunity for filing abusive, robo-signed lawsuits against people who do not actually owe any money.

""The new rules do a lot more to protect abusive debt collectors than consumers,"" National Consumer Law Center associate director Lauren Saunders told HuffPost.

Ed Mierzwinski, senior director of the federal consumer program at the U.S Public Interest Research Group, added the proposal will ""invade the privacy of debtors and cause numerous harm and untold stress.""

He emphasized the plan ""would unleash already reckless debt collectors to intensify their abuses.""

Debt collectors contact about 70 million Americans annually, according to HuffPost, and pose a particularly large problem for the elderly, who are more likely to fall victim to outright fraud than the younger generation.

Senior citizens are also more vulnerable, because, for the first time, they are bringing substantial loads of consumer debt accumulated earlier in life into retirement.

Related Stories:",1.068114919040989
"Car insurance is one expense you don't want to skimp on. Your premiums are based upon many different factors, but one of the most important things that determines how much you will pay is often the least researched by people: which vehicle you drive. Certain cars are notably more expensive to insure than others and certain ones are much more. This is due to several reasons.

On average, insurance companies make claim payments of around $964 per vehicle in a year, 24/7 Wall St. noted. Insurers may pay nothing for vehicles in a year if there are no incidents, however, for vehicles involved in accidents, they could pay more than $20,000. Premiums are based upon the average insurance claim payment. If certain models have a higher average insurance claim, the higher expected costs will be passed on to the consumer. The opposite is also true. Models with less frequent payments will cost less to insure.

Armed with this knowledge, 24/7 Wall St. recently set out to review the most and least expensive cars to insure. The insurance payouts for less expensive models tends to be lower when it comes to damage repair and collision costs. Vehicle size also played an important role in insurance payout, with larger vehicles having lower insurance claim payments. This is likely because these vehicles tend to be safer. Here, we look at the survey's results:

5 most expensive cars to insure, according to 24/7 Wall St:

5. BMW 4 Series 2dr

Annual average cost to insurer: $1,485

Annual average collision cost to insurer: $735

Type: Midsize luxury car

Current model retail price: $44,800-$53,200

4. Mitsubishi Lancer

Annual average cost to insurer: $1,556

Annual average collision cost to insurer: $602

Type: Small four-door

Current model retail price: $9,995-$15,499

3. Mercedes-Benz S-Class 4dr LWB

Annual average cost to insurer: $1,783

Annual average collision cost to insurer: $876

Type: Very large luxury car

Current model retail price: $89,900-$229,500

2. Tesla Model S 4dr Electric 4WD

Annual average cost to insurer: $1,866

Annual average collision cost to insurer: $1,291

Type: Large luxury car

Current model retail price: $71,000

1. Tesla Model X 4dr Electric 4WD

Annual average cost to insurer: $1,909

Annual average collision cost to insurer: $1,328

Type: Large luxury SUV

Current model retail price: $87,000

5 least expensive cars to insure, according to 24/7 Wall St:

5. Mazda MX-5 Miata Convertible

Annual average cost to insurer: $672

Annual average collision cost to insurer: $340

Type: Mini sports car

Current model retail price: $25,730-$31,855

4. Subaru Forester 4WD with Eyesight

Annual average cost to insurer: $670

Annual average collision cost to insurer: $278

Type: Small SUV

Current model retail price: $24,295-$34,295

3. Acura RDX

Annual average cost to insurer: $634

Annual average collision cost to insurer: $261

Type: Midsize luxury SUV

Current model retail price: $37,400-$47,500

2. Honda CR-V

Annual average cost to insurer: $610

Annual average collision cost to insurer: $237

Type: Small SUV

Current model retail price: $24,350-$34,150

1. Subaru Outback 4WD with Eyesight",0.5756757107311834
"SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Surfers in El Salvador are planning to hold a “paddle out” Tuesday to remember Katherine Díaz Hernández, one of the country’s top surfers who was killed last week by a lightning bolt while surfing.

Surfers usually sit atop their boards at a distance from shore at paddle outs, and in this case they plan to share memories of Díaz Hernández, who participated in international competitions.

The 22-year-old was training Friday at El Tunco beach when people on shore saw her get hit by lightning. They brought her ashore but could not revive her.

Díaz Hernández started surfing at the age of nine, and was also well known in El Tunco for her skills as a chef.

Yamil Bukele, the president of the Salvadoran Sports Institute, wrote that “I greatly regret this death, and I join in the family's pain.”",0.3341241525339433
"DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia announced a plan Monday to offer Yemen's Houthi rebels a cease-fire in the country's yearslong war and allow a major airport to reopen in its capital, the kingdom's latest attempt to halt fighting that has sparked the world's worst humanitarian crisis in the Arab world's poorest nation.

The move by Saudi Arabia follows Yemen's Houthi rebels stepping up a campaign of drone and missile attacks targeting the kingdom's oil sites, briefly shaking global energy prices amid the coronavirus pandemic. It also comes as Riyadh tries to rehabilitate its image with the U.S. under President Joe Biden. Saudi Arabia has waged a war that saw it internationally criticized for airstrikes killing civilians and embargoes exacerbating hunger in a nation on the brink of famine.

Whether such a plan will take hold remains another question. A unilaterally declared Saudi cease-fire collapsed last year. Fighting rages around the crucial city of Marib and the Saudi-led coalition launched airstrikes as recently as Sunday targeting Yemen's capital, Sanaa. A United Nations mission said another suspected airstrike hit a food-production company in the port city of Hodeida.

The Houthis could not be immediately reached for comment.",-0.6272283903648087
"DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia offers cease-fire to Houthi rebels in Yemen's yearslong war in plan that includes reopening Sanaa airport.

© Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.",-0.9324004155245307
"JERUSALEM (AP) — Jonathan Pollard, an American who served a 30-year sentence for spying for Israel, defends his actions in his first interview since arriving in Israel late last year. He says America had “stabbed Israel in the back” by withholding intelligence from its ally.

In excerpts from the interview with the Israel Hayom daily published Monday, Pollard describes his happiness at being a free man in Israel while expressing regret that he was not able to father children because of his incarceration.

Pollard, now 66, sold military secrets to Israel while working as a civilian intelligence analyst for the U.S. Navy in the 1980s. He was arrested in 1985 after trying unsuccessfully to gain asylum at the Israeli Embassy in Washington and pleaded guilty. The espionage affair embarrassed Israel and tarnished its relations with the United States for years.

Pollard was given a life sentence. U.S. defense and intelligence officials said his spying caused great damage and strenuously argued against his release. But after serving 30 years in federal prison, he was released in 2015 and placed on a five-year parole period. Pollard arrived in Israel to a hero's welcome in December.

He told Israel Hayom that at the time of his spying the U.S. government was keeping intelligence from Israel and lying to it, claiming he witnessed it himself at meetings.

“I know I crossed a line, but I had no choice,” he told the newspaper, adding that the threats to Israel were “serious.”

Pollard said he helped his Israeli handler escape by alerting his wife, Anne, to his arrest in a phone call he was granted by the FBI. He used the phrase “water the cactus,” which the couple had agreed on as the code words for saying he had been caught and she should leave town. She was later arrested, but his handler, Aviam Sella, left the country. The Pollards later divorced.

He described his new life in Israel as “wonderful,” saying people often strike up conversations with him and his second wife, Esther, when they walk around their neighborhood. He said he feels that they know that ""someone was willing to sacrifice his life for them.”

All the same, he dismissed the repeated requests for selfies as “nonsense.”

“When I went to prison, there were no smartphones and no selfies,"" he told the newspaper. “Esther and I are both very private people, and privacy is important to us.”

Israel Hayom was founded by the late casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who also provided a private plane to bring Pollard and his wife to Israel in December. The newspaper said it would publish its full interview with Pollard on Friday.",0.31657642238217143
"MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday that Washington has rejected President Vladimir Putin’s offer to arrange a quick public call with U.S. President Joe Biden to help defuse tensions raised by Biden's recent remark that the Russian leader was a killer.

“One more opportunity has been missed to find a way out of the deadlock in Russian-U.S. relations created through the fault of Washington,"" the ministry said in a statement, adding that ""responsibility for this lies entirely with the United States.”

In an interview broadcast last Wednesday, Biden replied “I do” when asked if he thought Putin was a “killer.” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin’s subsequent offer to make the call public was intended to prevent Biden’s statement from inflicting irreparable damage to the already frayed ties between Russia and the United States.

Asked by reporters Friday if he’ll take Putin up on his offer to have a call, Biden said, “I’m sure we’ll talk at some point.”

Russia initially responded to Biden's comment by recalling its ambassador in Washington for consultations. During a public event on Thursday, Putin gave an “it-takes-one-to-know-one” response, pointing at the U.S. history of slavery, slaughtering Native Americans and the atomic bombing of Japan in World War II.

At the same time, Putin noted that Russia would still cooperate with the United States where and when it supports Moscow’s interests, and suggested that he and Biden have a call Friday or on Monday that would be broadcast.

In taking a tough stance on Russia, Biden has said the days of the U.S. “rolling over” to Putin are done. And he has taken pains to contrast his style with the approach of former President Donald Trump, who avoided direct confrontation with Putin and frequently spoke about the Russian leader with approval.

Last week, the U.S. national intelligence director’s office released a report finding that Putin authorized influence operations to help Trump’s reelection bid. The Biden administration warned that Russia would face sanctions soon over its attempt to influence the election and the massive SolarWinds hacks.

Russia’s relations with the United States and the European Union already had plunged to post-Cold War lows after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, meddling in elections, hacking attacks and, most recently, the jailing of Russia’s opposition leader Alexei Navalny after his poisoning, which he blamed on the Kremlin. Russian authorities rejected the accusations.",-0.21850004929588296
"BERLIN (AP) — German authorities are expected to extend lockdown measures again on Monday and possibly tighten some restrictions as they face a steady rise in new coronavirus infections.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and the country's 16 state governors, who in highly decentralized Germany are responsible for imposing and lifting restrictions, are holding a videoconference nearly three weeks after they agreed a several-step plan paving the way to relax some rules.

Since then, infections have increased steadily as the more contagious variant first detected in Britain has become dominant. Most lockdown restrictions are currently set to run through March 28. The chancellery is proposing an extension to April 18.

Rather than new moves toward a more normal life, one focus now is pressing regional officials to use consistently an “emergency brake” mechanism under which relaxations granted in recent weeks — such as the partial reopening of nonessential shops — are supposed to be reimposed if new weekly infections in an area exceed 100 per 100,000 residents on three consecutive days.

“Unfortunately, we will have to make use of this emergency brake,” Merkel said Friday.

The weekly infection rate per 100,000 people stood at 107 nationwide on Monday, up from the mid-60s three weeks ago.

Officials also face the question of what to do about Easter holidays. Restaurants, bars and many leisure facilities in Germany have been shut since early November, and hotels closed for tourists.

At the same time, Germany's criteria for assessing the virus situation abroad meant that a travel warning for parts of Spain was lifted earlier this month, prompting a much-criticized surge of bookings to the popular vacation island of Mallorca.

There have been calls for people returning even from places abroad that aren't deemed “risk areas” to face obligatory tests and quarantine. The government has stressed that it continues to discourage tourist trips.

Drawing up legally watertight rules also has been a headache at times. A court in Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, said Monday it struck down rules requiring people wanting to go to some shops to get appointments beforehand. It said they violated a requirement that businesses get equal treatment.

The state government promptly reinstated the rules, tightening them for some businesses — such as bookshops and garden centers — that were previously exempt.

Meanwhile, Germany is trying to speed up its vaccination campaign after a slow start. On Friday, Merkel and the state governors agreed to gradually bring on board ordinary doctors' practices just after Easter. So far, Germany has largely relied on special vaccination centers.

By Sunday, 9% of the population had received at least a first vaccine dose and 4% had received both doses.

Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at:

https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine

https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak",-0.018429207089713878
"ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s health minister is requisitioning the services of private sector doctors from certain specialties in the wider Athens region to help fight a renewed surge in coronavirus infections that is straining hospitals to their limits.

In an announcement released Monday, Vassilis Kikilias said that despite repeated appeals for private doctors to volunteer to help in the public sector, very few came forward. Therefore, the minister said, he was ordering specialists in pathology, pneumonology and general medicine to help.

Kikilias had said Friday he would requisition private sector doctors unless at least 200 volunteered within 48 hours. Government spokeswoman Aristotelia Peloni said Monday that only 61 doctors had stepped forward voluntarily.

“It was the last measure, if you will, in the context of the emergency plan prepared by the Health Ministry, and it was decided that it was now necessary to mobilize private doctors as part of this great struggle, this national effort, after all the opportunities for voluntary participation were exhausted,” Peloni said.

The requisition order is for one month for 206 doctors, health authorities said.

Greece has been experiencing a renewed surge of COVID-19 despite lockdown-related measures being in force since early November, with dozens of daily deaths recorded, as well as increasing numbers of patients hospitalized in intensive care units. About 500 people are hospitalized each day across the country with COVID-19, health authorities say, with 200 of them being in the wider Athens region.

On Sunday, Greece reported 1,514 new coronavirus cases and 41 more deaths, bringing total confirmed cases in the country of around 11 million people cases to 237,125 and its pandemic death toll to 7,462.

Despite the rising numbers, authorities have announced a slight relaxation of lockdown measures, with hairdressers, nail salons and open-air archaeological sites reopening as of Monday. Amateur fishing, which had also been banned, is also being allowed for those living in coastal areas, as access to the sea is allowed only on foot or bicycle.",0.289664788999423
"MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin said he will get a coronavirus vaccine shot on Tuesday, months after widespread vaccination has started in Russia.

Speaking at a meeting with government officials on Monday, Putin said he will get his shot “tomorrow,” without specifying which vaccine out of three approved for use in Russia he will take.

According to the Russian president, over 6 million people in Russia have already received at least one shot, and over 4 million have gotten both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Widespread vaccination with the domestically developed Sputnik V shot started in Russia in December, but has so far been going slower compared to many other countries.

Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at:

https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine

https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak",0.44967450699107725
"MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin says he will get a coronavirus vaccine shot on Tuesday.

© Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.",0.23506535482391241
"WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Adam Zagajewski, one of Poland’s greatest poets who wrote a poem that came to symbolize the world's sense of shock and loss after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, has died in Krakow. He was 75.

Zagajewski's death on Sunday, which was UNESCO's World Poetry Day, was confirmed by publisher Krystyna Krynicka. No cause of death was given.

Zagajewski's poem “Try to Praise the Mutilated World” was published in the New Yorker magazine just days after the Sept. 11 attacks and became representative for the outpouring of grief around the world.

He taught poetry workshops at Krakow's Jagiellonian University, as well as creative writing at the University of Houston. He was also a faculty member at the University of Chicago.

Poland's Nobel-winning author Olga Tokarczuk said that students “adored him because he was especially gifted for poetry, he knew how to talk about it.” She said he would read verse with “special, ceremonial intonation that is due only to poetry.”

Polish President Andrzej Duda tweeted that Zagajewski's death was “sad news and a big loss to Poland's literature.”

Zagajewski was a leading figure in Poland’s New Wave, or Generation '68, literary movement of the late 1960s that called for a simple language to relate directly to reality. It was a reaction to poetry praising life under the communist system.

His works were banned in 1975 by Poland's communist authorities of the time after he signed a protest by 59 intellectuals against ideological changes to the Polish Constitution that pledged unbreakable alliance with the Soviet Union and the leading role of the Communist Party.

He emigrated to Paris in 1982, but returned to Poland in 2002 and lived in Krakow.

He won many literary awards, including the 2004 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, considered a forerunner to the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the 2017 Princess of Asturias Award, the Spanish-speaking world's top humanities award.

He was awarded a number of Polish state distinctions and France's Legion of Honor in 2016.

Zagajewski was born in June 1945 in Lwow, now Lviv in Ukraine. That same year his family had to move west, to central Poland, as borders were shifted following World War II and the city became part of the Soviet Union.",-0.8516894122381817
"THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — What is expected to be a complex process to form a new Dutch government got underway Monday with leaders of parties that won seats in last week's parliamentary elections laying out their preferred coalition options.

One-by-one, leaders met with two “scouts” appointed to take stock of possible coalitions and report them to the newly elected lower house of parliament before its first session on March 31.

The scouts come from the parties that won the most seats in last Wednesday's election, the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, or VVD, led by caretaker prime minister, Mark Rutte, and the centrist D66 party, which recorded one of its best election results to become the second biggest party.

Rutte told reporters that among potential coalition partners for the VVD, he believes the scouts should “seriously look at” new right-wing populist party JA21, which won three seats.

The Dutch voting system all but guarantees coalition governments. Rutte's VVD won 35 of the 150 seats in the lower house of parliament; D66 won 23.

If, as expected, Rutte leads the next government, the 54-year-old would head his fourth coalition and will be in line to become the longest-serving Dutch prime minister.

D66 leader Sigrid Kaag said she wants to look at issues rather than potential coalition partners.

“In this phase, if you look at the challenges we face and the choices we have to make, it's more important to look at what everybody wants to achieve in this country,” she said.

The scouts have two busy days Monday and Tuesday, with meetings scheduled with the leaders of all 17 parties that won a place in the 150-seat lower house of parliament.",-0.3959142988645274
"LONDON (AP) — A British newspaper doesn’t have to run a front-page statement about the Duchess of Sussex’s legal victory until it has had the chance to challenge the order, a judge ruled Monday.

The former Meghan Markle, 39, sued publisher Associated Newspapers for invasion of privacy and copyright infringement over five February 2019 articles that reproduced large portions of a letter she wrote to her father, Thomas Markle, after her marriage to Prince Harry.

Judge Mark Warby ruled in Meghan’s favor last month. He ordered the newspaper to publish a front-page statement highlighting the duchess’s legal victory, and said the statement should also run on the MailOnline website for a week.

The judge said Monday that the statement could be put on hold while Associated Newspapers asked the Court of Appeal for permission to challenge his earlier rulings.

“The defendants are entitled to ask the Court of Appeal to look at their grounds and decide if those points justify the grant of permission to appeal,” the judge said. “To refuse a stay in the meantime would negate that entitlement.”

Meghan, a former star of the American TV legal drama “Suits,” married Harry, a grandson of Queen Elizabeth II, at Windsor Castle in May 2018. Their son Archie was born the following year.

In early 2020, Meghan and Harry announced they were quitting royal duties and moving to North America, citing what they said were the unbearable intrusions and racist attitudes of the British media.

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey that was broadcast earlier this month, the couple alleged that Meghan was the victim of racism and callous treatment during her time as a working member of the royal family.

Buckingham Palace said the allegations were “concerning” and would be “taken very seriously.”",-1.2296868905359062
"BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union on Monday imposed sanctions on four Chinese officials accused of responsibility for abuses against Uyghur Muslims in a raft of measures targeting alleged human rights offenders around the world, despite warnings that Beijing could retaliate.

The four are senior officials in the northwest region of Xinjiang.

The sanctions involve a freeze on their assets in the EU and a ban on them traveling in the bloc. European citizens and companies are not permitted to provide them with financial assistance.

China at first denied the existence of camps for detaining Uyghurs in the northwest region of Xinjiang but has since described them as centers to provide job training and reeducate those exposed to radical jihadi thinking. Officials deny all charges of human rights abuses in the northwestern region.

Xinjiang had been a hotbed of anti-government violence, but Beijing claims its massive security crackdown brought peace in recent years.",0.6021262318469753
"BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union imposes sanctions on 4 Chinese officials accused of responsibility for abuse of Uyghurs.

© Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.",-0.19225201336337788
"BERLIN (AP) — Germany's finance minister announced Monday that he has chosen the head of Switzerland's market regulator, Mark Branson, to lead the troubled German financial supervisory authority, BaFin.

Finance Minister Olaf Scholz has vowed to reform and strengthen BaFin following an accounting scandal at payment systems provider Wirecard. The departure of Felix Hufeld, BaFin's boss since 2015, was announced in late January.

Branson, a 52-year-old British-Swiss dual national, will take over at BaFin in the middle of this year, the finance ministry said in a statement.

“With him at the top, we want to continue the reform of BaFin so that financial supervision gets more bite,” Scholz said. “Confidence in Germany as a financial center is important and BaFin is a central confidence factor.”

Branson has led the Swiss financial market supervisor, FINMA, since 2014. For four years before that, he headed the agency's banks division, responsible for licensing and supervising all Swiss banks and securities dealers. He previously worked worked for Swiss banks UBS and Credit Suisse.

One-time tech star Wirecard filed for protection from creditors through insolvency proceedings in June after admitting that 1.9 billion euros ($2.3 billion) it supposedly had in trust accounts in the Philippines probably did not exist.

German authorities have been criticized for failing to step in sooner despite reports of irregularities dating back at least five years.

Scholz last month unveiled plans calling for focused supervision of complex companies that would give the regulator an overview of all business areas and developments on the market.

They foresee a new “task force” that will be empowered to carry out special audits, and the hiring of additional auditors and others.

Scholz has said it will be important to “systematically collect and evaluate information from whistleblowers,"" and that there will be regular exchanges with consumer protection groups and nongovernmental organizations.",0.5875644347854083
"Low-dose aspirin might help protect the lungs and keep COVID-19 patients out of ICUs. The inexpensive drug can also reduce the risk of death, said researchers at George Washington University, according to a study released Wednesday.

The new study joins ongoing research on the potential benefits of aspirin and COVID-19.

Recently, Israeli scientists found that patients who took small daily doses of aspirin were 29% less likely to test positive for COVID-19. They were also more apt to have a shorter illness and have fewer lingering side effects, according to The Times of Israel.

According to CNN, the team from George Washington said low-dose, or ''baby'' aspirin, is an ideal treatment for COVID-19 because it is much cheaper than other anti-COVID-19 drugs such as Remdesivir and is widely available.

The researchers theorize aspirin can save lives because it helps prevent blood clots in COVID-19 patients which is why doctors often prescribe a daily dose of the drug to patients who have suffered a heart attack.

Dr. Jonathan Chow, assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences, told CNN he and his colleagues observed COVID-19 patients developed potentially deadly blood clots throughout their bodies.

""That is why we thought that using an antiplatelet agent, or a blood thinner, like aspirin, might be helpful in COVID-19,"" Chow said.

According to the study, the researchers analyzed the records of 412 patients admitted to several U.S. hospitals between March and July 2020. While most of the patients did not receive aspirin therapy, the patients who did clearly benefited, according to CNN. Aspirin use was associated with a 44% reduction in mechanical ventilation, a 43% reduction in ICU admission, and a 47% reduction for in-hospital mortality, the researchers found.

A recent study published in the journal PLOS One, studied more than 30,000 U.S. veterans with COVID-19 and found those already taking aspirin ''had a significantly decreased risk of mortality'' than the veterans who were not on the drug.

In the United Kingdom, researchers are currently conducting the RECOVERY Trial that is examining a wide range of potential treatments aimed at helping hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Aspirin is included in their research.

In the Israeli study, people who contracted COVID-19 and were taking low-dose aspirin were sick on the average of two to three days less than non-users.

''This observation of the possible beneficial effect of low-dose aspirin on COVID-19 infection is preliminary but seems very promising,'' said Professor Eli Magen, of Barzilai Medical Center, the lead author of the study.

Experts at Johns Hopkins Medicine warn, for some, taking daily aspirin can have negative side effects. It irritates your stomach lining and can cause gastrointestinal upset, ulcers, and bleeding. Since aspirin is a blood thinner, it can be dangerous for people who are at higher risk of bleeding. It is always wise to check with your healthcare practitioner before taking aspirin.",-1.396069489725478
"At the beginning of the pandemic, experts warned the three main symptoms of COVID-19 were fever, shortness of breath, and coughing. But as the disease unfolded, insidious and strange new side effects arose, including new loss of taste or smell, diarrhea, and headache.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lists more than 10 symptoms that might signal a COVID-19 infection. The CDC admits the symptoms might not cover all possibilities and says it will continue to update the list as agency infectious disease experts learn more about the disease.

According to Health, one potential sign of COVID-19 that is not included on the CDC list are skin rashes. A recent study published in the British Journal of Dermatology found a direct association between skin rashes and positive COVID-19 swab test results. Data gathered on the COVID Symptom Study app revealed that 8.5% of people who tested positive for the virus developed these reactions.

The study authors said 47% of people noticed rashes at the same time other COVID-19 symptoms appeared. Oddly, 17% said the rashes erupted before any of the other typical signs were noticed. According to Health, 21% of the people said their rash was the only symptom of COVID-19 they experienced.

According to The Hospitalist, skin manifestations were observed in one-fifth of a group of patients with COVID-19 in the Alessandro Manzoni Hospital in Lecco, in northern Italy.

Dermatologists were pulled from their regular duties to observe the unusual symptoms in 148 COVID-19 patients. They found 20.5% developed skin symptoms, according to The Hospitalist.

Some patients exhibited skin eruptions at the onset of the disease while others developed them after hospitalization. The doctors found 78% of the patients with skin symptoms had red rashes while others had widespread urticaria — round, red welts on the skin that can itch intensely. The trunk of the body was the most affected area.

To help people identify what a COVID-19 rash might look like, and using the pictures that the survey respondents had submitted, the British researchers worked with the British Association of Dermatologists (BAD) to create a catalog of images of the most reported skin manifestations of COVID-19, according to Health.

Here are some of the most common skin symptoms of COVID-19:

COVID-19 digits. COVID-19 toes and fingers look like they have been frostbitten and may appear red and purple. According to Health, the digits are sore but not itchy.

COVID-19 toes and fingers look like they have been frostbitten and may appear red and purple. According to Health, the digits are sore but not itchy. Head and chest eczema. These rashes appear on skin that is exposed to sunlight and are pink and itchy. Dermatologists say people who experience this form of eczema usually have no previous history of skin conditions.

These rashes appear on skin that is exposed to sunlight and are pink and itchy. Dermatologists say people who experience this form of eczema usually have no previous history of skin conditions. Oral rash. The BAD report says COVID-19 can cause soreness in the mouth and on the lips.

The BAD report says COVID-19 can cause soreness in the mouth and on the lips. Pityriasis rosea. According to the Mayo Clinic, this rash begins as a circular or oval spot on the chest and can grow up to four inches. In COVID-19 patients, the rash can last several months before clearing up.

According to Weill Cornell Medicine, patients who are hospitalized with more severe cases of COVID-19 have exhibited even more skin symptoms. One condition is a ""lacy, purple, bruise-like rash that occurs in critically ill patients,"" says Dr. Joanna Harp, a dermatologist at Weill Cornell Medicine who specializes in complex dermatology related to internal disease.

""The skin can be a window into what is happening internally,"" Dr. Harp said. ""There is so much we don't know about COVID-19, but we are learning about various skin conditions that may be associated with the virus.""",0.9776284331562791
"If you're a 20-something who wants to stay sharp, listen up: A new study suggests poor health habits now may increase your risk of mental decline later in life.

Its authors say young adulthood may be the most critical time for adopting a healthy lifestyle in order to keep your brain sharp when you're older.

That's the upshot of an analysis of data from about 15,000 adults who were part of 4 long-term research projects. The participants ranged in age from 18 to 30 and 45 to 95 when the research began.

The study linked poor diet, smoking, and inactivity in early adulthood to greater mental decline later in life.

The related risk factors include high blood sugar, high blood pressure, and a high body mass index (BMI). BMI is an estimate of body fat based on height and weight.

Having these risk factors in young adulthood was tied to a doubling of the average rate of mental decline later on, according to findings published online March 17 in the journal Neurology.

Obesity alone during young adulthood was associated with double the average rate of mental decline, and a similar impact was found for high blood sugar and high systolic blood pressure. (Systolic blood pressure is a measure of the force on blood vessels as your heart pushes blood through your body; it's the top number in a blood pressure reading.)

Researchers found no link between high cholesterol in young adulthood and greater mental decline later on.

While previous research has shown a link between these heart risk factors in midlife and worse mental decline, little has been known about their impact in early adulthood, according to first author Dr. Kristine Yaffe. She's a professor of psychiatry, neurology and epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco.

""Cardiovascular risk factors are among the most promising modifiable risk factors for prevention of cognitive aging and dementia,"" Yaffe said in a university news release.

""Our findings suggest that attention should be broadened to consider early adult cardiovascular health, since increasing trends in diabetes and obesity in this age group, coupled with a higher level of underdiagnosed risk factors could have significant public health implications for cognitive health,"" she added.

Yaffe noted that the study shows a link but does not prove cause and effect.

But, she added, the trends in obesity, diabetes, and sedentary behavior are concerning.

""We should consider that despite improvements in treatment, cardiovascular risk factors go undiagnosed and untreated, especially in younger adults,"" Yaffe said.

In 2017-2018, 40% of Americans in their 20s and 30s were obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That compares with an overall adult obesity rate of 10% in the 1950s.",-0.41078259845588533
"Time is never more precious than in the minutes after a stroke. Now, research is confirming that a ""mobile stroke unit"" can rush aid to patients quickly, potentially saving lives.

""Patients who are treated early benefit from a complete reversal of stroke symptoms and avoidance of disability,"" said lead study author Dr. James Grotta. He is director of stroke research at the Clinical Institute for Research and Innovation at Memorial Hermann — Texas Medical Center, in Houston. ""This suggests that in the first hour after a stroke occurs, the brain is not yet irreversibly damaged and is very amenable to effective treatment.""

Mobile stroke units are special ambulances equipped to diagnose and treat stroke quickly.

When treating patients with ischemic stroke (caused by a clot blocking blood flow to the brain), these units can also immediately administer clot-dissolving tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) medication.

This study found that stroke patients treated by mobile stroke units received clot-busting medications faster and more often — and had significantly better recovery — than patients who received regular emergency care by standard ambulance.

For the study, the researchers analyzed data from 1,047 patients who were eligible for tPA and transported to hospital emergency departments by either mobile stroke units (617 patients) or standard ambulance (430 patients).

The hospitals were in Houston; New York City; Indianapolis; Los Angeles; Memphis, Tenn.; Aurora, Colo.; and Burlingame, Calif.

Overall, 97% of patients transported by a mobile stroke unit received tPA, compared to 80% of those brought to the emergency department by a regular ambulance.

One-third of patients transported by a mobile stroke unit were treated within one hour after stroke symptoms began, compared to 3% of patients transported by a standard ambulance, the findings showed.

Fifty-three percent of the mobile unit patients had recovered fully within three months, compared with 43% of standard ambulance-transported patients, according to the study presented Wednesday at an online meeting of the American Stroke Association.

""Our results mean that, on average, for every 100 patients treated on a mobile stroke unit rather than standard ambulance, 27 will have less final disability, and 11 of the 27 will be disability-free,"" Grotta said in a meeting news release.

""But for this to happen, patients, caregivers and bystanders need to recognize the signs of stroke and call 911 immediately,"" he added.

Research presented at meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.",-0.6692448696477966
"A new tissue infection has been identified in Crohn's disease patients, and researchers say their finding could ultimately lead to better treatment of the common inflammatory bowel disease.

Areas of unhealed wounds in the intestines of Crohn's patients have elevated levels of a type of yeast widely found in cheese and processed meat, the new study found.

The researchers discovered that levels of the yeast Debaryomyces hansenii are higher in Crohn's disease patients than in people without the disease.

In Crohn's patients, levels of the yeast are especially high in chronically inflamed regions of the colon and small intestine, indicative of unhealed intestinal wounds, according to the study.

""Impaired wound healing can promote chronic inflammation, both of which are key features of inflammatory bowel diseases,"" said study leader Dr. Thaddeus Stappenbeck. He is chair of the department of inflammation and immunity at the Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute.

""The significance of our study is that we define a clear link between a specific gut microbe and wound healing response. Targeting this infection may be a viable approach to treat the disease or develop diet-based prevention strategies,"" Stappenbeck explained in a clinic news release.

In one part of the study, the researchers biopsied intestinal tissue of patients with and without Crohn's disease. D. hansenii was discovered in most diseased samples compared to only 10% of healthy samples.

The study authors concluded that while D. hansenii is not broadly pro-inflammatory, it contributes to the severity of Crohn's disease by increasing the levels of a cytokine called CCL5 (chemokine ligand 5). Chemokines such as CCL5 recruit other inflammatory cells.

""Taken together, our findings suggest that targeting CCL5 or the yeast itself may be viable therapeutic approaches to improve intestinal healing in patients with Crohn's disease who are infected with D. hansenii,"" Stappenbeck said.

Further research is needed to test a wider variety of patients and to follow patients with D. hansenii infections to determine the importance of the yeast in terms of Crohn's severity, progression and response to treatment, according to Stappenbeck.

He added that more studies are also needed to learn more about the connection between diet and Crohn's disease.

""As microbiome research has exploded in the last decade or so, our understanding of its role in human health and disease has expanded tremendously,"" Stappenbeck said.

""Our study supports that D. hansenii is safe in healthy individuals, but may be problematic in Crohn's patients,"" he explained.

The results were published March 12 in the journal Science.",1.5175774365540724
"The same lifestyle habits that protect the heart can also curb the risk of a range of cancers, a large new study confirms.

The study of more than 20,000 U.S. adults found both bad news and good news.

People with risk factors for heart disease also faced increased odds of developing cancer over the next 15 years. On the other hand, people who followed a heart-healthy lifestyle cut their risk of a cancer diagnosis.

Experts said the findings are no surprise. The American Cancer Society (ACS) has estimated that close to half of cancer deaths in the United States are linked to modifiable factors — including poor diet, smoking, lack of exercise, and obesity.

But the study drives home an important message, according to Marjorie McCullough, senior scientific director for epidemiology research at the ACS.

""A healthy lifestyle can reduce your risk of the top two killers in the U.S.,"" said McCullough, who was not involved in the study.

Lead researcher Dr. Emily Lau made another point: People often think of diet and exercise as being good for the heart — but may not always recognize their roles in cancer risk.

""When we're counseling patients, we should be talking about that,"" said Lau, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

She and her colleagues reported their findings Mar. 16 in the journal JACC: CardioOncology.

The results are based on 20,305 Americans who were 50 years old, on average, when the study began. Lau's team looked at how well they were adhering to the American Heart Association's ""Life's Simple 7.""

Those recommendations advise people to:

Never smoke, or to quit if they do.

Maintain a healthy weight for their height.

Exercise at a moderate intensity (like brisk walking) for at least 150 minutes a week, or at a vigorous intensity (like running) for at least 75 minutes a week.

Eat a diet high in fruits and vegetables, fiber-rich grains and fish, and low in salt and sugar.

Maintain normal blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar numbers -- which, Lau said, can be done with the help of medication when needed.

Researchers gave each participant up to 2 points per goal, depending on how well they were doing with it.

In the end, people who scored high on the heart-health scale were also less likely to develop cancer over the next 15 years: For each point they received, their risk of a future cancer declined by 5%.

The story was different for people who had major risk factors for heart disease at the study's start — including high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, and smoking. Those deemed to be at high risk of a heart attack in the next 10 years were over three times more likely to develop cancer compared to people with a low heart attack risk.

McCullough said the AHA recommendations on diet, weight, exercise and smoking largely align with advice from the cancer society.

But the ACS also stresses the role of alcohol in some cancers, including throat, esophageal, liver, breast and colon cancers. Drinking accounts for about 6% of all U.S. cancers, the society estimates.

""It's best to avoid alcohol,"" McCullough said.

As for exercise, the ACS encourages people to do a bit more — ideally logging more than 300 minutes each week. But the most important step, according to McCullough, is to get off the couch, since sedentary people can see health benefits from becoming regularly active to some degree.

McCullough pointed to a simple mantra: ""Move more, sit less.""

Cancer, of course, is many diseases, and the risk factors vary according to the type, McCullough noted. Obesity, for example, is more closely linked to certain cancers -- such as uterine, breast and esophageal cancers — than others.

In this study, the modifiable risk factor that made the biggest difference in overall cancer risk was smoking. That, Lau said, underscores the importance of helping smokers quit -- both for cancer prevention and the sake of their hearts.",0.041180151787274945
"Most women can have a natural childbirth even if labor doesn't begin soon after their water breaks, according to a new study.

This situation occurs in about 11% of pregnant women who carry to term. Labor is typically induced in such cases.

But University of Michigan researchers found there is no significant increased risk to mother or infant in waiting awhile for labor to begin on its own — an approach called expectant management.

The study included more than 2,300 U.S. women cared for by a midwestern midwifery service between January 2016 and December 2018.

In 12% of those women, the amniotic sac ruptured early — commonly referred to as water breaking. Of those, 53% decided to wait at home for labor to begin; 36% were expectantly managed in the hospital; 7.5% were admitted for immediate induction of labor; and 3% were admitted for immediate cesarean birth.

Of the women who chose to wait, 65% went into labor on their own and did not need to be induced.

Labor is typically induced in these cases because it's believed that the risk of infection for both mother and infant increases the more time elapses between rupture of the amniotic sac and the start of labor.

But infection rates did not differ between the different groups of women whose water broke early, the researchers said.

The findings showed that both inducing labor and using expectant management should be considered when water breaks early, and the decision should be guided by the mother's wishes and health, according to study co-author Ruth Zielinski, a nurse midwife and clinical professor in nursing.

""Twenty-six years ago when I graduated from midwifery school, I assumed everyone wanted to avoid induction, but this is definitely not the case,"" she said in a university news release. ""Often, patients want to get things going and are fine with induction. However, with healthy, term pregnancies, waiting for a period of time for labor to start is reasonable and should be offered.""

It's important for pregnant women to discuss their options with their care provider, Zielinski said.

The findings were published online recently in the Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing.",-0.16751324157377806
"For someone suffering a severe stroke, every 10 minutes that goes by before treatment starts in the emergency room may cost eight weeks of a healthy life, Canadian researchers report.

In fact, delays in the hospital may have worse consequences for recovery than delays in getting to the hospital, they noted.

""Our study confirmed that any delay in delivering appropriate stroke treatment is critical,"" said lead researcher Dr. Mohammed Almekhlafi. He is an assistant professor of clinical neurosciences, radiology, and community health sciences at the University of Calgary's Cumming School of Medicine.

""Delays after arrival at the hospital are also important. It may not be enough to only be aware of stroke symptoms and the availability of hospitals that are capable of treating stroke in one's area. The performance of these hospitals in the various time metrics needs to be recognized. Fast delivery of stroke treatment is a right for all stroke victims,"" he said.

Many national and international stroke associations have suggested benchmarks for the time from arrival at the emergency room until treatment, Almekhlafi said.

""Our findings emphasize the importance of continuously monitoring these time metrics to ensure that the care path speed is optimized,"" he added.

For their study, Almekhlafi's team reviewed seven previous studies that included a total of 406 patients and were published between 2010 and 2015. The patients took part in trials that compared mechanically removing clots with or without clot-busting drugs versus clot-busting drugs alone.

All of the patients had a severe stroke with blockage of one of the brain's large arteries, and all were treated within four hours after the stroke began.

The investigators found that the median time between the start of symptoms and arrival at the ER was a little over three hours, and the median time between arriving at the ER and the start of a procedure to remove the brain clot was more than 1.5 hours.

The researchers calculated that every hour delay in the hospital resulted in 11 months of healthy life lost.

The research team stressed that quick action to evaluate and treat stroke is critical. Patients need to be rushed to brain imaging to find where the clot is and clot-busting drugs given as quickly as possible. Then, patients need to be rushed to an operating room for endovascular therapy to remove the clot.

Delays can happen if brain scanners or angiography rooms are occupied by another patient or if delays occur in notifying the stroke team, Almekhlafi explained.

Dr. Larry Goldstein, chairman of the department of neurology at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, said, ""These data suggest that treatment process delays after hospital arrival — but not delays between symptom onset reflected in last time [the patient was] known well and hospital arrival — were associated with poorer outcomes after blood clot removal in patients with stroke.""

But Goldstein noted that the entire process — from recognizing a stroke, getting to the hospital, and being diagnosed and treated — is critical to the outcomes of stroke patients.

""Regardless, recognition of stroke symptoms, rapid activation of the emergency transport system, availability of hospitals capable of rapid stroke diagnosis, and systems to minimize treatment delays and optimize emergent and subsequent stroke-related care processes are all important to increase the likelihood of improving patient outcomes,"" Goldstein said.

The process begins with believing a stroke has occurred.

One acronym that helps people recognize the symptoms of stroke is BE-FAST, Goldstein said. If someone suddenly develops any of these symptoms, a stroke may be occurring:

B - Balance or leg weakness

- Balance or leg weakness E - Eyes - visual loss or double vision

- Eyes - visual loss or double vision F - Facial droop

- Facial droop A - Arm weakness

- Arm weakness S - Speech that is slurred or otherwise changed

- Speech that is slurred or otherwise changed T- Time – the need to call 911 immediately

The findings were scheduled for presentation at the American Stroke Association's virtual annual meeting, March 17 to 19. Research presented at meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.",-0.7270831222003679
"Why are men over 50 around the world 60% more likely than women to die early?

Two big reasons are higher rates of smoking and heart disease, according to a large new study.

The findings are based on an analysis of data from more than 179,000 people in 28 countries. Fifty-five percent were women.

Researchers examined how socioeconomic (education, wealth), lifestyle (smoking, alcohol consumption), health (heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and depression), and social (having a spouse, living alone) factors might contribute to the higher risk of premature death in men.

The findings were published March 15 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Lead researcher Yu-Tzu Wu, of King's College London, and co-authors said many studies have examined the impact of social, behavioral, and biological factors on male-female differences in death rates, but few have investigated potential international variations.

""Different cultural traditions, historical contexts, and economic and societal development may influence gender experiences in different countries, and thus variably affect the health status of men and women,"" Wu and colleagues said in a journal news release.

They said those differences can lead to different life experiences for men and women and variation in the death gap across countries.

Their findings are consistent with other research about life expectancy and death rates.

The diversity of sex differences in death rates across countries may indicate the ""substantial impact"" of gender — socially constructed roles of men, women and gender-diverse people — ""in addition to biological sex, and the crucial contributions of smoking may also vary across different populations,"" the authors wrote.

Public health policies should account for sex- and gender-based differences and how social and cultural factors affect health, the researchers suggested.",0.6644038200122319
"Even when women do their best to have a safe pregnancy, chemicals commonly found in the home could still raise their risk for premature delivery, a new study shows.

The chemicals — called polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) — are used as flame retardants in items like furniture and carpets.

For the study, researchers analyzed blood samples from over 3,500 pregnant women, including 184 whose babies were born early, for blood levels of PBDEs. Nearly all had detectable levels of PBDEs in their blood. Women were divided into four groups based on those levels.

After accounting for other risk factors for premature birth — such as ethnicity, age, and smoking during pregnancy — the researchers found that women with the highest PBDE levels had 75% higher odds for suddenly going into early labor after an otherwise normal pregnancy, compared to women with the lowest levels.

Women with PBDE concentrations above 4 nanograms per milliliter of blood were about twice as likely to deliver early via cesarean section or induced labor due to safety concerns for mother or baby, the study found.

The researchers found no increased risk of preterm birth among women with PBDE levels below that level, according to the report published online recently in the Journal of Perinatal Medicine.

""Our findings illustrate that flame retardants may have a tremendous impact on childbirth even if exposure occurred early on in the pregnancy,"" said lead author Morgan Peltier, associate professor of clinical obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive medicine at NYU Long Island School of Medicine in Mineola, N.Y.

""Although PBDE chemicals are used with good intentions, they may pose a serious health concern that may have lasting consequences for children,"" Peltier added in an NYU news release.

There are an estimated 15 million preterm births worldwide each year.

Preterm birth is a leading cause of newborn death and has been linked with long-term neurological disorders including cerebral palsy, schizophrenia, and learning problems.

Previous research suggested a link between PBDE exposure and preterm birth, but those studies focused on exposure to the chemicals late in pregnancy, specifically among white and African American mothers.

Peltier said the new study is the first to examine PBDE exposure in the first trimester of pregnancy, and it also included Asian and Hispanic women.",-0.6943401974899794
"The gentle movement of tai chi that is widely practiced in China has gained popularity in the United States for its many health benefits. According to the Mayo Clinic, the art of tai chi that was originally developed for self-defense, may help reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, improve mood, increase energy and stamina, and improve balance and flexibility.

Tia chi can also help medical conditions such as lowering blood pressure, improving joint pain, enhancing the immune system and reducing the risk of falls in older people. Now, experts at Harvard Medical School say that the sequences of long, flowing upper and lower body movements may benefit people suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases or COPD.

A study by Australian researchers at Concord Repatriation General Hospital and University of Sydney found that people with COPD could walk longer distances and reported a better quality of life after practicing tai chi for 12 weeks, according to WebMD.

The study participants who practiced tai chi were also notably steadier on their feet than the people with COPD who did not follow the exercises.

“Impairment in balance and lower limb muscle strength are common in people with COPD and are some of the risk factors for falls,” wrote the researchers. They also noted that the group who took tai chi were noticeably less anxious and had a greater sense of wellbeing than the others in the study.

Statistics show that approximately 27 million in the U.S. suffer from COPD, and about half of these remain undiagnosed.

Harvard experts say that the movements of tai chi safely and gradually strengthen the heart and major muscles groups. The deep breathing taught in the practice enhances oxygen intake which helps with the breathlessness of COPD.

Most community and senior centers offer tai chi classes which normally cost $15 to $20 per class. You may also find classes online and some of them are free and can be done via Zoom so you can ask questions during the session. You can find a list of the best online classes here.",-1.431280591101055
"Could the paws of assistance dogs be cleaner than the soles of your shoes?

Yes, claims a new study that calls for allowing assistance dogs to accompany their owners in all public places.

To prove their point, Dutch researchers tested the paws of 25 assistance dogs and the soles on the shoes of their owners for two types of bacteria, Enterobacteriaceae and a diarrheal bacteria called Clostridium difficile.

For comparison, they also tested the paws of an equally large group of pet dogs and their owners.

""The dogs' paws turned out to be cleaner than the soles of their shoes,"" said study author Jasmijn Vos, a master's student at Utrecht University.

""This makes the hygiene argument that is often used to ban assistance dogs from public locations invalid,"" she said in a university news release.

More than 10,000 people in Europe use an assistance dog, and 81% of assistance dog users in the Netherlands say they regularly experience problems with being refused entry to public places with their dogs, even though the law allows it. This is mainly because of lack of knowledge of the person refusing entry, the researchers said.

These guide dogs are used by people who have a visual impairment, hearing impairment or other medical or psychiatric needs.



The study also showed that assistance dog users represented only a small fraction of the total number of patients in Dutch hospitals.

The findings were published recently in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

The researchers said that if people who use an assistance dog want to bring them into a hospital or another location, this should be allowed.",0.7250358385303352
"A streamlined whole-genome sequencing approach can provide rapid and accurate genomic profiling for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or myelodysplastic syndromes, according to a study published in the March 11 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Eric J. Duncavage, M.D., from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and colleagues used a streamlined whole-genome sequencing approach to obtain genomic profiles for 263 patients with myeloid cancers, including 235 who had undergone cytogenetics analysis. The performance of whole-genome sequencing was analyzed by comparing results to findings from cytogenetic analysis and targeted sequencing.

The researchers found that all 40 recurrent translocations and 91 copy-number alterations that had been identified by cytogenetic analysis were detected by whole-genome sequencing. In addition, new clinically reportable genomic events were identified in 40 of 235 patients (17.0 percent). In prospective sequencing of samples obtained from 117 patients, new information was provided for 29 patients (24.8 percent), which changed the risk category for 19 patients (16.2 percent). There was a correlation seen for standard AML risk groups, defined by sequencing results instead of cytogenetic analysis, with clinical outcomes. Patients who had inconclusive results by cytogenetic analysis could be stratified by whole-genome sequencing into risk groups in which clinical outcomes were measurably different.

""Although our study focused on myeloid cancers, many of the advantages of whole-genome sequencing that we observed will directly apply to patients with other cancers,"" the authors write.

Illumina provided some of the reagents for prospective sequencing.",0.6945090999646176
"Financial worries can hamper the success of cancer treatment and raise patients' risk of death, according to a new study that offers the first evidence of such a link.

""The association we found was very strong, and very concerning,"" said senior study author Dr. Anurag Singh, director of radiation research at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, N.Y. ""If you are worried about your finances, your risk of dying is roughly double.""

Singh's team surveyed 284 patients with head and neck cancer about their quality of life before and after treatment. Then they compared their responses to their outcomes.

""Head and neck cancer patients have the highest level of financial burden among any cancer patients because these are cancers where you can need surgery as well as extended courses of chemotherapy and radiation, along with substantial supportive care and rehabilitation,"" Singh said.

Many patients aren't well enough to work, which creates added stress, he noted.

""And we now know that this financial toxicity affects not just their mental and emotional well-being but their physical health, how they respond to cancer treatment,"" Singh said in a Roswell Park news release.

The 14.4% of patients who reported the greatest financial worries at the start of treatment were those most likely to have worse overall survival and worse cancer-specific survival, according to findings that will be published in the April issue of Oral Oncology.

""Financial toxicity could be a major unknown factor that could be affecting the results of even major clinical trials,"" Singh said.

He said researchers want everyone to be aware of these impacts.

""Doctors should consider how financial toxicity may be impacting their patients and do everything we can to improve our patients' quality of life, and we want to encourage patients to take advantage of financial counseling and every other resource that can lessen their burden,"" Singh added.

Previous research by study co-author Elizabeth Repasky, interim chairwoman of immunology at Roswell Park, found that chronic stress can limit the effectiveness of cancer treatment.

""These studies reveal the importance of stressful factors that are often hidden and beyond the control of the patient or caregiver in treatment outcome,"" she said.",0.5949178238643338
"One in four U.S. households use smart speakers to check the weather, play music, and query search engines. But a new technology may soon have folks asking, ""Hey Google, how's my heart?""

Researchers from the University of Washington, Seattle, have developed a skill for Amazon Alexa and Google Home that allows the devices to check heart rhythms.

Like a bat using echolocation to hunt for food, inaudible sound waves radiate from the speaker and bounce off the surroundings before returning to the device to paint a detailed picture of the space — so detailed, in fact, that the technology can differentiate between a person breathing and her heart beating. This phenomenon is possible because your heart actually creates a tiny movement in your chest wall every time it beats.

""The question we were asking is, 'Can we transform these smart speakers into ways in which we can do medical diagnosis?'"" said researcher Dr. Shyam Gollakota. He's an associate professor in the University of Washington's School of Computer Science & Engineering. ""Specifically, in the study, we showed that we can use a smart speaker like an Alexa or Google Home to figure out if you have irregular heart rhythm.""

For the technology to work, users must be one to two feet away from the speaker, the researchers said. They tested the accuracy of their work using 26 healthy participants and 24 hospitalized patients with heart conditions, such as atrial fibrillation and heart failure. Then, the scientists collected all participants' heart rhythms using their sound technology as well as a standard heartbeat monitor.

""This is similar to how Alexa can always find my voice even if I'm playing a video or if there are multiple people talking in the room,"" Gollakota explained in a statement. ""When I say, 'Hey, Alexa,' the microphones are working together to find me in the room and listen to what I say next. That's basically what's happening here, but with the heartbeat.""

Of the 12,300 or so heartbeats the researchers collected from the healthy individuals, the smart speaker's reported time between waves was within 28 milliseconds of the standard heart monitor. For the nearly 5,600 heartbeats collected from people with cardiac conditions, the speaker's time differed from the monitor by 30 milliseconds.

The findings were published online March 9 in the journal Communications Biology.

""I think the exciting part of the study is that we actually evaluated this with patients with cardiac conditions like heart transplants, irregular heartbeats and a variety of different heart conditions,"" Gollakota said. ""And it was really promising that even not just for regular participants, but even people who are actually in the hospital with cardiac conditions, it was able to deliver the results. So, that's actually pretty promising.""

The ultimate goal of the technology is to allow people to monitor their heart from the comfort of their homes, the study authors said.

""One of the things with cardiac conditions like, for example, irregular heart rhythms is that they don't appear often,"" Gollakota explained. ""So, having a solution which is nonintrusive, contactless and it's just sitting by your desk and monitoring your heartbeat all the time, can be pretty promising,"" he said.

""The second advantage is that as we have seen with COVID, a lot of the [medical] practice has actually gone online to telemedicine,"" Gollakota added. ""So, in this telemedicine set-up, if you want to monitor someone's heart conditions, or figure out if they have irregular heartbeats, a tool like this can be pretty useful to perform tests and understand how the heartbeat of the person is.""

Dr. Regina Druz, chair of the American College of Cardiology's Health Care Innovation Section and Leadership Council, said the technology is innovative and likely the future of telemedicine. She could see it being effective in community homes or for chronic patients to monitor signs of clinical deterioration.

However, there could be some potential drawbacks to the concept.

""With the sicker patient populations, the technology may not show a good degree of correlation with established and well-known and widely prevalent diagnostic tools,"" Druz explained. ""Patient populations are more diverse [than just having a single issue]. They have congestive heart failure; they have various abnormalities of heart function, both structural, functional and rhythm abnormalities that potentially could compromise how accurate this technology is.""

This latest smart speaker adaptation is just one example of how existing technology is being rejiggered to try to improve the health of users. According to a survey conducted last year by the Pew Research Center, about one in five Americans have smart watches, and the medical capabilities of these devices are rapidly expanding. Fitbit CEO James Park, for example, told Axios in February that his company's product can now help detect a coronavirus infection and depression in the early stages.

While these tools can be lifesaving in some cases, they can also cause unnecessary worry. For example, a study published last fall in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association found that only around 10% of people who went to the doctor after receiving an abnormal pulse reading from the Apple Watch were later diagnosed with a cardiac condition.

But if technology like smart watches and smart speakers become accurate enough, they could improve health care inequities by allowing those who are uninsured or underinsured or who live far away from physicians to monitor their health without scheduling a doctor's visit.",0.4271035011728243
"Your eyes may be a window into the health of your brain, a new study indicates.

Researchers found that older adults with the eye disease retinopathy were at increased risk of having a stroke, as well as possible symptoms of dementia. And on average, they died sooner than people their age without the eye condition.

Retinopathy refers to a disease the retina, the light-sensing tissue at the back of the eye. It's often caused by diabetes or high blood pressure, both of which can damage the small blood vessels supplying the retina.

Retinopathy can lead to vision changes, such as trouble reading or seeing faraway objects. In the later stages, the damaged blood vessels may leak and cause visual disturbances like dark spots or cobweb-like streaks, according to the U.S. National Eye Institute (NEI).

Studies have linked more severe retinopathy to a higher stroke risk — possibly because both involve diseased blood vessels.

In the new study, researchers found that people with signs of retinopathy were twice as likely to report a history of stroke, versus those with no evidence of the eye disease. Similarly, they were 70% more likely to report memory problems — a potential indicator of dementia.

Over the next decade, people with the most severe retinopathy faced a two to three times higher risk of dying.

It's not clear whether retinopathy actually foretells a future stroke or memory issues, said lead researcher Dr. Michelle Lin, an assistant professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla.

Study participants were asked about stroke history and memory problems at the same time they were evaluated for retinopathy. It's not clear which conditions came first, Lin said.

The next step, she added, is to follow patients with retinopathy over time, to see whether the condition predicts higher stroke risk — and whether detecting retinopathy makes a difference in that risk.

Lin will present the findings at the American Stroke Association's annual meeting, being held virtually March 17-19. Studies reported at meetings are generally considered preliminary until they are published in a peer-reviewed journal.

The results are based on more than 5,500 U.S. adults who took part in an ongoing government health study. All underwent retinal scans to look for retinopathy.

Nearly 700 were found to have the eye condition, while 289 had a history of stroke, and about 600 reported memory problems.

On average, people with retinopathy had heightened risks of stroke and memory issues — even after age, diabetes and high blood pressure were taken into account.

""It seems like there's something about retinopathy itself,"" Lin said. That is, the eye disease may give insight into what's happening in the blood vessels of the brain.

""It's really true that the eye is the window to the brain,"" she said.

Lin encouraged people with retinopathy to work with their doctor to get control of their risk factors for cardiovascular disease, which includes stroke and heart disease. That means reining in conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol.

Those measures are also key in limiting vision loss from retinopathy. Beyond that, injectable medications and laser surgery are options for more severe cases, according to the NEI.

The findings support adding retinopathy to the list of factors doctors consider in gauging patients' stroke risk, according to Daniel Lackland, a volunteer expert with the stroke association.

That's, in part, because detecting retinopathy is fairly simple, said Lackland, who is also a professor of epidemiology at the Medical University of South Carolina.

""And then we can work on strategies for preventing a stroke, if a person seems to have a high risk,"" Lackland noted.

If people are already being treated for conditions like high blood pressure, would a retinopathy diagnosis change anything? Maybe not, though Lin said patients could be screened for memory impairment, or possibly referred for a brain MRI to look for tissue damage or problems with the blood vessels.

On the flip side, Lin said, people with cardiovascular risk factors should see an ophthalmologist to check their eye health.`",0.38181756127588873
"African-American country singer Charley Pride, whose No. 1 country hits included ""All I Have to Offer You (Is Me)"" and ""Kiss an Angel Good Mornin,'"" died on Saturday at age 86 of complications from COVID-19, according to his website.

Pride, who died in Dallas, was not the first Black artist to make important contributions to country music, but he was a trailblazer who emerged during a time of division and rancor. Between 1967 and 1987, Pride delivered 52 Top 10 country hits, won Grammy awards and became RCA Records’ top-selling country artist, according to the website.

“We’re not color blind yet, but we’ve advanced a few paces along the path and I like to think I’ve contributed something to that process,” Pride wrote in his memoir.

The Mississippi native picked cotton, served in the U.S. Army and played baseball in the Negro league before moving to Nashville, becoming the first Black country star. He joined the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000, Rolling Stone magazine said.

""I’m so heartbroken that one of my dearest and oldest friends, Charley Pride, has passed away,"" country music star Dolly Parton said on Twitter. ""It’s even worse to know that he passed away from COVID-19. What a horrible, horrible virus. Charley, we will always love you.""

Pride's final performance came on Nov. 11, 2020, when he sang his hit ""Kiss An Angel Good Mornin'"" during the Country Music Association Award show at Nashville's Music City Center.

Pride was born in Sledge, Mississippi, on March 18, 1934 to a sharecropper. After enlisting in the Army, he worked at a Missouri smelting plant. Pride then played for the Memphis Red Sox and Birmingham Black Barons in the Negro League before heading in 1963 to Nashville where he made demonstration recordings.

Four years later, Pride’s recording of ""Just Between You and Me"" broke into country’s Top Ten. He went on to win the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year award in 1971, its top male vocalist prize in 1971 and 1972 and a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020. ""Charley Pride will always be a legend in Country music. He will truly be missed but will always be remembered for his great music, wonderful personality and his big heart,"" country music star Reba McEntire said on Twitter.",1.234080147131005
"A healthy, plant-based diet could reduce your risk of stroke by up to 10%, researchers say.

This type of diet includes greater amounts of foods like vegetables, whole grains and beans, and fewer less-healthy foods like refined grains or added sugars.

""Many studies already show that eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables can reduce your risk of all kinds of diseases, from heart disease to diabetes,"" said study author Dr. Megu Baden, of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in Boston.

""We wanted to find out if there is an association between this kind of healthy diet and stroke risk,"" Baden said.

The findings were published online March 10 in the journal Neurology.

The investigators looked at nearly 210,000 people who didn't have heart disease or cancer at the outset. The participants were followed for more than 25 years, and they completed food questionnaires every two to four years.

The researchers divided the participants into five groups based on the amounts of plant-based foods they ate, without excluding all animal foods.

On average, people with the highest healthy plant-based diets had 12 servings of healthy plant-based foods like leafy greens, fruits, whole grains, beans, and vegetable oils a day, while those with the lowest quality diets averaged 7.5 servings per day.

During the follow-up period, about 6,240 participants had strokes, including 3,015 who had ischemic strokes (caused by blocked blood flow to the brain) and 853 who had hemorrhagic (bleeding) strokes. The type of stroke was not known for the remainder of those who had a stroke.

Compared to people with the lowest consumption of healthful plant-based foods, those with the highest intake had a 10% lower overall risk of stroke, and about an 8% lower risk of ischemic stroke. There was no difference in the risk of hemorrhagic stroke.

The researchers also found no association between a vegetarian diet and stroke risk. But this might be because a vegetarian diet doesn't necessarily mean a high-quality diet, Baden said in a journal news release.

""A vegetarian diet high in less-healthy plant-based foods, such as refined grains, added sugars and fats, is one example of how the quality of some so-called 'healthy' diets differ. Our findings have important public health implications as future nutrition policies to lower stroke risk should take the quality of food into consideration,"" Baden explained.",-0.9010514088703339
"The pattern of eating three meals a day is not based on science, but rather on the industrialization of America which formulized the workday. According to The Atlantic, when the country was more rural, people worked their land during daylight hours, starting at dawn and pausing midday and later in the afternoon for mealtimes.

“It was more like a two-meal kind of schedule that was based on outdoor physical labor and farm labor, and those meals tended to be quite big,” said Amy Bentley, a professor of food studies at New York University.

When industrialized America began investing in processed foods, the breakfast industry boomed with nutritionally hollow foods like cornflakes and instant oatmeal that made eating the first meal of the day easy, if not totally nutritious, according to The Atlantic. Breakfast became a habit rather than a necessity so kids could get to school and parents to the workplace with food in their stomachs.

While some studies have shown that breakfast eaters are healthier than those who skip the meal, according to Healthline, this may be because people who eat breakfast generally have healthier lifestyle habits. Studies show that eating breakfast does not kickstart your metabolism as widely assumed and has no effect on the calories you burn throughout the day.

In fact, some studies have shown that skipping breakfast may cut 400 calories in your average daily intake, leading to weight loss. Even though some participants ate more at lunch, it was not enough to compensate for the missed meal.

Dr. Mehmet Oz believes that breakfast is a product of good marketing and not sound nutrition. He said he would like to abolish breakfast altogether to give our metabolisms a boost.

“I don’t think we need to eat breakfast. That’s an advertising ploy.” The TV host and cardiothoracic surgeon told TMZ.

Oz believes in intermittent fasting and suggests that if you eat a proper dinner, you should not be starving first thing in the morning. So, what is going to happen to the all-American tradition of bacon, eggs, and pancakes? The famous doctor advises us to eat only when we are truly hungry and that would be mid-morning. “You should have brunch every day of the week,” he advises.",0.620356769091158
"Just two weeks of treatment with an experimental drug can delay the onset of type 1 diabetes by several years, researchers report.

The drug, called teplizumab, is already under review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration based on earlier evidence of its effectiveness.

If it gets the green light, it would become the first drug approved for delaying type 1 diabetes in high-risk people.

In the earlier study, researchers found that two weeks of teplizumab infusions typically held the disease at bay for two years, versus a placebo.

In this latest follow-up, the investigators found that half of patients given teplizumab were still diabetes-free five years later, versus only 22% of the placebo group.

At the outset, patients in the study, most of whom were younger than 18, were almost certain to develop type 1 diabetes: They had a relative with the disease and were already harboring ""auto-antibodies"" in their blood, which is a sign the immune system was beginning to attack the body's own cells.

Type 1 diabetes arises when the immune system mistakenly goes after cells in the pancreas that produce the hormone insulin. Insulin has the critical job of moving sugars from food into the body's cells to be used as fuel.

To survive, people with type 1 diabetes need to take synthetic insulin, either via daily injections or a pump attached to the body.

How does the new drug work? Teplizumab is a lab-engineered antibody that targets specific immune cells, interfering with their ability to disable and destroy insulin-producing cells.

It's not clear yet whether the drug might fully prevent type 1 diabetes in some people.

But it can forestall the disease, which is critical, according to Sanjoy Dutta, vice president of research at the JDRF, a nonprofit that funds type 1 diabetes research.

The disease often strikes in childhood, and after many years people commonly develop complications such as heart, kidney and eye disease, as well as serious nerve damage.

Delaying diabetes, especially in kids, ""is like money in the bank,"" Dutta said.

The longer people can live with their own functioning beta cells (the cells that produce insulin), the better, Dutta explained. They will have better long-term control of their blood sugar, and down the road that could cut their risk of complications.

The teplizumab trial was sponsored by the Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet Study Group, a network funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and JDRF.

The drug, being developed by the biotech company Provention, was awarded ""breakthrough"" status by the FDA, which means it will get an expedited review. An approval could come as early as this summer, according to Dr. Kevan Herold, a professor at Yale University who led the trial.

These latest findings, published online March 3 in the journal Science Translational Medicine, are based on 76 patients who were randomly assigned to either two weeks of teplizumab (given by IV) or a placebo.

Among patients given the real drug, the median time until diabetes diagnosis was five years (meaning half were still disease-free at that point). In the placebo group, that figure was just over two years, for a nearly three-year difference.

Beyond that, teplizumab patients' beta cell function improved.

According to Stephan Kissler, a researcher at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston who was not involved in the trial, ""These results show not only that the drug can delay diabetes, but that it can also improve pancreas function before diabetes is diagnosed. This is a convincing sign that the drug can halt disease progression -- at least for a significant period of time.""

There are still key questions to answer.

Dutta said the trial, involving mostly kids, went conservative with the teplizumab dose. So now researchers are wondering whether a bigger dose — perhaps giving a ""booster,"" similar to a vaccination — would be even more effective, he noted.

Kissler said the current study is ""far from over,"" since many participants remained diabetes-free.

""Whether teplizumab will be sufficient to completely prevent diabetes in some individuals is uncertain,"" he said. ""But these remarkable results give us hope that a complete prevention may one day be achievable.""

That, Kissler said, might come via teplizumab or other immune-system therapies. He noted that researchers are developing drugs to shield beta cells from the immune assault, and it's possible such therapies could enhance the protective effect of teplizumab.

If teplizumab is approved, that will amplify the importance of identifying people with type 1 diabetes auto-antibodies. Screening tests are available, but not yet widely done.

Relatives of people with type 1 diabetes can get free auto-antibody screening through the TrialNet study, according to JDRF.",-0.7338272826702583
"""Prediabetes"" – where blood sugar levels are high but not yet tipped over into full-blown diabetes – might pose a threat to brain health, new British research suggests.

""As an observational study, it cannot prove higher blood sugar levels cause worsening brain health; however, we believe there is a potential connection that needs to be investigated further,"" said study lead author Victoria Garfield. She is at the Institute of Cardiovascular Science and MRC Unit for Lifelong Health and Aging, at University College London.

In their research, Garfield's team analyzed U.K. Biobank data on a half-million people, average age 58. Compared to those with normal blood sugar (""glucose"") levels, people with prediabetes had a 42% higher risk of mental decline over an average of four years, and were 54% more likely to develop vascular dementia – a common type of dementia caused by reduced blood flow to the brain – over an average of eight years.

The associations between prediabetes and mental (""cognitive"") decline/vascular dementia remained even after the researchers accounted for other potential risk factors, including age, smoking, weight, level of heart disease, and poverty.

Prediabetes was not associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease, Garfield's team noted.

One U.S. diabetes expert said the findings are not surprising, given the fact doctors have long known that full-blown diabetes raises dementia risks.

""The takeaway is that cognitive risk related to elevated glucose levels occurs across a spectrum,"" said Dr. Minisha Sood, an endocrinologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

So even in the prediabetic stage, ""where the body overproduces insulin in order to maintain normal blood sugar levels,"" damage to the brain might be underway, she said.

Sood believes people who are in a prediabetic state should be warned by their physicians of the dangers.

The British team also looked at people with full-blown type 2 diabetes, and found they were three times more likely to develop vascular dementia, and also more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease, than those with normal blood sugar levels.

The study was published online recently in the journal Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism.

""Previous research has found a link between poorer cognitive outcomes and diabetes, but our study is the first to investigate how having blood sugar levels that are relatively high – but do not yet constitute diabetes – may affect our brain health,"" Garfield noted in a university news release. Dr. Barbara Keber is chair of family medicine at Glen Cove Hospital in Glen Cove, N.Y.

Reading over the new findings, she said it ""makes sense"" prediabetes might harm blood flow in the brain, since it has the same effect elsewhere in the body.

But Keber also noted too-tight blood sugar control has been linked to hypoglycemia (dangerous dips in blood sugar levels) in patients, which has also been linked to ""increased risks for development of cognitive decline and dementia.""

So, ""the take-home here is that we need to prevent prediabetes and diabetes as well as control the glucose levels for those who have been diagnosed without causing hypoglycemia, to prevent the development of cognitive decline and vascular dementia,"" Keber said.

In the meantime, there is also a lot the average person with prediabetes can do to rid themselves of this threat to their health.

""For the lay population, they need to follow a diet which reduces the risks of developing diabetes, exercise regularly – both isometric (strength training) and aerobic (cardiac training) – to reduce weight gain and prevent the development of both prediabetes and diabetes,"" Keber said.",0.41877776133551986
"Anyone who gets frequent migraine symptoms knows the experience: the throbbing, the pain, the visual disturbances.

Exercise has long been a potential way to reduce migraine triggers, but a new study suggests it could be an especially effective with triggers such stress, depression, and trouble sleeping.

""It's a complex relationship, but we know that exercise, generally speaking, helps increase levels of good neurotransmitters, like dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, which contribute to not only fewer headaches, but also better mood and overall well-being,"" said study author Dr. Mason Dyess, senior fellow at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Exercise also improves heart health and that helps with weight management, which is also associated with better migraine control, Dyess said.

The study included more than 4,600 people diagnosed with migraine. About 75% had 15 or more migraines a month. The other 25% had 14 or fewer.

Study participants completed a questionnaire about their migraine characteristics, sleep, depression, stress and anxiety. They also answered questions about how much moderate to vigorous exercise they got each week — jogging, very brisk walking, playing a sport, heavy cleaning, and bicycling, for example.

Researchers divided participants into five groups by frequency of exercise ranging from none to more than 150 minutes per week, the minimum recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). About 27% got the recommended amount or more.

Participants who got less exercise than recommended had increased rates of depression, anxiety and sleep problems, the study found.

Researchers found that 47% of the people who did not exercise had depression; 39% had anxiety, and 77% had sleep problems.

By comparison, about 25% of the most active group had depression; 28% had anxiety; and 61% had sleep problems.

The study also found a link between exercise and headache frequency. In the no exercise group, 5% had zero to four headache days a month, while many more — 48% — had 25 or more headache days per month.

In the high exercise group, 10% had low headache frequency and 28% had high headache frequency.

Dr. Mark Green, a member of the National Headache Foundation's Health Care Leadership Council, and a professor of neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, urged migraine sufferers to be cautious about their exercise routines.

Consistency is key, whether it comes to exercise or other activities that can be beneficial, such as controlling caffeine, wake and sleep hours, eating and hydration, said Green, who wasn't part of the study.

He suggests his patients begin a routine of walking on a treadmill for 3 1/2 miles at an incline of 4 degrees every day. He recommends increasing the angle, not the speed, if someone wants more of a workout.

""I don't want it to be jogging. I want it to be walking fast. Three and a half doesn't sound like anything, but it's actually faster than you think at 10 degrees,"" Green said. ""That tends to work out well.""

Migraine is complex and people who experience it do so for a variety of reasons. Yet there are some vital common denominators, Green said.

""In general, it's influenced by genes. To give you an example, if you have migraine, your children have a 50% risk of developing migraine. If both parents have migraine, the risk is about 80% of developing migraine,"" Green said.

In addition to low-impact exercise, Green advises his patients to eat multiple small meals a day, get consistent hydration and maintain consistent sleep schedules. He tells patients they need not limit caffeine intake but they also should not vary their caffeine routine.

""I tell people with migraine you have a brain that doesn't like change — it likes constancy,"" Green said.

Researchers noted that the study only shows a link between exercise and migraine triggers and doesn't prove cause and effect.

The findings will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting, held online April 17-22. Research presented at meetings is typically considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Dyess suggested migraine sufferers work more activity into their daily life. He recommended starting with gentle yoga, then building up to a brisker routine. That could include jogging, depending on the patient, he said.

""Exercise is such a cheap and accessible treatment option for people that's just widely underutilized,"" Dyess said. ""I think awareness is powerful in this situation. It really can change lives anywhere and everywhere if utilized by patients.""",-2.0192647683307983
"Testosterone levels tend to fall in older men, but a new study shows that exercise — and not supplemental testosterone — is the way to rejuvenate the aging male heart.

Australian researchers found that without exercise, testosterone replacement therapy offered patients no improvement at all in cardiovascular health. But exercise alone — absent any testosterone supplementation — did boost arterial function.

As a bonus, exercise also boosted the men's natural testosterone levels, the study found.

According to study author Dr. Bu Yeap, the bottom line is clear: ""To improve the health of arteries, exercise is better than testosterone.""

Yeap, who is president of the Endocrine Society of Australia, acknowledged that ""there is a gradual decline in testosterone levels as men grow older, extending into middle and older age."" And that decline is often accompanied by expanding waistlines and a wide array of health conditions.

As a result, testosterone therapy has gained traction, largely in a bid for increased energy and muscle mass. In fact, global sales of the hormone have skyrocketed 12-fold in just the first decade of the 21st century.

That's not necessarily a good development, Yeap cautioned. He argued that men should not embark on testosterone treatment ""unless they have medical conditions affecting the pituitary gland or testes which interfere with the production of testosterone."" Using testosterone as a body-building tool ""is not medically approved, and should be discouraged.""

Safety considerations aside, can testosterone help protect an aging heart?

Yeap, a professor in the medical school of the University of Western Australia, said a lack of rigorous research makes it hard to answer that question, or to know whether any potential benefit might outweigh potential risk.

To gain more insight, Yeap and his team set out to weigh the relative impact of testosterone therapy and exercise routines on the heart health of 78 men between ages 50 and 70.

Testosterone levels among the participants ranged from low to normal. None had a history of heart disease, smoked, or was on testosterone therapy at the study's start.

All initially underwent arterial blood flow testing as a measure of heart health and function, before being randomly divided into four groups. One group did aerobic and strength exercise two to three times per week while receiving testosterone therapy; a second got testosterone alone; a third was given placebo therapy; and a fourth got placebo therapy with an exercise routine.

The team found that on its own, exercise triggered a rise in testosterone levels, though not to the same extent as the 62% rise in hormone levels seen among men who did undergo testosterone therapy.

But most critically, arterial function shot up by 28% among those who exercised without taking testosterone therapy. That bested the 19% improvement seen among those exercised and took testosterone replacement therapy.

Those men who only received testosterone therapy saw no heart health improvement at all. The researchers concluded that exercise may be preferable over testosterone supplementation to improve heart health in older men.

That thought was echoed by Dr. Robert Eckel, past president of the American Heart Association and immediate past president of medicine and science with the American Diabetes Association.

""This trial was not [designed] to assess safety of testosterone,"" he noted, leaving the question of whether taking testosterone replacement therapy might actually pose a heart risk unanswered.

Still, Eckel, a professor of medicine emeritus at the University of Colorado, said he agrees that ""in general, testosterone should not be given unless someone is hypogonadal,"" referring to a condition in which the sex glands stop producing enough sex hormones.

As to the potential heart health benefits of exercise, Eckel said there are ""no surprises here. Exercise is beneficial … [and] should be promoted.""

Yeap and his colleagues reported their findings Feb. 22 in the journal Hypertension.",0.7948753894744081
"The FDA approved Cosela (trilaciclib), a drug designed to help protect bone marrow (myeloprotection) when administered prior to treatment with chemotherapy. It is the only therapy available for this.

Cosela should be commercially available in early March and was created by G1 Therapeutics, Inc. It is administered intravenously.

According to an FDA press release: “The approval of trilaciclib (Cosela) is an important advance in the treatment of patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer receiving chemotherapy,” said Dr. Jeffrey Crawford, professor for research in cancer at Duke's Department of Medicine and member of the Duke Cancer Institute. “The most serious and life-threatening side effect of chemotherapy is myelosuppression, or damage to the bone marrow, resulting in reduced white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets.

""Chemotherapy-induced myelosuppression may lead to increased risks of infection, severe anemia, and/or bleeding. These complications impact patients’ quality of life and may also result in chemotherapy dose reductions and delays. To date, approaches have included the use of growth factor agents to accelerate blood cell recovery after the bone marrow injury has occurred, along with antibiotics and transfusions as needed. By contrast, trilaciclib provides the first proactive approach to myelosuppression through a unique mechanism of action that helps protect the bone marrow from damage by chemotherapy.

""In clinical trials, the addition of trilaciclib to extensive-stage small cell lung cancer chemotherapy treatment regimens reduced myelosuppression and improved clinical outcomes. The good news is that these benefits of trilaciclib will now be available for our patients in clinical practice.”

Chemotherapy kills both cancer cells and healthy cells. It also damages bone marrow, which can increase the risk of infection and anemia, among other things. The newly approved drug should reduce some chemotherapy-related toxicity, making chemotherapy safer and more tolerable.

According to the FDA: ""Cosela is administered intravenously as a 30-minute infusion within four hours prior to the start of chemotherapy and is the first FDA-approved therapy that helps provide proactive, multilineage protection from chemotherapy-induced myelosuppression. The approval of Cosela is based on data from three randomized, placebo-controlled trials that showed patients receiving Cosela prior to the start of chemotherapy had clinically meaningful and statistically significant reduction in the duration and severity of neutropenia. Data also showed a positive impact on red blood cell transfusions and other myeloprotective measures.""",-1.3896282938708393
"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Imcivree (setmelanotide) for chronic weight management (weight loss and weight maintenance for at least one year) in patients six years and older with obesity due to three rare genetic conditions: pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) deficiency, proprotein subtilisin/kexin type 1 (PCSK1) deficiency, and leptin receptor (LEPR) deficiency confirmed by genetic testing demonstrating variants in POMC, PCSK1, or LEPR genes considered pathogenic (causing disease), likely pathogenic, or of uncertain significance, according to an FDA press release.

Imcivree is the first FDA-approved treatment for these genetic conditions.

The press release states: ""Imcivree is not approved for obesity due to suspected POMC, PCSK1, or LEPR deficiency with variants classified as benign (not causing disease) or likely benign or other types of obesity, including obesity associated with other genetic syndromes and general (polygenic) obesity.

""Imcivree works by activating areas in the brain that regulate appetite and fullness, causing patients with specific defects in these areas of the brain not to eat as much and to lose weight. The drug also increases resting metabolism (the number of calories the body burns at rest), which can contribute to weight loss. While Imcivree leads to weight loss in patients with obesity associated with these conditions, it does not treat the genetic defects that cause the conditions or other symptoms or signs.

""Imcivree was evaluated in two 1-year studies.

""The effectiveness of Imcivree was assessed in 21 patients, 10 in the first study and 11 in the second.

""FDA granted orphan disease designation, Breakthrough Therapy designation, and Priority Review for this drug application. FDA granted the approval of Imcivree to Rhythm Pharmaceutical, Inc. """,-0.7588851329543161
"Amy Poehler (5 feet, 2 inches tall) and Shaquille O'Neal (7 feet, 1 inch tall) see eye to eye on one thing: Sleep apnea can ruin your life if you don't manage it correctly.

Both use a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) device at night to maintain steady breathing and uninterrupted sleep. Poehler says the therapy ""helps you win at life,"" and Shaq reports that it helps him get seven to nine hours of sleep nightly — improving his energy and letting him manage his weight better.

What they may not know is that taking care of their sleep apnea also protects their brains.

A study that’s slated to be presented virtually at the American Academy of Neurology's 73rd annual meeting this April has found that more than half of its 67 participants, average age 73, who had cognitive problems also suffered from (often undiagnosed) sleep apnea, and 60% of those people scored worse on cognitive tests than participants without the condition.

If your bed partner says that you snore loudly or you stop breathing or gasp for air while sleeping, if you wake up frequently, awaken with a dry mouth, have a morning headache, or are fatigued, irritable, and unfocused during the day, you should get checked for sleep apnea.

If left untreated, the condition can lead to cardiovascular disorders, stroke, and heart failure, as well as memory problems.

On the other hand, people who manage their sleep apnea have more energy and spontaneously do 20% more exercise once it's controlled.",0.9876126676003844
"A Consumer Reports study found that Americans’ prescription drug use has increased by 85 percent over the last two decades while the U.S. population has increased by only 21 percent.

In 1997, there were 2.4 billion prescriptions filled. By 2016, the number had ballooned to 4.5 billion.

Those numbers might be acceptable if the drug therapies were improving our health and outcomes. Sadly, that’s not happening.

Americans continue to rank last among Western countries in nearly every health indicator, from infant mortality to lifespan. We even have more chronic and acute disease than other Western countries.

To make matters worse, the U.S. spends more on healthcare than any other country. We spend nearly 20 percent of our gross national product on healthcare. That far exceeds the expenditure of any other Western country.

Much of that added expense can be attributed to taking too many expensive and ineffective prescription medications.

We should all be asking the question, “Why aren’t we healthier for taking all these medications?”",0.41449255987637923
"Bisphenol-A (BPA) is an industrial chemical used to make plastics. Unfortunately, it can leech out of plastic containers into foods. It is associated with breast cancer, prostate cancer, and abnormal development of babies.

Studies have shown that more than 90 percent of people test positive for BPA.

The FDA, which is supposed to protect consumers, in fact approved BPA as an indirect food additive in the 1960s.

One study found that curcumin could reverse the carcinogenic effects of BPA and prevent cancers from developing.

A number of pesticides and herbicides also stimulate estrogen receptors, and curcumin has also been shown to prevent their adverse effects.

Nanocurcumin is one of the most powerful natural anticancer compounds ever discovered and has a high degree of safety. It can slightly reduce blood coagulation, so should not be combined with blood thinning medications, such as aspirin and ibuprofen.",-0.5509792488058062
"Because heart disease accounts for 26.5 percent of pregnancy-related deaths, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has created new guidelines on screening, diagnosis, and management of heart disease.

During pregnancy, the cardiovascular system undergoes major changes to sustain “tremendous increases in blood volume,” said Dr. James Martin, chairman of ACOG’s pregnancy and heart disease task force. “That’s why it is critical to identify the risk factors beforehand.”

A heart muscle disease called peripartum cardiomyopathy is the leading cause of death in expectant mothers, accounting for 23 percent of deaths late in pregnancy.

Common risk factors for maternal death due to heart disease include age, high blood pressure during pregnancy, and obesity.

But the leading factor is race. The risk of death from heart disease is 3.4 times higher among black women than white women.

All pregnant women and new mothers should be assessed for heart disease using a tool known as the Cardiovascular Disease Toolkit algorithm, which was developed from research that found about 9 in 10 pregnant women and new moms who died of heart disease would have been identified as high risk had this new screening algorithm been used.",0.9954756445950246
"I have treated tens of thousands of patients over the course of my medical career. Insomnia and obesity are among the diseases I or any other practicing physician deal with on almost a daily basis.

And it is clear that these conditions are closely linked. People who don’t get enough sleep and/or quality sleep, struggle with their weight and are more likely to give in to unhealthy food cravings.

Some scientists believe that lack of sleep influences the hormones that control hunger. This makes perfect sense, as hormones are at the root of many of our behaviors and conditions.

Another factor is simply that being awake more hours gives you more time to eat. Yes, I mean that bowl of ice cream or bag of chips while watching TV late at night.

A third link between sleep loss and weight gain is lack of exercise. If you aren’t sleeping well, you may feel too tired to get the physical activity you need to burn fat and calories.

So if you’re not happy with the number on your bathroom scale, consider your sleep habits. Improving one is very likely to improve the other.",0.611276165865521
"Dear Beth and Mat,

Happy Wedding Day! Since within a few hours the two of you will be taking your wedding vows, I decided that a little counsel might be in order. As you know, through my work I've watched a lot of happy couples interact with each other and I've worked with a lot of couples struggling to make their marriages better. Each couple has taught me a lesson about marriage. Here's some of what I've learned.

No two people are alike. Now you've probably heard that before. But sometimes when we hear something so often, we forget the essence. What this means is that the two of you will sometimes see some things differently. Beth, you may want to use your extra money to buy furniture. Mat, you may want to use it to go on vacation. One of you may want to get up early and get going while the other wants to sleep late and enjoy a quiet morning. One of you may be a talker and an analyzer, but the other may be more quiet. One of you may be acutely aware of your feelings. The other may not be aware of them at all. Remember, neither of you is right or wrong. You are simply different. Some differen­ces are genetic. Some you learned from your families as you were growing up. These differ­ences make each of you unique. Be aware of them, smile and laugh about them, work to accept them.

Be generous with your praise. Right now you are probably telling each other how attractive you are. The two of you are exchanging a lot of hugs and smiles and ""I love yous."" These compliments helped you fall in love. If you give them daily, they will keep you in love.

Be cautious with your criticism. Married people sometimes begin to think they have a right to critique their partner or to make helpful suggestions. Keep it to one criticism every two weeks and your partner will feel safe and want to be in your presence.

Know your own flaws and correct them so they don't interfere with your marriage. If you are always late, decide from now on to be on time. If you get too mad, work on your temper.

Listen. Listen. Listen to your partner talk without interrupting Listen to his or her feelings. Listen when he's happy, when she's disappointed, when he's scared.

Enjoy lovemaking. Accept your partner's approach and approach your partner. Have fun and be generous in bed.

If you step on your partner's feelings, say you're sorry. Recognize that you have erred. Remember, it's easier to love someone who admits mistakes.

Play together. Continue to develop interests...back-packing, dancing, cards, tennis. Develop a group of friends that will bring additional energy to your marriage.

Be respectful. In marriage there is no room for screaming, or name calling, or refusing to talk, or threatening divorce.

Keep in touch with your families. Let them be of comfort to you and share your joys and sadnesses. But, remember, each of you now should come first with the other.

Both of you are very much in love today. Choose to live in such a way that your love will last forever.

YOUR FRIEND,

DORIS

Check out Doris’ latest books, “The Boy Whose Idea Could Feed the World,” “The Parent Teacher Discussion Guide” and “Thin Becomes You” at Doris’ web page: http://www.doriswildhelmering.com.",2.178102685754686
"I have been meeting more and more women who come into treatment complaining about their inability to have an orgasm. Actually, this one of the simplest problems I encounter as a sex therapist.

It turns out that one part of the problem is that these women have not felt comfortable openly discussing their sexual likes and dislikes. While I have not seen this issue reflected as often among lesbians, straight women seem unbelievably worried about the damage that negative feedback will give to their partners’ egos.

One of the most amazing stories I encountered revolves around a woman who was married to the same man, Joe , for 40 years. Let’s call her Lillian (not her real name.) Lillian never was able to orgasm with Joe because he didn’t spend enough time touching her erogenous zones. She wanted her hair touched, and her throat kissed, and her shoulders stroked, but Joe did not do these things.

But from the start of the marriage, she faked orgasms. After coming into therapy, Lillian did some more exploration on her own, and she learned, first, how to have an orgasm by positioning herself under the faucet in her bathtub. Then, after that worked, and the pattern of becoming orgasmic was one that her neurological system became accustomed to, Lillian learned how to give herself an orgasm by touching herself with her fingers.

Finally, Lillian approached Joe and told him that she had not been having orgasms with him. She wanted to teach Joe what to do to make her have one.

She wanted him to touch her on her neck, hair, throat and shoulders, and then she wanted him to touch her genitals the way she had discovered worked well for her.

Joe’s remarkable response was to say to Lillian, “Yes, you were too having an orgasm!! I was right there. I saw them.” Lillian could not get Joe to budge. She was frustrated, and kept having orgasms on her own.

A few years later, Lillian came to see me. She told me that Joe had died. It was unfortunate, because she loved him.

But the story had a happy ending. She wanted me to know that she was dating again, and she had a fellow she really liked, and she gave him all of the information he would need to know to touch her in a way that made her excited. And she was happily having orgasms with him almost each time they made love.

If you don’t’ talk about what you do and don’t enjoy, and your partner is not touching you skillfully — or worse, is touching you in a way you hate — besides not coming to orgasm, your sexual desire will vanish. If you avoid honest conversations about pleasure, you might wind up in a pattern of having unsatisfying sex with your partner.

If you know what you like, and you aren’t communicating it, then you have to take responsibility for learning how to give kind but direct communication to your partner. Here are some ways you can do that.

Faking orgasm is almost always a bad idea. Be courageous and learn how to give kind feedback, and your sexual life will thrive.",1.0315467851475426
"Christian persecution has been on the rise worldwide in recent years. In fact, despite the religious freedoms and protections guaranteed under the First Amendment, the practice has even taken a foothold here in the United States.

David Horowitz, a self described ""red diaper baby"" of New York Jews, recently reported on the persecution of Christians in his book, ""DARK AGENDA: The War to Destroy Christian America."" But the most overt and terrifying examples are found elsewhere.",-0.6408918758686899
"Democrats tout the union-backed Protecting the Right to Organize or PRO Act as a bill that will protect employees and hold employers accountable if workers' rights are violated. But labor experts warn that the proposal strips away state's ""right to work"" laws, forces workers to pony up money to unions, and threatens the ability for a person to work as an independent contractor or freelancer.

The Democrat-controlled House passed the sweeping labor overhaul 225 to 206, with five Republicans backing the bill and one Democrat opposed. The bill now faces an unlikely path to President Joe Biden's desk as it makes its way to the narrowly divided Senate. Biden has signaled support for its passage both on the campaign trail and since taking the Oval Office.",1.3534648585656406
"A sweeping police reform bill passed by House Democrats along party lines could put police officers in dangerous situations, and have a negative impact on recruiting efforts, leaving communities that are riddled with crime even more vulnerable.

Key elements of the ""George Floyd Justice in Policing Act"" include a ban on chokeholds, and no-knock warrants in drug cases, as well as an overhaul of qualified immunity for law enforcement officers. While some elements of the bill, like mandatory body cameras, and dashboard cameras, are largely supported by law enforcement officials, many agree the bill falls short when it comes to addressing overall criminality. They describe many proposals in the bill as an emotional, knee-jerk reaction to a few isolated incidents that don't reflect policing as a whole.",0.2524683611958375
"The 2022 elections are crucial for the Republican party as it seeks to thwart the progressive agenda the Democrats are pushing under President Joe Biden. With the Senate deadlocked at 50-50, and the Republicans needing to gain only five seats in the house, this is one of the most important midterm elections ever, and Newsmax is detailing the key races.

With a slew of Republican senators announcing they plan to retire or not seek reelection, efforts to reclaim the chamber have become more challenging.",-0.9025296277300405
"There’s a growing call for firms that do business in China to pull out, primarily because of its human rights violations against the Uighur population in China’s Xinjiang province.

American Enterprise Institute fellow Elisabeth Braw argued in Foreign Policy last month that despite the increased costs of manufacturing goods elsewhere, Western companies should nonetheless leave in order to protect their own brand reputation.",0.12719873363349865
"As several fixtures of the Republican Party have announced they won’t seek reelection, the GOP is ushering in a new wave of younger politicians that will lead the party for years to come at the local, state, and federal levels.

Some aspire to hold the country’s top office and could be potential candidates for the 2024 ticket and beyond. Others are being touted as the next possible governors of their states. Whatever their role may be, political pundits say they are the future of the Republican Party.",0.7724905431066018
"The U.S. will achieve dominance over China before the end of the century, simply due to a major shift in demographics, say experts. The ongoing rivalry and tension between the U.S. is bound to end in the favor of the U.S., reveals a close examination of various statistical trends by Newsmax.

China’s population is declining and aging rapidly, while the U.S. is expected to grow over the next several decades thanks to immigration. Experts predict that the population changes each country will face will likely result in the U.S. coming out ahead of China in terms of economic wealth, power, and overall dominance.",1.0379941128924188
"The evangelical Christian movement has been a rising force in American politics, and helped propel former President Donald Trump into the White House in 2016, but the future of the movement is in doubt as leftist ideology has infiltrated the church.

Lucas Miles, who wrote “The Christian Left: How Liberal Thought Has Hijacked the Church,” which is scheduled to be released May 4, says leftist ideology presents a clear and present danger.",-0.43905715359752373
"America’s economy is not going back to normal post COVID-19, as economists predict higher prices and fewer options when it comes to dining out or catching a movie.

The entertainment and service industries were among some of the hardest hit sectors by the coronavirus pandemic. Shut downs, stay-at-home orders, mask mandates, and social distancing requirements forced many service-oriented businesses to close for extended periods of time and retool their businesses to follow local rules when they could reopen. In many states, businesses owners in the hospitality sphere are still facing restrictions. But as the vaccine rollout continues and infection rates spiral downward, economists are hopeful for a strong summer. But one thing is clear: changes to the entertainment industry, and other parts of the economy, are likely here to stay.",-1.7740337894474991
"Donald Trump was able to stave off a nuclear crisis with North Korea but the Biden administration is so focused on undoing everything from the Trump years that it is heading in a direction that will make North Korea more dangerous to the U.S., say experts.

During his Senate confirmation hearings, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told senators that the new administration would conduct a full review of the U.S. approach to North Korea. National security experts say the personal relationship that Trump forged with Kim Jong Un is likely over as the new administration is expected to pivot away from direct communication at the highest level and also try to forge an Iran-type deal on North Korea’s weapons. Those approaches, say experts, are a huge mistake.",0.0294338899747073
"States acted quickly to expand ways for voters to cast ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic. Now, some state Republican lawmakers are looking to limit the voting method for future elections as a way to boost confidence in the election process and prevent voter fraud.

Moves to expand absentee voting measures during both primaries and the 2020 general election were lambasted by many Republicans and former President Donald Trump. Many feared the voting method would result in a “fraudulent election” and help hand the election to now-President Joe Biden. Nearly half the votes cast in the 2020 election were done via absentee ballot, which led to historic voter turnout. According to the United States Election Project, registered Democrats cast nearly 8 million more mail-in ballots than Republicans in states that keep voters’ party affiliation records.",0.6620321940660866
"Economic experts are waving red flags to Congress and the Biden administration, warning that if the United States continues on its present course of profligate spending coupled with extreme business lockdowns, we could be heading to a period of hyperinflation.

How hyper? Some are thinking of the German Weimar Republic, when people reportedly used wheelbarrows of cash to buy groceries.",1.1412647210717353
"President Joe Biden’s plan to rethink the United States’ approach to China could backfire, say experts, who warn that China will look for ways to take advantage of the U.S. while Biden waffles with his China strategy.

Biden pledged to keep a tough stance on China, but early moves indicate otherwise. While the Trump administration focused on confrontational tactics to hold China accountable, Biden’s administration has indicated that it will pivot its China strategy to one that is less aggressive. The shift could result in China taking advantage of an administration that is ultimately weak in protecting areas such as trade and national security.",1.0030837547687228
"The future of the Republican party is under attack by House Democrats, who are reviving their effort to overhaul U.S. elections through a sweeping piece of legislation that would increase the possibility of voter fraud, unduly benefit the Democratic Party, and take power away from states to handle their own elections.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer dubbed the proposed legislation the “centerpiece of Democrats’ agenda to make government more transparent and accountable to the people it serves.”",-1.026657470330688
"While President Joe Biden seems intent on pushing America further to the left, Florida and its Governor Ron DeSantis are showing the Republican Party where America’s true future belongs.

A few days before Biden’s inauguration, the Los Angeles Times ran a controversial headline suggesting that Biden intends to “Make America California Again.” Claiming the Golden State is ""the de facto policy think tank"" for the new White House team, the Times said, ""there is no place the incoming administration is leaning on more heavily for inspiration in setting a progressive policy agenda.”",-1.6243252652857452
"Donald Trump will use his newly formed Office of the Former President in Florida to boost his post-presidential persona, advocate for his policies, and push back on the Biden administration agenda, according to political strategists’ predictions.

Trump has already indicated he’s headed in that direction by agreeing to speak at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) on Feb. 28.",-0.6915987548127069
"A proposal by Democrats to take a look at the size of the U.S. House of Representatives could wind up resulting in major changes when it comes to how the country elects the president — posing a possible threat to the Republican Party. An expanded House would give large states, like California, even more power, while effectively reducing the influence of smaller, conservative states. The ripple effect, according to experts, could give Democrats a better chance at winning the presidency by increasing the electoral college representation of blue states.

Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., has revived the “Congress Commission Act,” which would create a bipartisan commission to study the current size of the House, look at how members are elected, and study the impacts of gerrymandering.",-1.232723183981215
"President Joe Biden's relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be on shaky ground despite the longstanding special relationship between the U.S. and Israel. The politicians have opposing outlooks on how to handle the growing threat of Iran and Israeli-Palestinian relations, which Middle East experts say could potentially put any new normalization deals between Israel and Arab nations on the back burner.

In addition, Netanyahu and President Barack Obama had a highly contentious relationship, one that some Israeli experts have called the worst ever between a U.S. president and Israeli prime minister. Biden, of course, was Obama's vice president, and the delay in calling America's strongest ally in the Middle East has led to beliefs that Israel and the U.S. could be headed back to an icy relationship, unlike the close ties the countries had under President Donald Trump.",-0.052328069432737025
"Democrats don't have to dwell on the fact that the Senate filibuster likely isn't going anywhere. They can rely on another tool — budget reconciliation — to pass a chunk of their progressive policies where they hold narrow control of the Senate, via the tiebreaker vote of the vice president. Instead of President Joe Biden's promise to seek bipartisan support for policy, the Democrats can simply ignore the Republican Party — and its constituents — with this maneuver and even try to pass parts of their leftist agenda like ""Medicare for All.""

While not nearly as easy to navigate as a simple majority vote would be if the filibuster was nixed, political strategists say Democrats will be able to pass key policies without the support of Republicans via the budget reconciliation process. Democrats have already floated using the tool to pass the next coronavirus relief package and to even raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 (although it is not clear if the minimum wage can pass by this mechanism).",-0.4366209522986157
"The Trump Organization didn’t stop selling valuable real estate in its portfolio when Donald Trump took office four years ago and the trend isn’t likely to stop now that Trump is out of the White House.

According to Forbes, Trump offloaded $118 million worth of property in his business portfolio while serving as president. Sales included empty lots, residential units, and luxury apartments. Among the transactions were 11 vacant lots in California that raked in $23 million, more than five dozen condo units housed in the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas that netted $18 million, a Manhattan penthouse in Trump Park Avenue that fetched $16 million, and a South Carolina warehouse that was sold for $4 million.",0.36790909423698603
"President Joe Biden has hailed his vaccination distribution without crediting the Trump administration, but the fact remains the plan is 90% the doing for former President Donald Trump's Operation Warp Speed, according to Dr. Moncef Slaoui.

""I think that's a very negative description of the reality,"" Slaoui told CBS's ""Face the Nation"" of Biden's vaccine messaging. ""I do think that we had plans. In fact, 90% of what is happening now is the plan that we had.

""Of course, the first thing was to accelerate the development of the vaccine. We contracted, specifically, 100 million doses of the vaccine, but built into the contracts options to acquire more vaccines once we knew they were effective.

""So, I think what is happening now is right, but I think what is happening was frankly what was the plan – substantially what was the plan.""

President Biden has been ripped on Newsmax TV by political strategist Dick Morris for being ""a rooster taking credit for the dawn,"" Slaoui reiterated that criticism to CBS host Margaret Brennan on Sunday.

""I think in terms of manufacturing and supply and distribution, which is the physical shipment of vaccine to immunization site, the answer is yes, because there's a ramp up in manufacturing, as always happens,"" he said. ""And that's what we are experiencing and seeing.""

Biden does deserve some credit for large vaccinations sites, but the healthcare centers and pharmacy distribution was all the Trump administration's, Slaoui added.

""I do think that in terms of immunization and shots in arms, in particular the large vaccination sites in sports arenas and the likes and the participation of FEMA, those were not parts of the plan, and they are participating to accelerate, I think to some extent, the immunization,"" he said.

""But the bulk of vaccine distribution is happening in the healthcare centers and now in the pharmacies, and that was all part of the plan.""

Even the getting competitors Merck and Johnson & Johnson to work together – as taken credit by President Biden – was already discussed under Trump, Slaoui noted.

""So the discussion with Merck had started already prior to the new administration taking office, including discussions around making available their facilities for – definitely on the short term – doing what's called the fill finish, which is the putting vaccines into the sterile vials and then over a longer period of time to manufacture the bulk vaccine itself,"" he said.

""And they have been completed under this administration, and I think it's very, very good. And it's excellent that the industry goes beyond its competition – competitive scenarios and work together.""

The politicization of vaccinations does have Slaoui concerned, he told Brennan.

""I'm very concerned, very concerned that for political motivation, people decide to actually place themselves and the people around them in harms way by refusing to be vaccinated,"" he said.

""I think we need to do every effort we can to explain to people that vaccines have nothing to do with politics. These vaccines are safe. They are highly effective. They're going to help them protect themselves and protect the people around them from the spread of this virus and critically from the potential appearance of new variants.""",0.6699917608778984
"As migrants surge at the U.S.-Mexico border, President Joe Biden’s administration has been caught on its heels and is now scrambling to manage a humanitarian and political challenge that threatens to overshadow its ambitious agenda.

Administration officials say Biden inherited an untenable situation that resulted from what they say was President Donald Trump’s undermining and weakening of the immigration system.

But with Congress pivoting to taking up immigration legislation, images and stories from the border have begun to dominate the headlines, distracting from the White House’s efforts to promote the recently passed $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill.

The White House dispatched Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to four Sunday news shows in an effort to stress that it was working to get things under control.

“Our message has been straightforward — the border is closed,” Mayorkas said. ""We are expelling families. We are expelling single adults. And we’ve made a decision that we will not expel young, vulnerable children.”

The White House has steadfastly refused to call the situation a “crisis,” leading to a Washington battle over the appropriate description of the tense situation. Career immigration officials had warned there could be a surge after the November election and the news that Trump's hard-line policies were being reversed.

In the first days of his term, Biden acted to undo some of Trump’s measures, a rollback interpreted by some as a signal to travel to the United States. While the new administration was working on immigration legislation to address long-term problems, it didn’t have an on-the-ground plan to manage a surge of migrants.

“We have seen large numbers of migration in the past. We know how to address it. We have a plan. We are executing on our plan and we will succeed,” Mayorkas said. But, he added, “it takes time” and is “especially challenging and difficult now” because of the Trump administration's moves. “So we are rebuilding the system as we address the needs of vulnerable children who arrived at our borders.”

Officials are trying to build up capacity to care for some 14,000 migrants now in federal custody — and more likely on the way. Critics say the administration should have been better prepared.

“I haven’t seen a plan,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas. “They have created a humanitarian crisis down here at this border that you have seen now. And the reason why they are coming is because he says words do matter, and they do. The messaging is that if you want to come, you can stay.”

The administration also has been pressed as to why it will not allow media to see the facilities at the border. Mayorkas said the government was “working on providing access so that individuals will be able to see what the conditions in a Border Patrol station are like.”

Since Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, the U.S. has seen a dramatic spike in the number of people encountered by border officials. There were 18,945 family members and 9,297 unaccompanied children encountered in February — an increase of 168% and 63%, respectively, from the month before, according to the Pew Research Center. That creates an enormous logistical challenge because children, in particular, require higher standards of care and coordination across agencies.

Among the reasons for the surge: thousands of Central American migrants already stuck at the border for months and the persistent scourge of gang violence afflicting Northern Triangle countries — Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Migrant children are sent from border holding cells to other government facilities until they are released to a sponsor. That process was slowed considerably by a Trump administration policy of “enhanced vetting,” in which details were sent to immigration officials and some sponsors wound up getting arrested, prompting some to fear picking up children over worries of being deported. Biden has reversed that policy, so immigration officials hope the process will speed up now.

The White House also points to Biden’s decision to deploy the Federal Emergency Management Agency to support efforts to process the growing number of unaccompanied migrant children arriving at the border.

Mayorkas appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” ABC's “This Week,” CNN's “State of the Union” and NBC's “Meet the Press,” while McCaul was on ABC.",-0.2606106020942723
"Not long before the deadly Atlanta-area shootings spread fear and anger through Asian American communities nationwide, police say the attacker made a legal purchase: a 9 mm handgun.

Within hours, they say, he had killed eight people, seven of them women and six of Asian descent, in a rampage targeting massage businesses.

If Georgia had required him to wait before getting a gun, lawmakers and advocates say, he might not have acted on his impulse.

“It’s really quick. You walk in, fill out the paperwork, get your background check and walk out with a gun,” said Robyn Thomas, executive director of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “If you’re in a state of crisis, personal crisis, you can do a lot of harm fairly quickly.”

The purchase was a normal transaction at Big Woods Goods, a shop north of Atlanta that complies with federal background check laws and is cooperating with police, said Matt Kilgo, a lawyer for the store.

“There's no indication there's anything improper,"" he said.

The vast majority of states are like Georgia, allowing buyers to walk out of a store with a firearm after a background check that sometimes can take minutes. Waiting periods are required in just 10 states and the District of Columbia, although several states are considering legislation this year to impose them.

Gun control advocates say mandating a window of even a couple of days between the purchase of a gun and taking possession can give more time for background checks and create a “cooling off” period for people considering harming themselves or someone else. Studies suggest that waiting periods may help bring down firearm suicide rates by up to 11% and gun homicides by about 17%, according to the Giffords Center.

Georgia Democrats plan to introduce legislation that would require people to wait five days between buying a gun and getting it, said Rep. David Wilkerson, who is minority whip in the state House.

“I think a waiting period just makes sense,” he said.

A 2020 analysis by the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit think tank, also found that research links waiting periods to decreased suicide and homicide rates but determined that the effect on mass shootings was inconclusive because the sample size was too small.

California has one of the country’s longest waiting periods — 10 days. That did not stop more than 1.1 million people from buying guns last year, which was just shy of the record number sold in 2016. Gun sales nationwide, meanwhile, surged to record levels last year amid pandemic-related uncertainty.

Against that backdrop, lawmakers in at least four states — Arizona, New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont — have proposed creating or expanding waiting periods.

New gun laws will not fix deep-seated problems such as racism, misogyny and violence, said Seo Yoon “Yoonie” Yang, a leader with Students Demand Action, a gun violence prevention group. But they can help keep guns out of the hands of people who would do harm in the meantime, she said.

“Legislation is practical. Research shows that it works,"" she said. ""It is change that can happen efficiently and quickly.”

In Colorado, Democratic state Rep. Tom Sullivan ran for office after his son, Alex, died along with 11 others when a gunman opened fire in an Aurora movie theater eight years ago. Sullivan said he hopes a waiting period in legislation he's planning to sponsor could help curb domestic violence and suicide.

“In Atlanta, imagine if this guy’s parents or somebody else were notified that he was trying to get a firearm. Maybe they could have helped,"" he said. “It wouldn’t have hurt anybody to wait ... let it breathe a while. If there’s a problem, let it surface, we’ll sort it out.”

Gun rights groups, including the National Rifle Association, oppose waiting periods. The group points to 2018 federal firearm-tracing data that shows the average time between first retail sale of a gun and involvement in a crime was nearly nine years. They also argue that waiting periods create a delay for people buying legally, while leaving illegal weapons transfers unaffected.

“A right delayed is a right denied,” Second Amendment Foundation founder Alan Gottlieb said.

Gun control legislation also is making its way through Congress. The Senate is expected to consider a bill to expand background checks, but it faces a difficult road — Democrats would need at least 10 Republican votes to pass it. While the House approved two bills to strengthen the checks this month, Congress has not passed any major gun control laws since the mid-1990s.

In Georgia, the Republican-controlled Legislature may resist new firearms laws before it concludes business at the end of the month. But Wilkerson pointed to recent long-sought victories that once seemed improbable, including passage of a hate crimes law and the likely repeal of a citizen’s arrest law a year after the death of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man pursued by armed white men while jogging.

""You're going to run into resistance. It doesn't mean you don't try,"" Wilkerson said. “In tragedy, sometimes we can move forward. This may be the opportunity to look at another tragedy and do something about it.”",-0.110706435363637
"Paul Guilbeault knew the writing was on the wall for the last Veterans of Foreign Wars post in this city south of Boston when businesses across Massachusetts were ordered to close as the coronavirus pandemic took hold last March.

Within six months, the 90-year-old Korean War vet was proven right. VFW Post 3260 in New Bedford, a chapter of the national fraternity of war vets established in 1935, had surrendered its charter and sold the hall to a church.

“The economic shutdown is what killed us,” said Guilbeault, who has overseen the post’s finances for years. “There’s no way in the world that we could make it. A lot of these posts are barely hanging on. Most don’t make a huge profit.”

Local bars and halls run by VFW and American Legion posts — those community staples where vets commiserate over beers and people celebrate weddings and other milestones — were already struggling when the pandemic hit. After years of declining membership, restrictions meant to slow the spread of COVID-19 became a death blow for many.

The closures have added to the misery from a pandemic that's hit military veterans hard. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs recently estimated the death toll in its facilities alone was approaching 11,000.

In many states, veterans posts were ordered to close like other bars and event halls last spring. Their supporters argued that the spaces serve a greater community purpose than their for-profit counterparts and should have been allowed to reopen sooner.

They say many posts quickly pivoted their community service efforts to respond to the pandemic. In Lakeview, Michigan, VFW Post 3701 made hundreds of masks for workers and operated blood drives with the Red Cross. In Queens, New York, American Legion Post 483 ran a food pantry that fed thousands. And posts from Connecticut to North Carolina have been hosting vaccine registration drives and clinics.

The closure of some halls and bars also means vets dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder and other wartime trauma have lost a critical safe space amid an isolating pandemic, leaders say.

“They can talk about things here that happened to them in the war that they’d never say to their psychiatrist or even their families,” said Harold Durr, commander of American Legion Post 1 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Like a number of posts nationwide, Durr says his facility qualified for federal and local pandemic relief, though most of it could only be used to cover employee salaries, not utilities and other expenses.

He says the shuttered post, which includes a bar and hall, has largely relied on donations to pay monthly costs.

“We’ve had a rough go,” says the 75-year-old Navy vet, who served in the Vietnam War. “But we’ve got to stay open. We’ve existed for 100 years. There’s no way we can let it close.”

How many vets halls and bars have permanently shuttered or risk closure because of the pandemic is hard to quantify.

The national VFW and American Legion organizations say the number of posts that dissolved completely last year was at or lower than prior years. But the organizations say they do not track bars and halls because they are locally controlled.

Many posts, they say, do not run halls or bars. Still, both organizations launched emergency grant programs last fall, doling out thousands of dollars to hundreds of posts to help cover facility costs and other expenses.

“A post could conceivably lose these things and still continue as a post,” said John Raughter, spokesman for the Indianapolis-based American Legion.

Some facilities have found workarounds to keep bringing in money, which goes to a wide range of community work, from hosting free lunches for disabled veterans to sponsoring high school ROTC programs and offering free gathering space for Scout troops and other groups.

Members of the VFW Post 2718 on Long Island, New York, have been dipping into reserves and organizing fundraisers until they can fully reopen their hall. Their next effort is a first-time Mother’s Day plant sale, said John McManamy, a former post commander.

In Massachusetts, the New Bedford post is the only one that’s dissolved for pandemic-related reasons so far, but the state risks losing some 20% of its VFW buildings if they are forced to remain closed into the crucial summer months, said Bill LeBeau, head of the VFW Massachusetts, which oversees local posts.

Closing VFW Post 3260 in the historic fishing port city some 60 miles (97 kilometers) south of Boston has been bittersweet for longtime members.

Dennis Pelletier, a 75-year-old Marine who served in Vietnam, had his wedding reception at the hall in 1967, the year it opened. He's been a dues-paying member pretty much ever since.

“It’s been a part of my whole adult life,” Pelletier said. “It’s been a second home at times.”

But like VFW posts nationwide, the New Bedford hall struggled to draw new members. In the '60s, it had more than 1,000 paying members; by last year, it had roughly 100, the majority in their 70s and 80s.

“The stigma of just being a bar is hard to overcome,” said Delfino Garcia, the post’s last commander. “Younger vets want something different. You’ve got to be more family-oriented. You’ve got to make it more hospitable. VFWs are struggling to adapt to that new reality.”

Guilbeault, who joined the post in 1956 after serving in the Air Force, has no regrets about winding things down.

With mortgage payments and other bills mounting, he had put in more than $5,000 of his own savings in those final days. He eventually recouped the money when the building's sale was finalized in September, and the remaining profits went to the state VFW.

“In a way, it’s been a blessing to let it go,” Guilbeault said. “If we’d kept going, we’d still be closed. There was no sense keeping it open. All we were doing was accumulating debt, debt, debt, debt.”",-1.408578168944712
"Officials are extending an emergency 8 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew for South Beach through April 12 after hard-partying spring break crowds trashed restaurants, brawled in the streets and gathered by the thousands without masks or social distancing, according to authorities.

The Miami Beach City Commission on Sunday made the decision during an emergency meeting, reports The Miami Herald. The curfew will remain in effect Thursday through Sunday and includes a 10 p.m. shutdown of the eastbound lanes of the MacArthur, Julia Tuttle and Venetian causeways.

Residents, local business employees and hotel guests are exempt from causeway closures on the MacArthur and Tuttle.

Miami Beach Police used SWAT Teams to try to enforce its emergency curfew against out-of-control spring breakers, according to the New York Post and Miami Herald. Videos on social media showed thousands of partiers defying both the COVID-19 pandemic and the Florida beach town’s curfew after it started at 8 p.m. Saturday.

While the SWAT teams blocked the streets and used piercing sound cannons to try to clear the completely packed streets, the parties continue to rage for hours, the Post reported.

Interim City Manager Raul Aguila, who imposed the spring break measures Saturday, said the measures will seek to “contain the overwhelming crowd of visitors and the potential for violence, disruption and damage to property.”

At a news conference, officials blamed overwhelming and out-of-control spring break crowds for the curfew, which was taking effect Saturday night in South Beach, one of the nation's top party spots. Tourists and hotel guests are being told to stay indoors during curfew hours.

It's unclear how long the curfew will remain in effect, but Interim City Manager Raul Aguila told the Miami Herald that he recommends keeping the rules in place through at least April 12. A countywide midnight curfew was already in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“These crowds are in the thousands,” Aguila said. “We’re at capacity.”

No pedestrians or vehicles will be allowed to enter the restricted area after 8 p.m. and all businesses in the vicinity must close, Aguila said, reading from a statement released by the city.

The curfew comes as a prominent bar, the Clevelander South Beach, announced it was temporarily suspending all food and beverage operations until at least March 24 after crowds crammed Ocean Drive, breaking out into street fights. At another restaurant next door, tables and chairs were smashed during a fight, news outlets reported.

Local officials and businesses have struggled to balance courting tourists to boost the economy while doing so safely amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Tourism is the Sunshine State’s No. 1 industry, generating more than $91 billion in 2018, and last year spring break was one of the first big casualties of the pandemic as beaches shut down across Florida when the U.S. went into strict lockdowns. Meanwhile, alarming scenes of college students heedlessly drinking, dancing and getting up close without masks were plastered across social media.

Miami tourism officials say billions of dollars were lost during those three months last year. The city's tourism arm just spent $5 million on its biggest national advertising campaign in 20 years.

At the same time, local officials banned alcohol from the beach, along with all alcohol sales after 10 p.m. in an effort to curb partying. The city even sent cellphone text messages to tourists warning, “Vacation Responsibly or Be Arrested.”

“Spring break in Miami Beach may be one of the great rites of passage, but only if you plan on following the rules. Otherwise, you might as well just stay home and save yourself the court costs,” the message read.

But local officials have struggled to enforce COVID ordinances. Under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pro-business stance, Florida has no statewide mask rules, limits on capacity or other such restrictions.",1.0257073862241324
"For Christine Liwag Dixon and others, the bloodshed in Georgia — six Asian women among the dead, allegedly killed by a man who blamed his “sexual addiction” — was a new and horrible chapter in the shameful history of Asian women being reduced to sex objects.

“I’ve had people either assume that I’m a sex worker or assume that, as a Filipino woman, I will do anything for money because they assume that I’m poor,” said Dixon, a freelance writer and musician in New York City. “I had an old boss who offered me money for sex once.”

Tuesday’s rampage at three Atlanta-area massage businesses prompted Asian American women to share stories of being sexually harassed or demeaned. They say they’ve often had to tolerate racist and misogynistic men who cling to a narrative that Asian women are exotic and submissive.

Elaine Kim, who is Korean American and a professor emeritus in Asian American studies at the University of California, Berkeley, recalled being crassly harassed by white young men while she was in high school. Later in life, one of her white students made sexualizing comments about the Asian women in her class and lurked outside their apartments.

Kim was reminded of these moments when she heard that the man accused in the Atlanta-area shootings had said he had acted because his targets tempted him.

“I think it’s likely that the killer not only had a sex addiction but also an addiction to fantasies about Asian women as sex objects,” she said.

Two of the Georgia massage businesses had been repeatedly targeted in prostitution investigations in the past 10 years, according to police records. The documents show that 12 people had been arrested on prostitution charges, but none since 2013.

The suspect in the shootings, a 21-year-old white man, considered the women inside the spas “sources of temptation,” police said.

Grace Pai, a director of organizing at Chicago’s Asian Americans Advancing Justice branch, called that characterization of the attacks “a real slap in the face to anyone who identifies as an Asian American woman.”

“We know exactly what this racialized misogyny looks like,” Pai said. “And to think that someone targeted three Asian-owned businesses that were staffed by Asian American women … and didn’t have race or gender in mind is just absurd.”

Framing the women who were killed as “sources of temptation” places blame on the women as the ones “who were there to tempt the shooter, who is merely the victim of temptation,” said Catherine Ceniza Choy, a University of California, Berkeley, professor of ethnic studies and a Filipino American woman. She said this scenario echoes a long-running stereotype that Asian women are immoral and hypersexual.

“That may be the way the alleged shooter and killer thinks of it, that you can compartmentalize race in this box and sex addiction in a separate box. But it doesn’t work that way,” Choy said. “These things are intertwined, and race is central to this conversation.”

Stereotypes of Asian women as “dragon ladies” or sexually available partners have been around for centuries. From the moment Asian women began to migrate to the U.S., they were the targets of hypersexualization, said Ellen Wu, a history professor at Indiana University.

The Page Act of 1875 prohibited women coming to the U.S. from anywhere for “immoral purposes,” but the law was largely enforced against Chinese women.

“As early as the 1870s, white Americans were already making this association, this assumption of Asian women being walking sex objects,” Wu said.

Asian lives are seen as “interchangeable and disposable,” she said. “They are objectified, seen as less than human. That helps us understand violence toward Asian women like we saw this week.”

U.S. military deployments in Asia also played a role, according to Kim. She said the military has long fueled sex trafficking there, starting after the Spanish-American War, when traffickers and brothel owners in the Philippines bought and sold women and girls to meet the demands of U.S. soldiers.

During the Vietnam War, women from Thailand and many other Asian countries were used for sex by U.S. soldiers at various “rest and recreation” spots. The bodies and perceived submissiveness of Asian women were eroticized and hypersexualized, Kim said, and eventually these racist stereotypes were brought back to the United States.

In American culture, Asian woman have been fetishized as submissive, hypersexual and exotic, said Christine Bacareza Balance, an Asian American studies professor at Cornell University and a Filipina woman.

A prime example is the wildly popular 1887 novel, “Madame Chrysanthème,” a French narrative, translated into English, in which Japanese women are referred to as “playthings” and “China ornaments.” More recently, an Asian woman has generally been portrayed in films as either “a manipulative, dragon lady temptress or the submissive, innocent ‘lotus blossom’ meant to please a man,” Balance said.

Choy, the ethnic studies professor at Berkeley, said Tuesday’s shootings and subsequent efforts to remove race from the conversation is yet another example of the denial of the racism and sexism Asian and Asian American women face.

“In American society, Asian Americans are not seen and listened to,” she said. “We are seen in specific ways at times, as model minorities, as projections of white, male fantasy, but we are not seen as full-fledged Americans. We are not seen as full human beings. It’s a kind of erasure and dehumanization.”",-0.6727830401603118
"A man charged with beating to death a New Jersey resident he says sexually abused him as a child now claims he has killed a total of 16 people, including his ex-wife and three others in New Mexico, officials said. Authorities have not corroborated his claim.

Sean Lannon, 47, said he killed the four whose remains were found in a vehicle at an airport and “11 other individuals” in New Mexico, Alec Gutierrez, an assistant prosecutor in Gloucester County, New Jersey, said at a detention hearing Friday, NJ.com reported.

Gutierrez said Lannon had confessed to luring several victims to a home in New Mexico and dismembering some of them.

Authorities said in court documents that Lannon made the admission in a phone call to a relative, who told investigators he expressed remorse. Lannon has been charged only with the death in New Jersey, and his lawyer says his client was provoked. He's been named a person of interest in the four New Mexico slayings.

Police Lt. David Chavez in Lannon’s hometown of Grants, New Mexico, said authorities have no indication that his claims about 11 other killings are true and that they aren’t aware of any missing-person or homicide reports that would fit his narrative.

“Is it possible? Sure, it’s possible. Is it probable? No, probably not,” Chavez told the Albuquerque Journal, saying authorities would investigate.

It was a twist in a case that spans the country but has many unanswered questions, including how Lannon was connected to the New Mexico slayings. Officials from the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, several police agencies in New Mexico, and police and prosecutors in New Jersey either didn't respond to requests for comment Saturday or didn't immediately have more information.

The case began on March 5, when the bodies of Lannon’s ex-wife and three other people were found in a vehicle in a parking garage at Albuquerque International Sunport, New Mexico’s largest airport. It's not clear how they were killed.

Police say three of them were reported missing in January from Grants, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) west of Albuquerque. The victims were identified as Jennifer Lannon, 39; Matthew Miller, 21; Jesten Mata, 40; and Randal Apostalon, 60.

Jennifer Lannon, Miller and Mata were friends, and Apostalon lived out of his car and was known to give rides for money, Grants police said. The bodies were found in Apostalon’s car.

Jennifer Lannon’s brother, Chris Whitman, told Albuquerque TV station KOB that he was shocked to hear his former brother-in-law claimed responsibility for multiple killings.

“They were together for about nine years, and it’s just mind-boggling because it’s someone I welcomed into my home and we had Thanksgiving dinner together,” he said.

Whitman told outlets that the couple had reconciled after their divorce and that his former brother-in-law left their three children with family in New Jersey and said he planned to find a job and then return to New Mexico to search for Jennifer Lannon.

On March 8, three days after the remains were found in New Mexico, the body of Michael Dabkowski was discovered in his New Jersey home, just south of Philadelphia, after a welfare check. Sean Lannon is accused of breaking in and beating the 66-year-old to death with a hammer, according to an affidavit.

Lannon told investigators that Dabkowski had sexually abused him as a child and that he had gone to the home to retrieve sexually explicit photos. Dabkowski mentored Lannon and his twin brother through a Big Brothers program in the 1980s, NJ.com reported.

A search for Lannon ended with his arrest in St. Louis on March 10. He was driving a car stolen from Dabkowski.

In court in New Jersey on Friday, public defender Frank Unger challenged probable cause for the murder charge, arguing that Dabkowski had allowed Lannon into his home and that what followed amounted, at worst, to manslaughter provoked by passion, NJ.com reported.

He said Lannon didn’t want anyone “to have control over me any longer” in trying to take back the photos. Dabkowski had “documented those sexual assaults, those rapes, by taking pictures of himself with Mr. Lannon in sexually compromised positions,” Unger said.

The public defender said Lannon retrieved two hammers from Dabkowski’s garage and gave them to the victim, saying, “You’re going to need these. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I would suggest that this fact alone illustrates this was not purposeful murder. He did not even bring a weapon to the home,” Unger said, arguing that Dabkowski attacked his client and then was killed.

Unger wanted the judge to release Lannon before trial, saying he had no prior convictions and is an Army veteran with an honorable discharge.

Lannon was born in Massachusetts and spent most of his early years in suburban Philadelphia's Gloucester County before he was deployed to Germany, Unger said. He has family in southern New Jersey, including his mother and sister.

But Gutierrez said Lannon “admitted his efforts to conceal evidence” in killings in New Mexico.

The prosecutor added that Lannon had previously spent a week in jail in New Mexico for failing to appear in court. It wasn’t clear what he had been cited with.

The judge ordered that Lannon remain behind bars.

Unger, an attorney for Sean Lannon's family and Big Brothers Big Sisters Independence Region didn't immediately respond Saturday to messages seeking comment.

This story has been updated to delete incorrect attribution in the first paragraph about the suspect's confession to 11 killings. It also corrects that the suspect was arrested March 10, not March 17; that the airport bodies were found March 5, not last week; and that the New Jersey victim's body was found March 8, not March 10.",1.8779519277406478
"Tesla CEO Elon Musk told a high-level conference in Beijing that the United States never would be given data gathered from his company's vehicles in China or other countries because businesses that engage in spying would face ""extremely bad"" consequences.

""Whether it's Chinese or U.S., the negative effects if a commercial company did engage in spying — the negative effects for that company would be extremely bad,"" Musk said via video link to the government-backed China Development Forum on Saturday, The Wall Street Journal reported.

He added that if Tesla's cars spied in any country, the company would be shut down worldwide, and that is a ""very strong incentive for us to be very confidential.""

Musk's comments came after the Chinese government said it will restrict military personnel or state-owned company employees from using Tesla's vehicles, out of concerns images taken by the cars' cameras would be sent to the United States.

But Musk said no U.S. or Chinese company would risk sharing sensitive information with their home governments, and added the United States' concerns about commercial espionage are overblown.

He used the example of the video platform TikTok, which had faced a potential ban year in the United States because of complaints that it gathered sensitive information.

""Even if there was spying, what would the other country learn, and would it actually matter?"" Musk said. ""If it doesn’t matter, it’s not worth thinking about that much.""

Musk said the United States' concerns about Chinese spying through TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese tech company Bytedance Ltd., were irrational because most of the videos on the platform are of people ""just doing silly dances.""

Tesla, meanwhile, has gotten strong support in China, including in Shanghai where it got permission to set up operations in the city.

In 2018, Tesla was the first foreign automaker in China to be permitted approval to have a factory that was wholly owned and was not required to have a local joint-venture partner. The project was financed by Chinese state banks.

China also amounts for about a quarter of Tesla's half-million global sales.

Tesla's first serious issue with China's authorities came last month when it was expanding its Shanghai plant, and increasing local production of the Model Y compact crossover vehicle and the Model 3 sedan.

Last month, the State Administration for Market Regulation, the country's top market regulator, rebuked Tesla over consumer complaints about quality issues. Tesla responded by saying it ""sincerely accepted the guidance of government departments"" and that it had ""deeply reflected on its shortcomings"" and would make improvements on its product.

Last October, Tesla recalled about 30,000 imported Model S and Model X vehicles in China because of suspension problems. There were two different defects, and some of the cars recalled had both of them.

The recall was for vehicles imported into China. Tesla opened its Shanghai plant in early 2020, and the sales of imported vehicles dropped to only about a few hundred cars a month.",-0.09430757874171193
"Evan Kory started calling brides in Mexico’s northern Sonora state last March, asking if they wanted to get their wedding gowns from his Arizona store just before the U.S. closed its borders with Mexico and Canada because of the coronavirus.

His namesake shop in the border town of Nogales was popular among brides-to-be in northern Sonora for its large, affordable inventory, said Kory, the third-generation proprietor. Located steps from the border fence, Kory’s has been in business for half a century but has been closed for a year because of the pandemic, with its main customer base — Mexican day-trippers — largely unable to come to the U.S. and shop.

Some 1,600 miles north, Roxie Pelton in the border town of Oroville, Washington, has been in a similar pinch. Business at her shipping and receiving store is down 82% from a year ago because most of the Canadians who typically send their online orders to her shop haven't been able to drive across the border.

Last summer, the 72-year-old let two employees go and now works alone.

“I’ve gotten by this far, and I’m just praying that I can hold until the border opens up,” Pelton said last month.

In border towns across the U.S., small businesses are reeling from the economic fallout of the partial closure of North America's international boundaries. Restrictions on nonessential travel were put in place a year ago to curb the spread of the virus and have been extended almost every month since, with exceptions for trade, trucking and critical supply chains.

Small businesses, residents and local chambers of commerce say the financial toll has been steep, as have the disruptions to life in communities where it’s common to shop, work and sleep in two different countries.

“Border communities are those that rely — economically, socially, and yes, health wise — on the daily and essential travel of tourist visa holders,"" the presidents of 10 chambers of commerce in Arizona, Texas and California border cities wrote in a letter last month to the Homeland Security and Transportation departments. It asked the government to allow visitors with U.S. tourist visas to cross into their states.

As more Americans are vaccinated against COVID-19 and infection rates fall, many hope the restrictions will soon be eased.

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, asked the Biden administration last month to reconsider U.S.-Canada border restrictions, arguing ""common-sense exceptions"" like family visits or daily commerce should be made for border towns where infection rates were low.

However, the Department of Homeland Security announced that the U.S., Mexico and Canada agreed to extend border restrictions on nonessential travel through April 21.

Meanwhile, Democratic U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona has introduced a bill to provide small businesses within 25 miles (40 kilometers) of a U.S. border with loans of up to $500,000 or grants of $10,000.

“Cross-border traffic is the lifeblood of their economy,"" Grijalva said. “And it’s the people that walk over, the people that come to do retail shopping.”

Visitors from Mexico contribute an estimated 60% to 70% of sales tax revenue in Arizona border communities, according to the Arizona-Mexico Commission, which promotes trade and tourism.

In Texas, border cities have faced higher unemployment rates during the pandemic than the state average, though in some places, that had already been the case.

Jesus Cañas, a business economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said Texas border economies appear to have fared better than many predicted a year ago. In border cities like Brownsville, Laredo and El Paso, the January non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rates of 9.5%, 8.9% and 7.4%, respectively, were close enough to the state's rate of 7.3% to suggest the restrictions have had less impact on larger, more diversified border economies than elsewhere.

“What I have seen over the years is that the border adjusts to these shocks in a very peculiar way,” Cañas said.

In Nogales, the economic wear from nearly 12 months of a partially shut border is easy to spot in the historic downtown.

Bargain clothing stores, money exchanges, secondhand shops and retailers selling plastic knickknacks within walking distance of the border were closed. Many storefronts were boarded up.

​Olivia Ainza-Kramer, president of the Nogales Chamber of Commerce, said the loss in revenue from the drop in Mexican shoppers over the past year has been felt most acutely by businesses closest to the border that tend to be family-owned and cater to pedestrian shoppers.

Further north, big-box retailers and other stores have fared a little better because they're visited by residents of the town of 20,000, she said.

Kory, who owns the bridal shop, saw the contrast up close. His family has three clothing stores in Nogales. Two are steps from the U.S.-Mexico port of entry — and both closed — while a third is about 4 miles (6 kilometers) from the border.

Kory said his family has managed to keep the third store open, albeit sales are down 75% to 80% from pre-pandemic levels. Most of the customers are Nogales locals, he said.

“We’ve seen the evolution at the international border, you know, from the '40s ... in my family,"" he said. “This is the first time that we’ve had a closure.""

Kory said the business has kept just four of its usual 27 employees. But based on conversations with customers in Mexico, he's confident that once restrictions are lifted, sales will be strong enough to rehire all those workers.

“That is the plan,"" Kory said, ""but we can’t do it until until our customers are allowed to cross.”",-1.3580690358865797
"Mexican authorities said Friday they found 3 trailer trucks jam-packed with Central American migrants near the border with Guatemala, in the latest sign many would-be immigrants are ignoring calls by the U.S. government to stay home.

Mexican migration agents along with National Guard police said they stopped the trucks early Thursday as part of routine checks and discovered 329 Guatemalans and Hondurans inside, including 114 unaccompanied minors.

The trucks were stopped on a highway south of Tuxtla Gutierrez, the capital of Chiapas state, according to an Interior Ministry statement.

The migrants were provided with food and water. The unaccompanied minors were sent to shelters run by the migration authority while the adults were take to nearby offices to begin administrative processing, the statement added.

The incident comes as the United States is toughening its approach to the growing humanitarian crisis on the U.S.-Mexican border after entreaties for Central American migrants to avoid risking such trips have failed to stop thousands from attempting the northern trek.",-0.3555573654110859
"Toy maker Hasbro is changing the time-honored classic board game Monopoly by altering the Community Chest cards, saying they ''are long overdue for a refresh.''

Without specifying which events, Hasbro pointed to the ''tumultuous year of 2020'' as the inspiration for dropping ''You've won second place in a beauty contest,'' ''a tax refund,'' and ''bank error in your favor.'' Fans of the game will get to vote on new options.

''Coming out of the tumultuous year of 2020, the term 'community' has taken on a whole new meaning,'' the company said on its website. ''Hasbro is counting on their fans to help reflect what community means in their real lives, into the Monopoly game, by voting for new cards like 'Shop Local,' 'Rescue A Puppy,' or 'Help Your Neighbors.'''

All 16 Community Chest cards will be replaced by the fall.

''The world has changed a lot since Monopoly became a household name more than 85 years ago, and clearly today community is more important than ever,'' said Eric Nyman, Chief Consumer Officer at Hasbro. ''We felt like 2021 was the perfect time to give fans the opportunity to show the world what community means to them through voting on new Community Chest cards. We're really excited to see what new cards get voted in!''

Options for voting on the Monopoly website will include voting between ''You rescue a puppy — and you feel rescued, too! Get out of jail free'' and ''Your friends video chat after a tough day. Get out of jail free.'' Other voting options include ''Just when you think you can't go another step, you finish that foot race — and raise money for your local hospital. Advance to Go. Collect $200,'' or ''You shopped local ALL week. Advance to go. Collect $200.''

Other scenarios include rewards for visiting with an elderly neighbor, patronizing the school bake sale or donating blood.

The game, originally sold in 1935, is based on the buying and selling of properties, developing them and collecting rent from players landing on them with the intent of monopolizing the board and driving the other players into bankruptcy.

The properties are all based on streets in Atlantic City, New Jersey, although specialty versions also exist. A Ms. Monopoly version was released by Hasbro in 2019 in which girl and women players begin the game with $1,900 and boy and men players start with $1,500. Additionally, women and girls get $240 for passing go, while boys and men receive only the standard $200.

Other changes include the properties being replaced by inventions by women and mascot Rich Uncle Pennybags removed in favor of a young woman character described as his niece.

Related Stories:",0.32461543983492047
"A judge said Friday he won't delay or move the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd’s death over concerns that a $27 million settlement for Floyd’s family could taint the jury pool, but he'll allow limited evidence from a 2019 arrest.

Meanwhile, a 13th juror was seated Friday — a woman who said she has only seen clips of the video of Floyd's arrest and needs to learn more about what happened beforehand. The jury will include 12 jurors and two alternates.

Jury selection was halfway complete last week when the Minneapolis City Council announced it had unanimously approved the massive payout to settle a civil rights lawsuit over Floyd’s death. Chauvin’s attorney, Eric Nelson, subsequently sought to halt or move the trial, calling the timing of the settlement deeply disturbing and saying it jeopardized Chauvin’s chance for a fair trial. Chauvin is charged with murder and manslaughter.

But Cahill, who has called the timing “unfortunate,” said he thought a delay would do nothing to stem the problem of pretrial publicity. As for moving the trial, he said there’s no place in Minnesota that hasn’t been touched by that publicity.

The judge handed the defense a victory by ruling that the jury can hear evidence from Floyd’s 2019 arrest, but only that possibly pertaining to the cause of his death in 2020. He acknowledged there are several similarities between the two encounters, including that Floyd swallowed drugs after police confronted him.

The judge previously said the earlier arrest could not be admitted, but new evidence made him reconsider: Drugs were found in January in a second search of the police SUV that the four officers attempted to put Floyd inside last year. The defense argues that Floyd’s drug use contributed to his death.

Cahill said he would allow medical evidence of Floyd's physical reactions, such as his dangerously high blood pressure when he was examined by a paramedic in 2019, and a short clip of an officer’s body camera video. He said Floyd’s “emotional behavior,” such as calling out to his mother, won’t be admitted.

But Cahill said he doesn’t plan, for now, to allow the testimony of a forensic psychiatrist for the prosecution. Floyd said he had claustrophobia and resisted getting in the squad car before the fatal encounter last year, and the state wanted Dr. Sarah Vinson to testify that his actions were consistent with a normal person experiencing severe stress, as opposed to faking it or resisting arrest.

The judge said he would reconsider allowing her as a rebuttal witness if the defense somehow opens the door, but that allowing her to testify could usher in all of the evidence from Floyd’s 2019 arrest.

""Clearly there is a cause of death issue here, and it is highly contested,” Cahill said, noting that both arrests involved Floyd's cardiac problems and ingesting drugs.

The county medical examiner classified Floyd’s death as a homicide, with an initial summary that said he “had a cardiopulmonary arrest while being restrained by police.” Floyd was declared dead at a hospital 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) away from where he was restrained.

The full report said he died of “cardiopulmonary arrest, complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.” A summary report listed fentanyl intoxication and recent methamphetamine use under “other significant conditions” but not under “cause of death.”

The earlier arrest “adds a bit more weight” to the defense’s plan to argue that Floyd put his life in danger by swallowing drugs again and that, combined with his health problems, caused his death, said Ted Sampsell-Jones, a professor at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law.

“Jurors are not supposed to be influenced by that sort of thing, but they are human,” Sampsell-Jones said.

Local defense attorney Mike Brandt said it also could hurt prosecutors’ attempts to portray Floyd as a “gentle giant” whose reaction to the 2020 incident was due to the stress of the encounter, and that Chauvin escalated it.

Still, it doesn’t necessarily hurt the prosecution because they can point to the different outcomes, said another local attorney, Ryan Pacyga. ""The prosecution can come back and say, ‘Wait, he didn’t die before.’ What’s the difference? They’re going to point to the knee on the neck,"" Pacyga said.

Floyd, who was Black, was declared dead May 25 after Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee on his neck for about nine minutes while he was handcuffed and pleading that he couldn’t breathe. Floyd’s death, captured on a widely seen bystander video, set off weeks of sometimes violent protests across the country and led to a national reckoning on racial justice.

The 13 jurors seated through Thursday are split by race: seven are white, four are Black and two are multiracial, according to the court.

Legal experts and local defense attorneys said the last two jurors chosen are almost always alternates, and some said they had never seen it done any other way. But the court said that wouldn’t necessarily be the case for Chauvin’s jury. Spokesman Kyle Christopherson said alternates could be chosen “many different ways,” but declined to give details.

“You can see in this case why (Cahill) might want to do something different, like draw numbers from a hat,” said Ted Sampsell-Jones, adding that the judge needs all jurors to pay attention for the duration of the trial. “If it’s the last two, and that’s published in the press, then the last two might find out that they are alternates. Which is what Cahill needs to avoid.”

The woman picked Friday morning — a white woman in her 50s — is between jobs, said she has volunteered with the homeless and wants to work on affordable housing issues.

She said she has never personally seen police officers respond to Black people or minorities with more force than white people, and that a person should have nothing to fear from police if they cooperate and comply with commands. She stopped short of saying that means a person deserves to be harmed.

“If you’re not listening to what the commands are, obviously something else needs to happen to resolve the situation,” she said of officers’ actions. “I don’t know how far the steps need to go.”

Opening statements are March 29 if the jury is complete by then. That process is on track to finish nearly a week early.

Three other former officers face an August trial in Floyd’s death on charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder and manslaughter.",1.4946444726738184
"Tara Reade, who claimed last year that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993, is now blasting the president for his comments regarding New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s scandal.

Her remarks came in an interview with Fox News. They were aimed directly at Biden, who talked with ABC News on Tuesday.

Biden maintained Cuomo should resign if the state attorney general's investigation confirms the sexual harassment allegations against him.

And he added that if the investigation confirms the claims of the women who have spoken out: ""I think he'd probably end up being prosecuted, too.""

""It takes a lot of courage to come forward, so the presumption is it should be taken seriously,"" Biden said. ""And it should be investigated, and that’s what’s underway now.

""A woman should be presumed to be telling the truth and should not be scapegoated and become victimized by her coming forward. But there should be an investigation to determine whether what she says is true. That's what's going on now.""

Fox News reported Reade blasted Biden for hypocrisy and arrogance and she slammed the media for not confronting the president over her claims.

""The alarming deflection and compliance of the media to allow Joe Biden to negate his own sexual misconduct is predictable but still shocking as a survivor to be so publicly erased,"" Reade told the news network.

""The trauma I experienced by Biden was very real. The fact he is calling for another official's investigation and possible criminal sanctions for similar charges is showing the height of arrogance about never being accountable for his own.

""Joe Biden got away with sexually harassing and assaulting me in 1993 and other women have also come forward with similar complaints. Joe Biden ascended to the Presidency anyway.""

Reade has claimed that when she worked for Biden’s Senate office in 1993, he pushed her against a wall in a Capitol Hill office building, put his hand up her skirt and sexually assaulted her with his fingers.

""You and I were there, Joe Biden,"" she said last year during the campaign. ""Please step forward and be held accountable. You should not be running on character for the president of the United States.""

Biden has denied Reade’s claim.

""This claim is simply not true, it did not happen,"" he said. ""Now, my knowledge that it isn’t true does nothing to shake my belief that women have to be able to be heard, and that all the claims be taken seriously.""

Reade has also blasted the Democratic Party in the past for being ""complicit"" in sexual assaults by ignoring her allegations, according to the New York Post.

But in her interview with Fox News, she said: ""There will be a reckoning for Joe Biden one day for the sexual misconduct, the truth will prevail and he will not silence me.""",-2.1826905671897494
"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention relaxed its social distancing guidelines for schools Friday, saying students can now sit 3 feet apart in classrooms.

The revised COVID-19 recommendations represent a turn away from the 6-foot standard that has forced some schools to remove desks, stagger scheduling, and take other steps to keep children away from one another.

Three feet ""gives school districts greater flexibility to have more students in for a prolonged period of time,"" said Kevin Quinn, director of maintenance and facilities at Mundelein High School in suburban Chicago.

In recent months, schools in some states have been disregarding the CDC guidelines, using 3 feet as their standard. Studies of what happened in some of them helped sway the agency, said Greta Massetti, who leads the CDC's community interventions task force.

While there is evidence of improved mental health and other benefits from in-person schooling, ""we don't really have the evidence that 6 feet is required in order to maintain low spread,"" she said.

Also, younger children are less likely to get seriously ill from the coronavirus and don't seem to spread it as much as adults do, and ""that allows us that confidence that that 3 feet of physical distance is safe,"" Massetti said.

The new guidance:

— Removes recommendations for plastic shields or other barriers between desks. ""We don't have a lot of evidence of their effectiveness"" in preventing transmission, Massetti said.

— Advises at least 3 feet of space between desks in elementary schools, even in towns and cities where community spread is high, so long as students and teachers wear masks and take other precautions.

— Says spacing can also be 3 feet in middle and high schools, so long as there's not a high level of spread in the community. If there is, spacing should be at least 6 feet.

The CDC said 6 feet of distance should still be maintained in common areas, such as school lobbies, and when masks can't be worn, such as when eating.

Also, students should continue to be spaced 6 feet apart in situations where there are a lot of people talking, cheering or singing, all of which can spread droplets containing the coronavirus. That includes chorus practice, assemblies and sports events.

The CDC said teachers and other adults should stay 6 feet from one another and from students.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the revised recommendations are an ""evidence-based roadmap to help schools reopen safely, and remain open, for in-person instruction.""

""Safe in-person instruction gives our kids access to critical social and mental health services that prepare them for the future, in addition to the education they need to succeed,"" she said in a statement.

Last year, the CDC advised that one way for schools to operate safely was by keeping children 6 feet apart, the same standard applied to workplaces and other settings.

In contrast, the World Health Organization suggested 1 meter — a little over 3 feet — was sufficient in schools. The American Academy of Pediatrics says to desks should be spaced 3 feet apart and ""ideally"" 6 feet.

The CDC guidance was problematic for many schools that traditionally had 25, 30, or more children per classroom in closely grouped desks. Some schools adopted complicated, hybrid scheduling, that might, for example, have half a class come to school on some days and the other half on other days.

The Ridley School District in suburban Philadelphia took steps like that to follow the 6-foot guideline after the CDC emphasized it last summer. But neighboring communities went with 3 feet, ""and we're not seeing the data really reflect a different spread rate,"" said Lee Ann Wentzel, the district's superintendent.

The district had already decided to shift to 3-foot distancing starting next month and invite all students to attend five days a week. But Wentzel said she was glad to hear of the change in CDC guidance because it will be easier to explain and defend the district's decision.

A recent study in Massachusetts looked at infections of students and staff members in schools that used the 3-foot standard and those that used the 6-foot one. It found no significant difference in infection rates.

Massetti said other research has also been influential, including two studies the CDC released Friday.

One was a study in Utah that found low coronavirus transmission rates among students who did a good job wearing masks and whose desks were only 3 feet apart. The other study, done in Missouri, pointed to a similar conclusion, Massetti said.

The guidance change comes at a time when new, more contagious variants of the coronavirus are increasingly spreading. That means a continued emphasis on mask wearing and other such measurs, Massetti said.",0.00557872882300852
"The chronicles of the American culture war are voluminous, but the epitome of this existential identity crisis that our nation faces is — purely and simply — constitutional.

Our Constitution is, by definition, the system of governance that we as ""the People"" chose to adopt after our forebearers abandoned the previous system, the Articles of Confederation.

However, the American political tradition has been and currently is fraught with discontent. The celebrated constitutional theorist professor Charles Kesler provides in his treatise, ""Crisis of the Two Constitutions: The Rise, Decline, and Recovery of American Greatness,"" perhaps the most analytical account of the constitutional culture war that currently afflicts our nation's mores.

Kesler offers this assessment of our current climate: ""We are in a phase of American politics that is highly polarized. Almost everyone knows that, and everyone knows how unusual how every single president since George W. Bush has been regarded to some degree as illegitimate by the other party.""

In American politics, Kesler notes, ""it's regular to dislike the other party, but there also exists the tradition of the loyal opposition. That is to say, we share a common Constitution, but we disagree on the partisan issues of the day, but our commonality is much more significant than our differences. Unfortunately, our politics is increasingly not the one of loyal opposition but resistance where we don't have a Constitution in common to where we can repair as a source of agreement.""

This theory of a loyal opposition preserved our country for many years, saving the few that the Civil War mired. Kesler's analysis is ""[w]e're divided between a conservative's Constitution and the liberal's Constitution, where the conservative's Constitution looks back to the Founders, and the new liberal Constitution looks back to the Progressive Era.""

Kesler characterizes the Progressive Era as ""a time where progressives were critical to almost all moral assumptions on human nature and nature in general. [President Woodrow] Wilson wanted to create a new freedom to replace the old with something attuned to the 20th century and the 21st century that is, by definition, flexible. That is what the Biden administration is about, and liberals advertised, 'this Constitution was not to supplant the old but to just lift the words off of the page,' which is a useful fiction. It is ushering in a new one. We, therefore, disagree with what should be in our Constitution.""

Kesler points out the fundamental and logical absurdity upon which the Living Constitution predicates itself. As Kesler notes, ""There is nothing permanent except change in the pure idea of the living Constitution, and politically it's more complicated than that.""

During the era of his ""New Deal"" in the 1930's, President Franklin Roosevelt saw that he could make political hay about new socioeconomic rights: ""A right to a job, a right to social security."" It may sound individualistic, but only because those rights apply to groups that the government works through to make them sound individualistic.

The welfare state for Roosevelt was permanent. It came out of the Living Constitution, which means everything is changeable. However, the welfare state structure is not very adaptable, is very costly, and people perceive these entitlements as permanent promises that aren't changeable.

Still, the Supreme Court has ruled that the commitment to pay is not guaranteed and is alterable by the legislature. Hence it is more ambiguous than the architects wished to indicate initially.

So the Living Constitution that is antithetical to the Framers' original intent is once again at the forefront of American politics and culture. This nefariously nebulous Living Constitution proposes the ahistorical and idealistic view of human nature that rejects moral constraint and presupposes a system based on a nihilistic conception of ""change"" subject to an ever-fleeting will of the majority.

In a nutshell, that's the case for the vitality of Kesler's treatise on this subject. It is all the more important to read, coming at a time when every article and section of the Constitution appears to up for grabs and when progressives are playing for keeps.

Michael Cozzi is a Ph.D. candidate at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.",-1.7855995500216517
"The Newsmax Rising Bestsellers list will do more than stimulate your mind. These reads may challenge your beliefs, broaden your perspectives, excite your curiosities, or widen your imagination.

These books may not necessarily appear on the official New York Times list of bestsellers, but they're the ones our Newsmax audience is reading, talking about, sharing with friends, and buying.

Here are the Newsmax Rising Bestsellers for the week of March 8, 2021:",0.9639531362810685
"Rarely nowadays does a book offer substantive political thought based upon empirical data couched in traditional academic style.

An even more seldom occurrence is a treatise that offers all of the aforementioned accompanying pragmatic solutions in an engaging and provoking manner.

Former Reagan Administration official Donald Devine's newest work, The Enduring Tension: Capitalism and the Moral Order, does this and more. It is a treatise meant to add further information to the readers' conservative minds while championing their conservative moral heartbeats.

Its primary aim is to refute the Rouseauistic and Marxist condemnation of the Western worldview and their simplistic view that free markets and morality are antithetical. The author does this through a complex yet comprehensible understanding of the West's essential economic and philosophical cannons. Devine uses iconic Western philosophers and economic theorists John Locke and Adam Smith to argue that there is a better solution than the proposed system of fully integrated bureaucratization based upon Rousseau and Marx.

Devine's book rebukes what he terms ""scientific-progressivism"" that began under the “progressive era” presidents such as Woodrow Wilson. This political theory enshrines the idea that the government should seek to solve almost every societal problem imaginable through a system of ""expert bureaucracy.""

In so doing, this brand of political-economic system has sought to supplant the individual and the local with the collective and the national. Using the pseudointellectual veil of scientism, adherents to the expert bureaucracy model promote an idealistic interpretation of politics and human nature by relying upon ""rationalizing experts in central government headquarters using inefficient bureaucracies, imperfect understanding of the facts, and inherently limited scientific methods"" (p. 157).

In response to scientific-progressivism, Devine prescribes that we must look back to the traditional way of governance by championing federalism, decentralization, and privatization that returns control to localities instead of a national system.

Does this proposed solution work? It does, the author argues, because local governments' empowerment, economically speaking, would allow them to operate much like the free market does. A local government could provide a more nuanced solution for its constituents, which may be idiosyncratic to another city or on the larger state-wide level.

It is the economic view of Max Weber, Friedrich Hayek, and others that informs this public-choice theory approach to government. Moreover, it intrinsically values citizens more than the bureaucratic model because it views them as investors in local governments, thereby compelling local governments to be highly responsive to their citizens'/investors' wishes.

Devine also stresses the moral tension between these two competing theories of governance. The scientific-progressivism approach believes that human nature is materialistic and that posits that we are a mere composite of genetic information that has accidentally evolved through time and natural selection to become self-conscious.

He uses the British philosopher John Nicholas Gray to articulate this stark difference between the progressive and the traditional. The traditional view espouses Christian ethics and understands that human beings are flawed for a fundamental reason outside of an accident. In a Christian tradition, much of the West's cultural history flourished, and there is a Creator who endowed each individual, as a part of Creation, with intrinsic moral worth.

In reminding the reader of our first principles, Devine offers an intellectual history and analysis of this eternal battle for Western civilization's destiny as they apply in contemporary times. In so doing, he offers the conservative movement a viable, detailed roadmap on which we may detour from what Hayek dubbed The Road to Serfdom.

Whether we as a people take that road that is less traveled remains to be seen.

Michael Cozzi is a PhD candidate at Catholic University in Washington, D.C.",0.3114849295994343
"The Newsmax Rising Bestsellers list will do more than stimulate your mind. These reads may challenge your beliefs, broaden your perspectives, excite your curiosities, or widen your imagination.

These books may not necessarily appear on the official New York Times list of bestsellers, but they're the ones our Newsmax audience is reading, talking about, sharing with friends, and buying.

Here are the Newsmax Rising Bestsellers for the week of Feb. 22, 2021:",-2.1849773824387726
"Former New York Times reporter-turned-novelist Alex Berenson is accusing his former employer and other media outlets for refusing to review his latest book because of an animus to his contrarian views on the novel coronavirus.

Berenson, who worked for the Times from 1999 to 2010 covering everything from Iraq to the pharmaceutical industry to the Bernie Madoff scandal before leaving to write novels, told Fox News on Tuesday he has become a pariah for his views.

""The media can't cancel me,"" he said. ""I don't work for The New York Times. I have an independent voice. But they can refuse to cover 'The Power Couple,' and that's what they've done.""

It was a theme he also expressed in an opinion piece on Fox News' website Monday.

""As someone who has argued COVID lockdowns are a mistake and is now raising questions about the mRNA vaccines, I feel the pressure of cancel culture every day,"" Berenson wrote.

""Amazon refused to publish my first booklet on COVID until pressure from none other than Elon Musk, the billionaire behind Tesla and Space X, forced it to back down. People with tens or hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter regularly call for the service to ban me.""",-1.2269527872510622
"The Newsmax Rising Bestsellers list will do more than stimulate your mind. These reads may challenge your beliefs, broaden your perspectives, excite your curiosities, or widen your imagination.

These books may not necessarily appear on the official New York Times list of bestsellers, but they're the ones our Newsmax audience is reading, talking about, sharing with friends, and buying.

Here are the Newsmax Rising Bestsellers for the week of Feb. 15, 2021:",-0.5472967216160031
"James Patterson's latest book aims to put the reader into the very combat boots of a soldier on the field of battle to know what it is like to be shot at — or to have to fire that shot.

Appearing Tuesday on Newsmax TV's ""Greg Kelly Reports,"" Patterson and co-author Matt Eversmann, said they covered the stories of 45 veterans to get their first-hand accounts for ""Walk in My Combat Boots: True Stories from America's Bravest Warriors.""

Eversmann, who served in Mogadishu, Somalia, and was portrayed in the movie ""Black Hawk Down"" by Josh Hartnett, spoke to the men and women to get their stories.

""Each and every one of those stories was absolutely fantastic to hear,"" Eversmann said. ""I mean, I learned so much from these young men and women.""

Patterson said Eversmann, as a fellow combat veteran, was able to earn their trust and ask the right questions to get the stories veterans often do not feel as comfortable sharing with people who have not seen combat.

Patterson then took each story and crafted it into 5-7 pages in novel form.

""Every one of these stories could be a book in itself,"" Patterson said. ""You will feel what it is like to get shot at for the first time.

""You will feel what it's like to shoot at somebody for the first time. And those, they're awful things.""

Patterson said his and Eversmann's mission was to show people who have never served in the military what it is like for those who have.

""If you're like half the country, you don't have a clue what the military is all about,"" he said. ""You will read this and go, 'I had no idea; I didn't understand what it means to serve, and I had no idea what it means to put my life on the line for somebody else.' And the next time you say to somebody, 'Thank you for your service,' you'll know what you're thanking them for.""",-1.7683441886390199
"A question that comes to mind for many American conservatives in the days following Jan. 20, 2021, is whether our nation is in decline.

Joseph Johnston Jr.'s book, ""The Decline of Nations: Lessons for Strengthening America at Home and in the World,"" seeks to not merely address this provocative question, but to offer a roadmap for America to regain its prestige in the world in perhaps our country's most dire moment in modern history.

Johnston lays out the foundations for what ails our beleaguered nation by using the historical lessons of bygone superpowers who once walked the world's stage.

""What's happened is that the basic values that were established when this country was founded — patriotism, loyalty, and governmental accountability — have been fundamentally eroded,"" Johnston told Newsmax.

He went on to spell out that ""[i]t is a Nietzschean problem of nihilism in that when you destroy the basic societal frameworks of a workable republic: federalism, localism, strong families, strong churches, and strong local government, then you have an uncontrollable situation where nihilism enters and dominates [civil society].""

This occurs throughout history because, as Johnston notes, ""When nations become wealthy, they tend to become addicted to decadence and subsequently become soft. The military and societal discipline decline, and they rely more on the government to support their feebleness.""

Perhaps one of the most paradigmatic aspects of America's decline is the public education system, which, Johnston argues, ""is a failure because children are not learning what they need to know to succeed in the modern world. They no longer learn morality or civics, and this is pure folly. We need to raise the standards so students can respond better to literature, great works, and vocations.""

""Some students go off to college, but a lot of them don't. We have just sat back passively and allowed for all of this to take place. Young generations have to be taught the Declaration [of Independence], the Constitution, and our country's history and civics.

""Otherwise, our nation is doomed.""

Another aspect of America's decline delineated by the author is a lack of enforcing the rule of law, which runs contrary to the view of the framers of the Constitution.

In Johnston's view, ""The rule of law is so vitally important because we need to rely on it because when you don't have that public trust in our system of government. This directly connects to the excess of law and regulations that comes out of the administrative [or deep] state. Our regulations grow and grow every year, so it's impossible for ordinary citizens to know the law.""

The way that Johnston proposes to remedy this bloviation of federal regulation is to ""have Congress reclaim its power instead of delegating it to these agencies. We can do that by electing leaders who are committed to limited government principles, who actually will vote for that change.""

""It is up to us as a people to counteract all of the ailing and overweening state control that we have now,"" he said. ""We have to do something about our education system, and that means retaking control at the local level through local elections. The only way the national mess will be sorted out is by looking to the most local level possible and changing where decisions are made.""

As Johnston sees it, ""You have to get on school boards, local municipal offices, and state offices. When we work from the local on up, then we can rebuild and redefine these institutions like the Marxists have for decades.""

Johnston's work and words serve as a testament, a guide, and a call to those patriots seeking to rekindle the sacred fire of liberty that George Washington, the father of our country, spoke of at our nation's first inaugural address.

Upon reading Johnston's book, one is very likely to conclude the task at hand for patriots is arduous. Nevertheless, the most challenging of tasks are indeed the ones worth the fight.

Michael Cozzi is a Ph.D. candidate at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.",-1.5468733356740594
"The American fascination with anniversaries is by no means a modern phenomenon.

In 1887, our country rightfully celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Constitution with ""a three-day long commemoration in Philadelphia.""

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the notorious and jarring Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the United States. The 20 years that have passed since that fateful day have defined how our nation has rebuilt itself and the lessons we have learned.

In an effort to convey more than the mere pomp and circumstance of politicians, the numerous literary works produced during these anniversary years are a trove of introspection that allow us as the reader to consider the whole picture.

James Reston Jr.'s book, ""The 19th Hijacker: A Novel,"" is perhaps the quintessential book that aims at provoking the reader's critical thinking skills. It plunges us into the mind of a hijacker through the tape recordings captured by his girlfriend Karima Ilgun.

Reston's literary style of presenting the terrorist in the novel was driven by the idea, in his words, of ""what if in this conflict this terrorist used this woman as a sound[ing] board and actually tape recorded out how things were going and if he would come to this choice to do the operation or flee.""

In the author's view, the unique use of the tapes would be a way of the reader getting a gritty view of a terrorist's rationale throughout plotting the heinous deed.

At the heart of what happened in the days, months, and years after 9/11 were the many actions taken in order to prevent another 9/11-style terrorist attack on American soil.

Reston suggests that a crucial benefit of reading this psychological thriller is to address how we protect ourselves from radical Islam. As the author put it, ""If we really want to protect ourselves from radical Islamists that come from the Middle East, then we have to know what drives them and what makes them tick. If we don't know that, then how do we protect ourselves?""

""I wanted to try to really understand one character, even if imagined, who could get recruited and undertake this horrific action through Islamic religious ideology.""

The novelty of this novel lies in the presentation of the material and the prose Reston evokes to capture the tortured mind of a man being radicalized.

""There has never been any [literary] work done on the recruitment of a terrorist to do an attack on the United States,"" said Reston, ""so that theme was what was driving me. [Sept. 11] changed American history, and the clash of civilizations of Islam and Christianity was on nobody's minds until then.

""It remained so raw in the American mind even at the 10th anniversary, and everyone does not want to talk about the other side. It has been a taboo subject, and it is my hope that we can digest this more into our national consciousness.""

It is no surprise that the attacks on Sept. 11 are still a hard subject for many Americans, simply because of the sheer evil and atrocity of the actions perpetrated.

Reston, however, believes ""the 20th anniversary of the attack can be a historic time if [the attacks are] fully addressed by the American people by looking into it in different ways. I want to be in that [national] conversation, and I want to open people's minds up to better understand how this happened.""

For the millions of Americans whose lives were forever changed on that fateful day, approaching the topic from a humanistic perspective is not for the faint of heart.

Rather, it is a solemn and somber time to reflect and perchance to grow from the most boldfaced assault on our beloved democracy in nearly a century.

Reston's novel presents the inner conflict of man in a barren way for the reader to dissect and to ultimately comprehend. It aims at being an answer to that most fundamental of questions asked that day and to this very day: why?

Michael Cozzi is a Ph.D. candidate at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.",1.309840024408484
"For decades, conservative media outlets, pundits, and politicians have been waging war against the Radical Left’s adherence to and use of identity politics.

The theory behind identity politics on its face is simple — it’s the political theory of using someone’s personal identity (race, religion, etc.) to determine their policy or political party preference.

However, this generalization is a drastic oversimplification of an institutionalized practice that many agree has been denigrating our national conversation over major policy concerns and smearing political foes come time for the election cycle.

In order for conservatives to effectively defeat such an ideologically based tactic, they have to first fully understand it by knowing its history and methodology.

Mike Gonzalez is a policy expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., whose new book is titled “The Plot to Change America: How Identity Politics is Dividing the Land of the Free.”

Gonzalez offers a detailed analysis as to how and why identity politics has been an effective tool of the Marxist Left’s ideological war.

“What we are being fed by the media is a bunch of myths and they have to consider [identity politics] another way by looking at its inception,” he told Newsmax. “The whole underpinning of this book is to show that identity politics tells the individual ‘Look, you can succeed and improve your lot in life and rise to the occasion, but then you’re joining the system that we are actively trying to destroy and change.’

“That is the plot, and unfortunately, it’s not like there are any formal meetings on how to implement it. The most interesting thing is that the Marxist themselves admit that they are doing this.”

Gonzalez warned that identity politics is “a very dangerous dabbling with tribalism, and it doesn’t like the American idea of meritocracy.

“Critical race theory bases itself off of critical legal theory that emerged about fifteen year earlier, which preaches that the people who wrote the laws did so to maintain their privilege. They are both the offspring of critical theory that was developed by the Frankfurt School’s leading Marxist philosopher, Max Horkheimer. There are many other direct links to everything that is being taught on university campuses today.”

Gonzalez also looks at how the philosophy of the Frankfurt School in post-World War I Germany has influenced the inception of these critical legal and race theories here in the United States.

Gonzalez offers a particularly close and hard look at Herbert Marcuse, one of the intellectual high priests of contemporary leftist thinking “who taught the critical race theorist Angela Davis at Brandeis University.”

Davis is a critical race theorist who, among many other Marxist accolades, was the Communist Party’s candidate for Vice President in 1980 and 1984 on tickets headed by longtime U.S. Communist Party boss Gus Hall.

“Angela Davis had a profound impact and was the inspiration behind the theory of Patrisse Cullors, who co-founded Black Lives Matter, ” notes Gonzales.

Cullors herself admits as much in a Harvard Law Review article in 2019. Moreover, Gonzalez notes how yet another co-founder of Black Lives Matter, Alicia Garza, “also admits on a video by Democracy Now! that she owed everything to Angela Davis.”

The question remains: who was the major influence on Davis’s mentor Marcuse?

Gonzales pinpoints it. As he noted, “Marcuse as being primarily influenced by Martin Heidegger, who was not only a Nazi in the 1930’s but also was the director of the Nietzsche Archives. Heidegger was a close friend of Nietzsche’s sister who got him the position.”

So what can constitutional conservatives do about all of this?

“The solution to the universities has to start with government,” says Gonzales, “The universities have become entrenched and they are very much against diversity of opinions. They will stop people from getting jobs, getting tenure, or [reaching] other prestigious places of power within the university if they don’t have the right politics.”

According to Gonzalez, “the solutions to the Marxist identity politics problem vary because of how we can compel institutions to change.”

He suggests launching a “civil rights movement 2.0” to combat this entrenched problem, and that may very well be on the horizon. Gonzalez concluded that he has faith in his fellow Americans “because we are a distinctly freedom-loving people.”

(Michael Cozzi is a Ph.D. candidate at Catholic University in Washington DC)",0.4358841774126065
"The Newsmax Rising Bestsellers list will do more than stimulate your mind. These reads may challenge your beliefs, broaden your perspectives, excite your curiosities, or widen your imagination.

These books may not necessarily appear on the official New York Times list of bestsellers, but they're the ones our Newsmax audience is reading, talking about, sharing with friends, and buying.

Here are the Newsmax Rising Bestsellers for the week of Jan. 18, 2021:",0.6800411599939464
"The Newsmax Rising Bestsellers list will do more than stimulate your mind. These reads may challenge your beliefs, broaden your perspectives, excite your curiosities, or widen your imagination.

These books may not necessarily appear on the official New York Times list of bestsellers, but they're the ones our Newsmax audience is reading, talking about, sharing with friends, and buying.

Here are the Newsmax Rising Bestsellers for the week of Jan. 11, 2021:",1.2417322470007532
"The Newsmax Rising Bestsellers list will do more than stimulate your mind. These reads may challenge your beliefs, broaden your perspectives, excite your curiosities, or widen your imagination.

These books may not necessarily appear on the official New York Times list of bestsellers, but they're the ones our Newsmax audience is reading, talking about, sharing with friends, and buying.

Here are the Newsmax Rising Bestsellers for the week of Dec. 21, 2020:",0.7198672092369762
"The Newsmax Rising Bestsellers list will do more than stimulate your mind. These reads may challenge your beliefs, broaden your perspectives, excite your curiosities, or widen your imagination.

These books may not necessarily appear on the official New York Times list of bestsellers, but they're the ones our Newsmax audience is reading, talking about, sharing with friends, and buying.

Here are the Newsmax Rising Bestsellers for the week of Dec. 14, 2020:",-0.8322452381778441
"The Newsmax Rising Bestsellers list will do more than stimulate your mind. These reads may challenge your beliefs, broaden your perspectives, excite your curiosities, or widen your imagination.

These books may not necessarily appear on the official New York Times list of bestsellers, but they're the ones our Newsmax audience is reading, talking about, sharing with friends, and buying.

Here are the Newsmax Rising Bestsellers for the week of Dec. 7, 2020:

1. “Unsinkable: Five Men and the Indomitable Run of the USS Plunkett” by James Sullivan (Scribner). A vivid account of the plight of the USS Plunkett, a U.S. Navy destroyer that sustained the most harrowing attack on any Navy ship during World War II, when a dozen-odd German bombers bore down on it. After a three-month overhaul, the Plunkett plunged back into the war at Omaha Beach on D-Day, and once again into battle during the invasion of Southern France. The book is based on Navy logs, war diaries, action reports, letters, journals, memoirs, and dozens of interviews with the men who were on the ship and their families. (Nonfiction)

2. “Betraying the Nobel: The Secrets and Corruption Behind the Nobel Peace Prize” by Unni Turrettini (Pegagsus). Turrettini, an international lawyer, investigates the darker side of the famed award. In the years surrounding World Wars I and II, the Nobel Prize became a beacon of hope and an inspiration around the world. But Alfred Nobel made the mistake of leaving it to the Norwegian Parliament to elect members of the Peace Prize committee, which has filled it with politicians more loyal to their party’s agenda than to the prize's prerogative. As a result, winners are often a result of political expediency. According to the publisher, the author delves into the often corrupt history of the prize, examining what the committee hoped to obtain by its choices, including the now-infamously awarded Cordell Hull, as well as Henry Kissinger, Al Gore, and Barack Obama. Turrettini also shows how the effects of increased media attention have turned the Nobel into a popularity prize. (Nonfiction)

3. “Eleanor’’ by David Michaelis (Simon & Schuster). A new biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, America’s longest-serving First Lady, describing how the orphaned niece of President Theodore Roosevelt converted her Gilded Age childhood of denial and secrecy into an irreconcilable marriage with her ambitious fifth cousin Franklin. Despite their inability to make each other happy, Franklin Roosevelt transformed Eleanor from a settlement house volunteer on New York’s Lower East Side into a matching partner in New York’s most important power couple in a generation.

She would go on to be the architect of international human rights and world citizen of the Atomic Age, urging Americans to cope with the anxiety of global annihilation by cultivating a “world mind.”

4. “The Last American Aristocrat: The Brilliant Life and Improbable Education of Henry Adams’’ by David S. Brown (Scribner). Adams, one of America’s most prominent writers and intellectuals of his era, contributed to America’s dramatic transition from “colonial” to “modern.” The last member of his distinguished family — after great-grandfather John Adams, and grandfather John Quincy Adams — Henry not only lived through the Civil War and Industrial Revolution but he met Abraham Lincoln, bowed before Queen Victoria, and counted powerful figures, including Secretary of State John Hay, Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, and President Theodore Roosevelt, as friends and neighbors. His observations of these men and their policies in his private letters provide a penetrating assessment of Gilded Age America on the cusp of the modern era. (Nonfiction)

5. “The Deepest South of All: True Stories from Natchez, Mississippi” by Richard Grant (Simon & Schuster). Natchez, Mississippi, once had more millionaires per capita than anywhere else in America, and its wealth was built on slavery and cotton. Today it has the greatest concentration of antebellum mansions in the South, and a culture full of unexpected contradictions. Prominent white families dress up in hoopskirts and Confederate uniforms for ritual celebrations of the Old South, yet Natchez is also progressive enough to elect a gay black man for mayor with 91% of the vote.

Grant depicts a strange, eccentric town with an unforgettable cast of characters that offers a gripping portrait of a complex American place, as it struggles to break free from the past and confront the legacy of slavery. (Nonfiction)",0.4986429807760179
"‘No man’s Land’ is not a term to be used lightly. It references the undefined ground between opposing forces made famous by the deadly landscape between Allied and German troops on the western front of World War I (1917-1918). It also coincided with the start of the infamous Spanish Flu that killed some 20 to 50 million people. The phrase itself, dates back even further, however, and was used to describe the mass burial grounds in the wake of the Bubonic Plague that struck Europe and Asia in the 1300’s, killing up to 200 million people.

In 2021, we once again find ourselves peering across “No Man’s Land” in the wake of another mass casualty, global event. COVID-19 has infected 115 million people worldwide and despite all of the advances of modern medicine, it has killed more than 2 ½ million.

As in generations past, ‘No Man’s Land’ is a perilous place. And in 2021, it’s brimming with new threats that could impact our economic survival and increase the risk of a financial crisis.

Read: Gold’s BULL RUN in the Post-Covid Economy

The Risk Trade’s ‘Bleak Future’

Unprecedented government support for the markets has prompted corporations to sell bonds at record levels, many of which are high-risk, high-yield and backed by pandemic-damaged companies borrowing at dramatically reduced rates. And debt investors have indulged with reckless abandon. In his annual letter to shareholders, Warren Buffet recently warned that bond investors are facing a “bleak future.”

Bubble Talk and Dire Warnings

All of this has fueled frothy markets, record high valuations, unchecked real estate prices, and overheated risk assets that have more takers than at any other time in modern memory.

Former U.S Treasury Secretary Larry Summers is WARNING that the Biden stimulus package will ignite inflation and threaten “financial stability.”

China has WARNED that the massive amount of U.S. government stimulus could cause a sharp, economic correction.

Economists are WARNING that the dramatic shift toward sustainable investments has now created an irrational ‘green bubble.’

Regulators have WARNED that the Game Stop frenzy has exposed a market that is overstimulated and raised concerns about manipulation, short-selling, and outright law-breaking.

Heed the Warnings and Download: “Seven Reasons Why Gold Will Run in 2021!”

The threat of financial instability, corrections, asset bubbles and market mayhem are the precise conditions that have propelled gold throughout economic history, and the post-pandemic era is shaping up to be no exception.

Get the ONLY Gold Report that offers an in-depth look at:

The Financial Fallout from Covid-19

The Knock-on Effect of Massive Stimulus

The Uneven Economic Recovery

The Supply and Demand Crisis

The Growing Political Divide

A Weakened Dollar

As we move through the mud and mire of the post-COVID

‘No Man’s Land’ of 2021, we must be prepared for all known, unknown and inevitable risks. This is where … gold shines brightest.

Gold not just a safe and solid asset that offers portfolio diversification and retirement protection – in 2021, it’s financial survival.

The world is now the most indebted in modern history The pandemic of 2021 has driven government debt to levels never seen before as central banks around the world have aggressively leveraged their economies. World banks have not only drastically slashed interest rates but engaged in breakneck borrowing that has increased global debt by some $20 trillion.

Consumer behavior has been forever changed Lockdowns and social distancing have had a profound impact on how people live and buy across the globe. There has been a dramatic digital acceleration, a decline in discretionary spending, a reduction in travel, a seismic shift to trusted brands, and an overriding desire for physical, emotional and financial security.

Major business sectors have been irreparably damaged The restaurant, transportation and tourism industries were hit hard by the pandemic. Their recovery will be long and slow, and the predictions are less hopeful for other sectors. Traditional retail, higher education, and non-residential construction are not expected to weather the COVID storm or ever return to pre-pandemic viability.

In the U.S. in particular, the degree of disruption caused by COVID-19 cannot be overstated. America is in unchartered waters with respect to national debt, deficit spending, securities purchases, loans to banks and businesses, and even direct payments to American citizens.

With the mother of all PRINT RUNS actively fueling the mother of all BUBBLES, something has to give. And as investors once again find themselves in a life and death ARMY-CRAWL to financial safety, history suggests that many will turn to the cover of GOLD.",-0.7007581303189223
"It was a dream vacation, that turned into a nightmare. When Craig and Mike retired from the Navy, they decided to take their wives on a sailing adventure aboard a private luxury yacht. But then came the distress call. “Help us,” the woman cried. “Our boat is sinking.”

When Craig and Mike retired from the Navy, they decided to take their wives on a sailing adventure aboard a private luxury yacht. But then came the distress call. “Help us,” the woman cried. “Our boat is sinking.” So, Craig and Mike did what the Navy does best. They went to help. But the call was a trap.

Click below to find out what happened next.",-1.1617612893176879
"In the third quarter of 2020, investment demand for gold has risen 21% compared to the same period in the previous year. That’s according to data obtained by the World Gold Council, one of the world’s leading authorities in the market.

The rise in demand comes in the wake of financial uncertainties caused by the COVID-19 crisis and the subsequent lockdown orders. Since gold is famous for remaining stable even in times of financial uncertainty, it is no surprise that many investors have chosen to diversify their portfolios to include more gold-related products.

However, the COVID crisis hasn’t been good news for all sectors of the gold market. While the demand of investors has increased, regular consumers have cut back on their demand for gold jewelry and other luxury gold products. As a result, the World Gold Council (WGC) reported that global gold demand dropped by 19% in the last quarter if compared to the same period in 2019.

The gold demand in Q3 2020 was the lowest quarterly total since 2009, when the world was reeling from the last financial crisis.

One of the reasons for the lower demand is the financial strife that has struck large sections of the global population. But that is not the only reason. In the wake of increased investor demand, the price of gold in the United States and around the world has skyrocketed.

“The US dollar gold price rose to a record high of US$2,067.15/oz in early August,” states the WGC. “This was followed by a pullback with the price closing the quarter around US$1,900/oz. Record high prices were also seen in various other currencies, among them the rupee, the yuan, the euro, and sterling.”

So, while demand for gold was lower, the price of each sold gold product was also higher than it would have been otherwise. Prices were also affected by complications in the extraction and distribution of gold products. The WGC reports that the total supply of gold last quarter was 3% lower than it had been the previous year.

Still, the relative stability of gold as a commodity spells good news for the nations that produce most of the world’s gold. Right now, China is number one on that list, producing an estimated 383 tons of gold every year. The United States is number 4, with an estimated production of 200 tons annually.

Most of the USA’s gold production happens in a single state. 70% of the gold produced in the US comes from Nevada, where companies like Golden Independence operate some of the biggest gold extraction operations in the world. And in November, Golden Independence announced that they’d be extending and expanding their flagship extraction project in Nevada, following favorable results in 2020.

“The experienced drilling crew and favorable drilling conditions at Independence have kept costs around 40% under budget to date, allowing the significant program expansion,” company President Tim Henneberry stated in a press release. The company is looking forward to good results in 2021 following this year’s expansion.

It’s hard to predict how long it’ll take until consumer demand for gold and jewelry returns to normal. But for now, the rising investor demand is helping the industry stay healthy.",0.4603261476485295
"One of the interesting characteristics of flavonoids, therapeutic components of plants, is that most stimulate insulin function, thereby improving glucose entry into cells and overcoming insulin resistance that underlies diabetes.

In addition, most also reduce inflammation and are powerful antioxidants, and these characteristics reduce complications of diabetes, such as blindness, strokes, heart attacks, peripheral vascular disease, and nerve damage.

Natural supplements work best when following a good diet and a regular exercise program. While there are a number of flavonoid supplements that can help diabetes, these are the safest and most reliable.

Cinnamon Extract: A relative of the turmeric plant, cinnamon has been shown to significantly improve insulin function and lower elevated blood sugar. It also reduces inflammation.

What to do: It is important to use a pure cinnamon extract and not cinnamon bark. For benefits, the dose varies widely, from 1,000 to 6,000 mg a day.

Doctor Discovers Sugar Control Method, Naturally

R-Lipoic Acid: This extract is a natural substance found in all cells and tissues and is one of the most important and powerful antioxidants. It also lowers elevated blood sugar and improves insulin resistance. It is a form of alpha-lipoic acid, but the R form is much more powerful.

What to do: Take between 300 and 600 mg with each meal.

Curcumin: A recent study found curcumin can not only prevent diabetes from occurring, but can also greatly improve elevated blood sugar and correct insulin resistance.

In addition, it can prevent, to a large extent, the atherosclerosis buildup associated with diabetes. The best form to take is CurcumaSorb, made by Pure Encapsulations, which contains 250 mg per capsule and is a well absorbed product.

What to do: Two capsules, which contain 500 mg, with each meal will have a maximum effect. Safety for much higher doses of curcumin has been established.

Doctor: All Multivitamins Are Not the Same

Multivitamin/Mineral Supplement: Dr. Russell Blaylock, M.D., author of the book, ""Dr. Blaylock's Prescriptions for Natural Health: 70 Remedies for Common Conditions,"" recommends a well-balanced multivitamin and mineral supplement. The B vitamins, when possible, should be in their most functional form. Specifically, folic acid or folate should be in the form of MTHF, short for 5-methyltetrahydrofolate; vitamin B6 should be in the form of pyridoxal 5-phosphate; and riboflavin (vitamin B2) in the form of riboflavin 5'-phosphate. Basic Nutrients V, made by Thorne Research, is an example of such a product.

What to do: Take a multivitamin with the recommended forms of B vitamins, per product directions.

Information for this article is from the book, ""Dr. Blaylock's Prescriptions for Natural Health"" by Dr. Russell L. Blaylock, M.D.",1.7476022249712186
"Are you concerned that your memory isn’t what it used to be? Are you struggling to remember simple facts, or are you missing out because important details slip your mind? Does your brain feel sluggish, dragged down by mental fatigue?

Failing memory and deteriorating concentration can be embarrassing, and worse yet, they can threaten personal independence. Older adults need to stay sharp and think clearly – there is a lot at stake for you and for your family.

A concerning trend in brain health

A study published by Time Magazine warned, “Senior moments could be early signs of dementia.” The research, from the journal of the American Academy of Neurology, suggests that self-reported worries about memory lapses are strong predictors of a later diagnosis of dementia.

In a survey by the Alzheimer’s Association, over 86% of primary care doctors predicted that the number of people with some type of dementia will increase over the next 5 years. And, consider this: the total lifetime cost of care for a person with dementia is over $357,000!

Thankfully, the solution to improving memory and brain function can be simpler than you think.

Fortifying the brain

Leading brain scientists have uncovered true insights into boosting memory AND thinking power. These trusted researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science, led by renowned biophysicist, Professor Meir Shinitzky, developed and perfected the formula that fortifies brain cells that decline naturally with age. They discovered that simply supplementing with this exclusive compound, found in great amounts in brain cells, can boost memory and thinking power.

How did these trusted researchers do it?

In the late 90s, scientists began conducting clinical trials and publishing them in peer-reviewed medical journals, like Advances in Therapy, Lipids in Health and Disease and others.

They found that when older adults with memory and focus problems took this specially formulated compound of nutrients that brain cells need to survive and thrive, these adults were able to remember and concentrate better.

The clinical trial proved that the formula worked – subjects quickly supercharged their cognitive performance, significantly improving their scores in the most popular international memory test – the Wechsler Memory Score.

Take Control of Your Memory and Thinking Power!

Discover the one and only compound proven to work like this for memory and focus

This single soy-based formula created by scientists takes action on brain cells, helping them maintain structure while promoting the flexibility that brain cells need to function and communicate with one another. The secret is in its patented formulation, which is designed to reinforce cell structure – to become key components of brain cells. The formula resembles refurbishing a car engine to boost its performance – not just adding gasoline to an aging car to keep it running.

In fact, the Mayo Clinic explains that the loss of structure and function of neurons in the brain, called neurodegeneration, is one of the two key factors in the most common dementia.

Product recognized as safe with no side effects

A supplement that is Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) by the FDA and whose key ingredient has earned a qualified health claim for cognitive function and dementia from the FDA – can give you the confidence that it’s safe and effective.

Many memory products are off limits for older adults because they affect blood pressure – containing ginkgo biloba (which is a big no-no), or they make you sleepy, containing sedatives like bacopa monnieri or valerian. Set your mind at ease with this formula, which has no known side effects.

Get the “Master Key” to Unlock Your Brain’s Potential and Tackle Cognitive Decline!

Act wisely when choosing a memory booster

When it comes to formulas having the scientific stamp of approval that can only be obtained from clinical trials, like the uniquely formulated brain booster, the following fact will likely burst your bubble: According to the National Institutes of Health, there is little to no evidence that simple supplements like ginkgo biloba, omega-3, vitamin E or curcumin prevent or slow dementia or cognitive decline, so taking them for brain health is likely a waste of time and money.

Baby Boomers and Gen Xers struggling with brain fog and memory problems have wised up, and thanks to this unique formula, are now reporting a welcome surge in their brainpower. They have finally found the solution that:

Sharpens memory

Improves focus

Increases recall of names, numbers, etc.

Boosts ability to learn new things

Lessens “winter blues”

Enhances concentration and thinking power

These are all real, trusted, scientific results.

Find out why some call this solution a ""master key"" for your brain.

It’s time to take brain health seriously

If you’re thinking of waiting until your memory worsens, this fact may just change your mind: The research uncovered that adults who had not yet progressed to serious memory problems fared much better with the formula, which means that the sooner they recognized a problem and took action, the more likely they were to see results.

Your brain is your body’s command and control center. Take charge against cognitive decline now. Do it for your family and yourself.",0.18975125053152606
"Some brain cells are lost with age, but significant memory loss is not an inevitable consequence of aging. At any time of life, it isn’t uncommon to be temporarily forgetful as a result of insufficient sleep, jet lag, or exceptionally stressful or challenging situations, but serious, persistent memory lapses indicate an underlying condition — not necessarily any type of dementia.

At the same time, some people maintain exceptional abilities to remember throughout a long life.

Chronic inflammation is a major contributing factor in what is technically called ""minimal cognitive impairment,"" or MCI for short — ""senior moments."" In such situations, there is a link between low-grade, chronic brain inflammation and excitotoxicity. A growing number of triggers for such inflammation occur throughout life, including chronic infections, repeated injury, recurrent mini-strokes, stress, autoimmune diseases, excessive vaccination, and exposure to a number of toxic substances. Older people frequently take a number of prescription drugs, many of which impair brain function.

Over 50? Serious Brain Nutrition Combats Scary Mental Decline

Conventional Treatment

There is no drug or other medical treatment to prevent memory loss or improve memory. If forgetfulness becomes a problem, it should be treated as a symptom, rather than a disease, and a competent doctor should evaluate the individual’s overall health, including possible prescription drugs that could be causing the problem. Medical situations that may affect memory include brain injuries and disorders, imbalances of sex or thyroid hormones, stroke, severe illness, surgery, and cancer treatment.

Another Approach

There are two basic principles of protection — avoid the things that damage the brain and take more of the things that protect the brain.

For example, these are things to avoid: toxic metals such as mercury, aluminum, cadmium, lead, and excess manganese; pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides; toxic industrial chemicals; black and other mold toxins; and toxins in food. Dietary toxic substances include inflammatory omega-6 oils (corn, safflower, sunflower, peanut, and soybean oils); excess sugar; excess red meats; foods and additives high in glutamate; and fluoridated drinking water.

Regular, moderate exercise is important — at least 30 minutes a day. Establishing good friendships is very important and this includes maintaining close family ties.

Will You Outlive Your Memory?

Reading, learning new things, such as a new language or playing a musical instrument, and just exploring the world around you can bring great stress relief. One should develop a proper perspective regarding the time to relax and the time to work. It is important not to let material goals dominate your life.

As for food, vegetables and fruits are among the most powerful brain-protecting foods, especially high-nutrient ones. Such vegetables include kale, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, garlic, onions, and spinach. Fruits to choose include strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and acai berries. Eat organically grown ones, as they are far superior to conventionally grown varieties.

Natural Supplements

Fish Oil: In fish oil, which contains beneficial omega-3 fats, there are two major components, EPA and DHA. Of these, DHA is most concentrated in the brain, and is essential for maintaining fluidity, flexibility, and integrity of brain cell connections and membranes. DHA (and EPA) must be obtained from diet, since our bodies do not make these. Not all fish oil supplements contain high doses of DHA. One that does is Norwegian Fish Oil, made by Carlson, in a liquid supplement with natural lemon or orange flavors, which makes it easy to take a high dose without having to take many pills.

What to do: Take two teaspoons, twice a day. Pure DHA is also available in capsules, but is more expensive for a comparable dose.

Worried About Forgetting Things? Try Dr. Blaylock's Brain Boosters

Magnesium: Magnesium reduces excitotoxicity and brain inflammation, improves blood flow to the brain, and raises levels of our chief internal antioxidant, glutathione, in brain cells. For best absorption, use a slowrelease version of magnesium malate, such as Magnesium w/SRT, made by Jigsaw Health. Two caplets contain 250 mg. L-threonate enters the brain better and comes in a 2,000 mg per capsule dose. Try using both.

What to do: Take two caplets of the Jigsaw brand, twice a day with meals. Take two capsules of the magnesium L-threonate two to three times a day.

Niacinamide: Also called vitamin B3, niacinamide plays a major role in energy production by all cells, including brain cells.

What to do: Take 500 mg, two to three times a day with meals.

Methylcobalamin (vitamin B12): This is the most absorbable and beneficial form of vitamin B12, which is essential for energy production in the brain but often in short supply among older people. A sublingual form is preferred.

What to do: Take 10,000 mcg a day of a sublingual form.",0.2158009000643353
"Inflammation plays an important role in the body’s immune response to illness and injury — the swelling and redness when you bang your elbow signals that your body is attempting to heal itself or fight infection. That’s the good.

Now the bad: Inflammation can lead to more serious problems, particularly when it persists over time. In fact, chronic inflammation is the driving factor of the nation’s No. 1 killer: heart disease.

New Aging Research Reveals Key to Long, Healthy Life

Here’s the ugly: Cardiovascular disease isn’t the only health hazard tied to inflammation, notes renowned neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, a Newsmax contributor and editor of The Blaylock Wellness Report newsletter. “I’m talking about the biggest killers known to man — cancer, diabetes, heart disease and stroke, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s,” he says.

“Rapidly accumulating evidence now indicates that when inflammation continues for too long or is too intense, it can be very destructive, and even result in [these and] other diseases.”

Top Cardiologist Reveals Secret for a Healthy Heart

But Blaylock says there’s light in this gloomy scenario: A host of supplements, natural products, and healthy habits — including making simple changes in your diet — can help combat the ravages of runaway inflammation. Conventional doctors have long used painkillers called nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, to ease inflammation — such as ibuprofen, naproxen, and aspirin — as well as steroid hormones. But these drugs carry well-known side effects and are generally not a good long-term solution.

Doctors Witness Amazing Joint Pain Changes

Alternative medicine practitioners have long turned to herbs and natural substances that have anti-inflammatory properties. Blaylock says he has seen tremendous results in his patients who have used alternative therapies to knock down inflammation naturally. Among his favorites are vitamin C, apigenin, hesperidin, vinpocetine, luteolin, bromelain, resveratrol, quercetin, and green tea.

Blaylock notes that it’s equally important to avoid common causes of inflammation in the diet and in the environment. “The first step to reducing inflammation is to reduce your exposure to ... mercury, aluminum, cadmium, lead, pesticides, herbicides, and industrial chemicals,” he says.",0.6467256461310319
"Allergies are a reaction of the immune system to common substances we all encounter in everyday life, such as certain foods, dust, pet dander, or pollen. Although these are generally harmless, in some people the immune system treats such allergens as harmful invaders and launches an inflammatory defense mechanism that produces uncomfortable symptoms.

Common symptoms include hay fever, wheezing, or coughing; red, itchy, and watery eyes, known as conjunctivitis; patches of itchy, dry skin; or hives.

Food allergies that affect the digestive system can trigger nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, or digestive discomfort. They can also affect how the brain operates, often leading to such problems as difficulty concentrating, mental fog, and even depression and anxiety.

Allergies can be life threatening when they manifest as anaphylactic shock, usually in reaction to a food, medication, or the venom in bee stings. In such situations, blood vessels can dilate to such a degree that a severe drop in blood pressure leads to fainting or shock.

Swelling of the tongue or throat and blocked breathing passages can be deadly without treatment.

More Than 50% of Older Americans Fail to Get Enough Magnesium

Food intolerance or sensitivity, to gluten, for example, is a different, delayed reaction of the immune system, which can manifest in a variety of ways that add up to discomfort, fatigue, or a general feeling of being unwell. Because manifestations may not occur immediately and symptoms can vary, such intolerances can be difficult to diagnose. However, they are not immediately life threatening.

While in some cases, exposure to even a very small amount of the substance can cause problems. In most instances, symptoms depend on the frequency and amount of the offending food that is eaten. Ironically, people may crave the very foods that are causing problems.

Conventional Treatment

An immediate allergic reaction triggers overproduction of the IgE antibody. When an allergen is suspected, skin and/or blood tests may be done to diagnose the allergy. Treatment varies depending upon the diagnosis.

Top Doctors Say: Your Immune Function Now More Important Than Ever

In some cases, such as contact with latex, avoiding the allergen may be the most practical solution. In others, medications, such as eye drops or nasal sprays for airborne allergens, may be prescribed or over-the-counter forms may be recommended. In some situations, immunotherapy may be done during a period of several years, with injections of purified allergen extracts. Or, other medications may be prescribed.

Recommendations

The most important thing is to avoid offending allergens. This is easier to do with foods or food additives than with airborne allergens, but even with those, high-quality home air filters can make life much more pleasant.

Additives with glutamate, such as MSG, and foods naturally high in glutamate, such as mushrooms, tomato paste, tomato sauces, red meats and cheeses, can activate and worsen immune-system reactions and should be avoided. Nutrient-dense vegetables protect against and reduce allergic reactions because they contain powerful anti-inflammatory substances, including magnesium, which reduce glutamate-induced immune reactions. Magnesium even reduces anaphylactic reactions.

Coronary Heart Disease: 5 Tips to Reduce Your Risk

Natural Supplements

Magnesium Malate & Citrate: These are two forms of well-absorbed magnesium.

What to do: Ongoing, take two slow-release tablets of Magnesium w/SRT twice a day with food. To calm acute reactions, use a magnesium citrate or malate product in capsules, which is not slow-release. Empty the contents of four capsules into six ounces of water, stir well, and drink.

Vitamin C: High-dose vitamin C powerfully inhibits histamine release from mast cells, the main immune system cells that cause allergic reactions, and reduces the inflammatory reactions of allergies. It can be a great help for sinus-related and other symptoms. Always take vitamin C without food, as it increases iron absorption, which can lead to iron overload.

What to do: Take one packet of Lypo-Spheric Vitamin C three times a day without food. For more severe allergies, take two packets — 2,000 mg of vitamin C — three times a day on an empty stomach.",-0.06857932061421369
"Antioxidants are compounds critical to the production of energy and the maintenance of health and youth. Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, author of the book “From Fatigued to Fantastic!” says that although oxygen is necessary for survival, too much of it is toxic.

“Using oxygen to create energy in our bodies results in the production of toxic ‘free radicals’ which set up ongoing, self-sustaining chain reactions of molecular damage,” he explains. “Doctors who specialize in anti-aging medicine use antioxidants as well as other key tools like bioidentical hormones to keep their patients healthier longer by preventing free radical damage.”

The best way to obtain antioxidants is through food, says noted sports medicine physician Dr. Gabe Mirkin. ""Eating fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes will help you get the intake of antioxidants you need.""

New Aging Research Reveals Key to Long, Healthy Life

Here are 10 foods chock full of the good stuff:

1. Dark Chocolate. Teitelbaum says that eating dark chocolate is a “fun way to get antioxidants.” According to the results of a study conducted at Cornell University, the concentration of cancer-fighting antioxidants in hot cocoa was significantly higher than in red wine, green tea, or black tea.

2. Artichokes. This tasty veggie has a long history of healing properties and is a great source of dietary fiber, minerals, and antioxidants. They are especially rich in the antioxidant known as chlorogenic acid, which may reduce the risk of certain cancers, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.

3. Beets. These veggies are a great source of fiber, potassium, iron, folate, and antioxidants. Several test-tube studies have shown that beets lower the risk of certain cancers in the colon and digestive tract thanks to a group of antioxidant compounds called betalains. Betalains have also been linked to reducing inflammation and relieving arthritis pain.

Over 50? Serious Brain Nutrition Combats Scary Mental Decline

4. Pecans. Nuts are a good source of healthy fats and minerals, and also contain a high amount of antioxidants, says Mirkin. One study found that people who consumed 20 percent of their total calories from pecans experienced significantly increased blood antioxidant levels.

5. Spinach. This nutritionally dense but very low calorie vegetable is loaded with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. It’s a great source of lutein and zeaxanthin, two antioxidants that help protect your eyes from UV damage.

6. Tomatoes. The health benefits of tomatoes include eye care, good stomach health, and reduced blood pressure. This popular fruit, often mistaken for a veggie, also includes a number of antioxidants that have been proven to fight different forms of cancer, according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Tomatoes contain lycopene, an antioxidant that is highly effective in fighting cancer-causing free radicals. Remarkably, the health benefits even can be obtained from processed tomato products like ketchup.

Heart Surgeon's Secret to Healthy Blood Pressure

7. Beans. These legumes are inexpensive and healthy while being incredibly rich in fiber, says Mirkin. They are also one of the best plant sources of antioxidants. One of these is called kaempferol, which has been linked to anti-cancer benefits.

8. Kale. This hearty green vegetable is one of the most nutritious in the plant world, says Mirkin. It’s rich in vitamins A, K, and C as well as antioxidants. The red-leafed variety of kale contains higher levels of these antioxidants, which is why nutrition experts advise us to eat a rainbow diet — foods rich in a variety of colors.

9. Strawberries. These are among the most popular berries on the planet. They also contain anthocyanins, which help reduce the risk of heart disease. The brighter the red, the higher the amount of anthocyanins.

10. Blueberries. While eating large amounts of sugary fruit is not recommended for those with diabetes, blueberries are low in calories and sugar but packed with antioxidants. Animal studies have shown that blueberries may stave off cognitive decline. In addition, the anthocyanins in blueberries have been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease by lowering LDL cholesterol levels and blood pressure.",0.19445682826875726
"Millions of Americans take medication to combat hypertension — a silent killer that raises risk for stroke and heart attack. But some foods naturally lower blood pressure as effectively as popping pills.

Here is what you need to know:

""Hypertension is a major cardiovascular risk factor, not only for heart attack but especially for stroke,"" says Miami-based cardiologist Dr. Michael Ozner, author of the bestselling book, ""The Complete Mediterranean Diet: Everything You Need to Know to Lose Weight and Lower Your Risk of Heart Disease... with 500 Delicious Recipes.""

How to Fix Your Blood Pressure (Do This Every Day)

If you are at risk of approaching the hypertension stage — blood pressure in excess of 140/90 — there is a lot you can do to stop it before popping pills.

""First, try lifestyle intervention,"" Ozner says. ""Get some exercise, learn relaxation techniques, and eat right. The Mediterranean diet has proven to lower blood pressure.""

The Mediterranean diet limits sugars, refined carbohydrates, andsaturated fat while going heavy on fruits, veggies, whole grains, and healthy fats. Add the following foods (and one drink) that have been shown to naturally lower blood pressure:

Tart cherry juice. Researchers found hypertension sufferers who drank just two ounces of this a day averaged a 7% drop in blood pressure.

Walnuts. Replacing snack food with walnuts helped knock three points off the resting blood pressure of participants in a study at Penn State University.

Top Cardiologist Reveals Secret for a Healthy Heart

Beet juice. Beets are rich in nitrate, which your body turns into nitric oxide, which relaxes blood vessels and is a natural blood thinner. A Hypertension study reported the systolic pressure of subjects who drank a cup of beet juice a day fell eight points.

Flaxseed. In one study, systolic blood pressure dropped 10 points in people who ate ground flaxseed every day. Diastolic pressure went down by seven points.

Know These Signs of a 'Silent' Heart Attack

Yogurt. Eating good-quality yogurt offers you two proven hypertension busters: calcium and probiotics.

Dark chocolate. A popular choice, but the key is in eating just one square a day. And it should be a type of chocolate that contains more than 50% cocoa. Do that, and you can lower your blood pressure.",-0.025745122834840338
"Almost every day you can expect a new slots site to launch, and with so much choice between slot games and casinos to go with it can be really hard deciding where and what to play. New online slots releases for the first quarter of 2020 are giving us some fun options, with updates on classics and innovative new features.

The Perks With New Online Slots Releases

Gamers can get a huge range of perks with new online slots releases, especially when it comes to online slots sites like Wizardslots. You can choose from a range of giveaways and goodies which include the infamous no deposit bonuses as well as the ever popular free spins. These are great for new gamers, not just new slots casinos because you can get a lot for no money whatsoever. All you will have to do is join.

While it may be a bit of a risk ,seeing as a lot of us already know our favorite slots casino and slots games, branching out and trying some new stuff here and there will do you some good, and in the long run you will get better value for money in the form of bonuses and free games that new online slots casinos can offer you.

Who Are New Online Slots Releases Game Providers?

Full to the brim with new games, new slots sites and the options on offers for players have been put out there in collaboration with some of the same games providers that supply games to the majority of the biggest online casinos, and these include NetEnt, Microgaming and PlayTech. So, you can feel safe when you do claim welcome offers and bonuses and trust that the slot game you are choosing will give you a great gaming experience.

With this in mind, there are really very limited reasons not to go with a new slot game and new slots site. One of the best features to mention that you can get with new slots sites include jackpot slot games, including those among the likes of Mega Moolah and the Jackpot King range. Jackpots like that can get you some real life-changing money, with prizes usually going over the £1 million mark.

Red the Terms and Conditions Carefully

In order to really get the most out of bonus offers and welcome promotions, you should thoroughly read through and make sure that you understand the terms and conditions first and foremost. When you understand this information you can use the bonus promotions in the best way possible and ensure that you really are getting good value for money, as well as making sure that the deal on offer is right for you. To learn more about what things the casino should inform you about follow the above link!

With many, if not all, of the new slots and slots sites requiring no download or waiting time, you can quickly get going easily on any device, and while that is good news you would not want to be tied into a year contract or so if you do not want to — on the other hand you might be happy with that, so check out the Ts and Cs of regulated slots sites before moving on; imagine that in some cases players are banned for betting too much!

Mega Moolah Online Slot Game

Simple graphics and fun, whimsical visuals make this newly updated online slot game a fantastic option, especially if you are looking for an immersive gaming experience. Mega Moolah was created by the gaming maestros at Microgaming.

Mega Moolah slot has 25 pay lines and a multi-million pound progressive jackpot, so you will find it hard to go wrong with this one. It consists of five reels and has been set to the theme of wild animals deep in the jungle with a background of luscious green views and fun animal symbols.

Mermaid Millions Casino Game

This online slot game is among the older Microgaming slot games that you can expect to find in their gaming portfolio, but updates mean that this online game is still going strong, thanks to its ever-entertaining theme. Mermaid Millions online slot game is one of Microgaming’s most iconic titles, and for good reason.

Mermaid Millions is set to an aquatic theme with captivating mermaid characters, fab features, and powerful payouts, which are all of the ingredients to make a recipe for a great online slot game. If the mermaids like you, you might get a share of some of their buried treasures hidden at the bottom of the ocean.

White Rabbit Video Slot

White Rabbit slot is one that is not to be missed. This online slot game is guaranteed to whisk you into a whirlwind world of fantasy. White Rabbit is set across five reels and comes with a huge 248382 pay line. Newly released by the makers at Big Time Gaming, White Rabbit offers gamers glorious graphics and salacious symbols which really do take you to wonderland.

To emphasize our point, after the recent drop of Blackjack rates — this game could as well be the best option to win in terms of probabilities.

Tomb Raider

With great graphics and a fantastic game play, this online slot game is an award-winning one that keeps coming back with more. Tomb Raider as a slot game has a lot to offer game-lovers and fans of the classic movie. To win your fortune, join Lara Croft in raiding the tombs and play with the reels to be in for the win.

It is set across five reels and comes with 25 pay lines, as with most other online slot games. Unlike other online slot games though, Tomb Raider comes with a lot of great features. One of the best to get your hands on is those free spins. To make it to the free spins round, if you are tough enough, all that you have to do is get the Lara Croft symbol anywhere on the reels.

Overall, it looks like the new online slots releases for the first quarter of 2020 are set to offer gamers a lot more than the games before it have, and now the only question you need to answer is which game to play first? Irrespective of the decision you make, make sure to, or you might as well end up in jail!",-0.1663060237336539
"When we are playing casino games, we want to know which ones have the best odds of winning. But, more than that, it would be nice to know the ins and outs of casino games and their odds of winning explained a bit more about the process. That can be hard to do if you are unaware of what certain words might mean within the industry. If you read and understand everything, then you should be ready to enter big and fancy sites, like King Casino.

To fully understand the differences around all of the terminology and what it means for the casino games and their odds of winning, we need to get our head around what it all actually means and how these things contribute to the odds of winning.

Let’s Talk About RTP, RNG and Pay-Lines

Of course, the jargon that is involved when it comes to understanding casino games and their odds of winning can feel like a lot to mull over, let alone get your head around, but bear with us because it is possible. In any kind of industry, there always comes with it its own kind of language and titles for things — so Return to Player becomes RTP, and Random Number Generator becomes RNG, and so on.

While it can seem like a lot to take in, it is really easy to understand what these key casino game terms actually mean for you and why they are important to the player. As well as being glad you have the knowledge of knowing how they work, you can also use this knowledge and apply it to your gaming experiences to get a win in the future; using knowledge and information to win is the clever way to go about winning at the casino, rather than trying to cheat and get arrested!

The Role of RTP to Winning

The RTP, which stands for return to player, is in basic terms just a percentage which can be seen featured on many casino games particularly online. It involves gambling in order to give gamers an idea of how much money the machine is projected to pay back over a certain period of time. So, let’s say for example you are playing a casino game, maybe an online slot, which has got an average RTP of 96%. What exactly does that mean for you?

It means that should you play with 100 spins on this particular online slot game with a stake of £1 a spin, as you can expect the online slot to pay out £96. The other £4 is the 4% and this is what the online operator of the game gets from the slot, so that means that 4% is the house edge. Or, in other words, the profit the casino will make from every sum that is wagered.

The Algorithm Behind RTP

Rolling a dice, drawing a card, or flipping a coin. These are all archaic random number generators.

Other traditional random number generators include lotteries and bingo games. And RNG is indeed a random number generator. The more we need games, the more our need for further random number combinations. This means that it was an urgent requirement for us to get some digital RNGs developed.

Casinos, which use RNG, go with a generator which involves an algorithm that creates long strands of automatic random numbers, with the entire series being determined by one fixed number, otherwise known as a seed — it works by manipulating this number, or seed, and so developers found a way to control the RTP rates of casino games which are played online.

Pay Line in Slots Explained

Among the more simple and straightforward things to understand when it comes to casino games, a slot pay line is more or less the number of pay lines that are there for you to win from in any given slot game. Slot pay lines are very important features, as a pay line is the line which a payout will be awarded when winning combinations land on it.

Online slot pay lines work by running straight or zig zag across the reels, and pay lines can also be horizontal, vertical, or run diagonally. No matter what, though, a winning pay line in a casino will always pay if you have bet on it. Below you can see the casino games with great winning chances — but also make sure to check Microgaming slots, as they have some slot games with the highest RTP.

Casino Games With Great Odds of Winning

— Blackjack

The casino game Blackjack has the best chances of winning in every Vegas casino. The regular house edge for this game is just 1%, or for most online operators ‑ 0.13%, which is why the odds with Blackjack are so good. However, this game often leads to people getting banned from the casino, so be very careful when you play!

0.60% — Craps Casino Game

The house edge with Craps does average out to around about 1.2%, but some casinos offer 0.60%. Pass Line is a fundamental bet with this game where all players are almost guaranteed to get a small return. With more experience you can bet more and start earning a higher pay out.

2.7% — Roulette

A lot of casinos set the house edge for Roulette at 2.7% for single zero and 5.6% for double zero too, so that is something worth noting if you want to get the hang of this game fast and have the best odds at winning your bet.

In conclusion, if you want to win big and quickly, these are the go-to casino games with the best odds that you will want a hand in playing.

How You Can Use Casino Games and Their Odds of Winning to Your Benefit

Now that you have got your head around the casino game terminology, you can go out and game to your heart’s content, safe in the knowledge that you know what is what. So long as you stick to the rules of the games and play those with great odds, you have a good chance of winning; although the casino keeps making it harder, as they evenrecently.",2.0558631431981165
"Bitcoin is back in the news again as its price rises higher in the markets, an interesting fluctuation for those still in the crypto game or looking to invest. After the dizzying heights of the crypto-rush, there’s been a bit of a lull in the market, as investors look to more stable ways to build money while governments around the world crack down on illegitimate ICOs.

Who is behind the mask, Bitcoin?

A brief history

Bitcoin was the original cryptocurrency, released no less than 10 years ago, and has been the guiding light for the rest of the crypto markets. While much of the pull of crypto is that no coin is technically tied to any other coins or fiat currencies around the world, in general, other (fairly stable) cryptocurrencies have followed more or less similar sorts of patterns in their value – they are indeed tied to Bitcoin as their beacon currency.

However, that’s not the point of our article today, to discuss the current valuation of Bitcoin and how it relates to other cryptocurrencies. We’d like to instead discuss another aspect of this digital currency that causes some confusion among the community: its anonymity – or is it a lack thereof?

Bitcoin for the dark web

One of the lures of Bitcoin, at least in its formative years, was for illegal reasons; namely, the drug trade and money laundering. Obviously, those involved in these activities don’t wish to have their identities uncovered, and at the time Bitcoin seemed ideal.

Because Bitcoin for many years held the tag of anonymity, people are still under that belief that if you purchase Bitcoin, it’s anonymous. While under very specific circumstances this may be true, it doesn’t really hold today. The dark web, which is so easy to access, still runs on Bitcoin.

Bitcoin transactions are all available to see on the blockchain. That means each sender, receiver, and amount of Bitcoin is recorded, since the beginning of the cryptocurrency. Every single transaction, out there in the open for anyone to view.

Now, the thing about these transactions is that the sender and receiver are just identifiable by hashes. That makes them anonymous, right? Well, not so fast. If you can tie a person’s identity to a hash, then you can easily search the entire blockchain to see just how many Bitcoin they have.

So how can you tie an identity to a hash?

In the beginning, Bitcoin was generally traded in person, for fiat currency, after being mined by some person or group. A person created their own Bitcoin wallet with their public hash as the wallet address and public key and a private key. If they created the wallet securely and without trace it may indeed be private. If they didn’t follow security protocols, it could be open to be hacked, Bitcoins stolen, identities uncovered, all the rest.

Meeting in person, with someone you didn’t know, to swap Bitcoin: all they’d know about you was your location at that given time, what you look like, approximate age, and your Bitcoin wallet address. That may be enough to identify someone, then again, it may not.

How things usually work these days

A Bitcoin wallet may be stored on a hard drive away from your computer so that you don’t lose it, this is generally seen as one of the more secure options these days. Trezor is an industry leader when it comes to offline hardware wallets and supports Bitcoin plus over 1000 other coins for storage.

For purchasing and spending, people use coin exchanges and online wallets like Coinbase. It’s easy to use, fairly trustworthy… and requires a full identity check to sign up, as do (almost?) all online exchanges. This means if you’re buying on an exchange, wherever those Bitcoins go afterwards can be traced.

There is a process known as tumbling which splits and sends Bitcoins over a range of different addresses to “muddy the waters” along the way, but in the end, it’s all traceable. And if it’s originally linked back to an identity, that means it’s not anonymous.

Even if you bought anonymously at a meetup in the first place, set up your wallet truly anonymously, used different addresses for every transaction, and used CoinJoin, if you then spend your Bitcoin at a retailer with your details, and that data is leaked, then your identity may be able to be uncovered. Other places you can spend your Bitcoin may not require ID, such as Bitcoin casinos, should you wish to stay anonymous while playing online. However, since anonymity requires some hoop jumping with Bitcoin, we now have alternatives.

The rise of privacy coins

To counter the privacy failures (and then numerous work arounds to fix the non-anonymity issues) of Bitcoin, we saw the rise privacy coins instead, such as Monero. Monero obscures the sender, receiver, and amount sent in the blockchain ledger, so tracing is not possible. Others like Zcash offer a similar type of digital currency setup.

And so, there you have it. Bitcoin can be anonymous, but it’s tricky to configure the right setup for anonymity if that’s your aim; the entire history of every Bitcoin transaction ever will exist forever. If you’re looking for a more anonymous, non-traceable coin, then you’re better off having a poke around privacy coins instead.",0.16494693015589026
"More than 7 years after Massachusetts legalized gambling and four years after the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) awarded a Region B gaming license to MGM Resorts International, MGM has launched a monster casino in Springfield, the MGM Springfield. This hotel and casino complex opened its doors to the public on 24th August, 2018.

‘Monster’ is the right word to describe this casino, because of its sheer size. Occupying over 2 million square feet, MGM Springfield comes complete with a gaming complex, restaurants, a spa, shopping area, hotel, and a movie theater. The gaming area is spread across 125,000 square feet and has 2,250 slot machines, 120 table games including poker, blackjack, baccarat, and more. There is a high-limit room as well, apart from a poker room with 23 tables. You can read all about it here.

Food Galore and Much More

The casino scores high on all aspects: there are 250 guestrooms and suites, and a bevy of options when it comes to food and drink. For those into casual dining there is Jack’s Lobster Shack at the food court, the South End Market, along with other spots like Wicked Noodles, Bill’s Diner, Hearth Grill, Wine & Cheese, and Gelato & Espresso, along with Starbucks, of course.

Celebrity chefs Michael Mina and Meghan Gill, winners of the 14th season of Hell’s Kitchen are part of the resort, with Mina offering Italian food through Cal Mare and Gill offering his fare through the Chandler Steakhouse. There is the Tap Sports Bar, which comes with a 10-lane bowling alley and arcade. The retail side of things features an apparel store from Indian Motorcycles and others. For those visiting for business reasons the casino boasts of a 34,000 square feet meeting and convention space.

Entertainment Doesn’t End at the Gambling Floor

The casino has pulled out all stops to offer an amazing entertainment experience, apart from the standard gaming. It was not allowed to develop its own standalone performance, but it has managed to get around that hurdle by tying up with two well-known performance venues, Mass Mutual and Symphony Hall, to bring some of the biggest music and entertainment acts to town. Mass Mutual can seat 8,000 guests, while Symphony Hall can seat 2,500.

The design of MGM Springfield is unique; the casino showcases a number of local attractions across its 14-acre property to give visitors the feel of being at a contemporary venue of historic importance instead of being at a big casino in a shopping district. A free bus service – the Loop – offers visitors rides to the numerous attractions in downtown Springfield.

Amazing Attractions on the Property

Attractions on its property include the First Congressional Church and the Massachusetts National Guard Armory. The Armory, which is from the 19th century, is the centerpoint of an outdoor plaza that hosts events like the weekend farmer’s market. In winter it would be converted into an exotic ice skating rink. There is also the Chandler Union Hotel, which is what houses The Chandler Steakhouse by Meghan Gill.

A partnership with Springfield Museums, a collective of 5 museums in Springfield, allows the casino to display items of historic importance through the amazing Cabinet of Curiosities: Springfield Innovations from the Springfield Museums. So don’t be surprised if you walk in and find yourself looking at a 1895 Edison Home Phonograph or a 1925 Telegraphone made in Springfield!

Good News for Springfield

The move to set up shop in Springfield is perfect for MGM, which has 13 casino resorts in Vegas, including the Bellagio and Mandalay Bay, along with properties in other cities, such as the MGM Grand Detroit and Atlantic City’s Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa. This is a city that is easily accessible through different modes of transportation. It is connected to Interstate 91 and quite close to Hartford, Connecticut’s Bradley International Airport.

Springfield is also on the grid and located near other casino cities. There is Connecticut close by, with major casinos including Foxwoods and the Mohegan Sun. Also not too far away is Atlantic City, with gambling hotspots like the Borgata.

For Springfield, the launch of MGM Springfield is big news. As Mayor Domenic Sarno said, “This has helped put us on the map. Cities such as Springfield have gone through some tough times – the economy, things changing and people going to the suburbs and rural areas. … It’s a redefining time, a re-establishment of core urban cities, and MGM has played a pivotal role in that.”

The biggest impact that MGM Springfield has had is on the local economy. A big casino is big business and that translates to jobs all around. The casino put out a post in April 2018 that was considered the biggest employment rush of the time – notifications and listings for more than 1,000 jobs for food and beverage workers. These included cooks and waiters and servers. There are openings for people with other skillsets as well, including electronics technicians, locksmiths, painters, carpenters and more.",-1.7439133910204534
"One of the greatest joys of the holiday season—other than the endless supply of tasty Christmas cookies and getting to finally slow down enough to spend time with those we cherish the most—involves seeing the joy on the faces of family and friends as they open the gifts we’ve spent time picking out for them.

While some of these gifts are things they’ve specifically requested or items we know they need, sometimes you’re just looking for something, well, a little different. With that thought in mind, here are Newsmax’s best gifts for the holiday season, giving you a few options from which to choose.

1. MyHeritage’s DNA Testing Kit

One of the best parts of Christmas is being able to spend time with loved ones, reconnecting and sharing family stories. But when you give a MyHeritage DNA Testing Kit, you’re not just giving a present to celebrate your relationship with that person. You’re also giving them the ability to have even more relationships with their extended family.

With a simple swab of the inside of their cheek, MyHeritage will help them discover their ethnic origins while also using their DNA to connect them with family members they may or may not even realize they have. MyHeritage has millions of records on their platforms, so users have a good chance to discover unknown relatives.

2. Glacce Crystal Elixir Water Bottle

Many of us realize that we should be drinking more water, giving us a higher level of health. So, you could get the person you want to live a long, fruitful life a water bottle or you can get him or her a Glacce Crystal Elixir water bottle.

The Glacce bottle has a crystal in the center and is designed to “combine ancient healing traditions with a modern mind set.” Therefore, the goal of this bottle is to not only help improve their physical health, but to offer a higher level of spiritual well-being at the same time.

3. Uncommon Goods Personalized Oak Whiskey Barrel

Perhaps the person on your gift list is more into drinking whiskey than water. What better way to honor their love of this spirit than to give them their own personalized oak whiskey barrel from which to draw their tasty treat.

Handmade in Virginia, you can choose the 2 liter or 5 liter option and you also get to select whether you want a custom barrel and stand only, enabling them to add their favorite brand of whiskey, or a rum and whiskey making kit with several flavors each. This is truly the gift that keeps on giving.

4. Kiwi Crate Subscription

If the gift you’re looking for is for a child up to the age of 16 who enjoys making things or engaging with science, you can make his or her entire year by giving not just one gift, but a gift subscription that will bring them joy month after month. Kiwi Crate offers this ability.

All you have to do is pick the line of projects of you want (such as science and engineering or art and design) and your gift recipient will receive a package full of projects they can do each and every month. This is a gift that is more than just fun, because they’ll likely learn something too.

5. Succulents Box

Subscription gifts aren’t just enjoyed by kids. Adults love them too. Especially adults with green thumbs who would really like getting new plants every month to take care of and give a home.

Succulents Box delivers one, two, or three Californian-grown succulents per month and each box contains everything the person needs to adequately care for the plants. And if you’d prefer to just send a one-time succulent delivery, you can do that too.

6. The North Face Surge II Charged Backpack

Maybe the person on your gift-giving list travels a lot. Whether they’re on the road for business or pleasure, it’s likely that they’ve experienced the one issue that many people in transit face: the lack of access to a power source to charge their smartphones and other electronic devices.

With this charging backpack created by The North Face, the problem is solved. In all, it provides three-and-a-half full charges for their cell phone, MP3, tablet, or other USB devices. Now they can see the world without having to fall out of touch.

7. Wholefully Homemade Soup Mixes in a Jar

Some of the best gifts ever are those that someone has taken a bit of their own precious time to create. And when that gift warms the body and also fills the belly, it is even better.

Wholefully supplies recipes for six different kinds of soup—ranging from Italian barley to split pea to coconut curry—that you can give to the people in your life who either don’t like to cook or simply don’t have the time to get a pot of goodness going.

All you have to do is add the ingredients to a glass jar, attach a tag with instructions about how to make it, and you’ve got a gift that is infused with nutrition (and love).",-0.0639020126110277
"SPONSORED ARTICLE

Royal Ascot, a week-long celebration of British horse-racing and culture.

In June of each year, one of Great Britain’s most famous and popular horse-racing events takes place. Royal Ascot, named due to its longstanding ties to the Royal family (dating all the way back to the early 1700s) brings the small town of Ascot to a standstill.

With just under $10million of prize money on offer, competition on the track is as fierce as you’d expect. Despite this, much of the attention is often on the stands of the famous racecourse, with the event still regarded as one of the most prestigious in the British social calendar.

When is this year’s festival?

Royal Ascot week this year begins on Tuesday June 19th and draws to a close on Saturday June 23rd. The racing is expected to be watched across the globe, with as many as 200 countries anticipated to tune in to the coverage.

However, to be there in person for any of the week’s racing is something special. If you are lucky enough to have a ticket for this year’s festival, then take a look at The Winners Enclosure for useful information, such as course details, what sort of races are run and when, and what else you can expect from the week.

Where do the ties to Royalty come from?

Queen Anne officially founded the racecourse in 1711 and has continued to be supported by members of the monarchy since. The Royal Family still play a huge part in the festival, which ensures its place as one of the most glamourous events in Britain’s sporting calendar.

The racecourse itself is located in Berkshire, just six miles away from the historic Windsor Castle grounds.

Is the Queen still involved at Ascot?

Yes, she still plays a huge part in the Ascot week. Before each day of racing begins, attendees are treated to the ‘Royal Procession’, where the Queen and other members of the Royal Family arrive at the track in a horse-drawn carriage, before taking up their places in the Royal Enclosure.

The Queen also owns her own horses that compete at Ascot, her horses have racked up just shy of 500 victories since the 1980s. Her Majesty is believed to have earned around $8million in winnings at Royal Ascot in this time, and still owns over 20 race-horses.

How popular is Royal Ascot today?

The week-long festival attracts over 300,000 visitors, which makes it Europe’s best-attended race meeting. The race meeting is a must-go for race fans in the United Kingdom and beyond. Such is the reputation of the course in British popular culture, it has twice featured in James Bond films.

Much is made of the fashion at Ascot with attendee’s keen to dress in their finest attire to match the regal atmosphere. The sheer number of people attending, combined with the Royal Family and other members of British high society attending ensures a media frenzy each year. The coverage of the fashion, and who is and is not attending, often outweighs the coverage of the racing itself.

Is there dress-code?

Yes, and it’s strictly enforced! For women, a dress with a hat is expected, with rules applying to length, with shoulders and midriffs not expected to be on show. A dress code also applies to male attendees, with black or grey suit to be accompanied by a top hat.",0.7521961169206918
"Sponsored Content



(Washington, D.C.) -- The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is unveiling a new “Let’s Get America Working” campaign in advance of the 2016 election that will encourage both Democratic and Republican lawmakers to endorse a pro-worker platform.



At the center of the platform is the need for this country to invest in infrastructure, which in turn will create good jobs for everyday Americans. Working on transportation, energy and water projects will put thousands to work in construction jobs across the country. It will also improve roads, bridges, ports and other infrastructure, which in turn will help business and improve the U.S. economy.



The U.S. Labor Department’s own statistics support the Teamsters’ initiative. The median union worker earns more than $200 a week more than the median non-union worker. That’s an extra $10,000 a year that goes into the pockets of union workers. These jobs also offer health benefits and retirement security.



“While unemployment is down, the vast majority of jobs being created pay low wages,” Teamster General President Jim Hoffa said. “We can stop this trend and create good-paying union jobs if government invests in our nation’s workforce.”



Infrastructure presents an opportunity to break the political gridlock. Congress in late July approved a three-month extension for spending on transportation projects that provides a temporary patch until the end of October for the continuing issue of road and rail funding. But it is not a real solution.



Since 2008, Congress has transferred more than $62 billion from the general fund to keep the Highway Trust Fund afloat, and it has been more than a decade since Congress has passed a highway bill more than two years in duration. Meanwhile, the transportation system continues to crumble and the safety of those who work and travel along the vast network of U.S. roads and rails is being jeopardized. Our nation’s failure to maintain and improve our infrastructure is costing Americans more and more.



There also is a significant need to move forward with a broader agenda that puts U.S. workers first. That means standing up against lousy trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership that send American jobs overseas; protecting workers’ rights to form unions and collectively bargain; increasing affordability of college and vocational schools; and ensuring retirement and pension security for working families.



Lawmakers need to remember that dollars invested in education, job training and supporting retirement for those who worked hard all their lives helps not only individuals, but our society as a whole. These are promises each generation in this country has made to the next and we can’t forget it.



But if this nation is going to improve the lives of its citizens, Congress needs to advance bipartisan policies that will encourage good job growth. And it must put the current and future generations of workers in a position to succeed in the workforce by giving them the skills they need.



There was a time when all these issues weren’t partisan issues – they were American values, something everyone could support. But government is broken. Partisan bickering has replaced finding solutions. That’s why it’s essential for the Teamsters and like-minded allies all over the country to join together and push this message with lawmakers, colleagues, friends and family.



If elected officials from both parties want to rebuild and repair the trust between government and workers, they need to reinvest in people that have and can continue to make this country great. Better pay will lead to more spending and improve workers’ quality of life. That way everyone wins.



Let’s Get America Working! Now is the time to Build, Repair and Maintain America!",0.3824530003319286
"Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is ""plainly in over his head,"" so he's blaming former President Donald Trump for the massive immigrant surge at the nation's border with Mexico when the situation falls on President Joe Biden for canceling his predecessor's orders, Sen. Tom Cotton said Monday.

""No matter how many TV interviews he does from Washington while he won't let press travel with him to the border, or how many bumbling statements (President) Joe Biden says over helicopter engines (saying) 'don't come now,' actions speak louder than words,"" the Arkansas Republican said on Fox News.

""When thousand of migrants get from Central America to our border and get released into our country and sent text messages back and post on social media, hey, you can all come up now, the border is open, guess what?"" he added. ""People are going to come. If you let them in, more will come.""

Mayorkas on Sunday slammed the Trump administration for its actions on immigration, saying in several interviews that Trump dismantled a system that had been in place under former presidents, both Democrat and Republican, that had been used to deal with immigrants trying to enter the country.

He also said he's not worried about setting a precedent on open borders by now allowing thousands of unaccompanied minors to enter the country.

""We are reordering the systems that the Trump administration tore down for the need for these children to take the perilous journey"" Mayorkas told CNN. ""We are investing in those countries. We are working in partnership with Mexico, El Salvador, and Honduras to build processing centers in country to avoid the need for these children to take the perilous journey.""

The growing number of minors entering the country is no surprise because Biden ""tore"" up a requirement Trump had in effect to seek asylum while in Guatemala, where they must pass from all points in the south.

Biden could also reinstate Trump's ""remain in Mexico"" policy, rather than allowing immigrants to be released into the United States while they're awaiting their court dates, said Cotton.

If Trump's policies were reinstated, ""they would immediately stop this border crisis,"" but Biden refuses to do that, the senator added.

He also pointed out that by the Biden administration sending the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the border, that means it's an emergency situation.

""They claim these countries are too violent ... Baltimore has a higher murder rate than most of these countries in the Central American northern triangle,"" said Cotton. ""Why should we expect that migrants have a right to come to our country to escape the so-called high violence there when Baltimore and other cities in America have higher murder rates than some of these countries than Central America.""

He also commented that if the Biden administration is proud of its ""so-called humane and more compassionate policy"" on the border, members of the press would be allowed to tour sites there.

But when migrants weren't allowed in under Trump, ""nobody had to worry about how many beds you have or how fast we can process illegal aliens into our country who have no right to be in our country in the first place,"" said Cotton.

The senator also commented about the Democrats' push to end the filibuster, noting that just four years ago, many of those pushing to end the filibuster were ""pleading"" with then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell not to change the rules

""Now they have the barest of majorities in the Senate and the house and they want to ram through unpopular changes on a party-line basis like making Washington, D.C, a state or packing the federal court system, granting amnesty,"" said Cotton. ""Republicans haven't filibustered a single bill in this Congress.""",-0.05606273588115921
"Former President Donald Trump on Sunday congratulated Republican Julia Letlow on winning the special election in Louisiana to replace her late husband in Congress.

Letlow, who won the seat in Louisiana’s 5th District in part due to vocal support from Trump, bested at least eight Republicans to avoid a runoff.

“Congratulations to Julia Letlow on her BIG win in Louisiana!” Trump said in a statement released by his Save America PAC. “Despite running in a field with a dozen candidates, no runoff election is necessary because she received 65% of the vote — an incredible victory. I am thrilled for Julia and the entire Letlow family. Luke is looking down proudly from above.”

Trump won the district by 30 points in 2016 and 2020. He endorsed Letlow earlier this month.

Letlow in a statement said, ""this is an incredible moment, and it is truly hard to put into words.""

""What was born out of the terrible tragedy of losing my husband, Luke, has become my mission in his honor to carry the torch and serve the good people of Louisiana’s 5th District. I am humbled that you would entrust me with the honor of your vote and the privilege to serve you in Congress. A simple thank you doesn’t fully encapsulate the depth of my gratitude,"" she said.

Letlow’s husband, Luke, 41, won the election in November and died one month later after battling COVID-19. Her election brings the number of Republican women in Congress to 31, compared to 13 at the end of last cycle.

Letlow was the popular pick to replace her husband. She raised more than $680,000 as of the end of February – no other candidate raised more than $70,000 – and was backed by the state GOP. It was her first bid.

She ran on issues similar to those that her husband discussed during his campaign. She talked of supporting agriculture in the largely rural district, expanding broadband internet access and supporting conservative values.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.",-0.8470710641279057
"Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, on Sunday blasted the Biden administration’s attempt to fault former President Donald Trump for creating the current immigration surge at the southern border — saying Trump’s policies would solve the crisis.

In an interview on ABC News’ “This Week,” McCaul refuted claims by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that there was a plan to end the massive influx.

“They've created the crisis. [Mayorkas] says he has a plan. I haven't seen a plan,” McCaul said. “They talk about humane conditions, humanitarian. They have created a humanitarian crisis… The messaging is that if you want to come, you can stay.”

McCaul blasted the Homeland Security chief’s message urging migrants not to come to the border.

“When Mayorkas says ‘we're not saying don't come at all, just don't come,’ [it’s] very irresponsible rhetoric,” he said. “And now, in his words, we have the greatest — well, not crisis, because he won't call it that — in 20 years.”

According to McCaul, a return to Trump immigration policies is the best solution.

Since Presiden Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, the U.S. has seen a dramatic spike in the number of people encountered by border officials. There were 18,945 family members and 9,297 unaccompanied children encountered in February — an increase of 168% and 63%, respectively, from the month before, according to the Pew Research Center. That creates an enormous logistical challenge because children, in particular, require higher standards of care and coordination across agencies.

Among the reasons for the surge: thousands of Central American migrants already stuck at the border for months and the persistent scourge of gang violence afflicting Northern Triangle countries — Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

“Traffickers know they can take children from Central America, extort the families, exploit the children on the dangerous journey back to the United States,” he said. “And they're calling back home saying, ‘hey, we got in.’ So until this policy changes, I would urge the administration to revisit the migrant protection protocols. This worked, and it was very effective.”

“We got to return to this political asylum issue and have them apply in the country of origin or in Mexico,” he added.

Failing that, he said, “I predict a million people trying to get into this country by the summertime.”

As migrants surge at the U.S.-Mexico border, Biden’s administration has been caught on its heels and is now scrambling to manage a humanitarian and political challenge that threatens to overshadow its ambitious agenda.

Administration officials say Biden inherited an untenable situation that resulted from what they claim was Trump’s undermining and weakening of the immigration system.

But with Congress pivoting to taking up immigration legislation, images and stories from the border have begun to dominate the headlines, distracting from the White House’s efforts to promote the recently passed $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill.

The White House has steadfastly refused to call the situation a “crisis,” leading to a Washington battle over the appropriate description of the tense situation. Career immigration officials had warned there could be a surge after the November election and the news that Trump's tough policies were being reversed.

In the first days of his term, Biden acted to undo some of Trump’s measures, a rollback interpreted by some as a signal to travel to the United States. While the new administration was working on immigration legislation to address long-term problems, it didn’t have an on-the-ground plan to manage a surge of migrants.

“We have seen large numbers of migration in the past. We know how to address it. We have a plan. We are executing on our plan and we will succeed,” Mayorkas said. But, he added, “it takes time” and is “especially challenging and difficult now” because of the Trump administration's moves. “So we are rebuilding the system as we address the needs of vulnerable children who arrived at our borders.”

Officials are trying to build up capacity to care for some 14,000 migrants now in federal custody — and more likely on the way. Critics say the administration should have been better prepared.

Material from Newsmax wire services was used in this story.

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"Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., on Sunday said Congress should make the necessary changes to address the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — and that a 9/11-style commission might only delay action on the issue.

In an interview on NBC News’ “Meet The Press,” Blunt said he’s concerned about a political bias in a commission.

“I’m not opposed to a commission, but [House] Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi [D-Calif.] has never suggested after her first suggestion that it would be overwhelmingly controlled by one side that there would be a bipartisan commission,” he said.

“In terms of securing the Capitol, whether the [Capitol] Police Board is functioning or not — not the Capitol Police, but the board that in my opinion got in the way of decisions that needed to be made that day — we know those facts,” he said.

“I think Congress itself could move forward and make the changes that need to be made,” he declared.

“Frankly, I would believe that the commission would probably be a reason to wait and not do the things that we know we need to do right now,” he added.

According to Blunt, the United States has never had a commission that tried to psychoanalyze a situation — and shouldn’t now.

“If you're going to look at what happened, why it happened, where the problems were, that's one thing,” he said. “I think that suggestion [to psychoanalyze] really steps this up to a very different level and certainly a level that the Congress shouldn't wait on to decide how we move forward with the security needs of the Capitol and the country.”

“We don't need to try to explain away or come up with alternative versions” of what happened Jan. 6, he added. “We all saw what happened. We know what happened. We know we can't let that happen again.”

Blunt also weighed in on the Democrats’ controversial push to expand voting rights legislation.

“I'm for the Voting Rights Act and always have been. I'm for people participating. What I'm not for is a federal takeover of the election system,” he said. “I believe the election system works as well as it works because of local responsibility and diversity. And I'm for that.”

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"World War II is often described as “the last good war.” It’s also one that the United States didn’t intend to enter until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, “a day that will live in infamy.”

At that time, the United States was ill-prepared for war — especially one fought on two fronts: the war in the Pacific and in Europe.

Legend has it that immediately after the Pearl Harbor sneak attack, Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto opined, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

Whether he actually said it or not, that’s exactly what resulted. America’s industrial might switched gears from producing domestic goods to wartime production, and patriotic men of all ages flooded the recruiting offices, eager to serve.

And when it was all over, Hollywood began producing riveting films that depicted the war’s heroes, its battles, and the victims. Here are Newsmax’s list of the best in each category, listed in alphabetical order.

The Heroes:

“Patton” (1979) This film won actor George C. Scott an Academy Award for his portrayal of the legendary Gen. George S. “Blood ’n’ Guts” Patton. “Patton” also won six other Oscars, including for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay.

In 2003, the Library of Congress’ U.S. National Film Registry selected “Patton” for preservation as being ""culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.”

Said reviewer Roger Ebert, “It is one of those sublime performances in which the personalities of the actor and the character are fulfilled in one another. Although the role was offered to other actors who were bigger stars, … it is unimaginable without Scott.”

“The Gallant Hours” (1960) Just as George C. Scott brought Patton to life, legendary actor James Cagney did the same to Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey. “The Gallant Hours” turned out to be Cagney’s final leading role in a dramatic film.

It portrays the critical period less than one year following Pearl Harbor, when Halsey assumed command of the American forces in the South Pacific. This ultimately became a turning point in the allied struggle against the Japanese Empire.

Wrote Bosley Crowther for The New York Times, “But more than a documentation, more than a drama of what went on within the cabin of Admiral Halsey in one of the most perilous phases of the war, this film is a brilliant tribute to the gallantry of the admiral himself, thanks in large measure to the performance of James Cagney in the role.”

“To Hell and Back” (1955) This depicts the story of Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier in U.S. history, and is based on Murphy’s autobiography of the same name. Just as Scott was born to play Patton, and Cagney, Halsey, there was only one person who could have portrayed Audie Murphy, and that was Murphy himself.

Rotten Tomatoes gave “To Hell and Back” a 100% TomatoMeter score, with an 88% audience score. A.H. Weiler wrote for The New York Times that Murphy ""lends stature, credibility and dignity to an autobiography that would be routine and hackneyed without him.”

The Action:

“Dunkirk” (2017) This film uses an ensemble cast to portray the World War II evacuation of allied forces from Dunkirk prior to the United States’ entry into the war. The story is told from three perspectives: land, sea, and air.

“Dunkirk” received eight nominations at the Critics’ Choice Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Acting Ensemble Cast.

The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw gave the film five out of five stars and said that the film’s director, Christopher Nolan, ""surrounds his audience with chaos and horror from the outset, and amazing images and dazzlingly accomplished set pieces on a huge 70mm screen, particularly the pontoon crammed with soldiers extending into the churning sea, exposed to enemy aircraft.”

“The Longest Day” (1962) This was based on Cornelius Ryan’s non-fiction book of the same name, and depicts the June 6, 1944 D-Day Normandy invasion. The film’s authenticity was boosted by employing an international cast: American, British, French, and German.

Wrote Bosley Crowthe, reviewing for The New York Times wrote: “The total effect of the picture is that of a huge documentary report, adorned and colored by personal details that are thrilling, amusing, ironic, sad.” He added, “It is hard to think of a picture, aimed and constructed as this one was, doing any more or any better or leaving one feeling any more exposed to the horror of war as this one does.”

“The Great Escape” (1963) This film was based on the true story of a mass breakout of allied troops from a German prisoner of war camp. It depicts the meticulous planning that went into the operation and its bold execution. This was followed finally by the triumphant success of some escapees, and the heartbreaking failure of others.

“There are some exceptional performances,” wrote Variety. “The most provocative single impression is made by Steve McQueen as a dauntless Yank pilot whose ‘pen’-manship record shows 18 blots, or escape attempts. James Garner is the compound’s ‘scrounger’, a traditional type in the Stalag 17 breed of war-prison film.”

The Victims:

“Come See the Paradise” (1990) This uses a love story, starring Dennis Quaid and Tamlyn Tomita, as a vehicle to depict the cruel internment of Japanese-American citizens following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Chicago Sun Times critic Roger Ebert called the film “a movie about people who insist they are Americans, even when small and evil-minded people in power would treat them as if they were not.” He added that “‘Come See the Paradise’ is a fable to remind us of how easily we can surrender our liberties, and how much we need them.”

“Schindler’s List” (1993) This is the inspiring Steven Spielberg film that tells the story of Oskar Schindler, who, along with his wife Emilie, saved more than a thousand primarily Polish-Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by employing them in his factory.

Film critic Roger Ebert said of the film, “Steven Spielberg's epic film, more than three hours long and shot in black and white that brings the stark feel of actuality to the screen, tells the story of an enigmatic man named Oskar Schindler, who began the Second World War hoping to become a millionaire, and ended it by spending his fortune and risking his life to try to save some 1,100 Jews who worked in his factory.”

“Schindler’s List” was nominated for 12 Academy Awards, winning seven of them, including Best Picture and Best Director.

“The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946) This William Wyler classic reminds us that it’s not just refugees who are the victims of war — it’s more often than not the returning soldier, sailor, airman and Marine bringing home the scars of battle — both visible and hiden.

This film follows the lives of three veterans returning from World War II, who find it difficult to adjust to civilian life. They include a war hero who has to return to being a soda jerk because he can’t compete with more highly skilled workers; a bank executive who gets into trouble for giving favorable loans to veterans; and one who lost both hands in the war and struggles to adjust when he returns to his fiancée.

Writing for The New York Times, Bosley Crowthe said of the film, “It is seldom that there comes a motion picture which can be wholly and enthusiastically endorsed not only as superlative entertainment, but as food for quiet and humanizing thought.”

“The Diary of Anne Frank” (1959) This film depicts the true story of a young Jewish girl who lived in hiding with her family during World War II in Amsterdam, and is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name.

It won three Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress for Shelley Winters, who later donated her award to the Anne Frank Museum. In 2006, it was also honored as the eighteenth most inspiring American film on the list AFI's 100 Years…100 Cheers.",0.7258699187881066
"Because churches are meant to promote the love and worship of God, they’re historically the grandest structures of any given community. And the best of the best can truly be awe-inspiring.

Here are Newsmax’s top 10 most beautiful churches in the world. Each is beautiful in its own way, from medieval to contemporary, and each features different architectural styles, so they can’t fairly be ranked, therefore they’re listed in alphabetical order.

Borgund Stave Church, Norway: Dedicated to the Apostle Andrew, this is one of the finest and most well-preserved examples of stave church architecture, common in medieval northwest Europe. Stave is a type of timber construction using posts and lintels. This example was built around 1180, and is comprised of three naves.

Protected by the steep slopes of a narrow valley in the villagee of Borgund, it looks as though it stood there since the beginning of time. Carved dragon heads decorate the many gables and stand guard over the church and give it an appropriate Viking-like appearance.

When you take in the structure of Norway’s Borgund Stave Church, you’ll immediately be taken back to a time long ago — a magical era of elves and gnomes, of Viking warriors and princesses.

Church of the Assumption, Lake Bled, Slovenia: This one is stunning not just for its architecture, but also for its setting. It’s situated on a tiny tear-shaped island set in the middle of a freshwater lake. There’s no road to take you there — you can only arrive by boat.

Located in the Julian Alps, the church has what is called the bell of wishes, made in 1534 by Francesco Patavino of Padova as a gift from the pope. It’s said that if you ring the bell and make a wish, it will come true. However, the offer is limited to one ring and a single wish per customer.

When you think of “once upon a time in a magical kingdom,” you’ll think of something akin to the Church of the Assumption.

Hallgrímskirkja, Reykjavík, Iceland: The distinctive design of Hallgrímskirkja is based on the basalt columns found dotted around Iceland’s landscapes. Towering to 74.5 meters (244 feet), it is one of the tallest structures in the country and looks out over Reykjavik from the hilltop it rests upon.

It’s a modern design, built between 1945 and 1986, and named after the Icelandic poet Hallgrimur Petursson. A statue of the explorer Leif Erikson, who set foot in North America nearly five centuries before Christopher Columbus, stands guard in front of the church.

Mont Saint-Michel Abbey, Normandy, France: Like Slovenia’s Church of the Assumption, Mont Saint-Michel sits on an island — but only at high tide. It’s a medieval Benedictine abbey that’s stunning from any angle and no matter what the state of the tide.

It’s located on the border separating Normandy from Brittany and is the most visited site in Normandy and the tenth most visited in all of France, attracting more than 2.5 million visitors each year. It's also dedicated as a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site.

A community of Benedictine monks first settled on the sire in 966, and dedicated it to St. Michael the Archangel. They immediately began construction, which continued for centuries, and was finally completed in 1523.

Sacré-Coeur (Sacred Heart), Paris, France: One of the most famous and recognizable landmarks in Paris, Sacré-Coeur is located at the city’s highest point. Construction on the gleaming white basilica began in 1875 and was completed in 1914. Features include elegant Byzantine architecture and a mammoth onion dome flanked by two cupolas.

Sacré-Coeur was second only to the Notre-Dame Cathedral as being the most visited Parisian monument in 2017. However, a fire in 2019 destroyed Notre-Dame’s spire and oak roof beams that support its lead roof, putting an end to tourism there until restoration is complete.

Two statues, one of Joan of Arc and the second of Louis IX, each on horseback, are positioned above its arched entrance. Both are beloved French saints. The interior is just as breathtaking, and features one of the world’s largest mosaic coats within its dome.

Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain: This one can be considered a magnificent work in progress. Although construction began nearly 140 years ago, it continues to this day.

It was designed by architect Antoni Gaudi, who dedicated his life to his creation and lived as a recluse in the building until his death in 1926. His body now rests in the crypt of the basilica.

The exterior looks like a huge, elaborate sand castle with numerous towering, sand-colored spires. Upon entering the church your senses are flooded in color and light, emanating from the beautiful stained-glass windows.

Construction is expected to be completed in 2026 — the 100th anniversary of Gaudi’s death.

St. Basil’s Cathedral, Moscow, Russia: Noted for its brightly-colored onion domes, looking like hot-air balloons clustered in the sky, St. Basil’s was built in the mid-16th century at the direction of Ivan the Terrible. It consisted of eight chapels arranged around a ninth, larger central chapel. In 1588 a 10th chapel was added, commemorating St. Basil.

The interior is every bit as distinctive as the exterior, with towering ceilings and murals and icons covering every surface. The cathedral had some close calls in its nearly 500-year history. It was nearly blown up by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1812 and was almost demolished by Joseph Stalin in 1935.

St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City: St. Patrick’s serves as both a local parish church where Mass is celebrated daily, as well as the home of the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, currently Timothy Cardinal Dolan. It’s located on Fifth Avenue directly facing Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan, and is the largest gothic-style Roman Catholic Cathedral in the United States.

St. Patrick’s construction was financed by the contributions of thousands of poor immigrants, plus 103 local prominent families that each pledged $1,000. Construction began in 1858 and was completed 20 years later.

A $177 million restoration of the cathedral took place between 2012 and 2015. In May of 2020, Black Lives Matter supporters vandalized the structure, spray-painting obscenities on walls and steps as they marched down Fifth Avenue, according to the New York Post.

St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican: Located in a separate country situated within the city of Rome, work on St. Peter’s began in 1506 under the direction of Pope Julius II, and was completed in 1615 under Pope Paul V. The result was the world’s largest church, as well as one of the most beautiful. Legendary artists Bramante, Raphael, and Michelangelo contributed to its beauty and grandeur.

The basilica also serves as the final resting place of Sr. Peter, Christ’s favored apostle, who said of Peter, “upon this Rock I will build My church, and the gates of the grave shall not prevail against it.”

Its awe-inspiring size and beautiful works of art make it the prime pilgrimage for Roman Catholics the world over.

Washington National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.: This is a neo-Gothic, inter-denominational church, officially dedicated as the ""Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the City and Diocese of Washington.”

Like many other churches, Washington National was built on the city’s highest point, and the beauty of its facade is matched only by its interior, with soaring vaulted ceilings and hundreds of stained-glass windows.

One of the windows is decorated with seven grams of lunar rock, brought back by the crew of Apollo 11, and described as “the very horizon of eternity,” by Rev. Francis Sayre Jr.",1.4611089177186913
"No matter what your family vacation goals may be — the fun of local attractions, the adventure derived from the great outdoors, or learning more about the rich history of our republic — the United States has a perfect destination for you.

Here is Newsmax's list of the best 10, not including vacation spots located in the states having the most stringent COVID-19 restrictions — California, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York.

Fun Destinations

Branson, Missouri, is known for its live music from some of the best entertainers in the business, as well as live theater, acrobatic shows, and magic shows that are sure to thrill all ages.

But it's also home to amusement parks, water parks, and the world's largest toy museum, displaying toys dating from America's colonial days to the present.

Dollywood Theme Park, located in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, has many park attractions, including the Rocky Top Mountain Coaster and Dolly Parton's Stampede Dinner Attraction.

Other local attractions include the Redneck Comedy Bus Tour, the Anakeesta Mountain Sightseeing Chondola, and the Hatfield & McCoy Dinner Show.

When visiting, be sure to stay at Dollywood's DreamMore Resort and Spa.

Gatlinburg, also in Tennessee, is located at the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Attractions include the sights of Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies, the Sweet Fanny Adams Theatre, riding the Gatlinburg Aerial Tramway, and visiting the Gatlinburg Arts & Crafts Community.

Orlando is everyone's favorite family Florida vacation Mecca. Anaheim's Disneyland may be the original, but Disney World is bigger, better, and most important, is open for business.

But Orlando is much more than all things Disney. It's also home to WonderWorks amusement park for the mind, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Epcot, and Universal's Islands of Adventure, to mention but a few.

When visiting Orlando, you may want to stay at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge. You'll be a hero to your kids.

Outdoor Adventures

The Grand Canyon, located in northern Arizona, is a mile-deep chasm chiseled out by the Colorado River over some six million years. Just taking in the sight is confirmation as to why the Grand Canyon made the list of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World.

In addition to experiencing the breathtaking vista, you can raft down the Colorado, take a mule ride down to the bottom on the Bright Angel Trail, or explore the canyon from the air by airplane, helicopter, or even a balloon.

One of the best places to view the canyon is at Grand Canyon Village, located at Yavapai Point.

Yellowstone National Park, described as ""an outdoor enthusiast's paradise,"" was a favorite destination of President Theodore Roosevelt. It's located in northwest Wyoming and is comprised of 2.2 million acres that kiss the edges of Idaho and Montana.

Everyone knows of Old Faithful, the geyser that spews plumes of water into the sky like clockwork. But there are also hundreds of miles of hiking trails winding their way around Yellowstone Lake, Mammoth Hot Springs, and the West Thumb Geyser Basin.

Yellowstone is a destination you can return to year after year and never see the same thing twice.

Yosemite National Park made Newsmax's list even though it's located in locked-down eastern California because it's still open for daytime activities. It's probably one of the advantages of being a national park, as opposed to a state-run attraction.

And there's plenty for the adventurous to see and do there. Comprised of nearly 1,200 square miles, visitors are encouraged to hike through Hetch Hetchy Valley in the park's northwest corner, explore its numerous lakes and rivers, and take in its countless waterfalls, best viewed during the spring snowmelt.

When you're there don't miss hiking Yosemite's Half Dome cables route and El Capitan, and check out the park's numerous museums.

Educational Junkets

Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, at 300 acres, is the world's largest living museum and place to be for those interested in life in 18th-century America.

While there, you can learn about life in colonial America and during the American Revolution, tour 18th-century government buildings and family homes, observe blacksmiths, printers, milliners, and other tradespeople employing 1700s methodology, and travel back in time as you watch historical reenactments by expert interpreters.

Those interested in early American artifacts and folk art will also want to take in Williamsburg's two excellent art museums.

Mystic, Connecticut, is the place to be to learn about America's rich seafaring past, especially the early whaling industry.

In addition to exploring Mystic's historic downtown area, there's also Mystic Aquarium, which serves as the northeast's premier marine mammal rescue and rehabilitation center as well as a place to view marine life up close and personal.

You'll also want to check out Olde Mistick Village, a recreated 18th-century New England town, and Mystic Seaport Museum.

But the highlight will be exploring the Charles W. Morgan. Located at Mystic Seaport, it's described as the only wooden whaling ship still in existence. And while the family is there, Dad may want to visit the Barley Head Brewery — for educational purposes, of course.

Washington, D.C., as the seat of our national government, is a place everyone should visit at least once. Take a tour through the White House, sit in the gallery of each chamber of Congress, and check out the seat of the highest judicial body in the land — the U.S. Supreme Court.

You'll also want to visit the city's numerous monuments — the Jefferson, the Washington, and the Lincoln Memorials, as well as the National World War II Monument, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Be sure to set aside at least a full day to explore the Smithsonian Institution, the world's largest museum, education, and research complex.

You should finally make a daytrip next door to Virginia to visit George Washington's Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.",1.0061115792130022
"Christmas movies are a Hollywood tradition, ranging from Frank Capra's fantasy classic ""It's a Wonderful Life,"" where a man is shown all the lives he has touched in a positive way, to a young boy's quest for a Red Ryder carbine action, 200-shot, range model air rifle in ""A Christmas Story,"" to the zany over-the-top antics of Clark Griswold in ""National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.""

Here are Newsmax's picks for the best Christmas movies so far in this century, listed in alphabetical order.

""Bad Santa"" (2003)

Billy Bob Thornton plays what has to be the worst department store Santa in history: ill-tempered, foul-mouthed, philandering, hard-drinking, and skinny. But the worst part is that he and his partner are con men who took the job as Santa and his little helper to rob the store on Christmas Eve.

But he learns to feel good about himself from a little boy; and he teaches the little boy to stand up for himself.

""A Christmas Carol"" (2009)

""What if you were given a second chance to get your life right?"" This is a Disney animated version of the Charles Dickens classic tale of Ebenezer Scrooge's visits by three spirits that change his life: the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and of Christmas Yet to Come.

But this is no ordinary animation. This is an exciting, full-blown 3D IMAX version that's visually exciting.

Reviewer Roger Ebert called it ""an exhilarating visual experience and proves for the third time he's one of the few directors who knows what he's doing with 3-D."" He added that ""The story that Dickens wrote in 1838 remains timeless.""

""The Christmas Chronicles"" (2018)

Two children stow away aboard Santa's sleigh, with Kurt Russel playing the big guy. The kids startle Santa and his reindeer when they make their presence known mid-flight, causing the sleigh to crash and the reindeer and presents to scatter.

But Christmas must go on. It's up to Santa and the children to locate and properly deliver the gifts before Christmas morning.

Wrote Melanie McFarland for Salon, ""Russell's star power in 'The Christmas Chronicles' is a gift anyone should be happy to claim.""

""Elf"" (2003)

After living for decades at the North Pole as an elf, Buddy (Will Ferrell) discovers he's actually a human and sets off to New York City in search of his father.

Rotten Tomatoes gave ""Elf"" an 84% average rating, stating that ""A movie full of Yuletide cheer, 'Elf' is a spirited, good-natured family comedy, and it benefits greatly from Will Ferrell's funny and charming performance as one of Santa's biggest helpers.""

The film also gave birth to National Answer the Phone Like Buddy the Elf Day. Each Dec. 18, we're encouraged to greet callers with a question along the lines of ""This is [state your name] the Elf. What's your favorite color?""

""The Holiday"" (2006)

This is a romantic comedy in which Amanda from Los Angeles discovers that her boyfriend has cheated on her. Iris in London is secretly still in love with her ex-boyfriend, who announces he's engaged to someone else.

Both women want to get as far away as possible, the sooner the better, and end up switching houses, cars, and everything else for the Christmas holidays.

As a result they each meet ""Mr. Right"" and fall head-over-heels in love, and the women and their new beaus celebrate New Year's Eve together.

Claudia Puig, reviewing for USA Today, called the film ""a rare chick flick/romantic comedy that, despite its overt sentimentality and fairy-tale premise, doesn't feel cloyingly sweet. Much of the credit goes to inspired casting and the actors' chemistry.""

""How the Grinch Stole Christmas"" (2000)

The Dr. Seuss classic comes to the big screen in this animated version directed by Ron Howard. The Grinch, a green, revenge-seeking creature played by Jim Carrey, plots to ruin Christmas for all of the citizens of Whoville, a magical land that exists inside a snowflake.

He manages to steal all the presents before the people of Whoville awake. Cindy Lou Who befriends the Grinch, and in the end, she causes him to have a change of heart and return the gifts.

CNN reviewer Paul Clinton wrote, ""The rule of thumb for anyone working on a film starring Carrey is to get him into his costume, get him on his mark and then get out of his way. This was clearly done, for Carrey carries nearly every scene.""

""Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey"" (2020)

""No matter who you are, no matter what you do, the magic lives inside of you."" This is a musical fantasy that was released last month.

It depicts Jeronicus Jangle, a once joyful toymaker, who lost nearly everything after being betrayed by a helper. But he finds new hope when his bright young granddaughter appears on his doorstep.

Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 90% average rating based on 68 reviews, and said of it, ""'Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey' celebrates the yuletide season with a holiday adventure whose exuberant spirit is matched by its uplifting message.""

""Klaus"" (2019)

This is a Netflix animated feature that tells the story of how a postman teams up with a carpenter named Mr. Klaus, who has a gift for making toys. Together they turn the unhappiest place on Earth into the most joyful overnight.

And they do it with a simple principle: ""A true selfless act always sparks another,"" according to Mr. Klaus.

Rotten Tomatoes gave ""Klaus"" a 94% average rating based on 67 reviews. Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, John DeFore wrote that ""Sergio Pablos' 'Klaus' invents its own unexpected and very enjoyable origin story for the big guy who gives out toys every Christmas Eve.""

""Noelle"" (2019)

Christmas courses through Noelle Kringle's blood. Her father was Santa, and she's in charge of distributing and maintaining Christmas spirit. When Santa dies unexpectedly five months before Christmas, it's now her older brother Nick's turn to take over the family business in this Disney film. But his training isn't going well.

When he takes the weekend before Christmas off, with Noelle's approval, he doesn't return, and she sets out to find him. Nick suggests after his return that Noelle deliver the presents, and after a few mishaps, she does.

Writing for RogerEbert.com, Nick Allen gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, writing that ""'Noelle' has more going for it than just being one of the easiest ways for Disney+ to make a good first impression,"" adding that it ""has plenty of charm.""",-0.7561606249536981
"Television has come a long way from its early beginnings when viewers had only two or three channels to choose from in black and white on tiny nine inch screens.

With the advent of cable, we heard Bruce Springsteen complain about getting “57 Channels (And Nothin' On)” in the early 1990s. That seems paltry when compared to today’s offerings.

Here are Newsmax’s list of the top 10 TV shows of the last 10 years, in alphabetical order.

""Better Call Saul"" (AMC, 2015-present)

This is a crime drama depicting a con man turned Albuquerque, N.M. lawyer. It’s both a spinoff and prequel to “Breaking Bad” (below). The series follows the conversion of James ""Jimmy"" McGill as an earnest storefront lawyer attempting to turn over a new leaf from his past and failing. He turns instead into a greedy criminal defense attorney named Saul Goodman (“it’s all good man!”).

“How will Jimmy McGill, a hard-hustling, low-level lawyer taking poorly paying public defender cases and sleeping on a pullout couch in his dingy office, trying like hell to fight his inner huckster, become Saul Goodman?” asked Willa Paskin reviewing for Slate. “This is the question driving Better Call Saul. ”

""Billions"" (Showtime, 2016-present)

This is a crime drama depicting a battle between two powerful New York figures — hedge fund king Bobby ""Axe"" Axelrod, who often cross over into the illegal in his quest for wealth and power, and U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhoades’ attempts to rein him in and prosecute him for his crimes.

“It is so rare that you find a show with such a diverse cast coming together so seamlessly. Each character is perfectly cast. The writing allows you to live each characters journey throughout each scene,” wrote one user IMDb reviewer. “You do not know who's side you are on; all you know is they are all ""right"" in their convictions in some way.”

""Breaking Bad"" (AMC 2008-2013)

This series tells the story of Walter White’s transformation from a New Mexico high school chemistry teacher into a meth kingpin — from Walter Mitty to Scarface. After he learns that he’s dying of lung cancer, he approaches former student Jesse Pinkman with a proposal: “I’m thinking that you and I can partner up,” he says. “You know the business, and I know the chemistry.”

Although “Breaking Bad” got its start in the previous decade, the final three seasons were the most explosive, and made “Newsmax's List of the Best TV Series Finales of All Time” last month.

“I cannot stress enough how good this show is,” an IMDb reviewer said. “I've watched a lot of TV in my life and this show still remains the best show I've ever seen”

""The Crown"" (Netflix, 2016-present)

This series, still in production, thoughtfully depicts the the reign of England’s remarkable current monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. Thus far, it takes the viewer from her coronation in 1953, through the Suez Crisis three years later, and on to the Profumo affair of 1963.

“[Olivia] Colman is masterful as a cold but not uncaring figurehead for a country in need of solace,” writes Lorraine Ali reviewing season three of the series for the Los Angeles Times. “Sweeping historical significance aside, it’s the intimate, internal battles make this season just as riveting as — if not stronger than — the last two.”

""Game of Thrones"" (HBO, 2011-2019)

This geopolitical fantasy epic was adapted from George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series of books. It depicts the inhabitants’ of Westeros and Essos struggles, and often failures, to survive in an exceedingly cruel world.

“It’s been nigh impossible to ignore the ‘Game of Thrones’ frenzy in recent years,” writes Lauren Sharkey for Soda. “Over the past decade, the series has dominated the TV landscape, going on to win 59 Emmys and being named by critics as one of the best shows in history.”

""The Handmaid’s Tale"" (Hulu, 2017-present)

Based on the Margaret Atwood novel of the same name, this series envisions a dystopian American future in which the Constitution has been suspended following a second civil war. A new totalitarian government subjects fertile women into slavery.

NPR TV critic Eric Deggans describes “A Handmaid’s Tale” as “a horror show unveiled in slow motion.” He concludes that “In a country where sexual harassment scandals regularly land on the front page, the patriarchy of ‘The Handmaid's Tale’ doesn't feel so far-fetched, which is the most horrific thing about it.”

""Homeland“ (Showtime, 2011-2020)

“Homeland” is a political thriller based on an Israeli TV series, “Prisoners of War.” The series centers on CIA officer Carrie Mathison, who is bipolar. It opens with the rescue of Marine Corps sniper Nicholas Brody, who was held captive by al-Qaeda terrorists. Mathison is convinced that he was ""turned"" by the terrorists and as such is a danger to the United States.

TV Guide rated “Homeland” as the best offering of 2011, and Metacritic gave it a 92 out of 100 based on 29 critics. And it just kept getting better, receiving six Emmy Awards including Outstanding Drama Series during its run. One viewer wrote for IMDb that “season 8 is just amazing!! A deserving end to the series which has captured our hearts for the last 10 years.”

""Outlander"" (Starz, 2014-present)

Based on Diana Gabaldon’s series of time travel novels of the same name, “Outlander” opens with a World War II nurse named Claire who suddenly finds herself transported to Scotland 200 years in the past.

“Though largely historical in nature, ""Outlander"" has touches of the fantasy genre with Claire often travels between her current century and the 18th,” wrote Justine Naboya for TV Show Pilot, rating it among “The Best TV Shows Set in the 18th Century.”

""Ozark"" (Netflix, 2017-present)

Martin ""Marty"" Byrde offerers to set up a huge money-laundering operation in Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks region after a similar scheme based in a Chicago suburb for a Mexican drug cartel goes bad. The Byrdes soon become embroiled in local criminal elements, including the Kansas City Mafia.

“The show’s writing is sharp and smart,” writes Bruce Miller for the Sioux City Journal. “Its acting is clever and curt. Toss in that casino wild card and you’ve got a season that’s just as remarkable as the first.”

“Schitt’s Creek” (CBC TV, 2015-2020)

In this Canadian comedy series, mega-rich video store magnate Johnny Rose and his family suddenly find themselves on hard times and are forced to leave their tony lifestyle and rebuild their empire from the rural village of Schitt’s Creek, their only remaining asset.

“I think this show is refreshing and smart,’ wrote one viewer for IMDb. “It's a bit quirky so I can see it not being to everyone's comedic taste but I just love it.”",1.067623561588118
"Whether drama, sitcom, or thriller, popular TV series are sometimes best known by their final episode — how they close the series to make it memorable and live on.

Sometimes they tell us a bit more about the main characters; other times they give us a glimpse into their future. In others they sum up what the entire series was all about.

Here is Newsmax's list of the best 10 series finales in television history, in alphabetical order.

""Breaking Bad""

This 5-season series described the evolution of a New Mexico high school chemistry teacher Walter White as he goes from ""Mr. Chips to Scarface."" After learning that he's dying of cancer, he decides to go out on his own terms.

White, played by Bryan Cranston, enlists the help of former student Jesse (Aaron Paul) to take his knowledge of chemistry to a different level: He becomes a local drug kingpin.

The final scene ends with his death by machine gun fire after tackling Jesse to the ground and saving his life.

""If you have to go, go out on top,"" Robert Bianco wrote for USA Today. ""In a stunning 75-minute extended finale, Vince Gilligan brought 'Breaking Bad' to a supremely fitting close. And he did so in a way that confirmed 'Bad's' status as one of TV's greatest series — and star Bryan Cranston as one of America's best actors.""

""Cheers""

The finale of this 11-season NBC sitcom, which centered around a Boston bar, brought back Shelly Long, as Diane Chambers, a former pub employee and love interest of the bar's owner, Sam Malone, portrayed by Ted Danson.

Diane persuades Sam to put the bar up for sale and move with her to Los Angeles, where they can reignite their relationship and start a life together.

At the airport Sam realizes that his true love isn't Diane after all — it's his beloved saloon and the wacky cast of characters comprising its employees and customers.

The final three words spoken — ""sorry, we're closed"" — marked it as the series ender while leaving the audience with the knowledge that they'd be open the following day.

""Was Sam really going to ditch the bar to move to L.A. with the reemerged?"" asked Josh Wolk for Entertainment Weekly. ""Of course not. Sitting on the tarmac he realized his mistake and returned to his true love: his bar, and the lazy, lovable friends who would never leave it.""

""Friday Night Lights""

For five seasons, this sports drama described the ups and downs of a rural Texas high school football team, and the series capper managed to give proper endings to each member of its large ensemble cast.

Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) sets his own ambitions aside to save his marriage. After taking the team to the state championship, he follows his wife Tami's opportunity by relocating to Pennsylvania.

""The community is together. The emotion is palpable. The team is loved,"" Andy Greenwald wrote for Vulture. ""No matter who comes down with the ball, they have already won. That was the show, right there.""

The series ender earned writer Jason Katims an Emmy.

""M*A*S*H""

The closer for this 11-season CBS comedy-drama, which was set in the midst of the Korean War, was depicted in a two-and-a-half-hour made-for-TV movie.

As the war is drawing to a close, the members of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital are, one-by-one, being stationed elsewhere.

One of the last to leave is Hawkeye (Alan Alda). As the chopper lifts to rake him to his next destination, he glances down and sees that his best friend B. J. (Mike Farrell) has spelled out ""Good Bye"" in stones placed on the helipad.

More than 106 million loyal M*A*S*H fans tuned in to watch the capper to this popular CBS series, titled ""Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen.""

""Newhart""

Bob Newhart, known for his deadpan, often stammering standup comedy routine, also starred in two sitcoms: ""The Bob Newhart Show,"" in which he played a Chicago psychologist from 1972-78; and ""Newhart,"" which ran from 1982-90, where he played a Vermont innkeeper.

He managed to bring both series together in the finale of ""Newhart,"" called ''The Final Newhart.""

As he exits the front door of the Stratford Inn to find a little peace and quiet, he's hit in the head by a golf ball and is knocked unconscious. He wakes up in bed in the Chicago apartment he shared with Suzanne Pleshette, who played his wife in the first series.

The eight-year run of the second Newhart series was all but a dream.

""St. Elsewhere""

Inspiration for the closer of ""Newhart"" may have come from ""St. Elsewhere,"" an NBC medical drama that ran for six seasons, closing in 1988. It depicted the goings-on at an aging Boston-area teaching hospital called St. Eligius.

In the final episode, called ""The Last One,"" the hospital is sold to the Boston archdiocese, and several characters leave for new challenges at new locales.

Tommy Westphall, the autistic son of the heroic Dr. Westphall (Ed Flanders) is lost in thought as he plays with a snow globe. The camera zooms in on the snow globe after he sets it aside, and at that moment, the viewer realizes the entire six seasons were conjured in the mind of the child — the ""Tommy Westphall Universe.""

""The Americans""

This was a dramatic FX 6-season series depicting married Soviet KGB intelligence agents during the Cold War. They passed themselves off as an American couple living in a Washington, D.C., suburb with their two children.

The series finale includes two especially emotional scenes. In the first, the family's neighbor confronts them in a parking garage and reveals that he's learned their secret, their lies, and their betrayal.

But the most gut-wrenching scene was when their daughter Paige (Holly Taylor) decides to remain in the United States while her parents return to the Soviet Union. Their marriage survived; their family didn't.

""The Mary Tyler Moore Show""

This was a popular sitcom that ran for seven seasons in the 1970s. It centered on the antics at WJM, a local TV news station.

In the closer, the station has been sold, and the new owner fires the entire newsroom — with the exception of its anchor, the bumbling, incompetent Ted Baxter, played by Ted Knight.

After everyone bids a tearful goobye with a group hug that has become an iconic pop culture moment, Mary turns the lights out to the newsroom for the last time, as everyone sings, ""It's a Long Way to Tipperary.""

""The Shield""

Many critics have called this the best series finale ever.

Vic Mackey, a corrupt Los Angeles detective played by Michael Chiklis, runs a squad by his own brutal rules in a neighborhood marked by drugs and gangs.

In the series' finale, years of misdeeds catch up to all the remaining members of the Strike Team. Vic cuts a deal with the feds where he gets immunity for all his misdeeds – including killing a police officer — in exchange for a federal agent position. But his confession is a betrayal that saves his own skin but leads to the arrest of his team member Ronnie. Another team member, Shane, goes on the run with his pregnant wife and son, as the police search for him. In the final moments, Shane poisons his family and shoots himself to death as police come to arrest him. In the final minutes, viewers watch Vic's life fall apart. His wife, learning of his misdeeds, goes into witness protection with their children, choosing to never see him again and the feds turn against Vic after hearing his litany of crimes and assign him to a tedious desk job, making sure the cop who lives to be on the streets will be chained to a desk writing reports.

""Even with all the despicable things he's done, you can't deny that at least a part of you wanted Vic Mackey to get away scot-free on 'The Shield,'"" wrote Abby West for Entertainment Weekly. ""Watching Vic sitting behind a desk, filling out reports, all alone under the thumb of the FBI, it seemed clear that he was paying for his crimes in a way that cut him deeper than prison ever could.""

""The Sopranos""

This was an HBO series depicting the saga of crime boss Tony Soprano, played by James Ganolfini, with an assist from his therapist, Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco).

Tony and his immediate family meet to break bread at a local diner. While waiting for his wife and son to arrive he drops a coin in the jukebox and selects Journey's modern classic ""Don't Stop Believin.'"" He looks up each time the bell rings, signaling that someone has entered the restaurant.

The rest of his family arrives. As they nosh and engage in small talk, the bell rings again. Tony looks up and the scene abruptly goes black as the music is cut.

What does it all mean? Was the family assassinated by a rival gang? Were they arrested? Did a friend enter to join them?

Some people hated the finale because of its lack of a definitive answer to the question: what happened?

The answer is whatever the viewer wants to believe. The viewer is the ultimate screenwriter in this finale.",0.639593588003128
"The Supreme Court is front and center in the news thanks to Judge Amy Coney Barrett, so we decided to take a look at the best films featuring the Supreme Court. All but three — ""First Monday in October,"" ""The Pelican Brief,"" and ""Swing Vote"" — are based on real cases.

These are listed by date of release.

""The Magnificent Yankee"" (1950)

This is a biographical film of a judicial giant, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who sat as an associate Supreme Court justice in the early days of the 20th century.

Holmes was a strong protector of the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of expression. He wrote the opinion in a case that outlined an exception to freedom of speech in Schenck v. United States, a 1919 case that held that speech that creates a ""clear and present danger"" is unprotected. One hundred years later, that phrase is still in use today.

""The Magnificent Yankee"" was later made into a 1965 Hallmark Hall of Fame made-for-TV movie, but the original black-and-white film is the best.

""Gideon's Trumpet"" (1980)

This tells the story of the events leading up to the landmark 1963 case of Gideon v. Wainwright, which held that the Sixth Amendment requires states to provide counsel for defendants in criminal cases if they cannot otherwise afford it.

Despite being a TV movie, ""Gideon's Trumpet"" had a stellar cast, including Henry Fonda as the indigent defendant Clarence Gideon, Jose Ferrer as Associate Justice Abe Fortas, and John Houseman as Chief Justice Earl Warren.

""First Monday in October"" (1981)

This is a comedy-drama depicting a fictional appointment of the first woman to the Supreme Court. Coincidentally, the very year of the film's release, then-President Ronald Reagan appointed, and the Senate confirmed, Sandra Day O'Connor, the actual first woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

The film highlights the comedically raucous relationship between the new female justice, a staunch conservative played by Jill Clayburgh, and an ultra-liberal justice played by Walter Matthau. Matthau died in 2000 and Clayburgh 10 years later, but they left us a delightful film.

""The Pelican Brief"" (1993)

A legal thriller based upon a John Grisham novel of the same name, ""The Pelican Brief"" begins with the brutal assassination of two Supreme Court justices. Meanwhile, a young law student, played by Julia Roberts, has uncovered the illegal activity that prompted the murders and prepares a brief detailing the conspiracy.

To her it was just a shot on the dark — a wild guess. But it turned out to be spot on.

She goes underground when she witnesses yet another murder — one in which she was the intended victim — and works out the rest of the puzzle after teaming up with an ambitious reporter.

""The People vs. Larry Flynt"" (1996)

Although this film covers Flynt's life from his humble Kentucky beginnings through his founding of an adult men's periodical, it's primarily based on the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, a First Amendment freedom of speech case.

Televangelist Jerry Falwell Sr. sued the magazine for a parody it published depicting him as an incestuous drunk. In an 8-0 decision, the high court held that because Falwell was a public figure and a reasonable person could not have taken the parody seriously, it was protected speech.

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, including one for Woody Harrelson as best actor for his portrayal of Larry Flynt.

""Swing Vote"" (1999)

This film imagines that the landmark decision in Roe v. Wade, which held that a pregnant woman had a constitutionally-protected right to abort her child, was overturned the previous year in a narrow 5-4 decision.

Andy Garcia plays Joseph Kirkland, a newly confirmed Supreme Court justice, when the court is confronted with a first degree murder case arising out of the court's previous decision.

The other eight justices were evenly divided on the previous year's decision to reverse Roe, making Kirkland the swing vote, and therefore under intense pressure from both sides on abortion.

""Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight"" (2013)

This film depicts the Supreme Court case of Clay v. United States, arising out of heavyweight boxing champ Muhammad Ali's refusal to report for induction into the U.S. military during the Vietnam War after he was drafted.

The film was based on the book ""Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight: Cassius Clay vs. the United States of America."" Ali, born Cassius Clay, claimed to be a conscientious objector.

It offers a behind-the-scenes look at how the justices reached their decision in this hot-button case.

""Confirmation"" (2016)

This is a political thriller depicting the real-life confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas. Just like Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings, Thomas' devolved from a discussion of the nominee's judicial philosophy to unsubstantiated claims of sexual misconduct.

""Confirmation"" received two Writers Guild Awards and was nominated for two Emmys as well as two Critics Choice Awards. In 1991 when the Senate Judiciary Committee held the Thomas confirmation hearings, then-Sen. Joe Biden was the committee's chairman.

""Loving"" (2016)

This depicts the Supreme Court's landmark 1967 decision in Loving v. Virginia, and the events that led up to it.

The case stemmed from the interracial marriage of Richard and Mildred Loving, who were sentenced to a prison term for marrying outside their race. The court held that statutes banning interracial marriages violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

""Marshall"" (2017)

Another biographical film, ""Marshall"" tells the story of Thurgood Marshall, and his rise from the humblest beginnings to become the first black Supreme Court Justice of the United States.

The film concentrates on one of the cases he took on early in his career, State of Connecticut v. Joseph Spell. This was a 1940 case in which a black chauffeur was accused of raping his employer, a wealthy white woman.

""On the Basis of Sex"" (2018)

Here's a timely film. It was based on the early cases taken up by Ruth Bader Ginsburg before she became a Supreme Court justice.

It begins from her days as a Harvard Law student, her first job as a law professor, and describes her first case, an appeal of the denial of tax benefits to a man on the basis of sex. After winning that appeal in the Circuit Court she co-founded the Women's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union.

""RBG"" (2018)

Like ""On the Basis of Sex,"" this is a biographical film on the life and times of the late-Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman elevated to the Supreme Court.

""RBG"" covers her entire life, from her birth in Brooklyn, N.Y., her marriage to Martin Ginsburg, her specialty in arguing sex discrimination cases, her appointment to the high court and her eventual image as a pop culture icon.

The film won a Television Academy Honors Award and a Primetime Emmy.

""Reversing Roe"" (2018)

This is a documentary film that analyzes state abortion laws and their efforts to chip away at Roe v. Wade. It's based on TV news clips and interviews with activists on all sides of the issue — pro-life, pro-choice, and those who want to see some restrictions to the procedure.

Eye For Film reviewed ""Reversing Roe"" and found that ""Covering a lot of ground in its 99 minute runtime, the film is a good introduction for anyone struggling to grasp the mechanisms involved in recent political and judicial dealings relating to this issue.""",-1.708102156992804
"When people are ordered to shelter during a crisis, they suddenly miss those things that they previously took for granted — like dining out with a loved one, sharing drinks and laughs with friends at the neighborhood bar, and enjoying an evening at the theatre.

Broadway has become synonymous with American theater, and musical theater is an especially American tradition, where playwrights and composers on this side of the Atlantic adopted and improved upon the formula laid down by Britain’s Gilbert and Sullivan.

Non-musical theatre also flourished on Broadway, where playwrights such as Arthur Miller, T.S. Eliot, and Neil Simon soon became household names.

Here is Newsmax’s list of the best that Broadway has offered, in alphabetical order:

A Chorus Line: Every professional dancer and singer aspires to work on a Broadway chorus line, and once there, dreams of being discovered as the “One, singular sensation” destined to become tomorrow’s headliner.

That’s what “A Chorus Line” is all about — the journey that led them to musical theatre, and the struggle to be noticed and appreciated, told through the music of Marvin Hamlisch and lyrics by Edward Kleban.

It was also made into a major motion picture, but it’s always better live.

Beauty and the Beast: Adapted from the Walt Disney animated feature film of the same name, it provides proof that outward beauty means little as compared to the beauty that dwells within the heart.

It’s one of “The Great White Way’s” longest running productions, having been a Broadway fixture since 1994 with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Tim Rice and Howard Ashman.

Cats: Based on T.S. Eliot’s “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats,” it’s unique in that there’s no dialog whatsoever between musical numbers, which were composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

It describes the night that a tribe of felines called the “Jellicles” make their the ""Jellicle choice,"" and decide which of their number will be reborn after ascending to the Heaviside layer.

After debuting on Broadway in 1982, it received three Tony awards: Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Score.

Chicago: Based on a 1926 play of the same name, it’s set in the Windy City during the Jazz Age and describes the life of “celebrity criminals” aided by a corrupt city criminal justice system.

“Chicago” made its Broadway debut in 1975 where it ran for two years. Its 1996 Broadway revival gives “Chicago” the record for the longest running revival in history.

Death of a Salesman: This 1949 classic was written by Arthur Miller and earned him a Pulitzer Prize for drama and received five Tony awards, including Best Play and Best Author.

It describes the final days of Willy Loman, who returns to his Brooklyn home, feeling tired and defeated after an unsuccessful sales trip.

After its original 1949 Broadway run, it was revived there four times: in 1975, 1984, 1999, and 2012.

Evita: Another musical with music composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, this describes the life of Eva Perón, the second wife of Argentinian President Juan Perón.

The musical covers her life from her mid-teens, through het rise in power, and up to her eventual death of cervical cancer in 1952. “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina,” was one if its most memorable musical numbers.

It made its Broadway debut in 1979, was made into a major motion picture in 1996, and was revived on Broadway in 2012.

Hamilton: A recent entry, “Hamilton” is loosely based on the life and death of the American founding father Alexander Hamilton. It debuted on Broadway in 2015 and has been on three North American tours — the latest in 2019.

The story is told strictly in song and rap — there are no spoken lines — and the founding fathers and other historical figures are all depicted as people of color.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the music and lyrics, described “Hamilton” as about ""America then, as told by America now.""

Les Miserables: This is based on the Victor Hugo classic of the same name, and describes the main character Jean Valjean’s attempts to put his life back together after serving 19 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread.

After breaking his parole on the inspiration of a bishop, Valjean is once again on the run, with Inspector Javer on his tail.

“Les Miserables” premiered on Broadway in 1987, and was revived in 2006.

The Prisoner of Second Avenue: This is a non-musical dark comedic stage play written by Neil Simon. It centers on the problems of middle-aged Mel Edison, who loses his job during the 1970s economic stagnation and in the midst of a New York City heat wave.

It premiered on Broadway 1973 and ran for 798 performances and received three Tony nominations. It was later adapted into a 1975 motion picture starring Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft.

Oklahoma: A Richard Rogers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein (lyrics) classic, “Oklahoma” is based on the 1931 stage play “Green Grow the Lilacs.” It describes the courtship of farm girl Laurey Williams by cowboy Curly McLain and farmhand Jud Fry in 1906 before Oklahoma reached statehood.

“Oklahoma” is important because it marked the first Rogers and Hammerstein collaboration. This dynamic duo went on to write and score such musicals as “South Pacific,” “The King and I,” and “The Sound of Music.”

Phantom of the Opera: Based on the Gaston Leroux book of the same name, “Phantom” debuted on Broadway in 1988 and went on its first U.S. tour the following year. It once again features the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber and centers on a disfigured musical genius who lives beneath a Paris opera house and who obsesses for a beautiful soprano.

“Phantom” won a 1988 Best Musical Tony, and went on subsequent U.S. tours in 1990 and 1993, and a North American tour in 2013.

West Side Story: What could be better than the retelling of the Shakespeare classic “Romeo and Juliet,” featuring the star-crossed lovers coming from rival New York gangs rather than rival families. The score was written by the late conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein.

The musical describes Tony as a former member of the Jets and best friend of the gang's leader, Riff. Tony falls in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks.

After its 1957 Broadway premier and its first U.S. tour two years later, “West Side Story” was revived on Broadway in 1960, 1964, 1980, 2009, and 2020. It also toured the U.S. in 1985, 1996, and 2010, proving you can’t keep a classic down.",-0.9855030660624339
"Sound bytes from speeches and debates can make or break a presidential campaign.

Even catchy campaign slogans like ""Tippecanoe and Tyler Too"" – which propelled William Henry Harrison and John Tyler to victory in the 1840 presidential election – have had an effect on campaigns.

Here is Newsmax's chronological list of the most memorable lines — some good, some bad — delivered since presidential campaigns were televised. The list includes primary elections and general elections.

1960, ""Not second best"" John F. Kennedy

The year 1960 marked the first televised presidential debate between candidates in a general election. In this case it was between then-Sen. Kennedy, D-Mass., and then-Vice President Richard M. Nixon.

Kennedy struck a chord with American voters when he said:

""We can no longer afford to be second best. I want people all over the world to look to the United States again, to feel that we're on the move, to feel that our high noon is in the future.""

His words of hope and determination, combined with his youthful appearance on camera, propelled him into the White House that November. Nixon, in contrast, reportedly refused to wear makeup for the cameras, making him appear tired and unshaven.

Those who listened to the debate on radio, however, thought Nixon was the winner, believing he came across as more knowledgeable and presidential.

1976, ""No Soviet domination,"" Gerald R. Ford

Just as the right line delivered at the right moment can make a campaign, the wrong one can break it. That happened when then-President Ford delivered this one during a debate with his Democratic opponent, Jimmy Carter.

Ford said:

""There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.""

It sounded as though Ford did not understand the realities of Soviet-bloc countries in Eastern Europe and that hurt him. Ford meant to convey two truths of the era: one, that the people caught behind the Iron Curtain did not consider themselves Soviet citizens, and two, the United States would not officially recognize the Soviet Union's influence over its neighbors. But that is not how his statement was interpreted.

1980, ""There you go again,"" Ronald Reagan

During the only debate between President Jimmy Carter and his Republican challenger Ronald Reagan, Carter droned on about his proposed national health insurance program. Reagan, ""the Great Communicator,"" thought Carter was being repetitious and misstating his own beliefs about Medicare.

He replied, ""there you go again"" in good humor – a remark that elicited laughter from the audience and endeared him to voters.

Reagan then went on to explain his actual beliefs on Medicare.

1980, ""Better off?"" Ronald Reagan

During the same debate, Reagan captured the essence of the entire campaign into a 10-word question, one he asked voters to answer for themselves as they stood in the polling place.

Reagan said:

""Are you better off than you were four years ago?""

Unlike his ""there you go again,"" this line was delivered on a serious note and helped send Reagan to his first term in the White House.

1984, ""Where's the beef,"" Walter Mondale

During the 1984 Democratic presidential primary season, Mondale, who served as Carter's vice president, challenged then-Sen. Gary Hart's progressive proposals. The youthful Colorado Democrat billed himself as ""the candidate with new ideas.""

Mondale replied to one of Hart's numerous proposals:

""When I hear your new ideas, I'm reminded of that ad: 'Where's the beef?'""

The former vice president was referring to a then-popular Wendy's fast food restaurant TV ad where an elderly lady lifts up the bun of a hamburger she is served at a competing chain and asks, ""Where's the beef.""

Mondale's line at the debate was just as humorous and identifiable as the commercial and helped paint Hart as someone with ideas that lacked substance.

1984, ""Age not an issue,"" Ronald Reagan

Mondale went on to win the Democratic presidential nomination, beating out a large field of hopefuls. But he was no challenge to Reagan, the incumbent.

Well into the debate The Baltimore Sun's moderator, Henry Trehwitt, raised the age issue, telling Reagan, then 73: ""You already are the oldest president in history."" Trehwitt then asked: ""Is there any doubt in your mind that you would be able to function in such circumstances?""

The response turned the question on its head and was pitch-perfect.

Reagan replied:

""I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience.""

He brought the house down, including Mondale, with that one.

1988, ""Read my lips,"" George H.W. Bush

Bush, who was Reagan's vice president, was unanimously nominated at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana, on a promise forcefully delivered to the delegates.

Bush said:

""Read my lips: No new taxes.""

This was an important issue to the GOP after a series of tax cuts implemented during the Reagan administration.

Although that line secured the nomination and election of Bush in 1988, it led to his loss four years later when he signed tax hikes into law.

2008, ""You're likable enough,"" Barack Obama

The Democratic presidential nomination came down to two personalities, running nearly neck-and-neck: Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

Clinton, the early front-runner, appeared staid and prim as compared to the ""cool"" image that Obama projected.

Clinton admitted her opponent was ""very likable"" when asked about her appeal to voters, adding she did not believe she was ""that bad.""

Obama interjected:

“You're likable enough, Hillary, no doubt about it.""

The remark was widely considered condescending.

2012, ""Clear eyes,"" Mitt Romney

During their third and final presidential debate of the 2012 season, GOP nominee Romney and President Obama crossed swords on a number of issues, including Russia.

The former Massachusetts governor brought up a remark Obama had made months earlier, asking Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to tell Vladimir Putin he will have ""more flexibility"" after the election.

Romney told Obama:

""I have clear eyes on this. I'm not going to wear rose-colored glasses when it comes to Russia or Mr. Putin, and I'm certainly not going to say to him, 'I'll give you more flexibility after the election.' After the election, he'll get more backbone.""

It was a great line, delivered with total conviction, but not enough to defeat the incumbent.

2016, ""You'd be in jail,"" Donald Trump

During the 2016 general campaign season, Trump's favorite moniker for the former secretary of state was ""Crooked Hillary.""

Trump raised the issue about 20 minutes into the second presidential debate when he claimed, if elected, he will have a special prosecutor appointed to look into Clinton's past misdeeds.

""It's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country,"" Clinton said.

Trump shot back:

""Because you'd be in jail.""

For Trump supporters it was the highlight of the evening.

Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to BizPac Review and Liberty Unyielding. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter, who can often be found honing his skills at the range. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.",2.3937106251969333
"The U.S. secretary of state is perhaps the most important and often the most visible member of the president’s cabinet.

That person serves as the United States’ top diplomat, heads up the Department of State, and is often at the center of the most memorable events in world history.

Some secretaries of state, including Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, James Monroe and Martin Van Buren, went on to become president. Others, Like Hillary Clinton, attempted but failed.

Here are Newsmax’s picks for the best Republican-appointed secretaries of state, listed in chronological order.

William H. Seward (under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, 1861-1869): Seward successfully kept England and France from recognizing the Confederacy as a sovereign nation during the Civil War. He also persuaded France to withdraw its troops from Mexico when the war ended.

He’s best known for negotiating the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867. At the time it was ridiculed as “Seward’s folly,” but it turned out to be one of the best bargains in land purchase in history.

John Hay (under William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, 1898-1905): During the McKinley administration, Hay promoted a trade system with China that was equally open to all countries, which became known as the Open Door Policy.

After McKinley’s assassination, Roosevelt kept Hay on as secretary of state, and Hay was successful in negotiating the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty, signed Nov. 18, 1903, by the United States and Panama. The agreement established the Panama Canal Zone and granted the United States the license to construct the canal connecting the world’s two greatest oceans.

Elihu Root (under Theodore Roosevelt, 1905-1909): After Hay’s death, Roosevelt appointed Root, who hit the ground running by persuading South American countries to participate in the Hague Peace Conference in 1906. He also negotiated the Root-Takahira Agreement in 1908, which limited U.S. and Japanese fortifications in the Pacific.

Root has been described by historians as being the figure most responsible for transforming the United States into a world power.

Charles Evans Hughes (under Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge, 1921-1925): Hughes was concerned about the naval arms race engaged in especially by the nations of Japan, Great Britain and the United States. In response, he organized the Washington Naval Conference, conducted separately from the League of Nations.

The Washington Naval Conference resulted in the Five-Power Treaty, which established a ratio of naval strength among the five largest naval powers. Hughes also served as arbiter of disputes among Western Hemisphere nations, and thus increased U.S. prestige in Latin America.

John Foster Dulles (under Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953-1959): Dulles focused on preventing the expansion of the Soviet Union, as well as communism, believing it to be a “godless terrorism.”

Accordingly, he worked to forge alliances with non-communist countries and helped build up the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO.

In an article he wrote for Life magazine, he described his policy, as ""The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art.""

Henry Kissinger (under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, 1973-1977): Kissinger became the only foreign-born U.S. secretary of state after serving as a special adviser on national security affairs during Nixon’s first term.

As secretary of state he was able to relax tensions with communist China and promote trade with both China and the former Soviet Union. He traveled tens of thousands of miles to conduct most of his negotiations in person in what became known as “shuttle diplomacy.”

George P. Shultz (under Ronald Reagan, 1982-1989): Shultz faced a number of challenges early on, including striking a delicate balance in U.S. negotiations with mainland China and Taiwan, escalating tensions with the Soviet Union, and unrest in the Middle East, including a war in Lebanon.

The State Department's official history reports that ""by the summer of 1985, Shultz had personally selected most of the senior officials in the Department, emphasizing professional over political credentials in the process [...] The Foreign Service responded in kind by giving Shultz its 'complete support,' making him one of the most popular secretaries since Dean Acheson (under Harry Truman).""

James A. Baker (under George H.W. Bush, 1989-1992): Baker oversaw U.S. foreign policy during one of the most interesting and turbulent times in history — during and after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe.

Baker was also largely charged with putting together the massive coalition of forces charged with driving Saddam Hussein and Iraqi troops out of Kuwait during the Persian Gulf War.

Condoleezza Rice (under George W. Bush, 2005-2008): “Condi” Rice was appointed secretary of state during Bush-43’s second term in office, after previously serving as director of Soviet and East European Affairs on the National Security Council.

As secretary, she supported and practiced ""Transformational Diplomacy,"" a term she coined that was a method of responding to new threats facing the United States and world by redistributing U.S. diplomats to areas of severe social and political unrest.

Rice also successfully negotiated several international agreements during her tenure, primarily affecting the Middle East. They include the August 14, 2006 ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon and organizing the Annapolis Conference of 2007, which focused on finding a two-state solution to Israeli-Palestinian differences.

Mike Pompeo (under Donald Trump, 2018-present): As the 70th and current U.S. secretary of state, it may be inappropriate to include him on this list, but to not include him would be to ignore his significant accomplishments during his brief time in office.

In March 2018, Trump nominated Pompeo to replace Rex Tillerson, and after he was sworn into office on April 23, he set to work negotiating details for the 2018 North Korean-United States Summit held in Singapore in June of that year.

Pompeo has often been critical of foreign civil rights abuses, including the Xinjiang re-education camps in China directed against minorities like the Uighurs and the military crackdown of Rohingya Muslims by the Myanmar Army.

Most recently, Pompeo signed an agreement to redeploy troops from Germany to Poland in response to Berlin’s repeated default of its responsibilities to the NATO defense budget, and secured Slovenia’s support for his “Clean Network” campaign against Chinese technology.",-0.7358044427786813
"When it comes time to retire and enjoy those golden years, Florida is usually a destination that comes to mind – and for good reason. No state taxes and warm weather are two huge inducements.

But Florida’s not the only great retirement location as this Newsmax list of the top 10 retirement destinations shows. Texas also is among the other small group of states that refuse to tax income, and it’s seen a growing number of transplants. Although Tennessee doesn’t tax wages, it taxes interest and investment income, which should be of concern to retirees. But it’s reportedly set to eliminate that also.

Climate, cost of living, quality of life, access to affordable health care and a sense of community all factor in to determine America’s best retirement destinations. Here are Newsmax’s top 10 retirement locations, listed in alphabetical order.

Austin, Texas: The capital of the Longhorn State is blessed with hundreds of parks for seniors to engage in their favorite outdoor activities. Austin’s nearly 200 live music venues specializing in rock, country, and R&B have given it the moniker of the ""Live Music Capital of the World.""

Zillow reports that Austin has a very hot real estate market, with a $401,999 median home price.

Clearwater, Florida: The cost of living in this beachfront community on the Gulf of Mexico is 3% lower than the average in the Sunshine State. Clearwater has long been one of America’s top vacation destinations, so retiring here means you’re on vacation for the rest of your life.

Whether selecting fresh veggies at the Clearwater Farmers Market, checking out the wildlife at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, or watching the sunset on Pier 60, there’s always something to do in Clearwater.

Zillow reports that Clearwater’s real estate market is also very hot, with a median home price at $235,189.

Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas: If big city living is your preference, this Lone Star mega polis offers sports lovers the NFL’s Cowboys, the NBA’s Mavericks and MLB’s Texas Rangers.

Grandparents can take their grandkids to such attractions as the Great Wolf Lodge indoor water park and Six Flags Over Texas when they stop by to visit.

Zillow reports that you can expect to pay about $256,264 for a home in this area.

Fort Meyers, Florida: This has been a favorite retirement destination since the early 20th century, when Thomas Edison and Henry Ford chose Fort Myers to build their vacation homes.

Water babies can find beaches in nearby Cape Coral, Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel Island, and the area also provided the locale for Randy Wayne White’s popular Doc Ford Mystery series of novels.

Home buyers can expect to pay about $224,979 for a home in the Fort Myers area.

Lakeland, Florida: This central Florida city can’t be found on either the Atlantic or the gulf, but is blessed instead with its nearly 40 lakes that dot the area, giving the city its name.

In addition to fishing and exploring the lakes, Lakeland offers nature lovers the Circle B Bar Reserve and art-lovers the Polk Museum of Art. And when the grandchildren visit, Lakeland is within an hour of Disney World, Sea World and Universal Studios.

Zillow reports that the Lakeland real estate market is very hot, with median home prices at $180,750.

Nashville, Tennessee: Nashville offers sports fans the NHL’s Predators and the NFL’s Tennessee Titans, but it’s the city’s music scene that really places it on the map, and one of the reasons Nashville made Business Insider’s list of top retirement destinations.

Day or night you can take in some of music’s hottest aspiring artists on the Broadway strip, and may even bump into some of its most established stars such as Keith Urban or Carrie Underwood. And of course it’s home to the legendary country music venue, the Grand Ole Opry.

The median price of a Nashville home is $289,142, according to Zillow.

Plano, Texas: In addition to exploring Historic Downtown Plano, the area offers outdoor activities at the Arbor Hills Nature Preserve and Oak Point Park and Nature Preserve. Indoor activities can be found at the Angelika Film Center & Cafe and the Interurban Railway Museum.

But retirees say that what they like about Plano most is its peace and quiet.

Zillow reports that a home in Plano will set you back about $345,430

San Antonio, Texas: Old San Antonio offers a wide range of attractions and activities, including the San Antonio Riverwalk and Cruise, the Natural Bridge Caverns, the Ghost Walking Tour, and of course, the Alamo.

If you plan on making the Alamo City your retirement destination, Zillow reports that you can expect to spend about $187,718.

Sarasota, Florida: The Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circuses gave Sarasota its Circus City moniker by making it their winter headquarters. Its beaches are praised for their fine white sand and clear, sparkling waters.

Activities are geared more toward the older crowd, where golf, fine dining and shopping abound, the latter two especially in the vicinity of the ritzy St. Armands Circle.

Zillow reports that the Sarasota real estate market is as warm as its beaches, with properties fetching a median $278,893 price tag.

Tampa, Florida: The Tampa Bay area offers attractions like Busch Gardens, the Florida Aquarium, and Zoo Tampa. With the motto “Good Beer Lives Here,” new residents might want to do a walking tour of Tampa’s numerous craft breweries, and cigar aficionados will want to check out Ybor City, the “Cigar Capital of the World.”

Hockey fans can enjoy the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning; football fans have the Buccaneers to call their own. And the New York Yankees has made Tampa its spring training headquarters.

Zillow reports that the Tampa real estate market is very hot, with median home prices at $251,387.",-2.0280731021009086
"Under the Constitution, the vice president presides over the Senate. In that capacity he casts the tie-breaking vote in that chamber and may preside over the impeachment trials of federal officers (excepting his own and that of the president).

Pursuant to the 12th Amendment, the vice president also presides over electoral vote counts, and the 25th Amendment makes it clear the he succeeds as president in the event the president resigns, dies, is incapacitated, or is removed from office.

The following are Newsmax’s picks for the best vice presidents in history. Let us know how our list stacks up against your own.

No. 10: Joe Biden was one of the few vice presidents to take an active role in his president’s administration. This may have been due to then-President Barack Obama’s relative inexperience in national politics.

For example, Obama appointed Biden to oversee infrastructure spending approved through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and was instrumental in formulating U.S. policy for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iran. He was also in charge of the president’s Gun Violence Task Force.

Although he was largely given free rein in many instances, the policies were often not up to snuff. Obama Defense Secretary Robert Gates remarked that Biden has ""been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.""

But because he was able to wield the power, he makes the list.

No. 9: John Adams was overshadowed by President George Washington’s impressive stature, and according to his biographers, Washington seldom sought Adams’ counsel.

Adams was quoted as saying, ""I am vice president. In this I am nothing, but I may be everything,"" and in at least one sense he was “everything.” Adams cast 29 tie-breaking votes in the Senate, a record that has never been topped or even matched. In that manner he had a direct effect on policy.

Also, as the nation’s first vice president he set the tone for the office and established the role of the vice presidency.

No. 8: Richard Nixon was Dwight D. Eisenhower’s rock solid choice for a running mate, and despite his later rocky presidency, he proved his mettle throughout his vice presidential tenure.

He turned out to be Eisenhower’s de facto ambassador-at-large. He bravely stood up to angry Marxist mobs in Latin America and successfully debated with Soviet Union Premier Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow in what was later called the “kitchen debate.”

When Khrushchev visited the United States and wanted to debate Nixon again on the relative merits of communism versus capitalism, Nixon took the Soviet premier to a typical American supermarket. It left Khrushchev speechless -- he had never seen such plenty.

No. 7: Gerald Ford was appointed vice president by then-President Richard Nixon after Spiro Agnew left the office in disgrace. Nixon chose then-Rep. Ford from Michigan for his solid reputation as a straight, honest shooter who was admired on both sides of the aisle.

When the Watergate scandal began heating up and tainting the administration, Ford deftly remained above the fray -- so much so that when Nixon resigned in August 1974, the nation was comforted with him at the helm.

No. 6: Mike Pence has proven to be both a loyal ally to President Trump as well as a staunch defender of the administration.

While the president’s rhetoric sometimes gets him into trouble with the press, Pence’s calming voice and influence sooths the ruffled feathers.

Pence’s administrative experience as an Indiana governor as well as his experience on Capitol Hill have also helped guide the administration through the legislative jungle.

Like Obama to Biden, Trump has given Pence administrative powers -- the most recently as chairman of the president’s coronavirus task force.

No. 5: Dick Cheney provided the foreign policy expertise that then-President George W. Bush, who was a former Texas governor, needed at a critical time in history.

Although the butt of many jokes, including from Bush, he directed the anti-terrorism efforts during the aftermath of the attack on September 11, 2001.

He pushed for the approval of enhanced interrogation techniques -- including waterboarding -- that arguably led to the location of Osama bin Laden’s lair years later.

No. 4: Walter Mondale only served a single term as vice president under Jimmy Carter, but like Biden, Cheney and Pence, he exercised more power within the administration. Prior to Carters election he was a Georgia governor and a peanut farmer.

While in the Senate representing Minnesota, Mondale often crossed party lines to get legislation passed. As a sign of his influence in the administration, Mondale was the first veep to be assigned an office within the White House, and was also the first to receive intelligence briefings along with his president.

No. 3: Henry Wilson, served under President Ulysses S. Grant. Years earlier Wilson founded the short-lived Free Soil Party for the express purpose of preventing the expansion of slavery into the western territories. The Free Soilers eventually merged into what became the Republican Party.

Wilson also strongly supported workers’ rights, and while a senator representing Massachusetts, he frequently traveled the state to stay in touch with his constituents and hear their concerns.

No. 2.: George Clinton was a founding father and served as vice president under two different administrations: That of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

He also helped draft the Bill of Rights -- the first 10 amendments to the Constitution -- as a means of preventing the formation of an overly aggressive and powerful federal government.

No. 1: Theodore Roosevelt, was governor of New York when William McKinley chose him as his running mate -- ostensibly to get the forward-thinking Roosevelt out of New York state politics and into a “do nothing” job.

""I would a great deal rather be anything, say professor of history, than vice president,"" he said before holding that very position.

He nonetheless worked tirelessly on the campaign, making nearly 500 stops in 23 states in order to secure the White House for the Republican Party.

His tenure as vice president only lasted six months, however. When Roosevelt succeeded to the presidency upon McKinley's assassination in 1901, he became the first modern president by taking an activist role in the office.

He established a national park system, fought monopolies and corporate trusts, and was a champion to labor while recognizing the concerns and needs of management.

Roosevelt said, ""My action on labor should always be considered in connection with my action as regards capital, and both are reducible to my favorite formula—a square deal for every man.""",0.5110180732297455
"Radio is the perfect medium for political commentary — especially on the drives to and from work. It doesn’t require any visuals — just a commentator espousing his views on whatever happens to be the subject of the day.

It’s as though someone is reading the guest column section of the daily newspaper, for you to either smile knowingly and nod in agreement, or shake your fist at the radio dial as you call the commentator an idiot. It’s great fun either way.

Here are Newsmax’s picks for today’s top 12 over-the-air influencers of conservative public opinion.

No. 12: Joe Pags: Joseph Pagliarulo, known as “Joe Pags” to his listeners, was born in Amityville, New York, but his family eventually moved to Florida’s Palm Beach County, which is where he began his radio career. He eventually branched out into television, taking him to stations in Michigan and New York.

He returned to talk radio with “The Joe Pags Show” via iHeartMedia, which is now broadcasted on Newsmax TV.

No. 11: Larry Elder: “The sage from South Central” began his broadcasting career after working first as a lawyer, then as the founder and director of a legal executive search firm.

He began his broadcasting career with PBS in a series called “Fabric,” which was later renamed “The Larry Elder Show.”

He began his talk radio career in 1993 with a Los Angeles station. In 2015, the Salem Radio Network picked up “The Larry Elder Show” for syndication.

No. 10: Dana Loesch: The longtime host of “The Dana Show” and staunch defender of the Second Amendment began her talk radio career in 2008. Soon afterwards, Radio America picked up “The Dana Show: The Conservative Alternative” for national syndication.

During the 2016 GOP presidential primary season, Loesch supported Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, but after the election, she became one of President Donald Trump’s most ""passionate defenders,"" according to The Atlantic.

No. 9: Mike Gallagher: The media host and personality got his start in radio at the age of 17 by talking his way into a Dayton, Ohio, radio station, and he never looked back.

After bouncing around the country at various stations, he launched “The Mike Gallagher Show” in 1998 and has since played host to numerous nationally recognized Republican politicians, including Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush.

No. 8: Chris Plante: After working for CNN for 17 years, Plante moved to radio with WMAL, which serves the Washington, D.C., area. Cumulus Media announced that “The Chris Plante Show” would be nationally syndicated by Westwood One shortly afterwards.

Plante often fills in for other conservative talk radio hosts, including Michael Savage, Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh.

No. 7: Hugh Hewitt: “The Hugh Hewitt Show” is nationally syndicated by the Salam Radio Network and broadcasts on the covered weekday “drive to work” times, from 6-9 a.m.

Although trained in the law, Hewitt covers a wide range of subjects such as culture and entertainment, in addition to law, politics and government.

No. 6: Dennis Prager: In addition to hosting “The Dennis Prager Show,” which is heard on nearly 400 stations nationwide, Prager launched Prager U, a series of 5-minute YouTube videos that instructs viewers on a wide range of subjects, each presenting a conservative view.

He recently co-starred with conservative comedian Adam Carolla in the feature length documentary film, “No Safe Spaces,” which discusses freedom of speech and university “safe spaces.”

No. 5: Howie Carr: Boston-based commentator Carr, like Joe Pags, was picked up to run on Newsmax TV, which began syndication of one hour of Carr’s 4-hour weekday show.

“The Howie Carr Show” has ben running since the 1980s and was initially syndicated by Entercom Communications. Carr left them in 2014 to form his own company.

No. 4: Glenn Beck: The founder the TheBlaze, Blaze TV and Blaze Radio, Beck started out in radio in 1983 but didn’t really get into talk radio until 2000, when he launched “The Glenn Beck Program” in Tampa, Florida. Within a year, he took the station’s afternoon time slot from 18th to first place.

Two years later the show went nationwide. By 2008 his voice reached out to 280 stations plus XM Radio. Today he can be heard on more than 500 stations via his company's own TheBlaze Radio Network.

No. 3: Mark Levin: Temple Law graduate Levin spent years as a guest on other talk radio shows before launching his own, “The Mark Levin Show,” out of WABC in New York City in 2002.

It’s syndicated nationally by Westwood One and reaches approximately 400 stations and seven million weekly listeners. Levin also hosts “Life, Liberty, and Levin,” a weekly show on Fox News, and is a frequent author of books on constitutional issues.

No. 2: Michael Savage: Host of “The Savage Nation” on radio, Michael Weiner, known to his radio listeners as Michael Savage, is also a frequent Newsmax TV contributor and writes a Newsmax column called “The Savage Minute.”

In March, Trump appointed Savage, who holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, to sit on the board of directors of the Presidio Trust. The agency oversees the preservation of San Francisco’s Presidio, a former U.S. Army fort turned national park located near the Golden Gate Bridge.

No. 1: Rush Limbaugh: The undisputed king of talk radio throughout the political spectrum, Limbaugh was honored at this year’s State of the Union when First Lady Melania Trump presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

He broadcasts each weekday from his Palm Beach oceanfront estate on what he calls the EIB, or Excellence In Broadcasting, Network. 2017 marked Limbaugh’s 50th year as a radio host, and 2018 marked his 30th year hosting “The Rush Limbaugh Show.”

Limbaugh told his radio listeners in early February that he had developed advanced lung cancer. He announced late last month that he was entering his third round of treatment.",-0.9482792816881824
"Lately we only seem to hear of the worst mayors in the United States, those who lock their cities down tight while they themselves feel free to head to the hair salon or work out with their favorite trainer at the gym.

But less known are those who strive to make their municipalities the best in the country, and who defend and stick up for their communities in the face of opposition from state and federal authorities.

Here is Newsmax's list of the 15 best mayors in America. They quietly go about the business of making their communities better for their constituents. The list contains Democrats, Republicans, and nonpartisans. Although it only includes four women, three of them managed to capture the Nos. 1, 2, and 4 positions.

No. 15: Brad Hart, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Hart, a Republican, entered the Cedar Rapids mayor's office in 2018 and continues to practice business law at his firm, Bradley & Riley.

He received his undergraduate education at Iowa State University and earned his law degree at Houston College of Law in Texas.

Livability rated Cedar Rapids as being among the top 100 best places to live, and WalletHub rated Cedar Rapids as the 15th best-run city in the United States.

No. 14: Jim Donchess, Nashua, New Hampshire

Donchess, a Democrat, became Nashua's 56th mayor in January 2016. At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a nationwide shutdown of many businesses, he's focusing his efforts on economic growth.

He earned a bachelor's degree at Yale and a law degree at New York University.

WalletHub rated Nashua as the13th best-run city in the United States.

No. 13: Paul TenHaken, Sioux Falls, South Dakota

TenHaken, a Republican, has been mayor of Sioux Falls since May 2018, but he put South Dakota's largest city on the map before that as CEO of Click Rain. Under his stewardship, Click Rain was the only South Dakota company included on the Inc. 5000 list as one of America's fastest growing private companies for five consecutive years.

Livability said Sioux Falls ""sits at the intersection of rural charm and big-city culture,"" and WalletHub rates it as the 11th best-run city in the country.

No. 12: John Engen, Missoula, Montana

Engen, a Democrat, is Missoula's 50th and longest-serving mayor. Since assuming office he's taken steps ""to ensure that Missoula is a compact, sustainable city to restoring the city's once-private water system to public ownership,"" according to the city website.

Missoula is home to the University of Montana and is the state's second most populous city. Upwardly mobile young professionals also call Missoula home and enjoy its many bars, coffee shops, and parks.

No. 11: Bill Cole, Billings, Montana

In 2017 voters elected Cole, who's not affiliated with a political party, on the promise of making Billings more attractive to young people.

Although Billings is Montana's largest city, it still retains that small-town feeling. WalletHub rates it as the seventh best-run city in the United States.

No. 10: Steve Schewel, Durham, North Carolina

Schewel, who identifies as a Democrat, took over the nonpartisan mayoral office in 2017 after serving as an at-large member of the Durham City Council from 2011 to 2017. He holds degrees from Duke and Columbia.

Niche describes Durham as ""one of the best places to live in North Carolina,"" prompting young families to make it their home with its numerous parks and restaurants.

No. 9: Leirion Gaylor Baird, Lincoln, Nebraska

Baird, a Democrat, was an at-large representative on the Lincoln City Council from 2013 to 2019, at which point she took over the mayor's office. She holds a bachelor's degree from Yale and a masters from Oxford.

Lincoln is known for its high quality of life, with extensive bike trails, numerous parks, low crime rate, and reasonable cost of living.

No. 8: Sam Liccardo, San Jose, California

Liccardo, a Democrat, first assumed office as San Jose's mayor in 2015, and his current term will end in 2023.

He holds degrees from Georgetown and Harvard, and previously worked as a county and federal prosecutor.

San Jose ranks as 11th on The Stacker list of best run cities in America due to its economy and quality of life.

No. 7: Martin Walsh, Boston, Massachusetts

Walsh is a Democrat serving in a nonpartisan position as the mayor of Beantown. He was first elected in 2013 and was reelected four years later.

He was born and raised in Boston and attended Boston College, where he received a degree in political science.

According to a survey conducted by Deutsche Bank, Boston had the best quality of life of any American city in 2019.

No. 6: Tim Mahoney, Fargo, North Dakota

Mahoney, a Democrat, has served as Fargo's mayor since 2015, after holding the deputy mayor position beginning in 2006.

Fargo is notable for having one of the best primary and secondary education systems in the United States. It's also above the curve for residents who continue their education after high school — and Mahoney was arguably a part of the reason.

The Stacker rated Fargo as America's sixth best-run city; WalletHub placed it at 10th.

No. 5: Kevin Faulconer, San Diego, California

Faulconer, a Republican, became the 36th mayor of San Diego in 2014 on an inclusive platform of ""One San Diego.""

U.S. News and World Report ranked San Diego as one of the best places to live for quality of life, and Faulconer is one reason why. He's expanded parks and libraries and worked aggressively on a road and street repair program.

No. 4: Lauren McLean, Boise, Idaho

Although McLean, a Democrat, only assumed office this year, she'd served on the Boise City Council starting in 2011.

During her time as a city council member, she promoted initiatives that included Boise's Energy Future, which commits all city-owned properties to be net-zero energy efficient by 2040.

McLean holds a BA from the University of Notre Dame and a master's in public administration from Boise State University.

WalletHub rated Boise at third-best run city in the country; The Stacker ranked it fourth.

No. 3: Bobby Dyer, Virginia Beach, Virginia

Virginia Beach always gets high ranks for its low crime and poverty rates and its high median annual household income. The nonpartisan Dyer has been mayor of Virginia Beach only since 2018, but he served on the city council for 14 years before that.

He holds a master's degree in public administration from Fairleigh Dickinson University and a Ph.D. in organizational leadership from Regent University. Dyer previously worked as an assistant professor in the School of Government at Regent University.

The Stacker rates Virginia Beach as America's third best-run city, and WalletHub placed it at No. 8.

No. 2: Michelle Kaufusi, Provo, Utah

Kaufusi, a Republican, is the 45th and current mayor of Provo, a city that is routinely heralded as one of the best-run cities in the United States.

When she assumed office in 2017, Kaufusi became the first female mayor in Provo's 166-year history. Kaufusi was raised in Provo and previously served on the city's citizen's advisory board.

Her husband, Steve, played football at her own alma mater, BYU, and later for the Philadelphia Eagles.

She's since caught the attention of former Utah Gov. John Huntsman Jr., who has announced another bid for the governor's mansion with Kaufusi as his running mate.

Both The Stacker and WalletHub rate Provo as the second-best run city in the United States.

No. 1: Lyn Semeta, Huntington Beach, California

Semeta assumed office in December 2019, but prior to that the Republican served on the city's planning commission, investment advisory board, and worked as a business and real estate attorney.

Shortly after taking over her mayoral duties, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the closure of all Orange County beaches because of the coronavirus pandemic, which includes Huntington Beach. Semeta fired back a stern reply.

""Gov. Newsom's mandate to close all beaches in Orange County today was a jarring decision that significantly impacts us here in Huntington Beach,"" Semeta said in a news release. ""Given that Orange County has among the lowest per-capita COVID-19 death rates in California, the action by the state prioritizes politics over data, in direct contradiction of the governor's stated goal to allow science and facts to guide our response to this horrible global pandemic.""

The Stacker rates Huntington Beach as America's best-run city.",-0.030619144919385975
"Religious liberty is ingrained in American history. The Pilgrims made the journey to the largely uncharted land to seek religious freedom, and the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantee those freedoms.

Accordingly, the United States has been a fertile ground for the faithful to practice the religion of their choice. Despite the attempts of some leftists to transform the United States into a secular society, crises such as the current coronavirus pandemic prompt Americans to turn to religious leaders for guidance and answers.

Here are Newsmax's picks of America's 10 most influential religious leaders, listed in alphabetical order:

Rabbi Abraham Cooper is the associate dean and director of the global social action agenda at the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Cooper has fought for Jewish and human rights for most of his adult life, and those activities have taken him to five continents.

Most recently he accompanied Rev. Johnnie Moore on an interfaith African fact-funding mission, following a deadly rampage targeting Christian churches by members of Boko Haram in northern Nigeria.

Cooper assisted Rabbi Marvin Hier in the founding of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish human rights organization.

Rev. Luis Cortes Jr. is a Baptist minister and the founder, president and CEO of Esperanza, a leading Hispanic faith-based Evangelical network.

The organization was founded upon and is directed by the teachings of Matthew 25:40, ""whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.""

Although Cortes and George W. Bush formed a bond while the latter was campaigning for president, the group is apolitical. Its keynote speakers have included Presidents Bush and Barack Obama, as well as Vice Presidents Joe Biden and Mike Pence.

Dr. James Dobson is the founder of the Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, ""a global Christian ministry dedicated to helping families thrive.""

Dobson stepped down as president of that organization in 2003 so as to dedicate more time to political activities. He also founded the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council, currently headed by Tony Perkins.

Although age 84, Dobson still remains active through his newsletters from the Dobson Policy Center and the Dr. James Dobson Family Center that concentrates on religious freedom, plus pro-life and pro-family issues.

Timothy Cardinal Dolan was named Archbishop of New York by Pope Benedict XVI, and was installed in that post April 15, 2009 after previously serving as Archbishop of Milwaukee.

He is probably the most visible voice of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, and is a frequent contributor to cable and broadcast TV news programs from his headquarters at New York City's St. Patrick's Cathedral.

In 2012 he was included in Time's list of 100 most influential people. After he successfully challenged the Obama administrations mandate that Catholic organizations, such as hospitals, pay for contraceptive services for female employees.

Franklin Graham is the president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, named after his late father, and of Samaritan's Purse, which describes itself as ""a nondenominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world.""

Samaritan's Purse has been in the news recently because of its response to the coronavirus pandemic. It established field hospitals in New York City's Central Park, as well as in Cremona, Italy, to treat patients with respiratory ailments.

Graham has met with and counseled five U.S. presidents, plus numerous state leaders in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Dr. Alveda King is the niece of the late civil rights icon Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the daughter of the slain civil rights activists A.D. King and his wife, Naomi Barber King.

She heads up the Alveda King Ministries, which was established ""to inform and transform a culture by sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ while promoting the Beloved Community, which embraces the dignity and sacredness of every human personality.""

King is also fervently pro-life, and is the director of Civil Rights for the Unborn as well as the African American outreach director for Priests for Life.

Rev. Johnnie Moore is an evangelical leader and president of The Congress of Christian Leaders (CCL), an organization he co-founded with Rev. Samuel Rodriguez.

He told The Christian Post the CCL seeks to bridge a ""gap between evangelicalism in the United States and around the world.""

Moore accompanied Rabbi Cooper on the Nigerian fact-finding mission earlier this year, where thy met both Christian and Muslim religious leaders following acts of religious persecution committed by members of the Islamic State of West Africa, also known as Boko Haram.

Pastor Joel Osteen is a Houston-based televangelist and author, and is often referred to as the ""most popular preacher on the planet."" And for good reason: his weekly sermons are viewed by several million in over 100 foreign countries, as well as more than 100 million in the United States.

He is the pastor of the Lakewood Church, a non-denominational Christian megachurch, having one of the largest congregations in the United States, with 52,000 attendees each week.

Pastor Rick Warren is an author and senior pastor at the Saddleback Church, a 22,000 congregant megachurch based in Lake Forest, California, which is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. Warren was also named as one of Time's 25 most influential evangelicals in America.

When Warren delivered an invocation at the inauguration of President Barack Obama in 2009, he tried to strike an inclusive tone.

""We are so grateful to live in this land, a land of unequalled possibility where the son of an African immigrant can rise to highest level of our leadership,"" he said.

Rabbi Andrea Weiss, Ph.D., is the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Provost at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, the largest Jewish seminary in North America for Jewish studies, and serves as an associate professor of Bible there.

She also launched the American Values Religious Voices: 100 Days, 100 Letters, an innovative response to political and religious intolerance.

Weiss explained, ""Words and actions during and after the [2016] election seemed to call into question fundamental values that have long defined our nation.""",1.0475630171763273
"The coronavirus outbreak means that everyone is sheltered-in-place with plenty of time to watch TV. And because it’s an election year, there’s no better genre to watch than political shows.

The United States has produced many great political TV shows, including made-for-TV movies, mini-series and some long-running series, including comedy, to satire, and drama.

Here are Newsmax’s picks for the best 10.

No. 10: “Political Animals” was a 2012 mini-series produced by the USA network, and its plot had a familiar ring to it. It starred Sigourney Weaver as former first lady Elaine Barrish, who subsequently runs for the White House and loses -- only to be chosen to serve as the new president’s secretary of state.

Reviewer Joyce Slayton wrote that Weaver’s “magnetism makes scenes like the one where she tells a Russian official she's going to serve his ‘tiny, shriveled (bleep)’ in a bowl of borscht for goosing her behind. In fact, Weaver is so compelling that voters may wish she could be a write-in for the next election.”

No. 9: “Commander In Chief” was a 2005-2006 ABC dramatic series that starred Geena Davis as Vice President Mackenzie Allen, who unexpectedly moves into the White House when the president dies from a brain aneurysm.

Rotten Tomatoes gave the series a score of 82% and said, “Though ‘Commander in Chief’ is not always committed to reality, its empowering female-centered narrative is opportune, and made even better by Geena Davis' excellent performance.”

No. 8: “Spin City” was an ABC sitcom that ran from 1996 to 2002 and starred Michael J. Fox as Mike Flaherty, the deputy mayor of New York City. Fox left the series in 2000 due to medical issues and Charlie Sheen took over for the final two seasons as Charlie Crawford.

But “no matter who was in charge of the mayor's office, ‘Spin City’ abounded with witty repartee and sexually tinged innuendo,” wrote reviewer Melissa Camacho. “It's a clever sitcom sure to appeal to adults and older teens, but it's not for kids.”

No. 7: “Tanner ’88” was an 11-episode HBO political mockumentary written by Doonesbury’s Garry Trudeau. Michael Murphy portrays 1988 presidential candidate Jack Tanner. It made use of well-known figures of the day that included Bob Dole, Gary Hart, Gloria Steinem, Ralph Nader and Pat Robertson, each playing themselves.

The series enjoyed critical review, and the director, Robert Altman won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series for the episode ""The Boiler Room."" Pamela Reed won an ACE Award for Best Actress in a Dramatic Series playing the role of T.J. Cavanaugh, Tanner’s campaign manager.

No. 6: “Scandal” was an ABC political thriller TV series that ran from 2012 to 2018. It starred Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope, a former White House communications director who opened a Washington, D.C. crisis-management firm. It’s based on real-life crisis manager Judy Smith, who formerly worked in the George H.W. Bush White House.

The series won numerous Emmys and TV Guide Awards.

No. 5: “Parks and Recreation” was an NBC satirical political sitcom that ran from 2009 to 2015, depicting small town politics. Amy Poehler portrayed the plucky, eternally optimistic Leslie Knope at the Pawnee Town Hall.

Although she’s but one member of an ensemble cast, “it's Poehler who owns the show, and she proves instantly she's got the comic intelligence to carry a series like this one,” wrote Daniel Carlson for The Hollywood Reporter. “She's awkward but not alienating, and she's eager without being repelling. Most of all, there's a genuine heart to her that gives the comedy a balance and lets it be mocking without resorting to cruelty. It's funny, smart and fast. I hope it sticks around.”

No. 4: “Veep” debuted in 2012 on HBO and follows the misadventures of Selina Meyer, a fictional United States vice president portrayed by Julia Louis-Dreyfus (formerly of “Seinfeld” fame).

Rebecca Nicholson described “Veep” as “masterful comedy packed with the darkest of zingers” in her review for The Guardian.

“As can sometimes be the way with ‘Veep,’ I greatly admire its speed, wit and vicious eye for the sheer ridiculousness of the many awful situations it presents,” Nicholson wrote, adding, ""and am simultaneously just a little bit relieved when each episode is over.""

No. 3: “John Adams,” an HBO miniseries released in 2006, depicts the founding of the United States through the eyes of its second president. Based on a best-selling David McCullough biography, it stars Paul Giamatti in the title role. It depicts Adams’ political life beginning with the Boston Massacre and ending with the deaths of Adams and Thomas Jefferson 56 years later.

Barry Garron, writing for Reuters, called “John Adams” a “masterpiece.”

He wrote that “this handsome miniseries is praiseworthy on many levels — as history, as entertainment and as a way to bring to life for new generations a sense of the sacrifice and heroism needed to establish the U.S.”

No. 2: “House of Cards” was a Netflix series that ran five years from 2013 to 2018. The shady dealings of Congressman Frank Underwood, portrayed by Kevin Spacey, seem almost tame by today’s standards in Washington, D.C. politics, but it earned 33 Emmy nominations during its run.

Wrote Paste Magazine, the series was “occasionally ridiculous, occasionally overblown, but always, always always intriguing.” But it was dealt a death blow when Spacey was accused of sexual misconduct and was fired from the cast as a result.

No. 1: “The West Wing” originally ran on NBC for seven seasons, 1999 to 2006. Its depiction of the goings-on in the White House featured an ensemble cast led by Martin Sheen, who portrayed the fictional President Josiah ""Jed"" Bartlet. ""The West Wing"" was the recipient of two Peabody Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and 26 Primetime Emmy Awards.

“This one set the bar for all political TV shows that came afterward,” according to The Wrap. “Aaron Sorkin's famously idealistic series about the inner workings of the White House introduced Americans to ‘the guy the guy counts on,’ as the show once said.”",0.9981409180725366
"Women have played an active and vital role in Republican politics since the birth of the party in Ripon, Wisc., in 1854, and six years later when Minnesota journalist Jane Grey Swisshelm was dubbed the ""mother of the Republican Party.""

The GOP was also an early supporter of the women’s suffrage movement and was the first major party to press for equal rights for women, including equal pay for the same work.

The late Margaret Chase Smith, a Maine republican, was the first woman to have been elected to both chambers of Congress. The political action committee Maggie’s List is named after Smith, and promotes the election of strong, conservative women to government positions.

Here’s Newsmax’s list of today’s top 10 Republican women:

Elise Stefanik: At age 35, the New York congresswoman would appear to be too young to be considered “powerful,” but she made a name for herself as one of President Trump’s staunchest defenders during impeachment inquiry hearings in the House Intelligence Committee, where she often butted heads with its Democratic chairman.

Trump noticed, too. “A new Republican Star is born. Great going @EliseStefanik!” the president remarked in response to a video in which she “absolutely wrecks Adam Schiff & the Democrats’ entire impeachment premise.”

Stefanik isn’t afraid to take on her own party elders either.

Two years ago when she expressed a desire to get involved in recruiting more strong Republican woman into Congress, the National Republican Congressional Committee chairman cautioned against it, but nonetheless gave her the go-ahead.

“NEWSFLASH... I wasn’t asking for permission,” she shot back.

Kellyanne Conway, since law school, has moved from political pollster, to campaign advisor for Newt Gingrich and Ted Cruz, and finally to kingmaker, when she helped navigate the Trump campaign to what most regarded as a surprise victory in 2016.

Now she works from her White House office as counselor to the president and remains fiercely loyal to her boss. Conway is always in demand from news outlets for an interview or a memorable quote.

Susan Collins, the U.S. senator from Maine, is something of a kingmaker in her own right. As a moderate among her conservative colleagues in a party that holds a narrow majority in the chamber, she often finds herself the deciding vote on key issues.

That happened early on in the Trump administration during a heated debate over the confirmation of then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. She told the body in an impassioned speech that there was no reason to deny him a seat on the high court -- and he was confirmed.

Elaine Chao, as U.S. Secretary of Transportation, is one-half of an ultimate Washington, D.C.-based Republican power couple. She’s married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Chao immigrated to the United States from Taipei with her Chinese parents when she was eight and finished her education with a Harvard MBA.

She was previously appointed to the Federal Maritime Commission by President Ronald Reagan, and Undersecretary of Transportation by President George H.W. Bush.

Betsy DeVos, the 11th and current Secretary of Education, survived a rancorous confirmation process created by Senate Democrats. The source of their opposition was the very quality that made her the perfect choice: her dedication to quality education, a dedication that leads her to support school choice and school vouchers. If the public school option is inferior, she believes a child should have the choice to attend school elsewhere.

DeVos is a member of a family of heavy-hitters. She’s married to former Amway CEO Dick DeVos and her brother, former U.S. Navy SEAL officer Erik Prince, founded Blackwater USA.

Marsha Blackburn, a self-described “hard-core, card-carrying Tennessee conservative,” is the junior senator from the Volunteer State.

After serving 16 years in the U.S. House, she took on and defeated Democrat Phil Bredesen in 2018 to win her Senate seat and become the first woman in Tennessee history to do so.

She’s strongly pro-life, anti-Obamacare, pro-Trump, and holds a concealed carry permit, making her every conservative’s favorite poster girl.

Kristi Noem, 48, became the 33rd governor of South Dakota totally on determination, grit, and hard work.

She interrupted her college education to run and expand her father’s ranch and farm after he was killed in a machinery accident. She completed her education part-time while working the farm, and later while serving in the South Dakota House for four years and in the U.S. House of Representatives where she served eight years.

Joni Ernst is the junior U.S. senator for Iowa and a Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) in the Iowa Army National Guard, where she served in the Iraq War.

Her campaign drew national attention when she told Iowans that because she grew up castrating hogs, when she gets to Washington, she’ll already know how to cut pork. “Washington is full of big spenders,” the ad concluded. “Let’s make ‘em squeal!”

She ended up winning the election and flipping the seat red. It was formerly held by retiring Senate Democrat Tom Harkin.

Martha McSally, like Ernst, is a U.S. senator, in McSally’s case representing Arizona. Also like Ernst, she’s retired military. McSally retired as a full colonel from the U.S. Air Force as a combat fighter pilot who saw action in Operations Southern Watch, Allied Force, and Enduring Freedom.

McSally served four years in the U.S. House of Representatives before the governor appointed her to fill the Senate seat vacated by departing Sen. Jon Kyle. She faces a tough special election this year to retain her seat, where she’ll have to defeat a long list of Republicans in the primary before she will most likely face off against former astronaut and political activist Mark Kelly.

Nikki Haley doesn’t currently hold office, either elective or appointive. Yet she may be the most powerful Republican woman in the country.

Haley served two successful terms as governor of South Carolina, during which she lured in new businesses, including Boeing, with the promise of low costs of doing business coupled with “a loyal, willing workforce.”

Although she and Trump were often at odds during the 2016 presidential campaign, they were each able to set aside their differences when the president offered, and she accepted, an appointment as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

While there, she routinely called out rogue regimes, including Russia, Syria, and Iran, while pledging unwavering support to Israel.

In June 2018, Haley pulled the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council. She called it ""an organization that is not worthy of its name.""

Haley tendered her resignation in December 2018, but she’s not done yet -- she’s only 48. Expect to see her in the 2024 Republican presidential lineup. If so, she’ll be the one to watch, and may be the first person in U.S. history that everyone can address as “Madame President.”",0.8001557702856623
"Religious beliefs have served to mold the world’s political and legal systems. Monuments celebrating those beliefs, built to glorify God and His creation, have provided places to meet and discuss the problems of the day, as well as to contemplate, meditate, and worship.

Rather than ranking the world’s religious landmarks, and possibly favor one religious belief over another, we’ll list those that are most significant or recognizable to the world’s nine greatest religions.

Christianity, Catholicism: The Sistine Chapel, Vatican City

The Sistine Chapel is famous for the many frescoes painted throughout its interior by Renaissance masters at the direction of Pope Sixtus IV. Some years later, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the chapel’s ceiling, a process that took four years.

The Sistine Chapel is located within the Apostolic Palace, the pope’s official residence within the Holy See. In addition to being a site for religious devotion and ceremony, the Sistine Chapel is the place where the College of Cardinals gather and select a new pope, known as the papal conclave.

Christianity, Protestantism: All Saints (Castle) Church, Wittenberg, Germany

All Saints Church, or the Schlosskirche, is also referred to as the Reformation Memorial Church because it was where Martin Luther posted the Ninety-five Theses or Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences in 1517.

This act represented the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, prompted by the Catholic church’s practice at the time of allowing wealthy congregants to purchase indulgences, that is gifts or sums of money to the church in return for a reduction of time in purgatory upon death.

Today, All Saints Church provides the final resting place for Martin Luther, houses Wittenberg's historical archives, is home to the Riemer-Museum, as well as serving as a place of worship.

Judaism: The Western Wall (also known as the Kotel), Jerusalem, Israel

The Western Wall is the world’s most sacred site for the Jewish people. It’s the westernmost support wall for the Temple Mount, and the faithful often place written prayers into its many cracks and crevices as well as verbally praying while facing the wall.

King Herod the Great commissioned the construction of the Western Wall at around 20 BC, to expand the Second Jewish Temple in the Old City of Jerusalem. Ninety years later the Romans destroyed the temple, but the Western Wall survived.

Israel cleared and created the Western Wall Plaza in 1967, and excavated around the wall, exposing two more levels.

Islam: The Kaaba, Mecca, Saudi Arabia

In Islam, the faithful face Mecca, the birthplace of Mohammad, as they pray five times each day. This is also where the Kaaba, the metaphorical house of God and the oneness of God in Islam, is kept.

Kaaba means cube in Arabic, and is a large cube-shaped building draped in a silk and cotton veils, built around a sacred black stone, a meteorite that Muslims believe was placed by Abraham and Ishmael in a corner of the Kaaba. In addition to directing their prayers toward the Kaaba, Muslims aspire to make an annual pilgrimage, called a hajj, once in their lives.

Pilgrims gather in the courtyard surrounding the Kaaba and walk around the structure seven times, hoping for the chance to kiss and touch the Black Stone embedded in the eastern corner of the Kaaba.

Hinduism: The Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple, Srirangam, Tamil Nadu, India

The Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple, dedicated to the preserver god Maha Vishnu, is, at 155 acres, the largest functioning Hindu temple in the world.

The temple is the center of a temple-city situated on an island surrounded by two rivers. Its grounds include 81 shrines, 21 consecrated gateways with towers, 9 sacred pools, a gilded Vimana (dome) over the sanctum sanctorum of the presiding deity, and 39 pavilions.

The temple attracts some one million visitors each year at festival time, at around December and January.

Buddhism: Borobudur, Island of Java, Indonesia

Dating from the 8th and 9th centuries, the Borobudur is the largest and most famous Buddhist temple complex in the world. It was constructed from an estimated 2 million blocks of stone over a 75-year period, but was abandoned in the 14th century with the decline of Hindu kingdoms in Java and their subsequent conversion to Islam.

It remained hidden for centuries under jungle growth and layers of volcanic ash until 1814, when native Indonesians told Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles of its existence when he was the British ruler of Java.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) extensively restored the site in the early 1970s and listed it as a World Heritage Site.

Sikhism: Harmandir Sahib, Amritsar, Punjab, India

Literally meaning “Temple of God,” Harmandir Sahib is most commonly referred to as simply the Golden Temple — because it is.

The temple was completed in 1589, and is situated on a small island in the center of a large, manmade pool, called the Amrita Saras (Pool of Nectar). The temple can be entered only by crossing a bridge made of marble.

The temple was damaged on June 6, 1984, when Indian troops fought their way into the complex to dislodge Sikh extremists during Operation Blue Star. It also resulted in the deaths of more than 1,000 militants, soldiers, and citizens. The buildings have since been repaired.

Baha’i: Shrine of the Báb, Haifa, Israel

The Shrine of the Báb is constructed of granite pillars, marble walls, topped with a golden dome, and is surrounded by terraced gardens sloping down Mount Carmel. It also contains the remains of Siyyid Al Muhammad, the founder of the Bábí Faith, the forerunner of Baha’i.

The shrine, constructed in 1953, is a place of pilgrimage for the world’s 5 million Baha’is as well as a tourist attraction, and the shrine's nine sides represent the world’s nine major religions.

“Baha’is believe in one God and emphasize the spiritual unity of all humankind. They see Abraham, Jesus, the Buddha and Muhammad as messengers whose teachings were fulfilled by Bahá’u’lláh’s life and work,” according to the Baha’i International Community

Jainism: Palitana Temples, Gujarat, western India

As the name implies, Palitana is not a single structure but rather a cluster of temples — 863 in all — stretching more than two miles from the base to the peak of the Shatrunjaya hill, and are reached using 3,950 steps.

Shatrunjaya means a ""place of victory against inner enemies.""

Construction of the temples began in the 11th and 12th centuries AD. Muslim invaders destroyed some of the structures in the 14th and 15th centuries. A second phase of building began in the 16th century. On the hill’s summit is a shrine of a Muslim saint named Angar Pir, who is reported to have protected the temples during Muslim invasions.

Shinto: Fushimi Inari Shrine, southern Kyoto, Japan

Built in 711, the Fushimi Inari Shrine celebrates Inari, the kami (or deity) of business, merchants, and rice. Local businesses donated its thousands of bright crimson torii gates along a network of trails behind the shrine, and it’s those that are what the Fushimi Inari Shrine is most famous for.

The Inari is often represented by a fox cub, which serves as the Inari’s messenger and aide, and the fox is in abundant evidence in illustrations and statues within the shrine and throughout the grounds.

The shrine is located at the base of a mountain, also called Inari, which hikers and those seeking adventure frequent to explore the trails.",-0.695051147707364
"Traditional Judeo-Christian values that have served America well for hundreds of years have helped Hollywood create some memorable movies based on the bible. We’ve even seen a return of biblical stories on TV, including the NBC miniseries “A.D. The Bible Continues,” TNT’s the “Bible Collection,” and NatGeo’s dramatic adaptation of the O’Reilly bestseller, “Killing Jesus.”

But it’s on the big screen where the majesty of those stories really comes to life. Here are Newsmax’s picks for the top 10 biblical films of all time.

No. 10: “The Story of Ruth,” 1960, is based on the Book of Ruth, and depicts the spiritual journey she took from a pagan priestess to her conversion to monotheism, a result of her attraction to a Judean man and his description of a forgiving God. After tragedy strikes, she begins a new life in Bethlehem and eventually becomes grandmother to David, the legendary king of Israel.

""Fine retelling of the story of Ruth,” a reviewer tells Rotten Tomatoes. ""’The Story of Ruth’ is a sweet, heartwarming film that hits the highlights of the book and deserves to be included in the group of sword-and-sandal epics who do their job well.”

No. 9: “ Barabbas ,"" 1961, directed by Richard Fleischer.

When Pontius Pilate offered a mob the choice of freeing either Jesus or the murderer-thief Barabbas, they chose the criminal and Jesus took his place on the cross. To add reality, the crucifixion scene was filmed during a solar eclipse to depict the darkening of the sky at Christ’s death.

The film follows Barabbas, played by Anthony Quinn, from his release, to his sale into slavery -- first at a Sicilian Sulphur mine, then as a gladiatorial slave -- while his conversion to Christianity builds to its completion at the end.

“An extremely underrated Biblical epic,” wrote reviewer Chuck O’Leary , who gave it four out of five stars.

No. 8: “ The Robe ,” 1953, was based on the novel of the same name written by Lloyd C. Douglas. It received two Academy Awards (Art Direction and Costumes), and was nominated for three others (Best Picture, Best Actor, Cinematography).

It tells the story of Roman tribune Marcellus Gallio, portrayed by Richard Burton, who was ordered by Pontius Pilate to carry out Christ’s crucifixion. He’s awarded Christ’s robe as a souvenir. He eventually converts to Christianity but loses everything he has in the process.

No. 7: “Noah,” 2014, tells the familiar story of the 10th and final pre-flood patriarch and his construction of an ark in anticipation of the deluge, as described in chapters 5-9 of the Book of Genesis. It stars Russell Crowe in the title role, assisted by Jennifer Connolly and Emma Watson. Rotten Tomatoes’ reported, ""With sweeping visuals grounded by strong performances in service of a timeless tale told on a human scale, Darren Aronofsky's Noah brings the Bible epic into the 21st century.""

“‘Noah’ is a feat of filmmaking.” Gushed S. Jhoanna Robledo for Common Sense Media. “Every frame, every angle, every shift speaks to the able hands of director Darren Aronofsky.”

No. 6: “ Risen ,” 2016, tells the story of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection with an interesting twist. Clavius, a Roman tribune, is summoned by Pontius Pilate, who has “a situation.” Clavius is ordered to make sure that the body of Jesus (or “Yeshua” in Hebrew and the film) is sealed in a tomb and remains there. Pilate wants to prevent scripture from being fulfilled by a resurrection, which he fears could lead to a Jewish uprising. Everyone knows how that story ends.

""We must find a body,"" Pilate tells Clavius. ""Find the corpse of this cursed Yeshua before it rots.""

“‘Risen’ accomplishes something quite remarkable,” wrote Adam Holz for Plugged In. “It tells the familiar, timeless story of Jesus' death and resurrection from a fresh vantage point.”

No. 5: “One Night with the King,” 2006, was based on the Book of Esther, which took place in Persia at about 480 B.C. It received the 2007 CAMIE Award, given to outstanding, uplifting films emphasizing character and morality.

It tells the story of Hadassah, an orphan who changes her name to Esther to hide her Jewish ancestry. As the eventual queen of Persia, God uses her to prevent the extermination of the Jewish people.

“Not too many bona-fide epics get made anymore, but this gorgeous film definitely fits into that category,” wrote Jane Boursaw for Common Sense Media. “It's easy to forget that the Bible is filled with intrigue, romance, and adventure; ‘One Night With The King’ reminds us of that.”

No. 4: “ The Nativity Story ,” 2006, tells the familiar story of the birth of the Christ child in Bethlehem.

“Two great love stories are affectionately told here: God's love for all mankind expressed through the sending of His Son to save us from our sin, and Mary and Joseph's blossoming love for each other,” writes Steven Isaac for Plugged In.

“What the film does best is threefold: 1) It creates a believable, growing bond between Mary and Joseph. 2) It unfolds for us the trial it must have been for Mary to explain that her pregnancy wasn't manmade.” And finally, “3) It confronts us with the harsh realities of living, traveling and giving birth 2,000 years ago.”

No. 3: “ The Passion of the Christ ,” 2004, was directed by actor-filmmaker Mel Gibson, and portrays the stark horror and savagery of Christ’s crucifixion, while at the same time reaffirming Christian faith.

“If ever there was a film with the correct title, that film is Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion of the Christ,’” wrote reviewer Roger Ebert , giving it four stars. “Although the word passion has become mixed up with romance, its Latin origins refer to suffering and pain; later Christian theology broadened that to include Christ's love for mankind, which made him willing to suffer and die for us.”

No. 2: “ Ben-Hur ,” 1959, was based on the novel “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ,” by Lew Wallace. It starred Charlton Heston in the title role as Judah Ben-Hur, a wealthy Jewish prince and merchant living in Jerusalem. He’s wrongfully accused of a crime, arrested, and sentenced to die as a galley slave. A mysterious stranger helps Judah escape, and he learns the art of chariot racing.

Judah enters a race that includes the very man who sent him to die. He now tries to kill him again -- this time with his chariot. Instead, the would-be murderer is trampled by horses, but before he dies, he tells Judah where to find his family.

Judah locates his mother and sister and takes them to meet Jesus, who he’d heard so much about. But they arrive as Jesus is carrying the cross to his crucifixion. Judah offers him water, and realizes Jesus is the mysterious stranger who saved him.

It won numerous honors at the 1959 Academy Awards: Best Picture, Director, Actor (Heston), Supporting Actor (Hugh Griffith), Color Cinematography, Color Art Direction, Sound, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture, Editing, Special Effects, Color Costume Design.

Wrote Paul Asay for Plugged In, “All the betrayal and thirst for revenge, and all its brutality, ultimately help highlight the movie's heartening message: that love and forgiveness have more power than a thundering horde of chariots.”

No. 1: “ The Ten Commandments ,” 1956, was directed by the legendary Cecil B. DeMille and was arguably Charlton Heston’s greatest role as Moses, as well as Yul Brenner’s as Rameses II. It’s based on the Book of Exodus -- the release of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage and their 40-year journey through the wilderness to the land of milk and honey: the Promised Land.

Wrote James Powers for The Hollywood Reporter at the time of the film’s release, “To sum up, ‘The Ten Commandments’ was a dream in the mind of Cecil B. DeMille beyond what anyone else had ever projected, and he has brought it off. It is, in that misused but here accurate word, unique. There is no other picture like it. There will be none. If it could be summed up in a word, the word would be sublime. And the man responsible for that, when all is said and done is Cecil B. DeMille.”

“Exodus: Gods and Kings,” was a 2014 stab at improving the 1956 masterpiece, but succeeded only special effects -- it lacked Heston.",-0.19857863719885427
"Today's Senate Republicans consist of notable giants, including Texas firebrand Ted Cruz, master Kentucky parliamentarian Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Utah constitutional whiz kid Mike Lee, and Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina lawmaker who argued passionately for due process when he saw Democrats railroading Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Many earlier greats have been forgotten with the passage of time. Each of the following four are worth our attention and remembrance for the contributions they made to the country.

Hiram Rhodes Revels was the first African American to serve in the U.S. Senate. Even more remarkably, he was overwhelmingly elected to that position by the Mississippi State Senate, 81-15, to finish out a term left vacant.

Upon his arrival in Washington, D.C., his appointment was immediately opposed by southern Democrats who argued that the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision ruled that those of African ancestry could not be citizens, and therefore could not serve in Congress.

Massachusetts Republican Charles Sumner countered that ""The time has passed for argument. Nothing more need be said. For a long time it has been clear that colored persons must be senators.""

And with that, Revels took his seat as the chamber's first African American senator by a strict party-line vote of 48-8.

While serving in the Senate, Revels argued passionately for racial equality and the spirit of coming together in compromise, as opposed to partisan politics.

His maiden speech was an argument for the reinstatement of black legislators who had been ousted by Georgia Democrats.

""I maintain that the past record of my race is a true index of the feelings which today animate them,"" he said. ""They aim not to elevate themselves by sacrificing one single interest of their white fellow citizens.""

After a brief tenure in the Senate, Revels accepted an appointment as president of Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College, a historically black Mississippi-based college.

Robert Taft of Ohio eventually became known as ""Mr. Republican.""

He was originally elected to the Senate in 1938 after two decades in Ohio state politics.

Taft was a true conservative who made it his mission to reverse President Franklin D. Roosevelt's budget-busting New Deal legislation.

He's best known for working with Rep. Fred A. Hartley, a New Jersey Republican, to draft, introduce, and push through the Taft Hartley Act, which restricts the power of labor unions. Although then-President Harry S. Truman vetoed the bill, calling it the ""Slave Labor Act,"" Congress overrode the veto and the act is still in use today.

Arthur Vandenberg was initially appointed in 1928 by then-Michigan Gov. Fred Greene to fill a vacancy in the Senate.

Like Taft, Vandenberg was a fervent conservative and opponent of FDR's New Deal. He was also a strong isolationist, preferring to stay out of the affairs of foreign nations.

Dec. 7, 1941 changed that, and he agreed that the United States had no option but to respond to Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor and enter World War II.

With the changing times, Vandenberg converted from being an isolationist to an internationalist. As a result, he pledged his support for the founding of the United Nations, NATO, and the Marshall Plan.

He was able to rally the support of fellow senators from both sides of the aisle to get all these programs implemented for the country's benefit. This would seem to be a gargantuan task in today's hyperpartisan politics.

Barry Goldwater represented Arizona in two periods in the Senate: 1953 to 1965 and 1969 to 1987.

He also made an unsuccessful stab at the White House against incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. Despite losing that race in a landslide, the campaign made Goldwater a household name that allowed him to spark the resurgence of the American conservative movement during the 1960s.

Goldwater entered the Army Air Force during World War II and remained a reserve officer in the Air Force, rising to the rank of major general. Without surprise, he strongly supported the creation of the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Goldwater was a proponent of a small, easily controllable government, stating that ""a government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.""

The Arizona Republican was also an untiring defender of freedom and justice, and observed at one point that ""I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!""

Goldwater was succeeded by John McCain.",1.0206382501927098
"March is Women's History Month, and this year marks the 75th anniversary of coeducation at the world-renowned Bronx High School of Science. Only eight years after opening in 1938, Bronx Science's founding principal, Morris Meister, successfully campaigned for the admission of female students.

Bronx Science was a generation ahead of many of the nation's other elite high schools and undergraduate colleges, including Yale, Princeton and Harvard, in admitting female students, and in recognizing that they could achieve at the highest levels in the STEM disciplines.

New York City's two other venerable science and math high schools, Manhattan's Stuyvesant, founded in 1904, and Brooklyn Tech, founded in 1922, involuntarily admitted female students in 1969 and 1970, respectively.

In January 1969, a 13-year-old Brooklyn resident, Alice de Rivera, and her parents, sued Stuyvesant and the NYC Board of Education for not allowing her to sit the school's entrance exam.

Ms. De Rivera's mother was quoted, in a contemporaneous New York Times article, that her daughter's ""only alternative"" to Stuyvesant, a 20-minute subway ride from their brownstone Cobble Hill neighborhood, was Bronx Science, an impossible 90-minute trip.

In May 1969, the NYC Board of Education conceded defeat in Manhattan Supreme Court, and demolished the illegal gender walls that kept brilliant female teenagers from attending Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech.

In September 1969, Yale and Princeton admitted the first young women as undergraduates, and over the next several years, many other outstanding colleges, private and public, also became coeducational.

Alice de Rivera's landmark Civil Rights victory also facilitated the admission of female students into other illustrious, all-male American public high schools, including Chicago's Lane Tech ('71), Boston Latin ('72), Baltimore's City College High School ('80), and Philadelphia's Central High School ('83 after seven years of litigation).

Fourthly, the historic lawsuit by Dr. Alice de Rivera Haines, a medical doctor currently practicing in Maine, immediately abolished an unconstitutional ""two-boys-for-one-girl"" admissions quota at Bronx Science.

My graduating class in 1967 had 580 males and just 280 females. But entering classes beginning in September 1970, composed of roughly 860 students, were equally divided between males and females.

In 1996, in celebration of 50 years of coeducation at Bronx Science, Claudia Goldin, an alumna ('63) and first woman tenured professor of economics at Harvard, provided irrefutable evidence, at a sparsely-attended lecture in Manhattan, of this abhorrent gender quota between 1946 and 1969.

Bronx Science's approximately 25,000 alumnae include:

1940s: Dr. Naomi Amir, a graduate of NYU Medical School, and pioneering pediatric neurologist in Israel.

1950s: Myriam Sarachik, distinguished professor of physics at the City College of New York; June Ellenoff O'Neill, former head of the Congressional Budget Office; Joan Straumanis, former president of Antioch College; and Congresswoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., who just retired as the chairwoman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

1960s: Dr. Barbara Stoll, former dean of the University of Texas Medical School at Houston; Rose-Marie Bravo, former CEO of Burberry; Janet Mertz, a pathbreaking biochemist and molecular biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Ellen Kaden, the former chief legal officer at CBS and Campbell Soup.

1970s: Esther Hu, professor of astronomy at the University of Hawaii; Wanda Austin, former president of the University of Southern California and CEO of The Aerospace Company; Dora Irizarry, the former chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York; and Dr. Judy Yee, the chairwoman of radiology at Montefiore Hospital and professor at Albert Einstein Medical School (both in the Bronx).

1980s: Lisa Su, president and CEO of Advanced Micro Devices, a world leader in semiconductor manufacturing; Jill Bargonetti, professor and cancer researcher at the City University of New York; and Min Jin Lee, novelist and former lawyer.

Another Bronx Science alumna from the 1980s, Dr. Hayley Altman-Gans, of Stanford University Medical School, is one of the experts on the independent advisory panel, appointed by the FDA, which has evaluated the safety and efficacy of the COVID vaccines.

In post-World War II America, Bronx Science graduated more women who became physicians than any other high school, and they spearheaded the phenomenal rise of women in the nation's medical schools.

In 1950, there were 5,000 male and 600 female medical students.

In 1970, there were 7,600 males and 700 females.

In 1990, as a direct result of the academic gender barriers shattered by Dr. Alice de Rivera Haines, there were 10,000 men and 5,000 women in the nation's medical schools.

In 2019, there were 47,000 female and 46,000 male medical students.

Finally, Joe Biden should award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Morris Meister, Bronx Science's principal between 1938 and 1958, and to Dr. Alice de Rivera Haines, for their visionary – and linked – advancement of world-class coeducation, in both the STEM disciplines and humanities, in New York City and across the country.",1.062528423303734
"Everyone knows that George Floyd died while in the custody of the Minneapolis police on May 25, 2020.

Now it's looking like there may have been another death that day: The city of Minneapolis.

Determining the cause of death for Minneapolis may be as contentious as determining the cause of death for George Floyd.

In Minneapolis' case we lean toward sins of commission and omission.

The Washington Examiner made a visit to Minneapolis recently and found, ""Violent crime in the city soared by 21% in 2020 compared to the previous year, with property crime growing by 10% as well. In the months following Floyd's death, the homicide rate spiked by 50%, with the overall murder solve rate at roughly 41%, lower than the national average.""

Bill Carlyon, a resident since 1980 observed, ""When I moved here, [Minneapolis] was diverse. [There were] mixed bars [and] mixed restaurants, [and] nobody thought anything of that. I don't know what happened since then."" Today, ""Almost everybody I know won't come downtown anymore for any reason. We used to come down to theater events and movies all the time. Now there's gangs that just rove around and beat up old people.""

The rioting and destruction after Floyd's death and the criminality that followed are the crimes of commission. The crimes of omission are the lack of response to the lawlessness.

The city council voted to defund the police and then hired private security to keep themselves safe.

In an interview, one council member said that calling the police during a home invasion, ""comes from a place of privilege."" And although city leadership went to great lengths to absolve the rioters in the ""mostly peaceful"" protests of any collective blame for the fires, death, looting and vandalism they caused, the entire Minneapolis police department was found collectively guilty for the actions of one officer.

As the Examiner put it, ""City council members advocating to defund the police as crime skyrockets concerns new parents like James Carpenter and only highlights the increasing divide between far-left childless 20-somethings and traditional Democrat-voting liberals just looking to start families in Minneapolis.""

Carpenter made an attempt to put the situation into context, but his chances of persuading the council are slim, ""Yes, things need to be reformed, but to think this is the same as the era of Martin Luther King Jr.? Come on.""

Unfortunately, the leftists who run the city are under the delusion that every day is the day they will march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

As the George Floyd trial approaches, there is a palpable sense of threat hovering over the city. The area around the courthouse where the trial will be held looks more like Berlin in the last days of World War II than a city in the United States. ""Two sets of barriers with barbed wire in the middle wrap the perimeter of town hall and the courthouse …[elsewhere] starting just after sunrise, contractors continued their work hammering massive pieces of plywood over storefronts and various banks.""

One resident exclaimed, ""It's just wild. I just can't believe it. I took the train from my neighborhood just to get a look.""

The only ray of hope for law-abiding residents is that the security of the city isn't being left to its feckless city council. State and local officials have been planning for the trial.

Minnesota National Guard troops will be deployed in Minneapolis along with state and local law enforcement in an effort to stop any riot before it starts.

Let's hope this show of force is successful. Otherwise Minneapolis may join Detroit as a city where the central business district was killed by rioting.

Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Michael is an in-demand speaker with Premiere speaker's bureau. Read Michael Reagan's Reports — More Here.

Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher for the League of American Voters, and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of ""Conservative Christian's Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with addedhumor!)"" Read Michael Shannon's Reports — More Here.",1.1279756286805418
"Asked bluntly by ABC's George Stephanopoulos if he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is ""a killer,"" Joe Biden answered, ""Uh, I do.""

Biden added that he once told Putin to his face that he had ""no soul.""

Biden also indicated that new sanctions would be imposed on Russia for the poisoning of dissident Alexei Navalny and for meddling in the 2020 U.S. election to allegedly help Donald Trump.

Russia also faces U.S. sanctions for building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline under the Baltic to deliver natural gas to Germany.

With its president being called a ""killer"" by the U.S. president, Russia called Ambassador Anatoly Antonov home ""for consultations.""

In other times, such an exchange would bring the two nations to the brink of war.

What is Biden doing?

Do we not have enough enemies?

Does he not have enough problems on his plate?

The May 1 deadline for full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, negotiated a year ago with the Taliban, is just six weeks off. Do we stay and soldier on or depart?

No decision has been announced.

If we stay, our forces in Afghanistan could, again, come under fire. If we leave, the Kabul regime could be shaken to its foundation and fall.

Leaving would be an admission that the U.S. failed, and the war is lost.

After the recent U.S.-South Korea military exercises, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un's sister issued this threat to the Biden administration:

""We take this opportunity to warn the new U.S. administration trying hard to give off powdered smell in our land (that) if it wants to sleep in peace for the coming four years, it had better refrain from causing a stink at its first step.""

There is talk of new North Korean tests of missiles and nuclear weapons.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Tokyo this week that the U.S. goal remains ""the complete denuclearization of North Korea"" But Presidents Bush II, Obama and Trump all failed to achieve that goal.

With national elections in June, the clock is also running on the Tehran regime that negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal. Does Biden intend to sign on again, as he indicated in the campaign he would, or walk away?

Biden also faces a new crisis of his own making. His ""compassionate"" policy on illegal immigration has been rewarded with scores of thousands of children, teenagers and families crossing our Southern border to be granted temporary residence while their cases await hearings.

With the border disintegrating, one would think the Biden administration would not be looking around for other crises.

Yet, in Tokyo, on the eve of his meeting with the Chinese in Anchorage, Blinken was playing the hawk: ""China uses coercion and aggression to systematically erode autonomy in Hong Kong, undercut democracy in Taiwan, abuse human rights in Xinjiang and Tibet, and assert maritime claims in the South China Sea that violate international law. . . . We will push back if necessary when China uses coercion or aggression to get its way.""

China has enacted a new law that authorizes its coast guard to use force to defend Chinese sovereignty. And among China's claims to sovereign control are the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, claimed and controlled by Japan.

Blinken has warned the U.S. will fight to keep the Senkakus Japanese.

While in Tokyo, Blinken also denounced the generals' coup in Myanmar, accusing Myanmar's army of ""attempting to overturn the results of a democratic election and ... brutally repressing peaceful protesters.""

Former national security adviser to President Trump John Bolton has listed other areas where China is engaged in ""unacceptable behavior.""

""A by-no-means-comprehensive list of Beijing's transgressions that require U.S. attention would include: meddling, blatant and subtle, with U.S. public opinion; building military bases in the disputed South China Sea; menacing Taiwan, Vietnam and India; increasing strategic nuclear forces and egregious global cyberwarfare; empowering North Korea's nuclear weapons program; concealing the origins of covid-19; stealing intellectual property and forcing technology transfers; and genocide against Uyghurs and the repression of Hong Kong.""

Perhaps the Anchorage talks can be extended to get all the items on Bolton's agenda fully addressed.

Again, does not America have enough on her plate already?

Our national debt is now larger than our national economy. COVID-19 has killed half a million of us and is killing 1,000 a day more. We have a broken and bleeding Southern border being overrun with no end in sight.

Politically, our nation is divided as deeply as it was on the eve of the Civil War.

We are caught up in a culture war, at the root of which is an irreconcilable conflict over whether America is a good and great country, perhaps the greatest — or a nation of whose history and founding we ought to be eternally ashamed.

If time is on America's side in our cold wars with Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, is not the wiser policy to maneuver to avoid any new hot wars?

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of ""Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever."" Read Patrick Buchanan's Reports — More Here.",-1.4528727118144904
"It's official now: China is the European Union's largest trading partner. It has surpassed the United States. Beijing is happy. China understands Europe well and, consequently, has been busy cozying up to the Europeans collectively and to each nation-state individually.

The Europeans hope for ""a fair and reciprocal relationship"" with China. Good luck. The Middle Kingdom knows no reciprocity with the barbarians. It fights the barbarians with other barbarians. Hence, Beijing's moves in the EU are calculated to sic the Europeans on the Americans.

Unfortunately, Brussels — aka Berlin — believes that everything is under control. In fact, one can sense Germany, which wags the EU dog, has spotted an opportunity to assert its independence further vis-à-vis the U.S.

While a geopolitical nightmare for America, Berlin's strategic alliance with Moscow and Beijing is indispensable for the Federal Republic to shake off the legacy of defeat stemming from the Second World War. Germany is not quite ready to take a decisive step. However, it is increasingly frustrated with constraints that the United States imposes upon it.

Everyone would like to do business with China, whenever possible. Same goes for nearly everyone else in Europe, including the Intermarium, lands between the Baltic, Black, and Adriatic seas.

The Chinese have been making inroads there for a while now. They animate the so-called ""17+1"" group. It consists of most of the Intermarium countries, starting with Greece in the south, 5 western Balkan nations, and 11 Central and Eastern European members of the EU. The ""17+1"" is a perfect lobbying forum for the Chicoms.

Consequently, they have a trade hub in Slovakia and Hungary; they have pushed to control a Vietnamese trading center outside of Warsaw. They woo the central and eastern Europeans with infrastructure investments and a specter of the riches of the new ""Silk Route.""

It is not smooth sailing for Beijing, though. For example, Poland has consistently chosen to stick with the United States and ditch China's overtures. Estonia's intelligence annual report named the Chinese as a major security threat in cyber technologies. Lithuania has recently announced its intention to establish a trade mission in Taiwan.

Further, the Intermarium nations have denied Chinese companies the right to bid on government contracts by cancelling tenders or preventing them from investments and contracts there. In each case, the states involved invoked both national security concerns and lackluster performance of Chinese regime contractors.

Moreover, Lithuania and Rumania canceled China's eligibility for tenders in most public offerings, while Czechia, Croatia, and Slovenia excluded Beijing from transportation infrastructure and nuclear industry. Even Greece has entertained second thoughts about China's majority stake stranglehold on the nation's prime port of Piraeus.

All this upset not only the Chinese but also the Western Europeans in general, and the Germans in particular, who have made the engagement with both China and Russia a cornerstone of their new strategic pivot away from America.

The recent setbacks notwithstanding, a large part of China's success in the Intermarium stems from a misguided dream of the natives to use Beijing to balance Moscow. Some former post-Soviet satellites delude themselves that they can form a strategic partnership with China. It is like a fly, while riding on a tiger's nose, fantasizing that it leads the brute animal.

The Ukrainians learned the hard way when they falsely hoped that the Chinese presence on the Crimean Peninsula would offer protection from Russia. Once Moscow invaded and took over in 2014, Beijing proceeded to do business with the new masters as if nothing had happened.

In a word: whenever the Chinese are involved, European nations try various tackles. Understandably always with profit and national interest in mind, they endeavor to make a buck with China trade, while accommodating the United States, a feat not always possible.

""One belt, one road, one world"" – a student of mine has cracked a joke, as in ""One Reich, One Volk, One Fuehrer."" Not so fast: the Chicoms have not gobbled up the Old Continent yet. They have been at it for a while, albeit with mixed results. The most worrisome is Germany's growing assertiveness away from Atlanticism, however.

Time for the U.S. to counteract China's moves. The least we can do is try to reward our friends in the Intermarium. As a buddy of mine has put it: ""We should be pitching student visas and work visas to Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians instead of the Chinese. That way we could encourage our allies to master our technology – instead of letting our enemies steal it.""

My response: ""That would be too logical, Spock."" But it would not hurt to try.

Marek Jan Chodakiewicz is Professor of History at the Institute of World Politics, a graduate school of statecraft in Washington D.C.; expert on East-Central Europe's Three Seas region; author, among others, of ""Intermarium: The Land Between The Baltic and Black Seas."" Read Marek Jan Chodakiewicz's Reports — More Here.",1.319928194491937
"The founding fathers put into effect the framework of our republic. This framework, a nation of laws faces a crisis created by the President Joe Biden, his handlers and his administration.

Biden's view that our republic must be reduced to a Third World entity — the United States of America is not exceptional!

On January 20, 2021, minutes after his inauguration swearing-in was over, President Joe Biden moved to dismantle former President Donald Trump's immigration efforts. Biden signed executive orders (EOs) halting border wall construction, pausing deportations, rescinding travel and immigration on several Muslim-majority countries and protecting the ""Dreamers.""

His eleven immigration EOs have almost gutted President Trump's immigration work.

The Washington Post of March 18 wrote, ""What is causing the migrant surge at the U.S. border? Poverty, violence, hopes for Biden.""

Wrong! The answer is the ultra-left hatred for America. Period.

The America-haters are academicians, leftists, socialists/communists, others who want anarchy and the rest are just spoiled youths — mentally and/or physically immature — not really knowing what they want.

Poverty and violence were scaled down under a Trump administration, to the chagrin and angst of the leftist Democrats, socialists/communists, anarchists and spoiled brats.

The Biden administration, including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, refuse to utter the word ""crisis"" to describe the growing number of people attempting to cross the border, and being detained. Rather, is it a ""challenge"" or some other neutral description.

In February 2021, Border Patrol statistics demonstrate that more than 100,000 encounters occurred. Encounters covers several meanings — apprehended or caught and released or merely observed and counted. The Biden concept of border enforcement.

The San Antonio Express-News wrote the number encountered in February was 100,444. Regardless, the U.S. Southern border is an open gateway. 100,000 or 100,444, it means at minimum 3-4 illegal aliens enter the United States undetected — free. Most Border Patrol agents will say the number is more like 5-7 illegals cross the border for each illegal alien apprehended.

Unaccompanied minors crossing illegally into the United States grows daily, and at last count, Monday March 15 — 561 children were apprehended — a March daily average is in the mid-500s. In February, the daily average was listed at 332.

Roberta Jacobson, the Biden administration coordinator for the southern borde, and former ambassador to Mexico under President Obama, said the rising migration numbers mean hope among the migrants for a ""more humane policy after four years of pent-up demand."" (Coxcomb-3/15/21)

The question is, how can young — 3-16 years of age — children make it from Mexico, let alone Central America, unaccompanied across the border?

No answer has been given. No newsmedia question asked.

America suffers internal strife and angst caused by illegal immigration with pushes from globalist radical Democrats and supported by leftists of the newsmedia and academia.

The nation is an immigration convulsion, and Biden, his handlers and the congressional Democrats led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi are causing the convulsion.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been assigned to border duty by the Biden administration. FEMA responses to disasters or crisises. Still, the Biden administration refuses to call the Southern border mass illegal tsunami a crisis.

Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, says, an influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border is ""an enormous challenge and it's unacceptable.""

Continuing, she said, ""What we are seeing today is the consequence of four years of dismantling every system in place to address this with humanity and compassion.""

Meanwhile, the numbers vary, at least nine migrants in transit from the Rio Grande Valley sector to El Paso sector for housing tested positive for the COVID-19. Unverified reports indicate at least 10% of the apprehended border-crossers had COVID-19 on the Texas border.

On March on March 4, one D.C. wag said that observing the barbed-wire fencing around the U.S. Capitol, ""Is this the Capitol of the United States of America? Or are you going to believe your lying eyes.""

The same wag said on March 17, ""The border-crossers are not a crisis? Or are you going to believe your lying eyes.""

James H. Walsh was associate general counsel with the U.S. Department of Justice Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1983 to 1994. Read James H. Walsh's Reports — More Here.",0.5069098823372996
"Early this month, Democrats pushed through President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion pork-barrel COVID-19 bill with only Democratic support. Then, House Democrats passed H.R.-1, the so-called ""For the People Act,"" in a totally partisan 234 to 193 vote.

There is a reason you are seeing all these party line votes.

It's because the Democratic Party is not operating as individuals representing distinct districts of Americans. The Democratic Party is operating as a machine — a machine designed to drive a single agenda and impose it nationally.

In vote after vote, we are watching Democrats, many of whom represent politically mixed, diverse districts and states, falling in line to vote for whatever U.S. House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., tell them to— with no regard for what the people they represent back home want. No Democratic senator or House member seems to care or question what is in these bills. They are simply doing what they are told.

Soon, the US Senate will vote on H.R. 1. As I have been saying for weeks, it should be called the ""For the Corrupt Politicians Act.""

Among other things, this bill will nationalize federal elections, overriding state election laws across the country. This includes circumventing some state voter ID laws that are intended to protect the integrity of elections.

It will also prohibit requiring identification, notarization, or witnesses for absentee ballots in every state.

The bill also moves to politicize the Federal Election Commission — the bipartisan entity that regulates federal campaign funding. Currently, the commission has six members — three Republicans and three Democrats.

In the spirit of the Democrats ""For the Corrupt Politicians Act,"" the legislation would change the membership to five, so that whichever party was currently in power could control the body charged with enforcing election law.

How is this in the spirit of making elections fair and just?

If all this isn’t enough, H.R.-1 will also create a tax-funded revenue stream for federal campaigns, which effectively means that conservative taxpayers in Florida will be paying for the re-election campaigns of radical Democrats in California — and Democrat taxpayers will be footing the bill for Republicans in red states.

These measures are just crazy — and deeply unpopular with Americans.

Increasingly, we are going to see Democratic members of the House and the Senate put in the position of having to decide whether to vote for the people they represent or the Harris-Biden-Pelosi-Schumer Democratic Machine.

Just consider the decisions Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona will have to make when H.R.-1 comes to the Senate for a vote.

First, according to recent surveys about H.R.-1 by McLaughlin & Associates, only 32 percent of Arizonans are even aware that this federal election takeover bill exists.

An overwhelming 66% of Arizonans say Congress should not pass federal election laws to override their state’s election laws.

Even more Arizonans (70%) reject the idea that the federal government should override Arizona’s voter ID laws. While H.R.-1 does not universally abolish voter ID laws, it opens the door to doing so. According to the survey, 69% of Arizona’s believe voters should show photo ID to cast ballots — either in-person or by mail.

As to the restructuring of the FEC, 77% of Arizonans oppose the effort to make it a partisan body. The same percentage of Arizonans reject the idea of a ""New York City-style"" campaign finance system that funnels taxpayer dollars to political candidates.

If these numbers don’t move Kelly and Sinema to break away from the Democratic Machine on H.R.-1, however, McLaughlin’s survey revealed a few more key results:

69% of Arizonan’s believe H.R.-1 benefits the politicians — not the people.

63%want their Senators to vote against the bill.

52% say they are less likely to vote for a senator who votes in favor of H.R. 1.

Arizona is just one example. McLaughlin has also done surveys for West Virginia, Montana, and the whole country on H.R.-1, which I will discuss in a following column.

The American system was designed to resist and break political machines like the one Kamala Harris, Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer are building.

This system will be tested when H.R.-1 comes to the Senate.

Democrats across the country are going to have to decide whether they will vote with their people or with the Democratic Machine.

To read, hear, and watch more of Newt’s commentary, visit Gingrich360.com.

Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich is well-known as the architect of the ""Contract With America"" that helped the Republican Party reclaim a majority in the House for the first time in 40 years. Newt was also a Republican candidate for president of the United States in 2012. Today, Newt is chairman of Gingrich 360, a full-service American consulting, education, and media production group. He is the host of the ""Newt's World"" podcast and is a New York Times bestselling author. His latest book is ""Trump and the American Future."" Read New Gingrich's Reports — More Here.",-1.1625917384878393
"In June 2019, some 400 anarchists, led by a local Antifa cell, took to the streets of Portland, Oregon shouting ""Whose streets? Our streets?""

Wearing black helmets or masks, the rioters invaded an area known as City of Roses and wreaked havoc.

As the mob destroyed private property and threatened residents and business owners, police officers followed the orders of intimidated elected officials to stand down.

Since that time, Antifa radicals have rioted and looted in over 200 cities.

The results: over 30 dead and at least $2 billion in damages to public and private property.

And as the flames were scorching inner city neighborhoods, the hierarchy of the Democratic Party downplayed the violence claiming the ""protests were mostly peaceful,"" or ""an impressive show of democracy in action.""

One brave soul who has been following the far-left insurrection movement, is journalist Andy Ngo.

In fact, at that June 29, 2019 Portland riot, militants shouting ""no hate"" attacked Ngo for photographing them.

""The masked attackers,"" Ngo has written, ""wore tactical gloves — gloves hardened with fiberglass knuckles. . . .""Trying to surrender, Ngo’s camera was destroyed, he was kicked several times in the groin, and he was bashed in his head with a stiff placard.

Sadly, when the bleeding Ngo fell to the ground as the mob pelted him with a ""hailstorm"" of eggs, milkshakes and various hard objects at his face and head, the police failed to intervene.

Later at a hospital emergency room, Ngo learned his brain was hemorrhaging.

After extensive physical, speech, cognitive, and occupational therapies, Ngo was on the road to recovery.

Yet, while he suffered from vision, memory and balance issues, these deficiencies did not stop him from tracking Antifa’s violent activities in Portland, Seattle, New York, London and other beleaguered cities.

Ngo’s disturbing findings are recorded in his new book ""Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy.""

This fine work refutes Congressman Jerry Nadler’s claim that Antifa is ""imaginary.""

Antifa exists, but is elusive by design. ""It is,"" Ngo notes, ""leaderless and structured to be functional through small, independent organizations known as affinity groups, and individuals. Only the ideology needs to be propagated for lone wolves or groups to be inspired. Part of that ideology involves extensive training or ‘digital security’ that is using encrypted tools, apps, and web browsers to completely evade detection by authorities and others. . . .""

This phantom movement is dedicated to unleashing havoc by inciting ""opportunist looters and rioters.""

The genius of Antifa’s riot strategy, Ngo concludes, is that ""they only have to light the match.""

The oldest Antifa cell is Portland’s Rose City Antifa (RCA).

Founded in 2007, RCA is a subdivision of the Torch Network, ""a network of connected violent militant Antifa groups across the United States.""

Prospective RCA members are required to complete a secret training course based on a fifteen-page, nine-part syllabus that Ngo managed to obtain.

Taught that violence in the name of anti-racism is permissible, trainees must pledge ""to disrupt 'fascist' activity, refuse cooperation with law enforcement and courts, oppose oppression"" and support those outside the network ""who we believe have similar aims or principles.""

The key component of the training curriculum is devoted to security. Members are told to trust no one — not even family members.

Because Antifa participates in criminal conspiracies, the educational program instructs members not to brag, talk loud in bars, boast on Facebook or discuss sensitive matters with close friends or relatives.

Antifa members, Ngo explains, are trained to be insurrectionists dedicated to imposing an ideology based on Marxist economics and class warfare.

Influenced by Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979), the ""cultural Marxist"" and ""father of the New Left,"" Antifa holds that tolerance means actively suppressing opposing viewpoints, particularly right-wing ones.

Intolerance in the name of tolerance rationalizes Antifa’s nostrum that violence is permissible to destroy ""perceived structures and systems of oppression such as capitalistic white privilege.""

Hence, ""people over property"" is the rallying cry of radicals who have been destroying the homes and businesses owned by white folks.

Ngo cites Antifa sympathizer Vicky Osterweil’s book ""In Defense of Looting"": ""Looting strikes at the heart of property, of Whiteness, and the police. . . . And it also provides people with an imaginative sense of freedom and pleasure and helps them imagine a world that could be.""

In other words, looting is morally permissible!

After reviewing Antifa’s activities in various cities, Ngo concludes that many naïve people find Antifa attractive because they actually believe that a communist utopia is possible where there will be ""no borders, police, prisons, racism or fascism. All material needs would be met through community mutual aid, not through working in an exploitive capitalist system.""

Sound familiar?

These are the same false claims Lenin, Stalin and Mao made that resulted in the murder of tens of millions of innocent people.

To learn how Antifa’s members ""seek to destroy the American philosophy and the liberal state itself,"" pick up a copy of Andy Ngo’s ""Unmasked.""

George J. Marlin, a former executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is the author of ""The American Catholic Voter: Two Hundred Years of Political Impact,"" and ""Christian Persecutions in the Middle East: A 21st Century Tragedy."" He is chairman of Aid to the Church in Need-USA. Mr. Marlin also writes for TheCatholicThing.org and the Long Island Business News. Read George J. Marlin's Reports — More Here.",-0.5640537367414156
"When Attorney General Merrick Garland was asked at his confirmation hearings earlier this month what his priorities would be if confirmed, he responded immediately that it would be a vigorous pursuit of domestic terrorism.

He did not say he would lead vigorous prosecutions, just vigorous pursuits.

This is dangerous business for the Department of Justice (DOJ) because it transforms its role from prosecuting crimes after they happen to predicting who would commit crimes that never happen.

How could the feds predict crimes?

They would attempt to do so by a serious uptick in domestic surveillance of broad categories of people based on political and ideological views. The government loves to cast out fishing nets — so to speak — and then intimidate or prosecute whomever they bring in.

The National Security Agency — America's 60,000-person strong domestic spying apparatus — already captures all data transmitted on fiber optic cable into, out of, and within the U.S.; that's every email, text and phone call.

But they don't admit to this.

When the FBI desperately sought to gain entry to the cellphones of two deceased mass murderers in San Bernardino, California, a few years ago, the NSA would not help them because doing so would acknowledge the NSA's mass warrantless spying.

Stymied by their own colleagues' refusal to admit their unconstitutional behavior, but emboldened that the NSA could get away with this, federal agents either would break the law themselves by engaging in warrantless surveillance or obtain warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court by claiming foreign terrorism as a pretext for domestic law enforcement surveillance.

Under the unconstitutional standards employed by the FISA court, if the feds present probable cause of an American's communication with a foreign person, the FISA court would issue a search warrant for surveillance of all communications of the American.

This is unconstitutional because the standard for obtaining search warrants from a judge is articulated in the Fourth Amendment, which neither the Congress nor the courts can change. That standard is probable cause of crime — is it more likely than not that the place to be searched contains evidence of crimes — not probable cause of communication with a foreigner.

The former is a high standard intended to compel the courts, before issuing search warrants, to take account of the natural right to privacy, prevent government fishing expeditions and force the government to focus its law enforcement efforts on real, not imagined, crimes.

The FISA standard — which morphed by a series of secret judicial opinions from probable cause of being a foreign agent to probable cause of communicating with a foreign agent to probable cause of communicating with a foreign person — is far easier for federal agents to demonstrate than is probable cause of crime.

It means that a call to my cousins in Florence is a sufficient basis for the feds to get a search warrant to legally surveil all of my communications — telephone, texting and emails.

FBI and other federal agents know this.

They know how easy it is to get a warrant from the FISA court.

The most recent statistics revealed that it granted 99.96% of all surveillance applications.

When FBI agents go to the FISA court with probable cause of communication with a foreign person, but they are really looking for their target's domestic criminal communications, they have engaged in an act of corruption, deceived the court and cut holes in the Constitution they have sworn to uphold.

Once they have all of a person's communications, their plan is to find something that would constitute probable cause of crime or enable them to use fear of exposure to induce the person to work for them undercover.

If your neighbor tells you on the phone how happy he is in his anti-government group, and then someone in the group trespasses on government property and is arrested, expect a knock on your door from the feds who will demand to know what you knew and when you knew it.

If the trespass is a felony, they will claim that they can prosecute you for your silence. This, too, is unconstitutional.

Silence is protected by the First Amendment.

This is the danger of the Garland devotion to predicting who would commit crime; and it will get worse.

Expect the next legislative step to be proposals that impose the legal obligation to report suspicious activities — and the failure to do would be a crime.

This would turn the U.S. into East Germany where thousands were prosecuted for failure to report their neighbors, friends and family; and thousands more suffered from prosecutions based on false reports.

The Fourth Amendment was written to prevent this. Under the Constitution, the government may not seek punishment for silence, surveil for beliefs or charge for crimes not committed.

But if a wired undercover agent can get someone the government fears to inculpate himself with his words and then persuade that person to take a small step in furtherance of those words — even if no actual crime is committed — this is enough to charge conspiracy; the prosecutor's favorite crime because it is the easiest to prove.

In the years following 9/11, hundreds of folks in America were set up by the feds and prosecuted and convicted for crimes that they never committed, but which they merely agreed to commit when persuaded by an undercover agent.

The government loves to give the impression that it has caught bad guys before they struck, thereby keeping us safe.

Don't believe it.

The government's first task is to keep us free. But when it violates the Constitution, it keeps us neither safe nor free. Who will keep us safe from the government?

Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, a graduate of Princeton University and the University of Notre Dame Law School, was the youngest life-tenured Superior Court judge in the history of New Jersey. He sat on the bench from 1987 to 1995. He taught constitutional law at Seton Hall Law School for 11 years, and he returned to private practice in 1995. Judge Napolitano began television work in the same year. He is Fox News’ senior judicial analyst on the Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network. He is the host of ''Freedom Watch'' on the Fox Business Network. Napolitano also lectures nationally on the U.S. Constitution, the rule of law, civil liberties in wartime, and human freedom. He has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and numerous other publications. He is the author of five books on the U.S. Constitution. Read Judge Andrew P. Napolitano's Reports — More Here.",1.4442276782890366
"My grandfather, Samuel J. Hyman, M.D., lived to be 98½ years old. A pious man, he took pride in his longevity, noting that the great biblical figures lived astoundingly long lives. He would tell me dryly, ""I must've done something right.""

He was a man of science as a path to ""The Truth"": he held a controversial belief that the data obtained by Nazi medical experiments during WWII should be used, if possible, for the betterment of mankind. He said, ""Friend,"" — he called me ""Friend"" or ""Little Tamar"" — ""I am on the side of science.""

But for him, the ultimate truth lay in the pages of the Torah, which he read in the original ancient Hebrew. ""The more I live, the more I have come to understand that everything we see, everything that's there, is a result of something higher than anything man or science could create. I believe it's from the Lord Almighty.""

Dr. Hyman was born in what is now Ukraine but was then part of ""All the Tsar's Russias."" He and his family arrived at the Port of New York in 1913, when he was 6.

As my grandfather described, they ""hightailed it"" to his grandfather's home that was already set up in Saginaw, Michigan. My grandfather worked as a floor manager at Ford Motors to help pay for his degrees at the University of Michigan and the University of Michigan School of Medicine.

He credited Dean Hugh Cabot of the School of Medicine for suggesting that he join the U.S. Army as a reservist, to better cement his bona fides as an American citizen and patriot. My grandfather listened well, as Dean Cabot was one of the Cabots, known from the old Harvard toast:

And this is good old Boston,

The home of the bean and the cod,

Where the Lowells talk to the Cabots,

And the Cabots talk only to God.

My grandfather always wanted to be socially correct. I have his thick etiquette book from the 1920s, noting what to serve at children's parties (vinegar shrub), how to address ambassadors, proper treatment of guests to one's home.

I was taught to ""dress up"" when flying. One time when I took an all-night bus to my grandparents' home in Detroit, my grandfather was shocked at how I disembarked. Rather than taking me straight to the house, I was quickly shuttled to a beauty parlor to ""get cleaned up."" He then exclaimed, ""Now that's my granddaughter!""

But for the important things, my grandfather didn't give ""two hoots"" for what everyone else was doing. When he headed a MASH unit in the South Pacific during WWII, he observed other Army officers giving the cold shoulder to a Catholic chaplain.

Nothing slipped past him. He sat with the chaplain for meals, offered to lock up his sacred items in the medical safe and set about getting him wine for sacrament. He presented the chaplain with a bottle, explaining, ""Father, this is Kosher wine. It is made to the most exacting standards, according to the principles of the Torah. I think this will hopefully meet your needs.""

My grandfather intervened — at the cost of potential reprimands and worse from commanding officers — to save the lives of Japanese wounded. Though he was squeamish at the thought of publicity, he agreed to be interviewed for a newspaper regarding some of his challenges in battle, simply because ""It may be of help to you."" I was openly his favorite in the family!

As a civilian surgeon at Michigan's Annapolis Hospital, he defied another doctor's declaration that a baby boy was dead: he administered an adrenaline shot to the heart, saving the baby's life.

He became a renowned heart transplant surgeon. I asked him one time, why he didn't do surgeries at a famous nearby hospital. ""Oh, no! Why, they do abortions!""

He was proud of his financial support of the RNC, a reply letter that he received from President Nixon, as well attending both of President Reagan's inaugurations. But nobody could tell him what to believe.

In waving away the writings of a still-working columnist, someone who today is considered an ""Establishment political hack,"" he laughed, ""I don't need to read him. I already know what he's going to say.""

Tamar Alexia Fleishman was the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's youngest female solo violinist. A world-traveler, Fleishman provides readers with international flavor and culture. She's debated Bill Maher, Greta Van Susteren and Dr. Phil. Fleishman practices law in Maryland with a J.D. from the University of Baltimore, a B.A. in Political Science from Goucher College. Read Tamar Alexia Fleishman's Reports — More Here.",0.06632708812423245
"On a ferry ride to Seattle from the liberal island enclave of Bainbridge Island, Washington, I eavesdropped on a group of retired gentlemen chatting about their admittedly diminished lives in the year of COVID.

To be clear, I wasn't purposefully eavesdropping on my way to catch a flight home, but the men were shouting through their masks as they socially distanced from each other. It was impossible to ignore.

None of them had traveled on a plane for over a year, as as I have done repeatedly. One recalled he'd returned from a trip to Cairo in March of 2020, and had not dared to travel since.

COVID hit, and hit hard in the Seattle area. Not one of the posse of Patagonia-wearing patricians had been inside a restaurant for a year; Gov. Jay Inslee had closed the restaurants for most of 2020. The ferry ride together seemed to be a rare reunion for these privileged, stay-homers from the suburbs, who talked about missing their grandchildren in states far away.

""Did you hear President Biden's 25-minute speech?"" one man asked the group. ""What really struck me is how empathetic he was, just so empathetic, something that's been missing the past four years."" The men murmured their support.

It's the kind of question you'd only ask if you already knew your audience would affirm your conclusion. You might not phrase that question the same way in a place like Wasilla, District 8, where Donald Trump won 75% of the vote in November.

Readers, it's good to get out of our routines and listen to the world beyond our political tribe, and outside the fences of our normal pastures. We need to hear how others interpret the events of the day. For as much as conservatives heard President Joe Biden read slop on a teleprompter on Thursday, there were some Americans who found his words comforting.

Here we had a group of obviously educated, well-heeled, retired white men, with all the privilege in the world, nodding together at how empathetic Biden is, and how that pleased them very much.

Conservatives heard a darker, less truthful message in Biden's speech:

""A year ago we were hit with a virus that was met with silence and spread unchecked. Denials for days, weeks, then months. That led to more deaths, more infections, more stress, and more loneliness,"" Biden began reading, plodding through what his speechwriters had message-tested. His predecessor did nothing to control COVID-19 and Donald Trump is to be blamed for the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Biden took credit for the vaccination program made possible and put in place by President Trump's Operation Warp Speed.

Then the man who rarely emerged from his basement during his campaign, set Americans' expectations low:

If we keep our muzzles on, if we refrain from spending time with our friends and families, we might be able to have a small family gathering for the Fourth of July, by the grace and goodness of the federal government. A small one, mind you.

The affable group of gentlemen on the boat, as with others who don't like Trump's style or personality, seemed blissfully unconcerned that this is a president who had forgotten the name of his own Secretary of Defense earlier in the week.

""And I want to thank the sec — the, the ah former general. I keep calling him general, but my, my — the guy who runs the outfit over there,"" Biden said of Lloyd Austin, because he did not have a teleprompter to lean on.

That may seem like a small gaffe, but it's a well-known adaptive technique used by those who are starting to experience memory loss.

And yet, here we are: Americans, many of whom are in our own families, were worn out by the coronavirus and wanted a pastoral figure who exudes compassion. They wanted a kindly grandpa-in-chief, someone with bedside manners.

Trump was no grandpa. He was a businessman's Sun-Tzu, a strategist warrior archetype who took on both the Washington bureaucracy and the entire world order. It took an alpha like Trump to execute Operation Warp Speed, which was already rolled out by the time Biden was sworn in.

Although Trump has an army of 74 million Americans who voted for him and are still loyal, Operation Grandpa appealed to the other Americans, the ones who had tired of Trump's leadership style and odd character. They are hearing what they want to hear from a president who is the polar opposite of Trump.

Leadership has several archetypal forms. Some leaders are change-agents, while others are strategists, deal-makers, or innovators. Trump is all of those combined. But what he is not is a nursemaid.

Americans — enough of them, at least — chose the ""sage patriarch"" archetype. No more America First. No more Make America Great Again. They wanted Make America Normal Again.

Operation Grandpa spoke on Thursday to hypnotize a nation: All will be normal soon, and that in the near future, if we behave, we may gather in small groups to celebrate Independence Day.

You know, normal.

Suzanne Downing is the publisher of Must Read Alaska and Must Read America. She is a former business owner, longtime journalist, and political adviser who worked for Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and Gov. Sean Parnell of Alaska. She was raised in Juneau, Alaska and is based in Anchorage. Where she writes on current events and politics. Read Suzanne Downing's Reports — More Here.",-0.04684500513495299
"The Biden administration is scrambling to shelter thousands of unaccompanied minors crossing the southern border from Central America. The media are declaring the crush at the border a ""crisis.""

Truth is, this crisis could be heading to your school district. If your kids are in public school or you pay school taxes, you need to know the facts.

The media show photos of young migrant children. But three quarters of these unaccompanied minors are young men ages 15 to 17.

These teens are carrying the name and phone number of a relative in the United States who will sponsor them. A few weeks after surrendering to border officials, they’ll board busses to Los Angeles, Houston or New York City–the three most frequent destinations–or elsewhere in the U.S. where their sponsor lives.

It’s the beginning of a hard road. The law requires them to go to school. But they’ve endured trauma on their trek, and missed months or years of schooling. Few speak English, and many don’t know Spanish, only Native American dialects such as Mayan.

Their education will cost thousands of dollars a year more than for the average student because they’ll need linguistic experts, tutors, psychological counseling, vaccinations, and other support.

They also consume most of a classroom teacher’s attention, leaving the rest of the class to make do with less.

Even so, only 66% of students without English skills ever graduate.

They will struggle, but so will our own kids. This migration wave is hitting schools just as they’re reopening after the pandemic. Students have missed an entire year of school activities.

For school districts with tight budgets, the added costs of educating these young newcomers will mean an end to art classes, band and orchestra, and other enrichment activities.

School districts in four states will likely be most affected – Florida, California, Texas and New York. But Danbury and Stamford, Connecticut also have Central American communities and will likely be receiving minors.

In 2014, New York City schools rolled out the red carpet for 1,662 migrants from Central America, committing a whopping $50 million for special programs.

At the time parents asked the question they should be asking again now: Why is the federal government allowing this influx of needy students when New York City already has challenges?

More than half of N.Y.C. students read below grade level.

President Biden seems oblivious.

Last week he announced a program to enable Central American children to apply for admission to the U.S. from their home country.

That would spare them the dangerous trek. But it doesn’t alleviate the strain on our schools.

The Democratic party pays lip service to reducing economic inequality. But their open border policy is doing the opposite -- fostering a permanent underclass working for low wages.

In the Chicago suburbs, these young teens labor nights in meat packing plants and auto parts plants, come home at 6 am when their shift ends, then go to school two hours later on almost no sleep, according to a ProPublica expose.

No wonder they fall asleep in class, and age out of high school before getting a diploma.

The Dickensian era of child labor is being resurrected in our country today, thanks to open borders.

Teens who fail to get a diploma are almost doomed to poverty. Nearly half the Central American adult migrants in the US have less than a high school diploma. Their education levels are lower than other immigrants or the US born population. And no surprise, they are also poorer.

Worst of all, allowing this wave of migration to continue now will cripple our public schools and further set back our own kids, just when they’re struggling to get back on the learning track.

Message to Biden: Close the border, protect our schools, and put American children.

Betsy McCaughey, Ph.D., is the former Lt. Governor of New York State. Read Betsy McCaughey's Reports — Here Now.",-1.6134414265253265
"Bill Maher, the comedian host of HBO's ''Real Time,'' can be both a crazy liberal and a sobering check on political correctness. That counterintuitive combination was in focus once again in his latest monologue last week which called out America's woke crowd for obsessing over Dr. Seuss books, while China is eating our lunch by concentrating on building infrastructure and cornering the market on future hi tech.

As Maher cleverly observed, ''They build a dam, we debate what to name it.''

The irony in Maher's statement, of which he is totally unaware, is that it has been his traditional liberal dogma that has inhibited our nation from getting things done.

In fairness to the host, he was brilliant in refuting the naïve idealistic American youth who virtue signal by brandishing T-shirts emblazoned with the faces of Castro and Che. He astutely noted that they were both part of a communist system that killed hundreds of millions of people around the world.

Yet, the environmentally extreme Maher marveled at how the Chinese were able to construct a 57-story skyscraper in 19 days, while he's been waiting 1,117 to get a simple permit to install a solar panel on his property.

But if Maher really wants to see a change, he will need to cease his knee-jerk criticism of Republicans who seek to rein in outlandish regulations, overly broad environmental laws, and the unbridled power of municipal unions and the trial lawyer lobby, which constitute a core of Maher's preferred party — the Democrats.

Why is it that the Empire State Building could be built in 13 months almost a century ago, while it took New York 13 years to rebuild the World Trade Center at the turn of the new century?

Why does it cost $7 billion to dig a mile long rail tunnel in New York, while the same length of subway in Spain, Italy or South Korea costs less than $250 million per mile?

The disproportionate strength of blue state unions, with their prevailing wages, overtime and inefficient work rules are part of the reason.

Other archaic rules promoted by one of the Democrats' prime benefactors — the trial lawyers — make matters worse. The $3.9 billion replacement of the Tappan Zee Bridge in upstate New York was inflated by $200 million alone because of a rule known as the Scaffold Law, which makes employers 100% liable for worker injuries, even if the employee was drunk on the job.

Meanwhile, China ignores even the pretext of environmental concerns via its overreliance on coal, thus cementing its position as the world's greatest polluter. Yet, the Biden administration, which Maher enthusiastically supports, has taken the issue to the opposite extreme by banning energy exploration on 19 million acres of desolate territory in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge region.

Would the Chinese voluntarily hamper their nation's energy production? Not a chance.

Here in the U.S., well-meaning laws such as the Endangered Species Act have been distorted and misused to such a degree that they can stop an important infrastructure plan in its tracks. In one instance, the government told Louisiana landowners that they couldn't develop their property because it was defined as ""critical habitat"" for a rare frog — even though the frog didn't, and couldn't, live on the land without completely removing existing trees and replacing them with other species.

Liberal states, such as New York, take it even further. According to the Empire Center for Public Policy, the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQR) ''can be used to force changes to 'mitigate' environmental impacts — not only dictating how a project is built, but effectively deciding whether it gets built at all'' by requiring an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) if the project ''may'' (as opposed to ''shall'') cause a significant adverse environmental impact.

In 2010, Verizon's proposal to build a $4.4 billion data center to employ 200 people in New York's Niagara County was killed due to a single landowner's lawsuit tying up the project using the SEQR process.

Maher would be the first environmental extremist jumping out of his skin upon hearing that legislators might try to scale back SEQR's ability to delay needed infrastructure to the point of cancellation.

Recently in my own Long Island county, Democrats ushered in a new law that will require all purchasers of new homes (or those expanding their homes) to expend an additional $20,000 to install upgraded septic systems, making the ultimate price out of the reach of many middle class people.

We are heading toward a rumble with China, and we're bringing brass knuckles to the brawl, while China is loading up with automatic weapons.

The pandemic might have started in a Chinese province, but it didn't inhibit the Chinese from ensuring their children were back in school continuing to gain a competitive edge over America's children. Meanwhile, Maher's feckless friends in the Democratic Party capitulated to their selfish teacher union bosses, who inflicted permanent damage on our children by locking them out of in-class learning.

So, kudos to Bill Maher for bringing to light the fact that our ''do no harm'' culture has resulted in a ''do no good'' reality. He has astutely identified the problem, but continues to overlook the solution.

A more competitive America will become a reality only if Maher and his left wing cronies stop demonizing those on the right seeking to modify the oppressive and archaic rules and regulations that make the construction of nearly anything of substance cost prohibitive.

Steve Levy is President of Common Sense Strategies, a political consulting firm. He served as Suffolk County Executive, as a NYS Assemblyman, and host of ""The Steve Levy Radio Show."" He is the author of ""Solutions to America's Problems"" and ""Bias in the Media."" www.SteveLevy.info, Twitter @SteveLevyNY, steve@commonsensestrategies.com. Read Steve Levy's Reports — More Here.",0.6135458127866715
"As we move into the second month of the Biden administration, the challenge posed by China is moving front and center. This week, high-ranking officials from the Biden administration will meet with their Chinese counterparts in Alaska.

Whether the meeting’s location is one of convenience or designed to lower the stakes, the long-term threat China poses to U.S. and Western economic and security interests cannot be downplayed.

How will the Biden administration respond to China as a rapidly growing economic and military competitor and how will China present its no longer thinly veiled aspirations for global dominance?

The meeting in Alaska will provide the first real glimpse into how the new administration plans to deal with China and how the Xi Jinping-led China plans to deal with the United States.

There is no ambiguity in how China views its role in the world, however. Its actions send a clear signal that it sees itself as a global superpower that will ultimately surpass Europe and the United States as the world’s leading economic and military players.

Since 2001, when the U.S. facilitated China’s membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO), China has used that position to grow its international influence. U.S. and Western allies had hoped that China’s WTO membership would make it into a responsible international economic stakeholder that played by the rules and opened its markets to foreign products, services, and investments.

Instead, what happened is China gained access to world markets while doggedly protecting its own. It has invested generously in key industries outside of China while strictly limiting foreign investment in China itself.

In my days as a member of the ""Gang of Eight"" in Congress, I received the highest-level national security briefings. It will surprise no one that China’s malign activities were a frequent topic of discussion.

China’s consistent theft of intellectual property from the U.S. and its allies, and from some of the world’s best research universities and corporations, is also no longer a secret. For China, intellectual property theft provides a short track that is cheaper and easier than developing its own capabilities.

In my service as the ambassador to the Netherlands, the Dutch government expressed similar concerns regarding China’s behavior. The greatest concern in Europe was the predatory pricing of Chinese exports to undercut European companies and industries, drain their research and development funds, erase their profits, and ultimately put them out of business.

I give the Dutch Parliament enormous credit for the non-binding resolution it passed last month stating that Beijing’s persecution of the Uyghur Muslim minority in China amounts to genocide, the first such move by a European country.

And while I welcome President Biden’s decision to keep the Trump administration determination that Chinese mistreatment of the Uyghurs is genocide, I am concerned the White House also seems determined to conduct business as usual with Beijing and not take serious action to stop this crime against humanity.

Whether seen from the halls of Congress or a U.S. embassy in Europe, China’s predatory actions are clear. It has abused and repressed its own people, used its dominant position in low-cost, low-price commodity products to bend global public opinion and behavior, and now seeks to do the same in emerging and transformative technologies.

What these new technologies make possible, from 5G and 6G, to smart cities, autonomous driving, and new military and intelligence capabilities, is what is at stake when the two sides meet in Alaska.

The Biden administration would be wise to get to the tough part up front—demanding U.S. and Western companies be given fair access to the Chinese market and in the competition with China in the global marketplace.

On this Biden would be wise to follow the Trump playbook. He can claim it as his own playbook in the end if he wants.

Peter Hoekstra was US Ambassador to the Netherlands during the Trump administration. He served 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the second district of Michigan and served as Chairman and Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. He is currently Chairman of the Center for Security Policy Board of Advisors.",-0.2653756722783772
"I'm pretty open about my pro-life views.

I want abortion criminalized, banned and recognized as an act of inhumanity. I agree with Mother Teresa that ""abortion has become the greatest destroyer of peace, because it destroys two lives, the life of the child and the conscience of the mother.""

I am also a Catholic, and I'm quite proud of the fact that my church is the most vocal, most unapologetically pro-life among the three great monotheistic traditions.

I know that there are some Catholics who disagree with the church's position on abortion, including our current president, but that's their burden.

They can deal with God when the time comes, and they are called to explain that moral compromise.

While we can never impose Catholic morality on secular law, we do need to follow its guidance in our personal choices.

And one of those choices is whether to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

I got my first shot this week. It was the Moderna vaccine, which gave me some relief.

The reason for that relief is the main point of this column.

The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, two of the three that have been cleared for use in the United States, were tested on cells derived from aborted babies.

Those cell lines have been cloned and reproduced, and date back to the 1970s and 1980s.

Those two vaccines have some remote, generations-removed connection to elective abortions, but the vaccines themselves are so distant from the act itself that they cannot really be viewed as morally compromised.

Not so with the third vaccine, produced by Johnson & Johnson, which used abortion-derived cells in the direct production of the vaccine.

This is where the dilemma arises, for those of us who call ourselves pro-life.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has come out with guidance that essentially tells the faithful that while some of the vaccines are morally compromised, it is better to be vaccinated than not to be.

Choices can be made, and in some cases people can opt to wait for the vaccine they feel has less of a connection to the evil of abortion, but ultimately the church says the evil of the pandemic outweighs the temporal evil of using the products of abortion.

The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith stated last December that ""it is morally acceptable to receive COVID-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process.""

That principle was echoed by the Vatican COVID-19 commission which stated that ""all clinically recommended vaccinations can be used with a clear conscience.""

As if to punctuate the point, both Popes Francis and Benedict have been vaccinated.

Of course, people have differences of opinion.

Many local dioceses are urging people to avoid the Johnson & Johnson vaccine if they possibly can.

And many have said that they will not take the any vaccine that is connected, even remotely, to dead babies.

As I said, I got my first shot of Moderna. I know that some of my pro-life friends will be skeptical of my choice, given a vocal history of opposing anything that seems-in even the most minuscule way-to advance the ""choice"" agenda.

I sympathize with them much more than they suspect. That shot in my upper arm did not fill me with euphoria and relief, as many have described themselves in the moments after being vaccinated. It filled me with resignation, and a sense that I was doing something to keep my family safe. It also brought with it the sense of shame that this ""safety"" came at the expense of lost lives.

Those who don't see abortion as the greatest modern evil will laugh at that feeling, I suppose. They don't understand the horrible implications of benefiting from the death of innocents.

They would probably understand it if I said ""I don't want to use any drug that was developed from Nazi-era experiments or the Tuskegee syphilis trials.""

But mention abortion, and their eyes glaze over.

They're irrelevant to me.

And at the risk of justifying myself to God, I like to think that those innocent souls that were sacrificed in the 1970s and 1980s have been raised up, glorified, and sanctified by their ability to save future generations from this scourge.

I carry in me their sacrifice, and their legacy. That the church understands this as well is a singular blessing.

And a painful one.

Christine Flowers is a Philadelphian who loves the Eagles but can leave the cheesesteaks. She writes about anything that will likely annoy the majority of people, and in her spare time practices immigration law (which is bound to annoy at least some people). Read Christine Flowers' Reports — More Here.

© Cagle Syndicate",-0.1323174001111278
"One of the greatest pleasures I find in my work as a historian is noticing parallels even when I’m not looking for them.

It’s uncanny, but the old axiom about history repeating itself is ringing true.

Patterns and events might play out in different locations under different names, but they are the same patterns nonetheless.

One such pattern is that governments, generally, hold the people they govern in contempt.

This was the case in 1776 when the British government had little regard for the people living in the American colonies. And, it seems to be the case today with the current U.S. government.

If there’s one thing the last several years have shown me, it’s that our government today holds just as much, if not more, contempt towards citizens than the British did in 1776.

In the years leading up to the Declaration of Independence the colonists had grown increasingly frustrated by a government, half a world away that would not treat them as equals to those living in Great Britain.

They raised grievance after grievance, from taxation to representation, from impressment of American sailors to King George’s cutting off trade between the colonies and the rest of the world. Throughout all of this, George III and his underlings treated the colonists like novelties, bumpkins who were to be curiously observed and ridiculed.

Today we have government officials who look down their noses at hardworking American citizens while at the same time expecting them to loyally vote to keep them in power every few years.

Just like George III, they rebuke anyone who disagrees with them as fools, telling them in effect that “we know what’s best for you even though you pay our salary,” all while wearing a big smirk.

On a daily basis, liberals sneer from their ivory towers on the west and east coasts down on the lowly, ignorant masses they see in Middle America. They bleat about helping poor Americans, they preach about leveling the playing field, all while doing their utmost to hike taxes on any hardworking American they define as “wealthy” while they themselves live in luxury.

It sounds an awful lot like George III raising taxes on the hardworking colonists to pay for the French and Indian War (which the colonists never asked for by the way). And like a monarch, neither of them have any concept of hard work. They haven’t for decades, nor do they have any concept of what life is like outside of Manhattan, San Francisco, or Washington D.C.

Seriously, when was the last time someone checked Chuck Schumer’s net worth? How much is Nancy Pelosi pocketing from taxpayers? Heaven only knows, but we can safely tell all the folks waiting on COVID relief that Pelosi sure does like ice cream.

Then there’s the bureaucracy, where unelected career government paper pushers make arbitrary decisions that affect millions of lives.

Probably the most egregious example of this in recent memory was the FBI deciding to investigate the newly elected President Trump for no other reason than its leadership didn’t like him. The great blunderer otherwise known as James Comey set off a chain of events that led to a two-year investigation and millions of wasted taxpayer dollars.

It turned out, of course, that it was one gigantic nothing burger, despite the fervent hopes of the Democratic caucus to the contrary.

If that weren’t enough, there are the text messages that came to light from Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and other agency employees showing absolute disdain for Trump and his supporters.

If this is what the folks who run the nation’s top law enforcement organization think of the people they’re supposed to protect, I can only imagine how deeply this goes across the rest of the bureaucracy.

This rot isn’t just confined to D.C. The contempt our leaders now show the people has worked its way into most of our major cities and into the hearts of many governors.

Just ask the mayors of places like Chicago, Seattle, or Portland.

These feckless idiots sat and twiddled their thumbs while the Black Lives Matter and Antifa movements destroyed businesses and livelihoods.

They then had the nerve to call legitimate cries for law and order, from the people who they are supposed to protect, racist. If dismissing screams for safety while neighborhoods burn isn’t contempt, then I don’t know what is.

Then there are certain governors who have decided to make the COVID pandemic their excuse to become petty rulers of independent fiefdoms.

Andrew Cuomo has told us with a straight face that Jews and Christians can’t gather for services but has allowed BLM to run riot (literally) with impunity in the streets of New York.

Gavin Newsom loves to forbid people to gather in large groups, but can’t be bothered to follow his own guidelines when he goes to fancy cocktail parties.

Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan is in a league of her own, gleefully persecuting constituents who have no other option but to keep their businesses open if they wish to survive.

Like King George III, these governors seem addicted to sticking their noses into ordinary peoples’ personal lives, disregarding their personal liberty, and upending their ability to make their own decisions.

George III and the British government let the American colonists down. They failed to protect the colonists and treat them with decency, instead viewing them as contemptible second-class citizens.

Today, the American voters face similar contempt from elected leaders and bureaucrats.

Now things have come full circle, and my how the Founders must be pleased.

Craig Shirley is a Ronald Reagan biographer, presidential historian, and four-time best-selling author. His most recent book is, ''Mary Ball Washington,'' a definitive biography of George Washington’s mother. Read Craig Shirley's Reports — More Here.",-2.4411329412174307
"The United States is fast becoming a country where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream that his four little children would live in a nation where they would ""not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character"" is being destroyed in today’s cancel and woke culture hysteria.

Democratic-socialists in Congress, Big Media, and Big Tech are exploiting white American guilt on race for political and business advantage.

People who would ordinarily stand up for their principles, friends, and colleagues when attacked for expressing non-woke political viewpoints cower in fear of loss of job, promotion, or social acceptance.

The Chinese Communist government must be rolling over and laughing as it watches how easy it is to intimidate Americans: ""Call them racists, and they will fold like wet spaghetti!""

What does it say about a community that would allow a left-wing Marxist-leaning race-based curriculum—the Critical Race Theory (CRT)—to be taught in their schools indoctrinating Black, white and bi-racial children with a message that whites are racists?

Did you ever think that in the United States of America, parents would sit by and permit a school system to teach their five- and six-year-old children that their white parents are racists?

As noted in the Epoch Times, the Arizona Department of Education has gone so far as to provide teachers and parents with an ""equity and diversity toolkit"" stating that babies show the first signs of racism at three months old and white children ""remain strongly biased in favor of whiteness"" by age five.

If you think that is bad, there’s more!

According to Christopher F. Rufo, writing in the February 24, 2021, New York Post, the Buffalo Public Schools adopted a curriculum that includes teaching that “all white people play a part in perpetuating systemic racism” and where teachers ask white students to atone for their ""white privilege.""

What does a white parent tell their six-year-old child who asks at the dinner table, ""Mommy, are you and daddy racists? Am I a racist because I am white?""

And what does a Black parent say when their Black child asks, ""Are all white people racists who hate me?...Are police going to shoot me because I am Black?""

To the growing number of interracial couples in our country with bi-racial children, I ask, are you going to sit idly by while a public or private school tells your beautiful and innocent biracial children that their 'white' mother or father is a racist?

The same applies to white parents who adopt Black children.

The question for all is whether we will allow progressive Democrats and their radical left-wing allies destroy the psyche of our children and grandchildren and take away their innocence by making them view the world through racial glasses?

I have not seen any national outcry against such race-based instruction. After all, who would dare speak up and be called a ""racist"" for opposing racist teachings?

Where does such a race-based philosophy lead?

Just look at what Democrats and president Biden did for colorblindness in the $1.9 trillion so-called Covid-19 relief bill.

They gave an estimated $4 billion in aid to Black, Hispanic, Asian and other ""socially disadvantaged"" farmers providing up to 120 percent of debt relief from United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) loans--white farmers were excluded.

Black farmers have indeed been the victims of unequal treatment by the USDA for decades. However, that is no reason to punish white farmers who had nothing to do with such discrimination.

Race is not the only thing on the left’s socialist agenda.

It also includes efforts to end gender identity.

Just look at the so-called language guide of the New York City private elite Grace Church School, which suggests replacing ""mom and dad"" with “grown-ups, folks or family"" or use ""people"" instead of ""boys and girls.""

Don’t be surprised if the School deletes the word ""Church"" from its name!

As of now, the left is winning the war of intimidation and indoctrination, especially on race.

The question is whether white, Black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans who believe in Dr. King’s dream will fight back and say:

""Enough is enough.""

larence V. McKee is president of McKee Communications, Inc., a government, political, and media relations and training consulting firm in Florida. He is the author of ""How Obama Failed Black America and How Trump Is Helping It."" Read Clarence V. McKee’s Reports — More Here.",0.2940564451942821
"Last Friday, President Biden told a Rose Garden assembly of senior administration officials and from Congress that his $1.9 trillion ""American Rescue Plan,"" needed ""fastidious oversite to make sure there is no waste or fraud and that the law does what it is designed to do . . . Details matter. Because we have to continue to build confidence in the American people that their government can function for them and deliver.""

Indeed!

And I would argue that there is no more important goal than to protect all Americans from natural and manmade threats to our electric power grid.

Gabriel T. Rubin’s March 6, 2021 Wall Street Journal article reported the legislation then included $350-billion for state and local authorities, with $10-billion for infrastructure. And various reports indicate additional major funding will be included in follow-on legislation, much focused on infrastructure.

A significant percentage of these ""infrastructure"" funds could—and I argue should—be used to protect the nation’s electric power grid.

A few weeks ago, unanticipated cold weather shut down most of the Texas grid for a few days, illustrating a very consequential vulnerability to most Texans. Moreover, their experience should be a lesson for all Americans to be prepared for all weather conditions that can take down their electric power grid.

Texans, led by State Senator Bob Hall, are taking significant legislative initiatives to protect their electric grid—and other state legislatures should consider their efforts as a model for them to follow.

Note that the worst imaginable weather condition would be the ""space weather"" from the Sun, associated with a coronal mass ejection (CME) that envelops the earth—sometimes disrupting satellite communications and disrupting air traffic.

If large enough, it can interact with the earth’s geomagnetic field, causing a major Geomagnetic Disturbance (GMD) that disrupts and/or damages our electric power grid.

John Kappenman provided an interesting YouTube presentation on the 1989 GMD events that caused a nine-hour outage of Hydro-Québec's electricity transmission system and significant consequences especially in Québec and the northeastern United States. Other effects interfered with international communications—including with our military systems, then at the height of the Cold War.

A much larger GMD occurred in May 1921, damaging telegraph communication systems—happily before our major reliance on electricity and while we were still supported by a rural society producing most of our food and other necessities, so the consequences were important but not significantly life-threatening.

The largest on-record GMD was the 1859 Carrington Event, which enveloped the entire earth. Were it to happen today, it would undoubtedly lead to a major global loss of electricity due to electric power grid vulnerabilities. Major disruptions in commerce and essential life support would lead to dire consequences for all societies dependent on electricity and ""just-in-time"" delivery of essential life-support for most citizens.

Estimates are that the chances for such an event are about 12-percent a decade. Given this reality, consider the recent 2-minute YouTube discussion of the perceptions of a Boulder, Colorado National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientist, who anticipates major solar events this summer. Whether his is correct or not, it seems we are overdue for a repeat of Carrington Event class GMD.

The Congressional Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States of Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, or the Congressional EMP Commission, has warned for well over a decade that we are unprepared for such a catastrophic event—and we have done little or nothing to protect our electric power grid against it.

The Commission has warned that up to 90-percent of all Americans could perish due to starvation, disease and societal collapse. Dealing with such an event would make the events in Texas look like child’s play.

Furthermore, it should be understood that manmade EMP threats are more consequential that natural EMP threats. If the grid is protected against manmade EMP threats, it will be protected against natural EMP threats—but the converse is not true, as discussed by the reports of the Congressional EMP Commission.

Thus, top priority should be given to protecting the grid against the manmade EMP threat that is posed by the Military Doctrine of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.

Moreover, we have shown in a South Carolina Pilot Study that the cost of providing this protection is quite affordable—especially in the context of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion ""American Rescue Plan."" The impedance blocking needed remediation has been political and bureaucratic. More to be discussed in a future article.

Now is the time to take needed steps to rescue the American people from this important truly existential threat. By doing so, the Washington ""powers that be"" can meet President Biden’s challenge ""to build confidence in the American people that their government can function for them and deliver.""

Ambassador Henry F. (Hank) Cooper, Chairman of High Frontier and an acknowledged expert on strategic and space national security issues, was President Ronald Reagan's Chief Negotiator at the Geneva Defense and Space Talks with the Soviet Union and Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) Director during the George H.W. Bush administration. Read Ambassador Cooper's Reports — More Here.",0.7690704264820538
"""One World,"" published in 1943, advocated a federal world government, an end to colonialism, and equality for America's non-whites. The book's author, Wendell Willkie (1892-1944) had been the Republican presidential candidate in 1940, losing to incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt.

After losing the election, Willkie had visited U.S. World War II allies as Roosevelt's goodwill ambassador. Drawing on this experience, he pointed out that ""even our relative geographic isolation no longer exists ... At the end of [World War I] not a single plane had flown across the Atlantic. Today that ocean is a mere ribbon, with airplanes making regular scheduled flights. The Pacific is only a slightly wider ribbon in the ocean of the air, and Europe and Asia are at our very doorstep.""

Willkie's proposals were considered so radical that British prime minister Winston Churchill brushed his book off as ""Gullible's Travels."" Since then ""one world"" has often been dismissed as the unrealistic dream of foggy minded idealists. But Willkie's ideas may have been only slightly ahead of their time.

Willkie only wanted to work toward making it ""one world."" But today, our noses are daily being rubbed in the fact that, like it or not, we are already living in one world.

None of our major problems — global warming, the pandemic, and energy production — can be solved for the United States (or any other country) without also solving them for the whole world.

The atmosphere and weather don't recognize national borders. We are all in the same weather boat — ""spaceship earth."" There is no ""carpet"" under which individual nations can sweep their ""dirt"" — carbon dioxide emitted by burning coal, oil, and (to a lesser extent) natural gas.

Likewise, the world's biosphere takes no account of national borders, try as countries may do to isolate themselves. Although wealthier countries will inoculate their own populations first, none of us will be safe from COVID-19 until everybody on the planet is safe.

If even one country remains a COVID hotbed, it would breed virus mutations that could render vaccines impotent to protect people everywhere. It is therefore in everybody's self-interest to see that everyone in the world can be vaccinated.

Energy is necessary for the high standards of living permitted by modern technology. But continuing to use hydrocarbon fuels will wreck the climate (see problem No. 1). ""Green,"" energy will therefore have to replace coal, oil and gas.

But solar and wind power is highly intermittent at the local level, thanks to nighttime, bad weather and seasonal sunlight variations. Lacking economical electricity storage, we will need to connect the whole world in a unified grid. This will allow solar energy generated where conditions are good to be moved to areas where they are not currently favorable.

Like it or not, we are therefore living in one world, even though our political arrangements haven't caught up with this fact.

The world situation is similar to that between Israelis and Palestinians. Political scientist Ian Lustick argues persuasively that debates about whether or not these populations should have separate states or be parts of a single state are wasted breath.

For practical purposes, says Lustick, they are already a single state, despite the failure of their political institutions to recognize this fact. Therefore, he says, they need to focus on making that state work for them all.

Benjamin Franklin said that those leading America's independence movement needed to hang together, because if they failed to do so they would certainly hang separately.

If the human race cannot figure out how to hang together and live peaceful, cooperative lives on the planet we share, we will all come to an equally unpleasant end. The punishment will be inflicted by Mother Nature, not by a hangman.

Paul F. deLespinasse is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Computer Science at Adrian College. He received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1966, and has been a National Merit Scholar, an NDEA Fellow, a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and a Fellow in Law and Political Science at the Harvard Law School. His college textbook, ""Thinking About Politics: American Government in Associational Perspective,"" was published in 1981 and his most recent book is ""Beyond Capitalism: A Classless Society With (Mostly) Free Markets."" His columns have appeared in newspapers in Michigan, Oregon, and a number of other states. Read Prof. Paul F. deLespinasse's Reports — More Here.",1.2518005639048124
"A decade ago, the strongest earthquake ever recorded in Japan triggered a tsunami which struck off Fukushima's nuclear plant, killing more than 18,000 people and devastating entire towns due to the radiation leak. Today, the world questions what lessons were learned from it in order to avoid future catastrophes.

Unfortunately, none. Instead of diminishing the potential risks, the world is increasing its warfare in a shortsighted and dangerous vision. Instead of global confrontation, we urgently need to build human connection as the most powerful weaponry for peace and security.

Fukushima was the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, but it seems this catastrophe has not left a special mark in the world’s consciousness. Because one may ask, what can be done against the forces of nature?

And at the end, the Japanese are a special people who have laboriously built a prosperous country despite suffering severe beatings and overcoming them successfully. There was no doubt they would recuperate from this blow, too.

On the other hand, we do not see what unfolds in certain parts of the world as something that may also impact us. But eventually it will, since planet Earth is round and operates as a complex system of dependencies, relationships, and interactions.

In fact, if we were aware of our interconnectedness, we would learn from the difficult events that humanity has suffered and would be ready to change our selfish attitude and actions for mutual benefit.

However, humanity in general does not see past disasters or conflicts as teaching experiences. The world has been beaten by multiple nuclear accidents and two world wars, but nothing has changed.

Ten years have passed since the Fukushima nuclear disaster and there are still over 414 nuclear power reactors operating in 32 countries. They supply a tenth of the world’s electricity but if there was a true intention from the countries to get rid of nuclear reactors to avoid and mitigate dangers and threats, they would have already looked for alternatives.

Nuclear technology is controversial but cannot be categorized as evil or praised as good because the main question is about how it is used, the dosage and the intention behind it. A global estimation would reveal that we do not need the current reckless exploitation of natural resources for the sake of immediate profit which affects us in the long term.

If we were aware of it we would limit our production systems solely to what is essential to our existence.

Without making up our minds, without a broad vision for the future and the implementation of an international education program that will raise awareness of our deceitful behavior, we will not succeed. And as the world continues its business as usual, the next blow inevitably will come, forcing humanity toward introspection.



The “Green New Deals” proposed by multiple countries promote social justice and environmental equity. But even though there are some positive measures behind those proposals they are only shifting the focus from the main problem.

The human being is the most harmful force in nature, even more so than a nuclear bomb, so what we need to fix is precisely human nature.



Mutual hatred overflows at all levels, between people and countries, within societies. Humanity is acting in the opposite direction of nature, which is balanced and harmonious. Instead, we are moving away from each other, developing sophisticated means for mutual destruction. The exponential effect of this division within humanity is what causes wars and global crises.

If we fail to implement a change in our self-centered focus, we will continue heading down a path of prolonged suffering. Therefore, we need to realize the corrupt way we relate to each other, and construct new, positive relations of peaceful coexistence within society.

The current global scenario is urging us to choose a more civilized, enjoyable, and wise path, a path of mutual support and care that will radiate the entire world as the most powerful force on Earth.",-0.013135452409040156
"There will be no recognition of homosexual unions or marriage by the Catholic Church. It is non-negotiable. End of story.

Pope Francis has been under considerable pressure by gay activists, in and out of the Church, to give the green light to gay marriage. The statement released by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to queries on this issue is the most decisive rejection of those efforts ever written.

The Church's top doctrinal office said, ""it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage (i.e, outside the indissoluble union of a man and a woman open in itself to the transmission of life), as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex."" It further noted that ""since blessings on persons are in relationship with the sacraments, the blessing of homosexual unions cannot be considered licit.""

The statement made it clear that this ""does not preclude the blessings given to individual persons with homosexual inclinations, who manifest the will to live in fidelity to the revealed plans of God as proposed by Church teaching."" It is homosexual unions that are the problem, not homosexuals.

Speaking of homosexuality, Vatican officials said it cannot ""approve and encourage a choice and a way of life"" that is ""objectively disordered.""

God, they declared, ""does not and cannot bless sin."" In short, ""the Church does not have, and cannot have, the power to bless unions of persons of the same sex.""

This will not sit well with those Catholics who have been at war with the Church's teachings on sexuality. The German bishops, in particular, will be incensed. They have steadily been moving toward a Protestant church for some time, and this may force them to decide whether they really belong in the Catholic Church. In the U.S., we have also witnessed dissent from the clergy, as well as the laity.

It is important to remember that there is nothing fundamentally new about this statement: it reaffirms the Catholic Church's teaching on marriage. Nonetheless, it will be seen as controversial in some quarters, and that is because Pope Francis has been welcoming to homosexuals. In fairness to the pope, it is not his fault that some interpret his friendly approach as signifying an interest in changing Church doctrine. That's their problem.

To put it differently, it is one thing to say all persons possess equal dignity in the eyes of God; it is quite another to say that whatever they do is acceptable to God. Human status and human behavior are not identical.

Also, this document applies equally to heterosexuals. According to Catholic sexual ethics, cohabiting men and women are involved in an illicit relationship, and this statement is very clear about their status. Yet the media are likely to miss this point, so absorbed are they with gay rights.

Whatever previous confusion there was, is now gone. The Vatican left nothing on the table. The door has been slammed shut on the gay agenda.

Dr. Bill Donohue is president and CEO of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. A former Heritage Foundation Bradley Resident Scholar, he has authored several books on civil liberties, social issues and religion. He holds a Ph.D. in sociology from New York University. Read Bill Donohue's Reports — More Here.",1.987957091244836
"The ink had barely dried on the American Rescue Plan Act signed into law by President Biden before calls began to make permanent the expanded child tax credit that the law provides as a one-year emergency measure for 2021.

""Democratic leaders are banking on some of the aid provisions being so popular that letting them expire would be a political nightmare, painful enough for Americans that even Republicans couldn’t stand in the way. At the top of the list is making permanent the expanded child tax credit,"" Politico reported.

It cited a press release from Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat from Connecticut, who even before the Covid-19 stimulus passed was insisting, ""Children and families must be able to count on this benefit long after the end of this pandemic.""

Michael Gerson, who was a White House aide to President George W. Bush, wrote a Washington Post column headlined, ""The child tax credit is a conservative dream fulfilled. Let’s help make it permanent.""

Gerson reasons that the refundable tax credit of $3,600 or $3,000 ""will be the functional equivalent of a school voucher — money they can use at any private or religious school. This is the fulfillment by liberals of a conservative policy dream.""

The politics of this are indeed perilous for potential opponents. Allowing the expanded refundable tax credit to expire as scheduled after a year will be described as ""plunging 4.1 million children into poverty"" or ""cutting $1 trillion in funding for poor children.""

But the politics of a $1 trillion (over ten years) increase in no-strings-attached welfare spending aren’t exactly so easy for advocates, either.

Two comparison cases can provide some useful context. Jonathan Tepperman’s 2016 book ""The Fix"" describes the ""Bolsa Família,"" or family grant, that was a signature initiative of Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. When the program launched in 2003, Tepperman writes, ""most experts and international organizations still considered the idea of simply handing money straight to the poor to be dangerously wrongheaded. It just felt wrong, on an intuitive level."" Tepperman writes that people assumed the poor would ""just blow the money on booze, cigarettes"" or jewelry.

Lula told Tepperman that a key to winning political support for the program was requiring beneficiaries to commit to positive behaviors. ""The idea was to show that we are not giving away money for free,"" Lula said.

Participants had to get regular medical checkups for themselves and their families, and make sure their children between ages 6 and 15 attended school at least 85% of the time. Pregnant women had to get prenatal care. And the rules were enforced; in 2006, by Tepperman’s account, the Brazilian ministry of social development cut off payments to half a million recipients who had failed to hold up their ends of the bargain.

In New York City, a randomized controlled trial tested the effect of paying 600 families cash rewards for behavior such as getting medical checkups, attending school, getting good grades in school, or working full time.

A study of the ""Family Rewards 2.0"" program found it ""met its short-term goals of increasing income and reducing poverty, for all families and across a range of family types. The program also increased dental visits and adults’ self-reported health status, particularly for those in poorer health at study entry.

However, the program led to reductions in work and earnings for some participants. Moreover, the model did not affect students’ progress in school. In addition, the program was costly to administer—for every dollar in rewards to families, a dollar and seven cents were spent on consultants, staff salaries, and partner organizations.

Whether poverty can be cured by government handouts or whether it is a problem of bad habits is a long-running controversy. Will the recipients of the $3,600 ""Joe Dole,"" as welfare-reform-advocate Mickey Kaus dubs it after President Biden, spend it on Catholic school tuition, or on cigarettes and lottery tickets?

A test of a no-strings-attached $500 a month payment to 125 adults in Stockton, California during 12 months in 2019 and 2020 found ""less than 1% of the tracked purchases were for tobacco and alcohol."" Education spending also tracked at about that same level—a monthly average of 0.83%.

The record of the old Aid to Families With Dependent Children program is contested but eventually was clear enough to the voting public that a Democrat, Bill Clinton, got elected president in a significant measure on the basis of a promise to end welfare as we know it.

The prudent move now would be to test the refundable expanded child-tax credit in a state or a city, or empirically evaluate the nationwide results after one year, before making a trillion-dollar ten-year or ""permanent"" commitment. Maybe one place could try it no-strings, and another place could try it with conditions attached, and the results can be compared. No one wants to be excessively paternalistic.

If ""free money"" makes the poor children better off, great. But if it just subsidizes bad parental habits and doesn’t improve outcomes for children, skip it.

These aren’t deep philosophical questions. They are empirical ones.

Ira Stoll is author of ""JFK, Conservative,"" and ""Samuel Adams: A Life."" Read Ira Stoll's Reports — More Here.",0.2354231846803592
"It’s called ""pay to play.""

When you contribute to a cause — whatever that cause may be, that is connected to a powerful person and you contribute specifically with the intent of receiving access to and influence from that person, you are paying to play.

It’s relatively common.

But have you heard of ""Pay to Slay""?

It’s not common at all.

It is an invention of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Pay to Slay is what happens when the official Palestinian government officially pays Palestinian terrorists sitting in prisons in Israel after they have been convicted for the acts of terror they perpetrated against Israel and Israelis.

The money is given to their families.

The Palestinian Authority euphemistically calls this money a salary.

This week marked the 10th anniversary of the brutal terror murders of five members of the Fogel family. Ehud Fogel who was 35 years old, his wife Ruth who was also 35 years old and three of their children, 11 year old Yoav, 4 year old Elad and baby Hadas, only three months old, were butchered in their home in March of 2011.

Remaining members of the Fogel family marked the anniversary of this horrific loss with visits to the graves and the lighting of memorial candles. Israelis — those who knew the family and those who knew only of the tragedy, joined in their mourning.

The Palestinian Authority remembered the Fogel family, too.

Their form of remembrance was to up the salaries of the two murderers now sitting in prison. They each received a 50% raise in salary.

The Palestinian Authority works off a calculus.

Terrorists’ salaries are based on the sentences that are handed out by the Israeli court.

And if a terrorist against Israelis does not live to be tried, convicted and imprisoned, if he or she dies while perpetrating their attack, the salary/stipend that goes to their family is higher than the salary awarded to living terrorists.

What kind of society pays people to murder by rewarding the murderers and their families? We’re not talking about the mafia. This is an official government, recognized by other governments and by the United Nations. The PA takes millions of dollars in aid from around the world and turns around and gives it as a stimulus package to their murderers.

Actually, it is often said that being a terrorist might be one of the best and highest paid jobs in the Palestinian Authority. You get paid and you get paid on time.

I will not honor these Palestinian terrorists by naming them, but here are the specifics of their earnings. They each will now receive 6000 NIS shekels (Israeli New Shekels) a month.

In U.S. dollars, they are earning $1800.

According to PalestinianMedia Watch (PMW), should they live to the age of 80, they will each earn over 6.5 million NIS. That sum is over a whopping $2 million dollars. Each.

As an aside, both these terrorists were sentenced to life in prison.

But should they be released before their end of days, they will continue to receive their salaries.

In 2020 the Palestinian Authority spent 512 million NIS in terrorist salaries.

That is equivalent to $159 million paid out in the form of Pay to Slay.

Aid given by other countries to help assist and stimulate development, education, democracy and peace within the Palestinian Authority is funneled to terrorists.

Granted, nowadays it is after the fact.

Under the leadership of Yasser Arafat the aid money was handed out in advance, given directly to sponsor terror units and terror activities in advance of their being carried out.

This entire scheme is simply repulsive.

It's immoral and it is unethical. And it is by no means a dirty little secret with the Palestinian Authority. Palestinian leadership is proud of this program.

They tout it as a recruiting tool for new terrorists.

Remember, the word ""terrorist"" is the title we attribute to those who, in cold blood, murder innocents.

The PA refers to them as ""fighters"" or ""soldiers.""

And in death, the PA refers to these monsters as ""martyrs.""

They treat it as an early retirement plan.

Leaders understand the impact of incentives and stimuli.

They have an agenda when they give money away, it is not because they are generous.

Take tax credits.

The government wants to stimulate charitable contributions.

So, they establish a system that allows for the taxpayer to turn a charitable gift into a tax credit. Give more to charity, pay less in taxes.

But Pay to Slay is not about charity. It's not about caring for your citizens.

It's about hating your neighbors, killing your enemy — wiping them off the face of the earth.

Pay to Slay has to be stopped.

Golda Meir, the first and so far only female prime minister of Israel, spoke in 1957 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

She put it this way,"" Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.""

Micah Halpern is a political and foreign affairs commentator. He founded ""The Micah Report"" and hosts ""Thinking Out Loud with Micah Halpern"" a weekly TV program and ""My Chopp"" a daily radio spot. A dynamic speaker, he specializes in analyzing world events and evaluating their relevance and impact. Follow him on Twitter @MicahHalpern. Read Micah Halpern's Reports — More Here.",-0.25121705689935964
"Fox News bad boy Tucker Carlson is stirring things up again, hippie-punching the New York Times’s Taylor Lorenz, accusing her of snowflakery. The New York Times counterpunches with charges of cruelty. Both charges quite possibly are well founded.

That said, there’s a backstory. Tucker has Hippie roots.

He attended more than 50 Grateful Dead concerts in his day. Per Fox News, ""…Tucker Carlson – who has attended at least 50 shows – named his latest book 'Ship of Fools,' an homage of the Grateful Dead song of the same name.""

Carlson has company in his transformation from gentle Hippie to tough guy Hells Angel: Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump.

Matt Taibbi (paywalled at Substack and worth every penny), reminds us that Rush started off as a mildly Hippified personality, ""Jeff Christie."" Rush, who was more about pwning progressive pieties than promoting authentic conservatism, pivoted to tough guy and went on to fame and fortune.

His pivot from pussycat to grizzly bear (dancing or not) soon was emulated by one real estate mogul named Donald Trump. Trump began his own political adventures singing Kumbaya. As Fintan O’Toole reminds us in the New York Review of Books:

""At the beginning of this century, Trump was testing the market for a run at the presidency. This was the product he thought Americans would buy: Oprah on his ticket, a guarantee to serve one term only, and an insistence that ‘one of our next president’s most important goals must be to induce a greater tolerance for diversity.' In his manifesto The America We Deserve (2000), Trump claimed that his friendships with the rapper Sean ‘Puff Daddy’ Combs and baseball outfielder Sammy Sosa had left him with 'little appetite for those who hate or preach intolerance.' The horrible murder in Wyoming of a young gay man, Matthew Shepard, had convinced him of the need to ‘work towards an America where these kinds of hate crimes are unthinkable.'""

""Most strikingly, Trump’s analysis in 2000 was that his putative rival for the Reform Party nomination, a right-wing populist, could never be elected because he had spent too long as a professional loud-mouth: 'Simply put, Pat Buchanan has written too many inflammatory, outrageous, and controversial things to ever be elected president.' This kindly, tolerant, politically correct President Trump… never found a market. Trump soon realized that it wouldn’t fly. He dropped it and eventually worked his way toward the presentation of a very different commodity. He realized that overindulgence in the 'inflammatory, outrageous and controversial’ was not an obstacle but a springboard to the presidency.'""

America recently elected the touchy-feely Joe Biden in preference to the swaggering Donald Trump. And yet … even with President Joe in the White House, Limbaugh gone to his Eternal Reward and Trump in quasi-exile many millions continue to yearn for tough guys. Some of us saw this coming.

As I observed way back in 2015 at Forbes.com, Politics, Noir:

""Donald Trump continues to dominate and fascinate. Why? Politics, like comic books, thrillers, detective stories, science fiction, professional wrestling, movies and TV is a pulp medium. … What’s going on now in Campaign 2016 isn’t strictly politics. It is melodrama. …

""Donald Trump, 'Reality' TV star, grasps the conventions of the pulp world better than any of his (far more qualified, far more distinguished, and far more likable) rivals. Trump is getting the best ratings because Trump is presenting a more compelling pulp Story.

""It surely is no coincidence that Trump’s emergence comes in the era where Breaking Bad entered the Guinness Book of World Records as 'the highest rated TV series' of all time. Popular culture now is dominated by stories of antiheroes: Walter White, Don Draper, Barksdale, Frank Underwood, Tony Soprano … the list goes on.""

And as I wrote for The Transpartisan Review, in Political Armageddon, in 2019:

""[W]e pivot to demonizing one another. As an aside, one can trace the evolution of the American narrative from Hollywood’s output. In the ‘30s you had frontier Westerns with heroic sheriffs fighting brutal outlaws. The ‘40s gave us heroic soldiers fighting evil Nazis and imperial Japanese troops. The ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s gave way to heroic fights against Communist agents. All gave way to noir anti-heroes, dystopian futures, Imperial Storm Troopers and, eventually, Zombies.""

Rush Limbaugh walked, as Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump walk, on the wild side.

Progressives are appalled, having forgotten (as I, another right wing Deadhead, remember) how the greatest poet of our generation, Allen Ginsburg, saw how the Hippies and Hells Angels, who detested each other over their respective opposition to and support of the Vietnam War, both, as outlaws, had undiscovered affinities.

Ginsberg invited them both to a wild party. The Hippies and Hells Angels became, for a time, fast friends.

So… word up, Tucker. Keep on Truckin’!

Ralph Benko, co-author of ""The Capitalist Manifesto"" and chairman and co-founder of ""The Capitalist League,"" is the founder of The Prosperity Caucus and is an original Kemp-era member of the Supply Side revolution that propelled the Dow from 814 to its current heights and world GDP from $11T to $88T. Read Ralph Benko's reports — More Here.",0.3651137664348329
"Since March 2020—when the COVID-19 became a pandemic and conspiracy theories blaming Israel and Jews went global—the Nation of Islam’s 87-year-old leader, Louis Farrakhan, has been trying to sell misinformation about the new deadly disease. However, Big Tech giants, seemingly cracking down on any kind of conservative speech they deem unseemly, are allowing Farrakahn's hate to proliferate on certain sites.

Farrakhan has been in the vanguard of conspiratorialists accusing Jews of the invention or spread of diseases since the early 1990s when the Nation of Islam blamed them for using blankets to infect Native Americans with small pox and Farrakhan himself charged that Jewish doctors injected ""black babies"" with AIDS as a form of population control.

One year ago, Farrakhan’s Research Group tweeted ""in response to news that an Israeli research institution will announce a Coronavirus vaccine"" that, Israel actually may have developed COVID-19 as a bioweapon. Now, in 2021, ""Dr."" Farrakhan at the National Afrikan/Black Leadership Summit delivered a major address focusing on the Coronavirus and the development of vaccines to combat it.

Bottom line: Farrakhan has urged his followers not to be vaccinated:

""We are so frightened over this Covid, now they’re getting us ready for this vaccine. Do you believe Satan is concerned about vaccinating you? You trust him? After all he has done to destroy us? How could you allow him to stick a needle into you, saying he’s helping you? Those of you who are health professionals, they want you to take it first. You notice they're offering you money now? This devil . . . offers you $1,000 or $1,500 to take a shot. They give you free shots of toxic waste.""

Farrakhan’s conspiratorial diagnosis and crackpot advice in his February 2021 ""Saviours’ Day Address"" are noteworthy because polls show that only a quarter of the African American population plans to get vaccinated. Decades ago, Farrakhan urged miracle treatments, developed by African tribal doctors, to cure AIDS. Now, he is marketing potentially lethal advice about (not) treating Coronavirus.

NOI Minister Dr. Wesley Muhammad started off 2021 with a two-hour sermon, ""Beyond Tuskegee: Why Black People Must Not Take the Experimental COVID-19 Vaccine,"" broadcast live from the NOI’s national headquarters in Chicago, in which he explicitly and repeatedly blamed Jews and Israel for the Coronavirus pandemic. He preached that Covid was “a pestilence of God” brought on mankind because of the “Jews’ wickedness. At the same time, he condemned Israel for cynical vaccine development for profit.

In his 2020 July 4th Speech, Farrakhan revealed that ""Jewish doctors"" had injected him with ""radiated seed,"" trying to kill him. But for “attempts to depopulate the earth” by peddling ""vials of death"" at ""Warp Speed,"" Farrakhan’s latest targets are not Israel and Jews but Dr. Anthony Fauci and Bill and Melinda Gates. Why? One possibility is he fears being censored by a major social media platform.

Unfortunately, the charge that Jews and Israel are superspreaders of both the virus and ""toxic"" vaccines continues to rage on social media, independent of Farrakhan. Among the vicious recent versions are those linking Israel and China as responsible for the ""Kung Fu Virus"" or ""Jew Flu.""

So, for conspiracy buffs, Jew-haters, and Asian-bashers, the year-long lockdown combined with the fact that social media now serves as Americans’ lifeline, provide the perfect storm to mainstream lurid and deadly anti-Semitic narratives 24/7.

Social Media giants have decided to delete any information they deem false related to combating Covid-19. If so, can Big Tech please answer the question posed by journalist Damjan Tutarkov: Why are you still providing a platform for Farrakhan’s conspiracy videos about Israel, Jews, and Covid 19? Innocent lives are at stake.

Dr. Harold Brackman, a historian is a consultant to the Simon Wiesenthal Center

Rabbi Abraham Cooper is Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action for the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Read Abraham Cooper's Reports — More Here.",0.23190149882075303
"In the 1990s, a Republican explained to me why ""the Democrat Party"" was his preferred term for the opposition, ""They’re no more democratic than we are.""

Nowadays that is very much a subject of dispute.

In recent years, and especially in recent months, progressives have increasingly become convinced that the Republican Party is a threat to democracy; that hostility to democracy is now its organizing passion; that it can survive only by thwarting democracy; and that democratizing reforms are the only way to defeat it.

A number of conservatives have reached the same conclusions and, in some cases, exited conservatism as a result.

These conclusions are exaggerated to the point of error.

But they are not baseless, and even the exaggerations have a surface plausibility.

There has long been a strain of conservatism that is at least wary of democracy — so long, in fact, that the strain may be said to predate what it fears.

Former President Donald Trump and his allies did try to get state legislatures and Congress to throw out the results of a presidential election without coming close to showing that those results were fraudulent. Some of his supporters tried to get their way through force.

And there’s more.

Only once in the last three decades have Republicans won more votes than the Democrats in a presidential election.

The Electoral College has allowed them to win three presidential elections notwithstanding that fact. Republicans defend the institution.

Other features of the U.S. political system at odds with pure democracy — such as the equal representation of states in the Senate and the filibuster at the federal level, and the gerrymandering of state legislative districts in some states — are currently boosting Republican strength, and Republicans have opposed changing them.

Republican state legislators, finally, are seeking changes to election procedures that would make voting more difficult while Republican federal legislators are resisting a bill that is supposed to make it easier.

There is too much to the critique of the Republicans as an anti-democratic party to dismiss out of hand. But the critique’s persuasive force frequently depends on misunderstandings.

Take the outrage that greeted Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, when he tweeted in October that democracy is not the objective of our government, ""We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.""

The senator was widely taken to have revealed the authoritarian nature of his party — to have ""said the quiet part out loud,"" as the cliché has it.

Lee’s underlying point, though, was not especially controversial, as he later explained.

A lot (though not all) of the value we place on democracy is instrumental: We think it promotes freedom, prosperity and peace.

We are willing to limit democracy in the service of such goods, for example by guarding certain individual rights against majorities.

Lee’s comment was distorted both because it was made in a partisan context — just a few weeks before the election — and because we too rarely acknowledge that the limits we place on democracy are just that.

The Right’s intellectual skepticism of democracy was once robust, even alarmist.

But it has, after centuries of experience with its representative and constitutional form, largely dwindled to the anodyne version Lee expressed.

It's a concern that majorities can go too far, a sense that not every move in the direction of greater democracy should proceed just because it advances democracy, a reminder that democratic outcomes are not necessarily right or just ones.

To the extent these sentiments are in tension with democracy, it is a useful tension.

You can find the odd monarchist on the internet, but American conservatives, including Lee, are generally committed to self-government.

Sometimes, they are more committed to it than progressives: It is conservatives such as Lee who want public policy on controversial moral issues such as abortion settled by voters and legislators rather than unelected judges.

When the Senate voted on whether to decertify the Biden electors from Pennsylvania, Lee voted ""Hell no.""

That place seems to be on the senator’s mind a lot: He recently said that the bill passed by Democrats in the House of Representatives dubbed the ""For the People Act"" was ""written in Hell by the Devil himself.""

Strong words.

But strong opposition is warranted.

The Democrats have scored a public relations coup in getting the press to call it a ""voting rights bill,"" but opposing it hardly amounts to opposing voting rights or democracy.

The bill gives the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) more power and makes its structure more partisan.

It creates new disclosure rules for nonprofit groups that the American Civil Liberties Union says raise constitutional concerns and could have a chilling effect on advocacy. It takes the radical step of abolishing all state legislatures’ traditional power to set district lines.

Even those provisions of the bill that are more directly concerned with voting rights are questionable. It forbids states from requiring photo identification from voters — a policy that happens to be extremely popular, with majority support from Democrats and Republicans alike, which might be relevant when we’re considering what is and isn’t democratic.

It strips states, too, of their power to determine whether and under what conditions ex-felons should be able to vote.

Sometimes, it’s true, the federal government has to step in and override state decisions about the conduct of elections, as with the original Voting Rights Act in 1965.

This proposal, though, is just a liberal wish list to be imposed on the states with no concern for federalism.

Some of the news coverage, though, might make you think that we face a 1965-style emergency in the states. The Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive group, has broadcast the claim that states are considering 253 bills to ""restrict voting access.""

That they are also considering 704 bills to ""expand voting access,"" by the group’s own standards, has not registered as widely. (Some bills are on both of its lists.) Most bills in both categories, like most bills period, aren’t going anywhere.

Many of the ""restrictive"" bills tighten or introduce requirements for voter identification, requirements that some studies have found do not reduce voter registration or turnout rates. Some of them roll back pandemic innovations in voting procedures, such as the wide use of absentee ballots without any need for listing an excuse.

That may or may not be a good idea, but a return to the policies of 2019 should not be portrayed as an assault on civil rights.

Other Republican-backed bills are harder to defend.

A committee of the Georgia house briefly considered banning early voting on Sundays, a proposal that seems plainly designed to reduce Democratic votes by impeding voter-mobilization by African-American churches.

More generally, Republican legislation has reflected the background assumptions that high voter turnout hurts the GOP’s chances in elections and that the liberalized rules of 2020 followed that pattern.

But the correct conclusion from the results of the 2020 election is not that Republican hopes depend on suppressing voter turnout. It’s that the assumptions are wrong.

Republicans performed reasonably well in a high-turnout election. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post calculated that Republicans came within 90,000 votes of winning the House, the Senate and the presidency.

There is abundant evidence that Democrats disproportionately voted by mail while Republicans voted in person, not least because Trump spent months criticizing voting by mail.

The evidence that the shift to voting by mail led to a net advantage for Democrats is, on the other hand, scant, and countered by the Republicans’ strong, if ultimately insufficient, showing.

Nor is there compelling evidence that mail-in voting facilitated an increase in fraud (although the impossibility of proving the negative will keep the conspiracy theorists in business).

The old Republican assumption about voting was based on the old structure of the parties’ coalitions. Republicans used to get most of the votes of college-educated professionals while lagging among voters without college degrees.

The first group was and is more likely to show up consistently for elections, and so the GOP’s partisan interest in low turnout was, if not exactly noble, at least understandable: Regular voters were more Republican than irregular voters, so higher turnout would tend to help the Democrats.

But the old pattern no longer holds now that the class composition of the parties has changed. More of the affluent regulars vote for Democrats these days, and more of the lower-turnout voters lean toward the Republicans.

Trump did a lot to bring about this shift. But his lies about his election defeat obscured one of its implications.

Even the most transformative changes to our political system might not have the partisan effects that proponents and opponents alike expect.

It was only nine years ago that the Electoral College gave an edge to the Democrats: President Barack Obama won the electorally decisive states by a larger margin than he won nationally.

And while I wouldn’t bet on the Republicans winning the popular vote in 2024, only a fool would rule out the possibility today.

There may also be a difference between ideological and partisan interests.

Let’s assume that a set of changes to the political structure — say, the addition of new states where most residents vote for Democrats — moved the center of political gravity to the left.

Maybe that would create an enduring Democratic majority. But it seems at least as likely that both parties would move leftward, the Republicans because they would have to do so and the Democrats because they could, while the partisan balance stayed roughly the same as it was.

Republicans do not, by and large, see themselves as opponents of democracy.

Their institutional interest in making sure voter turnout is low is smaller than even they think, and it’s getting smaller.

And they are not prosecuting a war against democracy in the state legislatures.

Republicans think U.S. democracy is threatened by Democratic fraud; Democrats think it’s threatened by Republican authoritarianism. One day they both may have to face the good news that neither of these things is true.

Ramesh Ponnuru is a Bloomberg View columnist. He is a senior editor of National Review and the author of ""The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life."" Read Ramesh Ponnuru's Reports — More Here.",-1.007086301801228
"Lots of us want to publish a blog and make money with it. What could be better than writing about something you love and get paid to do it? Launching and maintaining a science blog is possible, and you can make bank while you do it, but it requires plenty of effort and patience.

But don't worry! We'll lay out how you can get your science blog going and make it a big success below.

Set Up Your Web Presence

So you want to go for it and write your science blog. Whether you intend to have a blog or website with a blog on it, you'll need software and hosting.

But first things first. What's the name of your blog? Think of something that describes what you want to write about in science, then make sure the domain name is available at a site such as www.godaddy.com. Depending on where you get your domain set up, you can combine it with the domain name, hosting and email.

Next is purchasing a hosting plan so you can show your blog to the world. Also, think about whether you want to have a full website with link directories and other resources. Or maybe you just want a strict science blog and nothing else.

If you're not into coding, you can buy great-looking website templates online.

Whatever type of site you choose, be sure that it's what's known as a ""responsive design,"" which means it looks attractive and readable on a PC, phone, and tablet.

Get Writing

That can be easier said than done when it comes to science writing. One of the things to watch for is that you get too far into the weeds in scientific jargon for a lay audience.

If you're not a scientist and you're writing on a science topic, you might not fully understand all the details. You could misreport or misrepresent a topic. But you can avoid this by reading up on interesting topics in scientific papers in subjects in which you have an interest.

You can even write to the author and ask questions so you can fully understand the findings or details. Most authors are helpful and responsive if you reach out to them; most want to get their name and research out there.

Once you start writing and publishing content, ask for detailed feedback from readers to see how they like your subjects and style. Remember, even great writers need editors and reader feedback. Find friends, colleagues or family members who agree to read and offer feedback to your blog posts.

Don't forget to add links, videos and images to add appeal to your content. And always remember to write compelling headlines. If you want many people to dig into your science content, you need to attract their eye with a great headline. Would you click to read your article based on the headline? If not, write something different.

Promote Your Content

Next, you need to share your science blog posts so people find out about your blog. Post links to your blog articles on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Also, try Tumblr and Medium.

Don't be shy about sending a link to your post to specific people who you think could have an interest, too.

Also, be sure to use the appropriate keywords in your title and article description so they will rank in Google over time.

Monetize Your Blog

This is the hardest part, but many people do it successfully with persistence. The most important thing is to write engaging, informative content, and the money will come with time.

One of the best ways to get a little money coming in is to embed Google ads in your blog. Other good choices are to have links to affiliate programs on Amazon. Also, reach out to sponsors who may be willing to pay you to advertise their products and services on your site in your blog posts.

Or, sell a newsletter subscription once you've been writing for a while and have a decent following. Some bloggers set up a paywall and have their blog readers pay for access each month. But you have to produce great content to get people to spend their hard-earned money, so always remember – great content is king!",-0.299288427699925
"It’s a time for courage in America. Of all the people who might step forward in the United States Senate race in Missouri, there is no stronger supporter and advocate for President Donald Trump and his America First policies than former Missouri Governor Eric Greitens.

That is why we need him to fight for us in the U.S. Senate.

The liberal Democrats currently have complete control of Congress.

We need to take back the Senate. And take it back with fighters like Eric Greitens.

We have seen what weakness looks like, especially in the Senate. They bend to the political winds, instead of standing strong through the storm.

As a Navy SEAL and former Missouri Governor, Greitens stood up the political establishment—the same establishment that opposed President Trump. Because he was such a threat, Democrats colluded with the establishment political class and mainstream media to attack Greitens during his time as governor.

As governor, Greitens prohibited lobbyist gifts, killed-a pay raise for politicians, and ended a corrupt tax credit program that lined the pockets of insiders at the expense of Missourians.

He got rid of bureaucrats who failed our veterans.

He backed our cops.

Let me say that again; He backed our cops. Every. Single. Day.

He was the most pro-police governor in the country.

No surprise then that a Soros-funded prosecutor attacked him. Greitens has now been fully exonerated and those who perpetuated the witch hunt against him are being prosecuted. They are facing seven felonies for going after a MAGA-warrior.

One can only hope that the people who attacked President Trump will also face justice.

When most politicians stayed silent, Greitens stood by President Trump and his agenda.

Now some of those same coward politicians are coming, hat-in-hand, to ask for the president’s endorsement.

The president isn’t fooled.

We cannot let four years of Donald Trump’s pro-growth and pro-America agenda be overturned by far-left Democrats and do-nothing politicians who do not have the interests of the American people at heart.

Navy SEAL, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, boxing champion, Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, New York Times best-selling author, Missouri Governor. Named one of the 50 greatest leaders in the world by Fortune Magazine for his work on behalf of veterans.

Those are some accomplishments Greitens has achieved in his life.

But there is more to be done and we need to call on him once again to serve his country and the state of Missouri.

Now is not the time for weak leadership. Now is the time to send Eric Greitens to the U.S. Senate.

As New York City’s 40th Police Commissioner, Bernard Kerik was in command of the NYPD on September 11, 2001, and responsible for the city’s response, rescue, recovery, and the investigative efforts of the most substantial terror attack in world history. His 35-year career has been recognized in more than 100 awards for meritorious and heroic service, including a presidential commendation for heroism by President Ronald Reagan, two Distinguished Service Awards from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, The Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and an appointment as Honorary Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Commissioner Kerik hosts a weekly radio show, Behind the Badge, on 77 WABC Radio New York. Read Bernard Kerik's Reports — More Here.",-0.34288397824307487
"Just as masks mandates dropped in more than sixteen states and some Americans can breathe with ease again–literally and economically–Nancy Pelosi introduced a far more politically suffocating bill supposedly ""for the people.""

Last week, the eighty-year-old hard left Speaker of the House attempted to gloss up and force-feed the American public the very damaging H.R.-1 ""For The People Act"" voting bill. Upon criticism, the Democratic party immediately pivoted to bills ""addressing"" systemic racism to distract American's from seeing how destructive HR-1 is, and also said opposition to the bill was racially motivated itself.

Of course, this pattern is endemic, formulaic, and no surprise. The progressive hard left loves to bury its most invasive and flawed legislation by immediately pivoting to stoke the flames of injustice and racial and class division.

Between the remaining masked states, the new legislation, and the Biden Brigade's barrage of constitution-violating, free-enterprise-infringing, and freedom-destroying executive orders–yes, Nancy, it has been hard to breathe the air of freedom lately.

But stay tuned. No single act or piece of legislation would be more suffocating than H.R.-1 if it survives the Senate and Ole Harmless Joe signs it into law.

As former New York Lt. Governor Betsy McCaughey so succinctly wrote in Newsmax, ""Nancy Pelosi’s top priority is to turn America into a one-party nation ruled by Democrats. Her bill HR 1 trashes the U.S. Constitution in an attempt to rig the system and make it virtually impossible to elect a Republican president or Congress again. Simply put, it’s a power grab.""

But not according to Speaker Nancy after it was overwhelmingly passed over solid GOP opposition: ""We are so pleased . . . we made just a giant step for democracy . . . we waved flags in honor of our democracy. This legislation is there to protect the right to vote . . . the first 300 pages were written by John Lewis, to remove voter suppression tactics from our political system.""

Really? Talk about framing something in a way that is exactly what it is not. You got to hand it to Ms. Nancy.'he’s damn good at it.

Until you dig into the details like the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) did. It tells a radically different story.

Per the (RNLA) what follows are the ten worst new federal mandates in H.R.-1's election administration section. These new requirements would apply to every state, regardless of existing state laws:

Automatic voter registration, including using many colleges and universities as voter registration agencies and registering 16- and 17-year-olds.

Abolish voter ID laws and only require a signature in the polling place to vote.

Online voter registration without protections to verify the eligibility of the voter.

Same-day registration during early voting and on Election Day.

Fifteen days of early voting, including minimum hours and requirements for locations.

Restricting election officials' efforts to maintain the accuracy of voter registration lists.

Automatically restoring the right of felons to vote after release from prison.

No-excuse absentee/mail voting with signature comparison verification available to all voters.

Provisional ballots cast outside a voter's precinct must be counted.

Congressional redistricting is done by an independent redistricting commission micromanaged by HR1's provisions.

On top of that, many sections of the legislation demonstrate the increasing federal control of elections. They require federal control of election security, further centralizing election systems standards and numerous new reporting requirements for election officials, including the gathering data on voters' race and ethnicity.

While one could argue some of the security provisions could be a good thing, the ugly truth is that they are only as good as the people and political party which enforces them. The beauty of a Republic–with each state having election autonomy–is that absolute election power is diffused among fifty states.

Republicans in the Senate must take note, unite, and kill this travesty. Not only is democracy at stake with this bill, but freedom itself is on the line. You don’t have to look far to see kind of liberty crushing policies a permanently empowered Democratic left would inflict on speech, individual sovereignty and the right to bear arms.

It will not only be difficult to breathe the fresh air of freedom; If H.R.-1, if it becomes law, is the kind of bill that will suck all the oxygen out of the room.

Creator of #BPN, a conservative political news website, Judd Dunning is political author, pundit, and producer. Judd's has collaboratively hosted various political entertainment shows over his three-decade political journey from liberal to conservative activist. He recently published his latest book ""13 1/2 Reasons Why NOT To Be A Liberal: And How to Enlighten Others,” via Humanix. Read Judd Dunning's Reports — More Here.",-0.887486893154696
"The Bishop of Rome recently held a historic meeting with the chief figure in Shia Islam, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

One phrase was repeatedly used in press reports to describe the coming together of the Pope and Sistani, that being, “interfaith dialogue.”

Interfaith dialogue is an organized effort to engage in a discussion of beliefs, along with a sharing of religious and/or cultural-community oriented practices, which takes place between people of differing faiths.

The goal of such a dialogue is to break down barriers between adherents of differing faiths, and once accomplished purportedly leads to world peace.

Any attempt to persuade others to one’s religious way of thinking, i.e., evangelization, is an unwelcome guest in the interfaith dialogue arena.

In a very real way, it is seemingly a prerequisite that those involved in interfaith activities must first embrace the notion that no single religion could possibly lay claim to the “truth.”

A religious ideology that asserts this sort of exclusivity with regard to truth is considered to be an obstacle to the attainment of harmony in the world.

With this in mind, participants in interfaith dialogue must come to the discussion table with an open mind toward the acceptance of so-called multiple truths, as well as an openness with regard to the welcoming of multiple means of worshipping a deity or deities.

So who wouldn’t want world peace?

Well, it’s not what it appears to be.

Back in early 2019, an interfaith agreement was signed by Pope Francis and a different Muslim leader, the Sunni Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb.

Their meeting produced a written document that states the “diversity of religions” that exist in the world were “willed by God.”

The implication is that the hundreds of different religions in the world are all equally acceptable to the Creator of the Universe. Millions would beg to differ.

In 2016 a video released by the Vatican appears to similarly indicate that different religions are all just assorted paths to God. In the footage, the Pontiff expresses that although faiths may be “seeking God or meeting God in different ways,” we are all “children of God.”

Interfaith dialogue denies one crucially important reality, that being, there are incompatible fundamental distinctions between the deeply held beliefs of differing religions throughout the world.

Because of this fact, it is impossible for religions to be combined or somehow blended together, without suffering the loss of the vital integrity of the respective faiths.

In order to pursue the goals of interfaith dialogue, participants must act as though such differences do not exist. They must also accept and espouse that contradictory beliefs can be reconciled.

Other thorny issues have arisen, which pose additional problems for the interfaith movement. There are so-called faith entities that have adopted the practice of worshipping an anti-deity or deities; in other words, they are involved in occult beliefs and practices.

They, too, would like to be part of the movement. Don Frew provides an example.

Frew is a Wiccan Elder and a high priest of a coven in Berkeley, California. He has been involved in interfaith work for more than 30 years. He has served on the Board of the Berkeley Area Interfaith Council and is also a National Interfaith Representative for one of the largest and oldest Wiccan organizations.

Obviously, for those of the Jewish and Christian faiths, there could never be a reconciling of their beliefs with an organization such as Frew’s.

It is literally the first of the Ten Commandments: No other gods before me. That pretty much ends the discussion on multiple truths.

The bottom line is that the interfaith movement is a deceptive one. Its supposed goal is peace, but its hidden motive is to blend faiths together into a one world religion.

A one-world religion would do away with the centuries-old religious tenets of millions. It would also be at odds with a belief system that is written on the hearts of human beings around the globe. And it totally conflicts with the essence of our souls to believe what we choose to believe.

In the context of this so-called interfaith dialogue, these fundamental principles are non-negotiable.

James Hirsen, J.D., M.A., in media psychology, is a New York Times best-selling author, media analyst, and law professor. Visit Newsmax TV Hollywood. Read James Hirsen's Reports — More Here.",-3.1334571165858693
"Whether one calls it a crisis or a challenge, the U.S.-Mexico border has become a man-made disaster hand-crafted by President Joe Biden.

Candidate Biden promised illegal aliens red-carpet treatment, amnesty, and citizenship.

Message: Received.

The Customs and Border Protection’s encounters with single adults on the southern frontier climbed 157% in January 2021 versus January 2020.

CBP confronted 100,441 illegal immigrants last month, up 97% from February 2020.

This included 9,000 unaccompanied children; 3,000 kids were under 12.

On Tuesday, 3,250 children were in Biden’s custody, 1,360 of them beyond the 72-hour legal limit. As illegal-alien detention space dwindles, the administration might move these youths to a San Jose NASA facility.

White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain calls this fine mess ""one of the most vexing problems we face.""

None of this should surprise anyone.

The Democrats’ no-borders calamity was entirely predictable and is easy to explain.

Two huge jet engines power this metaphorical airplane.

The first is Democrats’ Trump Derangement Syndrome: ""DonaldTrump"" favored it, so it must be demolished. This goes beyond Trump’s ""evil, fascist border wall,"" whose construction Biden halted on Day One — contradicting his 2006 Senate vote for the Secure Fence Act.

Biden also killed Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy and diplomatic pacts with El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

These initiatives stopped the illegal-alien caravans that previously invaded America with abandon. Trump ended these crises and resecured the border.

But Trump’s approach bears his fingerprints. So, Biden reckoned, it must be obliterated.

The second engine: Biden and his brethren consider these illegals Future Democrats of America. If they bust through the border, it might take eight years, perhaps 10, maybe 20.

But, sooner or later, some Democrat government of tomorrow almost surely will grant them forgiveness, a ""path to citizenship,"" and voter registration.

Most of them likely will back Democrats.

And that is the key motive for this madness. As their future majority kicks down the Golden Door, Democrats helpfully remove the hinges.

Jennifer Palmieri, Hillary Clinton’s former communications director, revealed this family secret in a 2018 Center for American Progress memo.

She called DACA recipients — whose parents illegally accompanied them into the U.S. — ""a critical component of the Democratic Party’s future electoral success.""

Palmieri added that if Democrats did not act accordingly, ""the risk is that Latinos fail to see them as a true ally, and as a result sit out crucial elections.""

Meanwhile coyotes and other traffickers deploy children as human shields to help breach the border and fleece their parents for the privilege.

Last week, an SUV crammed with 25 illegal immigrants crashed in California, killing 13.

Most reportedly paid $10,000 each for this deadly ride.

Several Guatemalans dropped $25,000 a piece for this lethal trip.

Trump’s much-reviled ""Kids in cages"" are back!

The same media who breathed fire at the former president for ""warehousing"" illegal-alien children in ""cages"" built by Obama-Biden are now remarkably relaxed as Biden’s ""Kids in containers"" languish in shelters made from steel intermodal-transit boxes.

Also, in Brownsville, Texas, 185 of 1,553 illegals tested were COVID-19 virus positive.

That’s an 11.9% infection rate! These folks were not deported.

They were given bus tickets and whisked into the U.S. interior; the health of the American people be damned.

Biden pledged to wipe out COVID-19. Instead, he literally imports people stricken by the China virus.

Beyond abused children, Biden’s other victims are the millions of immigrants who arrived legally. Their path to citizenship involves delays, paperwork, ever-changing rules, legal bills, and other headaches — while being trapped on sluggish propeller planes.

Meanwhile, illegal aliens whiz by overhead in jumbo-jets fueled by Democrats’ Trump-hatred and infinite craving for political control.

Legal immigrants — who came to America with permission — have every reason to experience Joe Biden’s self-imposed cabin depressurization and lunge for their air-sickness bags. So does every U.S. citizen who watches this new president ""unify"" this country by plunging it into a tailspin.

Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor, a contributing editor with National Review Online, and a senior fellow with the London Center for Policy Research. Read Deroy Murdock's Reports — More Here.",1.050761825532322
"The 2020 election was a disaster by almost any standard.

Whether you supported Donald Trump or Joe Biden, the uncertainty and confusion following the presidential race threatened the stability of our system of government. Now, with the passage of H.R. 1, Democrats in Congress are hoping to make 2020 the status quo.

It’s not hyperbole to say that the bill represents a complete federal takeover of the state election process and a usurpation of the states’ most basic constitutional responsibilities. In fact, the better title for H.R. 1 should be the ""Death of Democracy Act.""

If you cut through the jargon and legalese, the Death of Democracy Act would mandate mail-in balloting in all states, strip voter ID laws in 35 states, remove the ability for states to manage their own voting rolls, and register non-citizens to vote.

Not stopping there, the bill would create a commission of unelected federal officials called the ""Commission to Protect Democrat Institutions."" If that title reminds you of old-fashioned Communist speak you’d be right, the commission will have the power require judges to testify regarding the rulings they issue.

As the Heritage Foundation concluded, this commission ""would be given the authority to compel judges to testify and justify their legal decisions, threatening their independent judgement and subjecting them to political pressure and harassment.""

And speaking of intimidation and harassment, the favorite tools of persuasion for the Left, the bill would also force some non-profits to publish the identities of their donors, subjecting private citizens to the machinations of Cancel Culture and the blacklisting mob.

Reading the details of H.R. 1 one thing is quite obvious: D.C. has grown tired of having to respect the rights of state and local governments. Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., are moving to make the states nothing more than extensions of the federal government, existing solely to enforce the rulings of the D.C. insiders and bureaucrats.

At least they aren’t hiding the ball anymore.

The Death of Democracy Act is a blatant attempt to fully consolidate power at the federal level, and they’re telling us loud and clear that they view the states and the people as pawns in their political schemes.

In a time of aggressive overreach from D.C., the states and the people must respond with equal force.

First, we must push back using our most powerful tool provided us in the Constitution: An Article V Convention of States.

The Founding Fathers foresaw a consolidation of power at the federal level, and they included in Article V a mechanism to stop it. A Convention of States is called and controlled by the states and has the power to propose constitutional amendments to rein in the federal government’s usurpation of state freedom and sovereignty. These amendments can limit federal power to a narrow set of topics.

Secondly, even before a convention of states convenes it's imperative that states respond to an overtly aggressive Biden administration with equally aggressive measures.

States forgoing mask mandates and lockdowns is a good start, as well as the states that are passing legislation overriding executive orders and protecting their citizens’ First and Second Amendment rights.

In February, for example, the Missouri House passed a measure prohibiting state and local law enforcement from enforcing any unconstitutional federal gun laws.

And just this week, 12 states filed suit against Biden’s climate change executive order by arguing it would cause severe economic harm in their states—not to mention the fact that it’s unconstitutional.

As the lawsuit rightly points out, this executive order, ""will destroy jobs, stifle energy production, strangle America’s energy independence, suppress agriculture, deter innovation, and impoverish working families. It undermines the sovereignty of the States and tears at the fabric of liberty.""

Ultimately, we as Americans have a simple choice to make: Do we want decisions made at the state and local level, where we know the politicians and they live in our neighborhoods and communities? Or do we want to be ruled by D.C. insiders and federal bureaucrats who hold average Americans in contempt and have rigged the system to eliminate accountability?

If we choose the former, then now is the time to act and get involved. That starts by demanding our local and state leaders use every tool available to them to resist the federal takeover of our states. Then we must educate and encourage our representatives in state legislatures to use the power and authority given to them by our Constitution in Article V.

If our local officials fail to use this power, our children and grandchildren will be left to suffer under a faraway centralized government. State and local governments will be swallowed up by a federal bureaucracy intent on consolidating power into the hands of a powerful minority that despises our freedoms and the principles that have made our nation great.

We can avoid this future, but we must come together, take a stand against D.C.’s overreach, call the first-ever Article V Convention of States and restore the proper balance of power in our Republic.

Mark Meckler is a constitutional activist who co-founded several grassroots organizations including Convention of States Action, Citizens for Self-Governance, and Tea Party Patriots. After many years in California, he, his wife Patty, and their two Great Danes now enjoy life in Texas. They have two adult children. Read Mark Meckler's Reports - More Here.",0.06808206272904666
"At CPAC 2021, in his first speech since leaving office, President Donald J. Trump warned that America is heading from energy dominance to energy dependence under the new administration.

Sadly, President Joe Biden’s initial flurry of environmental actions, particularly shuttering the nearly-complete Keystone XL pipeline by executive order, is a net loss for the American public.

Emblematic of Democratic hypocrisy, the Biden administration’s anti-energy directives result in higher energy prices and lower American productivity. But the greatest indictment on these 'America Last' energy policies is their empowerment of dictators overseas at the cost of our own citizens.

The Biden regime’s protocol will have no substantial effect on reducing the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. China will remain the greatest environmental perpetrator globally, and our government will do nothing to hold Beijing to account.

Instead, the proposed policies will decimate the American energy industry and ensure that much more of the world’s energy needs will be met by foreign adversaries.

During his historic first term in office, President Trump recognized that a reduction in fuel prices would create tremendous economic value for American households.

After nearly six decades of energy dependence, the U.S. at last achieved energy independence under the Trump administration. We were not beholden to friends or adversaries for our energy supply. Americans enjoyed low fuel prices for the full duration of his term.

The President’s vision behind the Keystone XL pipeline was to provide a lower-cost path to transport oil already flowing from our Canadian neighbors to refineries in the Midwest.

Without the pipeline, oil still flows south, but on a more circuitous path across older pipelines, trucks, and rail cars. This inevitably raises the price that Americans struggling through a pandemic have to pay at the pump.

But now, Joe Biden’s leftist cabal will ensure that U.S. energy suppliers are stifled at every corner, increasing the world’s dependence on our not-so-neighborly trading partners in the MidEast and Russia.

The irony is that self-proclaimed human-rights activists cheer as Biden diverts money from hard-working American energy workers into the coffers of absolute monarchies and sham republics where women are third-class citizens; where migrant workers from Asia and Africa are treated like slaves.

When I worked in President Trump’s State Department, we considered it our patriotic duty to promote American values like free speech, religious liberty, and the protection of life around the world. Countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which loath these American values, earn trillions of dollars selling oil and gas.

The political establishment in Washington claims that a secure commitment to human rights around the world, but consistently ignores the well-documented human rights violations committed regularly by the nations that have—and will soon again—supply our oil and gas.

In fact, with the U.S, out of the way, Qatar is clamoring to be the global leader in liquefied natural gas exports for the next 20 years. One month of Biden’s pandering to certain billionaires may have not only reversed the tremendous gains made under President Trump, but also cost the U.S. decades of energy leadership and market share to come.

Oil wells and pipelines that don’t make it into the ground in America will be drilled in other countries where environmental protection and human rights aren’t even an afterthought.

Think of the message that sends to our great American entrepreneurs: Our federal government is willing to swoop in and shut down a project with millions invested for phony political optics, 42,000 jobs evaporate overnight, and the productive investment that should be in the U.S. will instead feed oil oligarchs around the globe—oligarchs who wish death to America as we know it.

In declaring war on our own energy providers, the Biden administration will drive down productive American investments, push out American jobs, and increase the price of oil.

The only winners of these destructive anti-energy policies are distant foreign governments, the zealots of the Green Left, the multimillion-dollar environmental lobbyists, and the renewable energy special interest groups in Washington.

Say goodbye to America First; Biden has bought America a one-way ticket to last place on his diurnal solar-powered train.

Catharine O'Neill served at the Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development from the first day to the last day of President Donald J. Trump's administration. The issues that she focused on included religious freedom, immigration, UN reform, and protecting life. Read Catharine O'Neill's Reports - More Here.",0.5920171595837932
"President Biden’s administration has announced plans to resume the United States’ association with the Palestinian Authority, including the restoration of humanitarian funding. The new president believes this is a necessary step on a path to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

While Former President Trump’s administration did not realize peace between Israel and the PA, it did make significant advancements in the greater region with the signing of the Abraham Accords, a normalization agreement between Israel and several Arab countries: the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. The main reason this peace was accomplished is because these countries have leaders who were finally convinced that peace with Israel was better for their own countries and the region, something the Palestinian Authority has been unwilling or unable to consider.

Israel has consistently proven that it desires peace as it has offered numerous concessions which were routinely rejected.

Unfortunately, leaders of the PA and Hamas don’t share the same yearning for peace and they have never aspired to improve the lives of their people.

These leaders have siphoned billions in humanitarian aid monies from the US, Europe and their Arab neighbors, and funneled these funds into manufacturing weapons to attack Israeli citizens, stipends to terrorists and their families as rewards for violence, and to line their own pockets.

Former PA President Yasser Arafat diverted billions of dollars to support a lavish lifestyle with mansions and travel, while his people languished in abject poverty. A 2006 report in UK Parliament revealed that, at the time of his death, Arafat may have had as much as $6 billion in hidden bank accounts overseas.

Despite claiming not to have funds to meet the needs of his people, several years ago, current PA President Mahmoud Abbas built a mansion worth $6 million which was widely criticized by many Palestinians while other Palestinian government officials live in luxury as well.

An economic advisor to Arafat, Mohammed Rashid, claimed that Abbas was worth well over $100 million and it’s widely believed that his family is worth over $300 million.

The leaders of Hamas place a different value on international aid as they continue diverting millions of dollars to the manufacturing of missiles and illegal tunnels leading into Israel – its sole desire to eradicate Israel.

Even more disturbing, when opportunities for advancement do arise for Palestinians, the PA and Hamas sabotage them, claiming to the world that they want peace all while keeping their people underfoot and inciting violence through rhetoric in Arabic, especially in school curriculum and textbooks.

But there is some hope. Palestinian businesses throughout Judea and Samaria, where my organization does the lion share of our work, partner with Israeli businesses, for the benefit of both.

Yet, these business owners must keep it secretive or risk being arrested, tortured or killed.

Today, industrial zones throughout Israeli-controlled Area C in Judea and Samaria, which afford Palestinian Arabs opportunities to work in Israeli owned businesses, allow them to earn wages two-three times greater than what they can earn working in their own communities and they’re in high demand.

Numerous Israeli politicians would also like to see these numbers increase exponentially. Former Defense Minister and chairman of the Yamina Party, MK Naftali Bennett, has often spoken of the need to build peace from the ground up through economic advancements.

He argues that improving relations between Israelis and Palestinians through economic opportunities will dynamically change the landscape. I’ve personally seen these industrial zones and spoken with Palestinian workers. There are many who would merely like to provide a livable wage for their families.

If the PA would place greater emphasis on improving the lives of its people rather than the continuing incitement of violence against Israel, much could be solved. Many Palestinians have never wanted the so-called Two-State Solution, which, in my opinion, was never a viable solution at all.

They view Israel as illegitimate and would like it wiped off the map. For those, it will take decades to undo the inbred hatred upon which they were raised. Yet, there are others who have expressed in anonymous polls that they don’t trust their own leadership and would actually prefer living under Israeli governance to improve their own lives.

If President Biden truly wants to bring peace, I believe he would do well to take a step back before repeating the same failed policies of prior US administrations from Israel’s founding until President Donald Trump and his team.

If he would like to achieve significant progress, he needs to convince the Palestinian leadership to institute monumental reforms and place their people over provocation.

Paying its people for attacking and killing Israelis achieves nothing save for prolonging the tensions between the two peoples. Palestinian leaders need to begin prioritizing peace, unity and their people—not their personal bank accounts.

Scott M. Feltman is the executive vice president of One Israel Fund, an American philanthropy that provides security and humanitarian aid for those living in Judea, Samaria, the Jordan Valley and the communities impacted by the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005. Read Scott Feltman's Reports — More Here.",1.1069638526419046
"President Trump has set off what could end up becoming a full-blown trade war.

As we go down this path, it is worth keeping something firmly in view: Tariffs don't work.

I'm not spouting free-market theory; I'm simply making a practical observation.There have been many efforts in recent decades to help industries in decline in America. I can think of no case where tariffs have worked to reverse that decline, except temporarily.

Take the most recent example before Trump — tariffs on tires put in place by President Obama. In 2009, after complaints from American companies about cheap Chinese imports, the Obama administration slapped a 35% tariff on Chinese tires.

As many as 1,200 jobs were saved in the tire industry, according to the Peterson Institute.

But the institute also estimates that consumers paid about $1.1 billion in higher prices, which caused 3,700 jobs to be lost in the retail sector. The cost per tire job saved was almost $1 million. In addition, China retaliated with tariffs on American chicken producers, which Peterson says led to $1 billion in lost sales.

As for the long-term effect?

In 2008, there were 60,000 Americans working in the tire industry. By 2017, there were 55,000.

Robert Lighthizer, Trump's top trade negotiator, learned his tactics during the 1980s, back when Americans were worried that Japan was ravaging the U.S. economy with cheap imports.

As Ronald Reagan's deputy trade chief, Lighthizer employed a variety of trade barriers to cut imports of Japanese goods like cars and steel. Doug Irwin recently noted in Foreign Affairs that two comprehensive studies by the International Trade Commission and the Congressional Budget Office concluded that these sorts of measures were ineffective.

The CBO's conclusion was simple: ""Trade restraints have failed to achieve their primary objective of increasing the international competitiveness of the relevant industries.""

Consider Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs. The pro-tariff Alliance for American Manufacturing claims that 12,700 jobs have been saved or added. But the Peterson Institute calculates that higher steel prices cost American companies about $11.5 billion a year, or about $1 million per steel job saved.

U.S. aluminum production has risen slightly but is still well below 2015 levels.

The United States occupies a central place in global supply chains, with many industries using it as a hub to produce goods and services. If it becomes a high-tariff fortress, it will lose that pivotal place in the international economy.

The nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research released a paper in March observing that Trump has ushered in the largest return to protectionism since the Smoot-Hawley tariffs of the 1930s and the brief Nixon shock of 1971.

The scholars calculated that Trump's tariffs last year cost American consumers and firms a staggering $68.8 billion a year.

The U.S. now has the highest tariffs among the G-7, the group of the world's leading industrialized countries. Over time, other nations will surely become more protectionist as well.

And history suggests that, once imposed, tariffs are hard to repeal since domestic lobbies that benefit will advocate fiercely for their retention. In 1964, retaliating for a European tax on American chickens, the U.S. placed a 25% tariff on light trucks.

The chicken tax was long ago repealed, but the truck tariff remains in place.

It's true that China has been something of a trade cheat, though more often than not it has been clever in using and manipulating the rules to its benefit.

But to put things in perspective, according to a 2015 Credit Suisse tally, the country that imposed the most non-tariff protectionist measures since 1990 was the United States, with three times the number as China.

And that was before Trump.

More importantly, although Trump wants China to abide by World Trade Organization rules, many of his measures are either in contravention of those rules or a flagrant abuse of them — such as the use of the ""national security exemption"" to slow down imports from ""threatening"" countries like Canada and Germany.

Many of Trump's demands on China have nothing to do with opening up markets. They are shopping lists presented to Beijing for goods mostly produced in states that the president wants to win in 2020.

Think soybeans grown in the Midwest. It's less a trade strategy than a reelection strategy.

In fact, it actually moves China in the direction of greater statism since the only way Beijing can fulfill Trump's wish list is to have the government or state-owned enterprises buy the goods.

Trump's trade strategy might have started out well-intentioned, but it has turned into a highly politicized and out-of-control wrecking ball that could end up destroying a system that has brought peace and prosperity to the world for 75 years.

Fareed Zakaria hosts CNN's ""Fareed Zakaria GPS,"" and makes regular appearances on shows such as ABC's ""This Week"" and NBC's ""Meet The Press."" He has been an editor at large Time magazine since 2010, and spent 10 years overseeing Newsweek's foreign editions. He is a Washington Post (and internationally syndicated) columnist. He is author of ""The Post-American World."" For more of Fareed Zakaria's reports, Go Here Now.",-1.5262522609969251
"""The Talk"" staffers reportedly have turned on Sharon Osbourne following her heated discussion about racism with co-host Sheryl Underwood.

Osbourne came under fire after defending her friend Piers Morgan and his controversial comments about Meghan Markle following her interview with Oprah Winfrey. Shortly after, former ""The Talk"" co-hosts Leah Remini and Holly Robinson Peete launched allegations of racism, but they are not the only ones who have turned against Osbourne, a source revealed to The Sun.

""Everyone at the show has turned on her. The Leah Remini claims put them over the edge. They think she can't own her mistakes. They just want to distance themselves from her,"" the insider said.

In response to the ordeal, CBS put ""The Talk"" on hold until next week and launched an investigation. The source said Osbourne believed the probe was to ""find out who set her up"" but it was really ""an HR investigation into a racially insensitive and hostile work environment.""

Osbourne has maintained that the network instigated the exchange between her and Underwood. During their conversation, Underwood explained that some of Morgan's statements could be seen as racist, to which Osbourne argued that her co-host was suggesting she herself had been racist.

Speaking with Variety, Osbourne claimed that CBS executives ordered producers of ""The Talk"" to have her co-hosts bring up questions about tweets she had posted supporting and defending Morgan.

""I blame the network for it,"" she said. ""I was blindsided, totally blindsided by the whole situation. In my 11 years, this was the first time I was not involved with the planning of the segment.""

The Sun’s source said producers were ""furious"" that they were now becoming the target.

""The staff is so angry that their livelihoods have been taken away from them, and their jobs are in jeopardy,"" the source said.

A CBS spokesperson addressed the controversy in a statement to Fox News.

""CBS is committed to a diverse, inclusive and respectful workplace across all of our productions,"" the statement read. ""We’re also very mindful of the important concerns expressed and discussions taking place regarding events on 'The Talk.'""",0.48992383433574255
"If Britney Spears decides to speak out about her past and controversial conservatorship battle, she knows to whom she'll be granting the tell-all interview: Oprah Winfrey.

The pop singer has been the focus of attention following the release of The New York Times' ""Framing Britney Spears"" and, although she has received a wave of support in response to the unauthorized documentary, Britney feels she is the only person who should be telling her story, a source revealed to Entertainment Tonight.

""Britney has considered speaking out about her past, mostly because she doesn't feel others should tell her story,"" the insider said. ""She's always hated doing interviews, but if she ever takes that step, Oprah would most likely be her first choice. At this point, there is no plan in the works for her to do an interview, but when she does, there will be steps Britney would need to take before speaking out.""

The source added that the outpouring of love that Britney has received from fans and celebrities has had a positive effect on her mental health.

""Britney has been much happier lately and those closest to her feel it's because she's received such tremendous support from her fans,"" the source continued. ""The release of the documentary has inspired an outpouring of more love than ever. While she hasn't been able to make changes to her conservatorship, she's received millions of messages from fans on social media and she feels far more understood.""

Britney has been locked in a court battle with her father, Jamie, over her conservatorship for over a decade. Jamie has been in charge of her financial and personal affairs since 2008 but stepped down as her personal conservator in 2019 due to health issues. Jodie Montgomery, a professionally licensed conservator, temporarily took over the role upon Britney's request and on Wednesday the ""Toxic"" singer's lawyer announced that he would be filing a petition to make her Britney's permanent ""care manager,"" according to Fox News.

It is unclear whether the role will also apply to Britney's estate, which is jointly being overseen by Jamie Spears and Bessemer Trust, as ordered by a Los Angeles judge last month.",-1.0391643382394113
"Drew Brees has revealed the reasons why he decided to retire. For 15 years, the former New Orleans Saints quarterback has given his all to the team, but after 20 seasons in the league realized ""it was time.""

Speaking at a press conference Wednesday, Brees explained that injury, combined with family responsibilities, played a role in his decision to call it quits.

""At the end of the day, the factors that go into this are, I’ve always said as long as I can play the game at a high level; I’m having fun doing it; and I’m able to stay healthy, then this is something I’ll do forever. Obviously, I’ve had some injuries the last two years that have been frustrating,"" he said via Pro Football Talk.

""I don’t think they were injuries that were saying I was getting old. But nonetheless, I had the thumb that ruled me five games two years ago, and then had the ribs and the lung that holds me out for four games this past year,"" he said.

""Could I keep playing? Yeah, I’m sure I could. But I’m also looking at my kids, my family, the age of my kids, and just gauging all of those things. There’s a balance there. I also just felt like I would just feel it. I would feel when it was time. I felt that it was time.""

Brees announced his retirement Sunday with the help of his four children- Baylen, 12, Bowen, 10, Callen, 8, and Rylen, 6.

""After 15 years with the Saints and 20 years in the NFL, our dad is finally gonna retire, so he can spend more time with us! Yay!"" they say in a video shared to Brees' official Instagram account.

""I am only retiring from playing football, I am not retiring from New Orleans,"" he wrote in alengthy caption. ""This is not goodbye, rather a new beginning. Now my real life's work begins!""

Brees will appear as an analyst on ""Football Night in America,"" and a commentator during Notre Dame football games, Fox News reported.",1.346132744860967
"A 76-year-old Asian woman was not prepared to back down when a much younger man attacked her in the streets of San Francisco on Wednesday. Instead she fought back, leaving the assailant bloodied and in need of medical assistance.

Speaking with KPIX-TV San Francisco, Xiao Zhen Xie explained that she had been standing by a traffic light when the suspect punched her in the face. Her natural reaction was to grab a nearby stick and hit him back.

In video footage caught by the channel's sports director, Dennis O’Donnell, Xie is seen shouting and sobbing while holding an ice pack to her face. Her attacker lies on a stretcher with a bloodied mouth. He appears to be bewildered.

""You bum, why did you hit me?"" she shouts at the man in Chinese.

Commenting on the scene, O’Donnell described coming across ""a guy on a stretcher"" and a ""frustrated angry woman"" with a stick in her hand.

""The woman said that she was hit. She attacked back,"" he said. ""From what I could see, she wanted more of the guy on the stretcher and the police were holding her back.""

Xie is the latest victim in a wave of attacks against Asians in the area. According to police, an 83-year-old Asian man was also assaulted Wednesday morning. A 39-year-old man is now under investigation for both attacks. It is unclear if racial bias is a motive.

""We have to do our job and we have to investigate these cases with all resources brought to bear and we need to make arrests, and we’ve done that,"" said San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott.

Both Xie and the suspect were taken to hospital for treatment.",1.3653461356601844
"Mama June of ""Here Comes Honey Boo Boo"" has revealed that she spent $1M on drugs in just a year. The reality TV star, whose real name is June Shannon, made the confession while discussing her former addiction in a candid interview with Access Hollywood.

""I was around drugs all my life, my brother-in-law had gotten busted several times for selling dope, my sisters have had pill addictions after surgery, so addiction does run in my family,"" she said. ""When I was 20 years old, I went from nothing and started using meth — as it was known back in the day, crank.""

June explained that she abused drugs until 2015, when she went ""cold turkey,"" but it was only a matter of time before she relapsed. In 2019, June was arrested on suspicion of drug possession and indicted later that year. She has since managed to get clean and will celebrate 14 months of sobriety at the end of March, but her final year of addiction has taken its toll on her family and finances.

""[My] bank accounts [were] overdrawn tens of thousands of dollars,"" she said. ""I would say the last year of our addiction, [we spent] probably a good $900 thousand.""

June said that she entered rehab with ""a dollar 75 to my name"" and ""came out with nothing."" She has since been rebuilding her life.

Last year, June opened up about the dire consequences of her addiction in an episode of ""Mama June: Family Crisis."" She admitted to selling her house to support her drug habit, which was costing her about $2,500 a day. June's relationship with her daughters grew strained and she lost custody of her daughter, Alana ""Honey Boo Boo"" Thompson. Now she is doing what she can to make it up to regain their confidence, according to People.

""I want to say that I'm sorry,"" June said in an episode of ""Mama June: Road to Redemption"" last month, ""but I need to show that I'm sorry.""",1.3411282977024972
"Tiger Woods is back at his South Florida home as he continues to recover from the multiple injuries he sustained in a horrific single-car crash. The golfing legend announced the news on Twitter in a statement that also acknowledged staff at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, which is where he was rushed after swerving off a Southern California road and rolling down a steep hillside.

""I am so grateful for the outpouring of support and encouragement that I have received over the past few weeks,"" the statement read. ""Thank you to all the incredible surgeons, doctors, nurses and staff at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. You have all taken such great care of me and I cannot thank you enough.""

Woods added that he would be ""recovering at home and working on getting stronger every day.""

The 45-year-old suffered multiple fractures in the crash. Harbor-UCLA Medical Center chief medical officer Anish Mahajan detailed the extent of Woods' injuries in a statement posted to the golfer's Twitter account.

""Mr Woods suffered significant orthopaedic injuries to his right lower extremity that were treated during emergency surgery by orthopaedic trauma specialists at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, a level 1 trauma center,"" said Dr Mahajan said. ""Comminuted open fractures affecting the upper and lower of the tibia and fibula bones were stabilised by inserting a rod into the tibia. Additional injuries to the bones of the foot and ankle were stabilised with a combination of screws and pins. Trauma to the muscle and soft tissue of the leg required surgical release of the covering of the muscles to relieve pressure due to swelling.""

Earlier this month fellow PGA Tour players including Tony Finau, Rory McIlroy, Jason Day, Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Thomas, and Patrick Reed donned Woods' trademark red and black colors in the final round of the World Golf Championships-Workday Championship at The Concession in Bradenton, Fla., in support of the professional athlete.

Thomas further expressed his support for Woods following his win of the Players Championship on Sunday,

""I was replaying what he told me a lot in my head,"" he said, according to ESPN. ""He likes to give me a lot of grief, especially when he's not here, and calling him, like Bryson said. ... We're all pulling for him. And I'm so glad to hear everything has been going well with him.""",-0.51093189329913
"Nick Cannon is addressing the anti-Semitic comments and conspiracy theories he spread in June on his YouTube vlog. The Emmy-nominated producer was temporarily fired from Viacom as a result. He issued an apology at the time but during an appearance on ""Soul Nation,"" Cannon has now said he is not looking for forgiveness.

""I've always said that apologies are empty. Apologies are weightless,"" he said in a sneak peek of the interview made available by GMA. ""In Hebrew they call it, you know, 'Teshuva,' the process of not only you know, repenting, but through that — if you're ever met with a similar situation that you make a different decision. That goes beyond apologizing. And I'm on this journey of atonement, not to get a job, not to gain any more money because that's not what's needed here. I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do.""

During his controversial podcast last year, Cannon and Richard ""Professor Griff"" Griffith, the former Public Enemy member, discussed racial bias. At one point Cannon stated that Black people are the true Hebrews and that Jews have usurped their identity.

Speaking with ""Soul Nation,"" Cannon said his remarks came from a place of ignorance, not hatred.

""My journey's not gonna stop, whether the person watching this forgives me or not,"" he added.

Cannon's comments come as he prepares to resume hosting VH1's ""Wild 'N Out"" following his temporary firing. MTV Entertainment Group said in a statement to USA Today that Cannon has ""taken responsibility for his comments"" and ""worked to educate himself"" through conversations with Jewish leaders.",-0.2654782836590299
"Demi Lovato has made some shocking revelations. The pop icon recounted her experiences of being raped as a teen and then sexually assaulted on the morning of her 2018 drug overdose in her new YouTube docuseries, ""Dancing with the Devil."" Speaking in the four-part documentary, which premiered at the virtual South by Southwest festival Tuesday, Lovato revealed that she lost her virginity when she was raped.

""We were hooking up but I said, 'Hey, this is not going any farther, I'm a virgin and I don't want to lose it this way,'"" she recalled, via USA Today. ""And that didn't matter to them, they did it anyways. And I internalized it and I told myself it was my fault because I still went in the room with him, I still hooked up with him.""

At the time, Lovato's career was just taking off. She had been cast in Disney's ""Camp Rock"" in 2008 and was portrayed as a wholesome teen, much like her fellow Disney stars Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers, who were prepared to wait until marriage before having sex. Because of her image, Lovato felt she could not speak out about what had happened and chose to remain silent.

""I was a part of that Disney crowd that publicly said they were waiting till marriage,"" she said. ""I didn't have the romantic first time with anybody, that was not it for me and that sucked. And then I had to see this person all the time, and so I stopped eating and coped in other ways: cutting, throwing up, whatever. And my bulimia got so bad that I started throwing up blood for the first time.""

Several years later, on the day of her drug overdose on July 23, 2018, Lovato said she was sexually assaulted by her drug dealer. The ""Sorry Not Sorry"" hitmaker had been partying with friends at her Los Angeles home that day. When they all left she contacted her dealer, who delivered oxycodone to her. Looking back, Lovato said she believed it was laced with fentanyl.

""I didn't just overdose — I also was taken advantage of,"" Lovato explained of that early morning. ""I've had my fair share of sexual trauma throughout childhood, teenage years. And when they found me, I was naked, I was blue. I was literally left for dead after he took advantage of me.""

Lovato recalled waking up in the hospital and being asked whether she had consensual sex.

""There was one flash that I had of him on top of me. I saw that flash and I said, 'Yes,'"" she continued. ""It wasn't until a month after my overdose when I realized, 'Hey, you weren't in any state of mind to make a consensual decision.' That kind of trauma doesn't go away overnight.""

Lovato has been open about her drug overdose and previously revealed that she had suffered three strokes and a heart attack while in the hospital as a result. Speaking at the documentary's Television Critics Association panel last month, Lovato said the physical effects she suffered were detrimental.

""I was left with brain damage, and I still deal with the effects of that today. I don't drive a car, because I have blind spots on my vision,"" she said, per People. ""And I also for a long time had a really hard time reading. It was a big deal when I was able to read out of a book, which was like two months later because my vision was so blurry.""

Lovato added that the after-effects were a strong reminder of the traumatic experience.

""I dealt with a lot of the repercussions and I feel like they are still there to remind me of what could happen if I ever get into a dark place again,"" she added. ""I'm grateful for those reminders, but I'm so grateful that I was someone that didn't have to do a lot of rehabbing. The rehabbing came on the emotional side.""",-0.4776873864988463
"Yaphet Kotto, best known for his roles in ""Live and Let Die"" and ""Alien,"" has died at age 81. The actor's wife, Tessie Sinahon, confirmed Kotto had died Monday in a Facebook post.

""I'm saddened and still in shocked of the passing of my husband Yaphet of 24 years,"" she wrote.

Born Nov. 15, 1939, in New York, Kotto was raised by his grandparents in the Bronx, according to IMDB. He first began acting in 1958 with a theatrical debut in the title role of ""Othello."" Several years later, he appeared in the Broadway production ""The Great White Hope"" as James Earl Jones' understudy.

Kotto went on to appear in various films before landing his breakout role as the evil Kananga, also known as Mr. Big, in the 1973 James Bond thriller ""Live and Let Die."" Three years later, he was cast as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in ""Raid on Entebbe,"" followed by Nostromo engineer Parker in 1979's ""Alien.""

Kotto's performance led to him being shortlisted for the role of Jean Luc Picard in ""Star Trek: The Next Generation"" (1987), as well as Lando Calrissian in Star Wars' ""The Empire Strikes Back"" but he turned them both down in fear of being typecast.

""I wanted to get back down on Earth,"" he said in a 2003 interview. ""I was afraid that if I did another space film after having done Alien, then I'd be typed. Once you get one of those big blockbuster hits, you better have some other big blockbuster hits to go with it too and be Harrison Ford, because if you don't … you place yourself right out of the business.""

In another memorable role, Kotto famously played Alphonse ""Gee"" Giardello in the NBC drama ""Homicide: Life on the Street,"" which aired from 1993 to 2000. He also delivered sterling performances alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1987's ""The Running Man,"" and next to Robert De Niro in the 1988 comedy ""Midnight Run.""

Other notable titles include ""The Thomas Crown Affair,"" ""Blue Collar,"" ""Eye of the Tiger"" and ""Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare,"" The Hollywood Reporter noted.

""One of the best actor in Hollywood a Legend,"" wrote Sinahon. ""Rest in Peace Honey, I'm gonna miss you everyday, my bestfriend,my rock.I love you and you will always be in my heart.Till we meet again.""",-0.4349305834064704
"Karlie Kloss and Joshua Kushner have become parents. Kushner, whose brother Jared Kushner is married to Ivanka Trump, announced the birth of their first child on social media Sunday.

""Welcome to the world,"" the 35-year-old businessman captioned a photo of their newborn in an Instagram post. Their baby's name and gender was not revealed.

People confirmed the couple were expecting in October last year.

""Karlie is overjoyed to be expecting her first child in 2021,"" a source told the outlet. ""She will be the most amazing mother.""

Kloss and Kushner tied the knot in 2018, months after Kushner proposed to Kloss during a romantic weekend together in upstate New York. The couple have tried to stay out of the public eye but often find themselves thrust into the limelight because of their political relations. Kloss is often questioned on her political views and previously admitted to British Vogue the attention was tough.

""It's been hard,"" she said. ""But I choose to focus on the values that I share with my husband, and those are the same liberal values that I was raised with and that have guided me throughout my life.""

Kloss caused a stir when she endorsed President Joe Biden last year during his run on Instagram.

""What's your voting plan?"" Kloss captioned two photos of herself wearing a mask with Biden and Harris' campaign logo on the front. In her hand she is holding a sealed mail-in ballot. ""This was mine — signed, sealed, (notarized), and delivered #voteBLUE #scienceoverfiction""

Joshua is also a lifelong Democrat, a rep confirmed to Esquire.",-0.10962846306146516
"The European Union is rebuffing British government calls to ship AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines produced in a factory in the Netherlands, an EU official said Sunday.

Former EU member Britain has so far administered many more vaccines than EU countries in proportion to the population.

""The Brits are insisting that the Halix plant in the Netherlands must deliver the drug substance produced there to them. That doesn't work,"" the official told Reuters.

The Leiden-based plant which is run by sub-contractor Halix is listed as a supplier of vaccines in both the contracts that AstraZeneca has signed with Britain and with the European Union.

""What is produced in Halix has to go to the EU,"" the official added.

Britain has insisted that contracts must be respected.

""The European Commission will know that the rest of the world is looking at the Commission, about how it conducts itself on this, and if contracts get broken, and undertakings, that is a very damaging thing to happen for a trading bloc that prides itself on the rules of law,"" Defence Minister Ben Wallace said on Sky News earlier in answer to a question about Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen's threat to block exports to Britain.

The EU official said the EU was not breaking any contract.

The European Union threatened Wednesday to block exports of COVID-19 vaccines to Britain to safeguard scarce doses for its own citizens, with Von der Leyen saying the epidemiological situation was worsening.

AstraZeneca has not yet sought approval in the EU for Halix, but the official and a second EU source said the request was on its way.

Without regulatory approval, vaccines produced at Halix cannot be used in the EU.

An internal AstraZeneca document seen by Reuters shows that the company expects EU approval March 25.

AstraZeneca has declined to comment on the amount of vaccines that are currently stockpiled at Halix.

The EU official said the factory had already produced shots, but was not able to quantify the output. Under the EU contract with AstraZeneca, vaccines must be produced before approval and be delivered immediately afterwards.

Two factories in Britain run by Oxford Biomedica and Cobra Biologics are also listed as suppliers to the EU in the contract with AstraZeneca, but no vaccine has so far been shipped from Britain to the EU, despite Brussels' earlier requests.

Officials have said that Cobra is not fully operational. AstraZeneca told EU officials that the UK is using a clause in its supply contract that prevents export of its vaccines until the British market is fully served, EU officials said.",0.8222004746459374
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"The New Right is the captain now.

When the old guard goes out of its way to crush a new endeavor, you have to wonder what’s at stake. Nick Solheim and Saurabh Sharma of American Moment are young, devoted, and driven to “forge a cadre of aligned and dedicated young people to serve in government and public-policy organizations to support strong families, a sovereign nation, and prosperity for all.” Why should an editor of National Review—a publication whose very reason for being is ostensibly to energize and guide the conservative movement—want to undermine and discredit this exciting new endeavor in the eyes of his movement conservative audience?

“If you believe the people behind the new organization American Moment,” writes Butler, “the main problem with the Swamp is simply that the wrong people have been in charge. In case you were wondering, they think they are the right people.” How dare they.

I know it’s hard but imagine an organization on the right actually trying to “identify, educate, and credential young Americans who will implement public policy that supports strong families, a sovereign nation, and prosperity for all.”

Imagine if that organization is “not adherent to the morally bankrupt system that is American higher education, so college degrees, as well as prior political experience, are not requirements for admission.”

Imagine if it practices what it preaches, reaching out to find real talent outside of fancy schools or wealthy families: “generous funding is designed to make the fellowship livable with no external income, so young people of all economic means are encouraged to apply.”

It’s—it’s exactly what we need.

The implicit conceit here is that National Review, by contrast, has hardly any aspirations to influence public policy or install conservatives in positions of political power. Judging by the waning influence and failure of establishment conservatism over the last decade or two, we will not fault anyone for believing this to be true. But the clear implication of the snipe is that in the purity of their small-government piety, National Review simply wants to eliminate as many of those positions as possible. This is an impossibility, as well as a lie.

Buckley’s main claim to fame was not to stand athwart other conservatives yelling stop, but to shape the Reagan coalition’s acquisition and use of political power. Indeed, the National Review Institute’s Burke to Buckley program was, in its own words, created to “build a network of talented, like-minded individuals who can assist one another professionally and personally for years to come.” The William F. Buckley Jr. Fellowship in Political Journalism was designed to exert the same sort of influence over the press. Like the Claremont Institute—like any movement organization that hopes to be remotely effectual—National Review’s organizations share an explicit interest in training up young conservatives and getting them into positions where they cannot just gatekeep but lead.

The movement Buckley led was dynamic—intellectually nimble and responsive to the urgent concerns of its day. But some inheritors of that movement have gradually frozen conservatism in time, and frozen out conservatives painfully conscious of just what time it is. Faced with unprecedented threats to first-amendment rights on the part of digital conglomerates, the time has long passed for Cold War-era slogans about private enterprise. Faced with the staggering financial, strategic, and psychological cost of generations of interventionism, the time is past for scolding Americans about their “intolerance for the messy and unending business of preserving a general peace.” And faced with the rise of new generations unwilling to play the honorable loser, the time is past for snobs who can do little more than turn up their noses.

The real reason some in the old guard feel threatened by American Moment is not that Solheim and Sharma want to influence politics. It’s that they accuse Conservative, Inc.—that dependable stable of campaign consultants, op-ed writers, and think tank wonks who have dominated intellectual conservatism since the ’80s—of having institutionalized failure. Those accusations hit home.

In 2016, when Donald Trump stood poised to help sweep away the detritus of this “zombie Reaganism,” Conservative, Inc. took on its final boss form: hidebound, disdainful, and furiously resistant to change. Here’s Kevin Williamson in National Review’s March 2016 issue (a month after February’s Against Trump bonanza special) blaming Trump’s populist base for the problems they were desperate to get solved:

If you spend time in hardscrabble, white upstate New York, or eastern Kentucky, or my own native West Texas, and you take an honest look at the welfare dependency, the drug and alcohol addiction, the family anarchy—which is to say, the whelping of human children with all the respect and wisdom of a stray dog—you will come to an awful realization. It wasn’t Beijing. It wasn’t even Washington, as bad as Washington can be. It wasn’t immigrants from Mexico, excessive and problematic as our current immigration levels are. It wasn’t any of that. Nothing happened to them. There wasn’t some awful disaster. There wasn’t a war or a famine or a plague or a foreign occupation. Even the economic changes of the past few decades do very little to explain the dysfunction and negligence—and the incomprehensible malice—of poor white America.

In defense of this outrageous attack, David French said the quiet part out loud: “millions of Americans aren’t doing their best. Indeed, they’re barely trying.” Leave aside for a moment the pure blinkered prejudice of these astonishing statements—their blithe disregard for global economic trends, the ease with which they wave away the constant verbal abuse that poor white Americans receive from well-heeled Democrats and Republicans alike, their unwillingness to entertain the notion that any of this meaningfully contributes to the suffering of middle America. Bracket the evidence crashing down around downwardly-mobile Americans’ heads that their bipartisan elite has spent over twenty years putting their country at odds with their interests and at war with their identities. Even tabling all that, the fact remains: Americans—lots of them—are hurting. Badly. What do establishment conservatives propose to do about that?

The answer is: nothing. No, really. They tell us that government and political leaders can do nothing. “Government Can’t Heal Us, Tucker Carlson,” Kyle Smith insisted in National Review in 2019—as if Carlson’s now-famous monologue suggesting maybe Republicans should craft policies that, you know, actually help their own voters was some form of sacrilege. Smith went on to say that leaders who actually care about us ackshually can’t help us. “Leaders may want” good things “for us, but we should have no illusion that they can provide those things for us,” chided Jim Geraghty. Shut up and lose, in other words. As we said a few years ago, “[t]his anti-politics of principled loserdom is a secular form of homiletics, preaching unheard to the unwashed.”

So perhaps there is one thing that they have elected themselves to do: preach scornfully to demoralize and disparage Republican voters, hurrying up the day that so many have died, retired, or sunk into oblivion that their whole icky demographic has disappeared and been replaced. In other words, exactly what the woke-led Left is doing. But look, our superiors in Conservative, Inc. know they are better Christians and citizens than millions of their fellows, as they like to remind us all daily. For them, tough love for your actual citizen neighbors means telling them how they are responsible for everything bad in America, from racism to the spread of COVID-19.

Oddly, among this set it often turns out that love of those who are not your actual citizen neighbors, from occupied Iraq to every impoverished immigrant group in the world, does require government intervention and leaders who “care.” For years, the Wall Street Journal has been gleefully calling for an onrush of low-wage immigrant labor: “The Recovery Needs Immigrants.” “To Grow the Economy, America Needs Immigrants.” “There’s no economic or health case for blocking all immigrants.” Reasonable minds can differ about how many new workers we should be letting onto our shores, but what about the ones who are already here? Are they completely incapable of “growing the economy” or driving its recovery? Are they unworthy of investment or training, devoid of potential to contribute to American life at all? The cumulative implication is that Americans should either abandon their cratering communities and head for the city, or else prepare to subsist on whatever meagre scraps of UBI we deign to give them until they die off.

This suicidal “messaging” hasn’t worked electorally in the past and it won’t work in the future. Unless the Republican party prioritizes the ruled classes—not the ruling ones—in its campaigning and policy proposals, we risk squandering the major inroads Trump made, ones that won the Republican Party an unearned second chance at survival. The result will be obsolescence and irrelevance, which are exactly what Conservative, Inc. seems to welcome in its heart. Republicans can keep gaslighting and abusing their core constituency—that “credulous boomer rube demo,” those “childless single men who masturbate to anime”—but it’s not going to end well for the party. Why not do something for the people you’re supposed to be championing, for a change? Why not fight to claw back their trust?

Perhaps because it’s just too late. Maybe Conservative, Inc. is simply too old, too tired, and too compromised to close its yawning credibility gap. In which case, the younger generation of conservative leaders like Sharma and Solheim are to be thanked, even celebrated, for stepping into the breach, and not a moment too soon. Here, on the front lines of restoring the Right to greatness in our time, we support their endeavor unreservedly. How tiresome that anyone who shows initiative of this kind is faced with vicious resistance from movement police lording shamelessly over decline. But if the old guard is really committed to its self-defeating obstructionism, so be it: we don’t need them anyway. In their hearts, conservatives know the new Right has already taken the lead.

There are still a lot of good people working at places like National Review, some of whom acknowledge some of these truths, and the publication still does good work at times. They ran Mark Krikorian’s short defense of American Moment recently. But let’s stop pretending that at an organizational level, Conservative, Inc. has a clue as to the political landscape it is now operating within or what to do about it moving forward. Let’s stop pretending that the old Right has demonstrated any coherent, consistent plan moving forward, or any coherent, consistent response to Trump even now, well after he has left office.

Spare us the mumbling about William F. Buckley. That was a long time ago now. What Buckley accomplished was to bring a coalition together and lead it forward into battle. When National Review publishes dumb and vindictive attacks on American Moment, the Claremont Institute, and all those mendacious poor whites voting for The Donald, it reveals it is incapable of that task today. This is no longer about “having the debate” or hosting various viewpoints. This is a rudderless ship.

At first, we gave our detractors the benefit of the doubt—these are trying times, and people disagree about what is to be done. But it’s been five long years, and it is still not clear where they stand. It does not matter whose fault it is that NR doesn’t even seem to understand or be able to explain to its readers where the fault lines on the Right now are. We hope they eventually figure it out. But the upshot is this: Conservative, Inc. is no longer the gatekeeper or standard of anything, and everyone knows it. This American Moment has passed them by. If they remain alarmed and confused about the outlines of the consistent, coherent popular agenda the energetic young new Right is proposing and developing—if they continue to blindly oppose it—well, let the dead bury the dead.",-0.4074016796464455
"We call them Marxists, but they have rejected collectivism.

The collapse of the Soviet Union 30 years ago did not precipitate the destruction of Marxist energies; rather, it caused them to adopt new survival strategies in accordance with changes in the environment. What took place was not an “end of history” but simply another step in the dialectical process: a thesis and an antithesis collided, producing a synthesis. The thesis was Western Christianity and individual autonomy, and the antithesis was materialist, collectivist Marxism. Their synthesis is the Wokeism that bedevils us today.

That this new ideology is quasi-religious in nature has already been widely observed. Wokeism is sometimes described as Christianity, except without forgiveness or redemption. As Robert Nisbet observed, socialist Bertrand Russell summed up Marxism “as follows: dialectical materialism is God; Marx the Messiah; Lenin and Stalin the apostles; the proletariat the elect; the Communist Party the Church; Moscow the seat of the Church; the Revolution the Second Coming; the punishment of capitalists Hell; Trotsky the Devil; and the communist commonwealth Kingdom Come.”

But if religion is the opiate of the masses, then Wokeism is their methamphetamine—a new, cheap, and highly addictive new form of Marxism. What, then, about the dichotomy of individualism and collectivism? On the right, we dismiss the Woke Left’s economics as “Bolshevik” or “socialist.” But Wokeists are more focused on racial, sexual, and gender identity groups than they are on economic classes and their eternal struggle. The Woke seek to redistribute wealth, but only enough to repair the historical injustice of racist oppression—it’s not clear that they would mind having a rich overclass lording it over dispossessed whites. This shift from class to racial consciousness has been accounted for as a mere rearrangement of the furniture that does not alter the underlying ideology. But this assumption is mistaken.

In swapping identity groups for economic groups, the modern Left substituted individualism for collectivism. Of course, collectivist, group-oriented rhetoric remains in vogue. But what determines membership in this era’s protected groups? Is it the actual fact of having this or that immutable characteristic or “lived experience”; or is it the individual’s act of self-identification? For gender and sexual orientation, it is undeniably the latter: in the minds of the Woke, thinking makes it so. Identifying (“I identify as”) takes precedence over simply being (“I am”). The latter formulation subordinates the individual to the group category. This is collectivism. The former is preferable because through it, the group category becomes a valuable accessory to the individual who can wield it, a potent weapon in the ongoing war for social and political power that supposedly undergirds all human interaction. This is Wokeism. Understood another way, what was once “I am a part of this group” has become “this group is a part of me.”

The use of identity language serves as a kind of self-deification. Like the God of Genesis, whose creative instrument is the Logos, the Woke speak things into being (at least in their own imaginations). “God said x; therefore, x was” is readily analogized to “I identify as x; therefore, I am x.” Whereas Christianity arose in opposition to the pagan decadence of one man’s self-deification (“a decree went out from Caesar Augustus…”), we now have millions of self-anointed woke deities to contend with. In this light, the explosion in transgenderism among today’s teenage girls, cited by Abigail Shrier and others, is no wonder. Who would refuse all the praise, sacrifice, genuflection, and moral license that Olympus once received?

How does this play out in the real world? Look no further than Canadian Bill C-16, by which “gender nonconforming people” are invited to deputize the power of the State in order to compel the speech of others. The same dynamic is at play with regard to the push for cash reparations for slavery, the Little Sisters of the Poor’s Supreme Court battles, and many other examples. As Spencer Klavan has recently pointed out, the goal of the Left is to align the might of the State with its own spiritual aims. But the religion in question is not merely that of social justice. Beneath the surface, it is the worship of the Self, each individual her own little deity, demanding penance and contrition.

This has proven difficult for the Right to recognize because, with all our libertarianism, we thought we had exclusive rights to individualist doctrine. But whereas the Right’s economic individualism has been, for the most part, tempered by Judeo-Christian morality structures that limit the self, the Left’s new spirituality is characterized by its removal of limitations on the individual. Whereas the West’s idea of individual sovereignty grants each individual rule over the kingdom of his person and property, Wokeism encourages the transgression of these and many other natural borders, celebrating the annexation of neighboring territories, provided, of course, that the aggressors belong to a protected identity group. Invasion can be averted by accepting the terms of this theocracy.

What to do? How to win? Know the Woke aren’t Marxists. They are no longer materialists or collectivists. The incessant Marxist epithet seems to mostly serve our impulse of self-satisfaction, because it connotes a failed ideological system. But, having won virtually no significant cultural battles for at least a half century, the Right is no position to be satisfied by its impulses or satisfied with itself. Perhaps that recognition will help reveal that the Woke, having abandoned all but the trappings of collectivism, have hijacked individualism and driven it to its logical conclusion: the self is a god. Any political culture that depends on an individualism of degrees will prove unpersuasive by comparison.",-0.6177465741953706
"America’s unserious political class is totally unequipped to deal with the threat.

The Chinese Communist Party is deathly serious in its pursuit of global hegemony, which, if achieved, would be a nightmare for all who believe in liberty and justice.

By contrast, can it be said of our political class that it is deathly serious about anything fundamental to preserving our way of life?

As 2021 dawns, contrast how the CCP ended last year, with how America’s leaders started this one.

The CCP should have come out of 2020 badly wounded, withering under severe isolation and punishment from a newly resolute West spurred to action over China’s primary culpability in the cover-up and spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, it rang in the new year with a diplomatic, economic, and strategic coup—all with the aid of the West.

China and the European Union agreed in principle to an investment pact that the EU’s president described as “an important landmark in our relationship with China” that would “provide unprecedented access to the Chinese market for European investors.” This was quite a reward given China’s depredations—from the coronavirus casualties on Europe’s streets, to the victims of the crackdown on Hong Kong, to the prisoners in the mushrooming Xinjiang gulags.

The agreement enabled China to drive a wedge between America and its putative allies and partners, reap the pecuniary benefits, and generate a golden opportunity to exert even greater leverage and therefore control over Europe by binding it ever-closer economically and, by necessity, politically and socially.

All in all, China capped a year that could have proven catastrophic for its ambitions by notching a major victory as it continued its ruthless pursuit of global power and influence. Besides which, it exposed our friends’ stated devotion to the so-called liberal international order, and concerns about the environment and human rights, as hollow—particularly given China’s worst-in-class record on the last two counts. Above all, it revealed the EU’s, greed, cowardice, and most concerningly, its readiness to hedge should Communist China eclipse the U.S. as the dominant world power.

What might give it such an idea?

Consider what was happening in Washington, D.C.

Joe Biden’s team’s reacted in toothless fashion to the then-impending EU-China investment pact, stating it “would welcome early consultations with our European partners on our common concerns about China’s economic practices.” Those concerns are not standing in the way of Team Biden’s desire, however, to “cooperate” with Beijing, the world’s largest polluter, on climate change—which Biden claims is a greater threat than China—nor to “engage” with it in the strategically vital realm of space. For the first time in his nearly 50-year career, Biden himself is acknowledging that China presents multiple challenges, but that is about the best that can be said of the arguably compromised, erstwhile loud and proud China cheerleader. One will search in vain for a single piece of evidence that would give the likes of the EU the impression that a Biden administration would be more serious about taking on China than a Trump one. For its part, Communist China has indicated it will welcome a President Biden with open arms.

Meanwhile, Washington’s lack of seriousness on other matters showed too.

Fresh off the heels of passing a pork-laden spending bill unmoored from its headline aim of providing relief from the economic hardship our political class inflicted upon us through its arbitrary, capricious, and draconian coronavirus response—a bill that lavished billions of dollars on projects ranging from “gender programs” in Pakistan, to failing Amtrak, to the closed Kennedy Center—Congress turned to other vital matters.

The House Rules Committee proposed a slew of changes for the next Congress, including, according to a press release, “honor[ing] all gender identities by changing pronouns and familial relationships in the House rules to be gender neutral.”

All of these events transpired before Congress demonstrated its overwhelming refusal to show even a modicum of interest in investigating the corruption of the 2020 presidential election (while telegraphing it would federalize its assault on election integrity going forward); endeavored to undertake another dubious and pathetic impeachment effort; and threatened to further exploit the Capitol Hill riot by violating the rights of Americans directly and via their adjuncts in Big Tech. Punishing and purging dissenters from the bipartisan establishment’s orthodoxy indeed seems to be the one thing of consequence the feds are truly serious about.

In the spirit of the new rules package, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) concluded his opening prayer for the 117th Congress by saying “amen…and a-woman.”

It would seem clear that in 2021, as concerns Congress, we can expect still-greater profligacy with a side of gender pronouns.

Surely, one would think members of our political class would at least show some seriousness with respect to the coronavirus pandemic for which they advocated we upend our lives for months on end. Yet, demonstrating how unserious they were about the stringent epidemic-combatting standards they enthusiastically endorsed, several Democrat House members who recently tested positive for the coronavirus nevertheless returned to the nation’s capital to cast their vote to re-elect Speaker Pelosi.

If you thought maybe things at the state level looked brighter, think again.

On China, governor’s offices around the country responded with almost unanimous silence to my inquiries about what measures they were taking to combat the CCP’s malign influence.

With respect to the not only economically disastrous, and socially ruinous, but liberty-imperiling state and local level coronavirus responses, the Empire State showed the potential for ever-greater tyranny on the horizon.

A New York assemblyman put up a bill for consideration that would allow the governor or official of his choosing by order to detain and/or remove individuals or groups of individuals to a “medical facility or other appropriate facility” should the governor believe they “pose an imminent and significant threat to the public health resulting in severe morbidity or high mortality” during a pandemic.

In sum, at every level, we see unseriousness among wide swathes of our political class: About the threats facing us, and the values and principles that we must rekindle if we are to be able to counter them. Many of our putative leaders refuse to take the China challenge remotely as seriously as China is taking its march to power. Many have put Climatism, Wokeism and pandemic hysteria over America’s interests, freedoms, prudence, and frankly, sanity.

That not just the political class but the ruling class itself is literally and figuratively invested in China’s rise for decades, only makes the situation more grim.

Nothing is preordained about China’s ascent, or America’s decline.

But China’s rise will become a self-fulfilling prophecy if our most formidable adversary remains doggedly devoted to its cause, while America’s “elites” are devoted to any other cause but that of putting America, its people, and their liberty and justice first.",0.9319546604258451
"The U.S. military can work with the private sector to immunize efficiently.

What happens when one of the best logistics organizations on earth—the United States military—is sidelined in the fight against a pandemic?

On May 15, 2020, President Donald Trump announced the launch of “Operation Warp Speed,” the administration’s public-private partnership to develop, manufacture, and distribute vaccines for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). This disease is a result of infection with the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which emerged from Wuhan, China in late 2019. On November 9th, just a few months on from the May 15 announcement, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer (and its Germany-based partner BioNTech SE) released the first results of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate. Moderna followed a week later on November 16th.

This astonishingly fast rollout, shortened from the multiple years typical in vaccine development down to just a few months, will be remembered as one of the most remarkable scientific races in modern history. Per the Centers for Disease Control’s vaccine tracker (current as of January 5, 2021), close to 4.84 million people in the United States have received their first dosage of either Pfizer’s or Moderna’s vaccine, with 17 million doses distributed to the states. But this has fallen well short of the ambitious 40 million dose goal initially touted by Operation Warp Speed and the Trump administration as the target for December 31. Though the mainstream media largely continues to spin the delays wholly as an abject failure by the administration, the reality is much more complex than “Orange Man Dumb.”

When the Operation Warp Speed team rolled out their distribution plan on September 16, my immediate commentary focused on two domains: Infrastructure and People. Quite simply, it’s because those two factors are nearly always the single points of failure in any logistical undertaking. Further, risk in supply chains scales exponentially as more complexity is introduced. Availability of raw materials, distance from manufacturing to delivery, human decision making, performance of machines, target markets and demographics, and countless other factors create a fluidity that only the most experienced and creative logistics experts can hope to successfully navigate in real time.

In the specific case of the vaccines produced by Operation Warp Speed, three constraints have emerged as the most troublesome: temperature control, demand planning, and human error. And though the former challenge is predictably manageable when handling any “cold chain” product, it is the latter two issues that can make a logistics planner feel like he’s raising a Mogwai that just won’t stop taking showers and eating after midnight. Unfortunately, the specific framework of OWS’s distribution plan failed to sufficiently account for any of these domains, opening the door for political mischief, narrative war, and an orphan of a plan.

“Not a Day Sooner”

In an open letter released on December 15, 2020, Pfizer CEO Dr. Albert Bourla attempted to assuage concerns about the exceptional requirements imposed on logistics providers and caregivers by his company’s novel vaccine. Instead, he perfectly encapsulated the major chokepoint—a mismatch between need and capacity. His three key points can be paraphrased as follows:

We revolutionized the way cold chain vaccines are transported and stored by designing improved cold chain packaging, We made the distribution process work in a very narrow, time-limited testing phase under controlled conditions, and Trust us, we have been doing this a long time.

To the layman, the open letter reads as a reassuring, plausible list of reasons why everything will be just fine. But to a logistics expert—particularly one who has worked in a cold chain logistics operation—it’s a frightening whitewash of a likely failure to take accountability for inevitable issues. This denial of reality is best exemplified by Dr. Bourla’s statement that “our distribution approach involves sending shipments of our vaccine…when they need them, and not a day sooner.”

What Dr. Bourla is saying is that Pfizer planned for a “just in time” supply chain in order to balance manufacturing capacity with the vagaries of transportation capacity, hoping to match production and distribution with the mishmash of next-in-line priorities received from the federal, state, and local governments. Under perfectly optimal conditions, this is a worthy goal. However, even under normal conditions, wastage rates for vaccines can range from 5-10% for vaccines packaged in the 5-10 doses/vial range, as both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s are. It is fair to say that these are less than optimal conditions, logistically speaking. And given the tumult of the post-election interregnum, many of the key stakeholders are wondering if, or how, the problems might ever be fixed.

Ludicrous Speed

When I initially set out to write this piece, I wanted to cover the full domain of issues facing the national vaccine rollout. However, the news space is flooded with these sorts of articles, each saying roughly the same thing: the states are struggling to plan and execute distribution because the federal plan is both too complex and too vague. Another rundown of complaints and data points contributes little and threatens to amplify noise over signal. Rather, I’ll offer what The American Mind is known for: a bold, effective proposal for a major challenge.

Given the confusion and opacity surrounding the Phase 1A allocations of vaccines to each state, and the mixed messages about the role of the military and civilian logistics providers in distributing the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, it may be best to re-conceive the logistics domain of Operation Warp Speed altogether. The good news here is that this proposal would be workable to implement immediately as a way of getting vaccine distribution back on track.



As of right now, Pfizer and Moderna have both indicated their goal is to produce more than one million doses per day each of their respective vaccines for the United States market through early 2021. This number is likely on the low side, as new contract manufacturers come online and begin churning out vaccines. Nonetheless, it’s a safe production goal to work forward from. Availability of production is the first variable, and is easily determined by run rate at each manufacturing point.

Distribution of need is the second variable, and is a bit hazier. Each state has submitted its own requests to Operation Warp Speed and the manufacturers based on state-level interpretation of CDC’s guidance. Each day, Pfizer and Moderna then have to coordinate shipment of the vaccines to the designated states and distribution hub(s), apportioned by that manufacturing cycle’s availability. As of this moment, manufacturing and distribution are still largely hand-to-mouth, with states requisitioning daily and administering injections as fast as possible.

Analysis of the CDC’s data overlaid with state populations shows that an average of 6.3% of each state’s population has been accounted for, with doses distributed by the manufacturers thus far in Phase 1A and 1B. A range of 5.5% to 7.5% fell within that requisition cycle. Alaska is the outlier at 12.74% of total vaccine requirements already received. Given that distribution of Phase 1A and 1B targets at the state level seems to be roughly in that 5-7% band across the board regardless of how the states are specifically allocating doses, we can begin to form some general macro-level assumptions.

Rate Vaccines Received per 100,000 (data via CDC, current as of 1/9/21)

Assumption A is that regardless of the specific demographics of each state in terms of ethnicity, age, income, job, essential or inessential employment, and so on, the states are ultimately receiving about the same percentage of doses relative to their population base. Contra CDC’s extremely complex guidance and models, this heuristic approach has the benefit of maintaining simplicity and avoiding lengthy debates about “who gets what” at a time we should be focusing on speed to market. Assumption B is that we can begin to “chunk” this data down to manageable clusters and build a scalable, high-speed network that focuses on connecting the manufacturers to regional, multi-state hubs, and from there shorten the final mile.



The reason we want to do this is that the current model has too many nodes. Contracting UPS and FedEx as the primary carriers means the vaccines must move through those networks. These are optimized for lowest-cost, highest-speed sorting and distribution of a variety of freight, nearly all of which is non-perishable. And while UPS and FedEx claim to be masters of handling pharmaceutical and time-sensitive cargo, they primarily rely on the performance of the insulated shipping boxes at keeping cargo in good condition while it transits through the regular network.

There is little, if any, direct transportation from vaccine manufacturer to a final distribution hub. More handling inside these logistics networks, then, means more opportunities for loss, breakage, or theft. Further, given the fog of war that naturally occurs during high-volume and high-stress supply chain operations, it is expected that shipments of vaccines are being riskily diverted or re-delivered in real time as a result of demand shift, logistics issues, or outright fraud.

With these assumptions in mind, let’s sketch the distribution requirements. The US is broadly divided into four regions: the South (38% of total population), the West (24%), the Midwest (21%), and the Northeast (17%).

US Regions per World Atlas

Within these four regions, there’s a decided population skew as well. For example, in the Midwest, Ohio and Michigan alone are 31.7% of the total population for the region. Illinois and Wisconsin make up 27%. In the South, Florida and Georgia comprise 25.6%; Texas holds 23%. In the West, it’s even more stark, with California alone at 50.4% of the entire regional population. And in the Northeast, the three neighboring states of Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey are collectively 73.5% of the regional population. As one can see, a vaccine logistics operation could derive precision impact by focusing a majority of its effort on delivering supplies into just these relatively few locales. But how to do that with maximum efficiency and minimum friction?

Fortunately, the United States government already has an inbuilt military and emergency mobilization infrastructure. Recall, the Interstate Highway System was originally built as a dual-use network of road arteries that could allow the military to move supplies and manpower rapidly between population centers in the event of a conflict on U.S. soil. In modern parlance, this capability is known as STRAHNET, or the Strategic Highway Network, which connects certain key military bases to one another via pre-designated routes on the United States’ road network. Conveniently, STRAHNET overlaps neatly with the most efficient means of airlifting and distributing vaccines to a majority of the U.S. population.

With a bit of modification, STRAHNET can overnight become “VAXNET.” In so doing, we greatly mitigate all three constraints: infrastructure, demand planning, and human error. Here’s how we do it.

VAXNET

First, this proposal necessarily makes liberal use of United States military assets and personnel. The United States government has invoked every relevant act or statute—especially the Stafford Act and Defense Production Act—since the beginning of the pandemic to respond to the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. It beggars belief that we should not treat the vaccine rollout with a similar federalized approach, while still allowing the states and municipalities some flexibility in running their own vaccine campaigns. The key goals of implementing this model are to ease the strain on the domestic logistics network at a time of peak ecommerce logistics demand, streamline the flow of doses from manufacturing sites to the regional hubs, and reduce the number of “just in time” lanes that must be managed over long distances.

Today, the structure of Operation Warp Speed is more akin to drop-shipping to consumers directly from China—it requires high speed, perfect execution, and a lot of luck to operate consistently at scale. Our goal should be to scale the logistics rollout to operate in a similar manner to Amazon’s network.

This operation relies on four lanes of effort working concurrently.

1. Manufacturing and distribution to key military bases by a network of military and commercial aircraft; each base must be equipped with a runway capable of handling medium- and large-body cargo aircraft, sufficient logistics personnel and assets onsite to handle cold chain storage and management of vaccine inventory, and staging of vaccine transfer to commercial carriers for the final mile.

VAXNET Hubs with 600-mile radii

U.S Population Distribution (courtesy of Visual Capitalist)

As one can see from these maps, the VAXNET operation endeavors to create overlapping zones of coverage for the most densely-populated areas, based on 600-mile transport zones.

This number is chosen because it is roughly the standard number of miles that can be safely covered by an over-the-road truck driver in given day’s hours of service. Smaller vehicles such as box trucks or sprinter vans can cover even more ground. If team drivers are used, the truck or van need only stop for fuel or food. By airlifting multiple municipalities’ worth of doses from manufacturing to a single hub within one day’s transit to multiple cities or distribution points, the states gain “just in time” levels of flexibility and coordination in allocating doses throughout their areas of responsibility.

Contrast this with the current Operation Warp Speed model of individual cities or states trying to maintain a constant supply chain of doses by relying on UPS or FedEx to deliver in a timely manner, through a complicated feeder network, from much further away.

2. Development of approved lanes from the bases to designated municipal distribution points, with properly-resourced truckload carriers to handle the volume of direct cold chain transport from hub to municipal distribution point.

This is a core competency of many civilian and military logistics professionals, and as such, would not be a difficult task to coordinate immediately. The primary focus must be on clear, frequent communication between the on-base logistics coordinators and the supply chain managers working with each state’s point-of-care service providers in local and rural jurisdictions. Another key focus must be on transparency in demand planning between all stakeholders serviced by each base, and real-time visibility to on-hand and in-transit inventory.



3. “Surge” of training for all caregivers and professionals who may be needed to properly manage the local storage, handling, and injection of the vaccines in their zone.

Logistics can be greatly simplified by understanding a few key heuristics. One I employ frequently is: “Humans are the single point of failure.” While it is true that machines may break down or adverse weather events may occur, it is nearly always human creativity, effort, mistakes, or inattention to detail that determines the success of a supply chain operation.

In the case of vaccine distribution, one emerging bottleneck is an inadequate number of qualified technicians or caregivers to administer the vaccines to recipients. With a reduced burden arising from managing first-mile logistics, state healthcare managers will find additional time and budget to resource the vaccine delivery force. Initiatives could range from up-training paramedics and EMTs, to deploying qualified National Guardsmen, to re-allocating nurses and phlebotomists from COVID-19 testing to vaccine delivery by training secondary staff on the simpler tasks of swabbing and testing patients.

By expanding the pool of qualified and trained vaccine-providing caregivers, states and municipalities can overcome a final-mile bottleneck that can produce huge delays further upstream by delaying timely delivery from hub to arm.

4. Ad-hoc network of vetted and trained pharmaceutical couriers who are capable of transporting small lots of the vaccine (5,000-10,000 doses per trip) from the local storage hubs to point-of-injection sites such as nursing homes, hospitals, schools, or health clinics.

Here is where we draw from the strength of the private sector: individual ambition and technological innovation. The “gig economy,” powered by the rise of Uber, Lyft, eBay, and so many other companies, has created an entire ecosystem of capable, on-demand service providers. These drivers, flippers, handymen, and content creators are hard workers who are used to the shifting demands of a fickle user base. Combined with the existing base of courier companies who specialize in transporting cold chain or “white glove” medical products, the United States can easily scale city- or county-wide efforts to transport vaccines from local hub to injection sites.

Moreover, thanks to the demand-matching capabilities of food delivery and rideshare platforms, the technology exists today to equip a vetted driver with a vaccine delivery unit and allow them to make “milk runs” to multiple facilities from a single hub that scales to the daily demand of each site. By partnering with these courier-enabling services, a national logistics model leveraging centralized hubs can provide high speed, accurate final mile services to any municipality or rural zone.

Note, the goal here is not to perfectly optimize vaccine delivery for every state by diktat from the federal level. Quite simply, a fully nationalized response cannot possibly account for every local variable. If we cast too wide a net, many vulnerable and at-risk citizens will be overlooked. The goal of VAXNET should then be to act as an enabler and force multiplier for the local and state jurisdictions who are closer to the need, and mitigate as many points of friction as possible.

This way, all stakeholders will be free to settle into their niches and begin making decisions based on simple, quantifiable metrics—and not political interest or scarcity. Plainly, federal and state governments always had these resources at their disposal. It was simply a failure of imagination and political will to do it right. Fortunately, it’s not too late.",-0.25196161393528804
"America’s rising ethnic groups won’t settle for woke religion.

During recent heated discussions in the Virginia state senate over admissions standards for selective high schools, State Senator Chap Peterson, who represents Fairfax City, sought to defend admissions practices at the highly-selective Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, where over 70 percent of incoming freshmen are of Asian origin (20 percent are white, 2.4 percent Hispanic and 1.5 percent black). Peterson noted that the school has significant minority representation, namely the substantial Korean, Indian, and Bengali composition of the student body. State Senator and President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas of Portsmouth shot back, “I would appreciate if you would put a better definition to minority. Because I know you’re not talking about people that look like me.”

Lucas is African American and represents a majority black district in southern Virginia, with few Asians or Hispanics. Fairfax County, in wealthy Northern Virginia, is much more diverse (20 percent Asian, 16.5 percent Hispanic, and 10 percent black). Over a third of the county’s residents are foreign born. In the end, Northern Virginia’s white liberal Democratic senators voted with Republicans to reject dilution of the schools’ strict admissions policies advocated by African American Democrats and supported by Democratic Governor Northam.

Concurrently, a wave of violent crime perpetrated against Asian Americans in cities across the country sparked high level media and political attention. Though most of the perpetrators of these hate crimes are nonwhite, rallies held in both California and New York in support of the Asian community specified their resolve against “White Supremacy.”

“Even if perpetrators of violence are people of color,” Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen tweeted, “the solution is not to fallback on racist assumptions of our own but to hold the system of white supremacy responsible for dividing us.”

Asian-American fashion designer Phillip Lim insisted that former President Trump is responsible for the rise in violence against Asians. “He is responsible,” said Lim. “He is the face of modern racism and doesn’t represent today’s America.” Contrary to Lim’s perspective, 90 percent of all anti-Asian hate crime arrests in New York City in 2020 involved black or Latino perpetrators.

The prevalence of intercommunal racial hate crime that doesn’t involve white people reveals a complex reality at odds with the simplistic narrative of white oppression of blacks that dominates American discourse, especially since the death of George Floyd in May 2020. The term “people of color” was made current in an effort to gloss over the differences between nonwhites, suggesting a common experience as victims of discrimination and racism. More wish fulfillment than reality, the term has come in for criticism among “people of color” themselves, who see it, correctly, as reductive.

Given America’s increasing diversity, one would expect our betters to move away from racialist rhetoric, embracing commonalities rather than differences among Americans, but the opposite has happened. It isn’t just that statues have come down but that the historic and institutional glue holding the American story together is under assault as never before. The enthusiastic adoption by corporate America, by high status affluent white liberals, and social media companies of the same leftist racialist ideology means that corrosive identity politics are here to stay. Instead of drawing together, we are being coerced to see everything through the lens of race, dividing into contending tribes disputing degrees of victimization.

This is unlikely to end well, at least for those on the losing side. Nicholas Griffin’s excellent 2020 book The Year of Dangerous Days, about Miami in 1980, offers a glimpse into one possible American future. In 1980, a major riot broke out after white Miami policemen were acquitted by a Tampa jury in the killing of black insurance salesman Arthur McDuffie. But 1980 was also a key year in the consolidation of Hispanic, mostly Cuban-American, power over the city, pushing aside both the traditional Anglo power structure and an African-American underclass.

Miami’s past is not America’s future— yet. But according to census trends, the United States will be a “minority white” population in 2045. Hispanics will be at least a fourth of the population. The native black population will retain its share of the population, but both Asians and Hispanics will experience explosive growth. Both those categories are broad artificial definitions: Mexicans and Cubans, Indians and Chinese are very different from each other. But they are also very different from white and black Americans. What will be the impact of the coming demographic earthquake on an America in thrall to Black Lives Matter, the “1619 Project,” Critical Race Theory, and all the other Manichean racial constructs of today?

Acute demographic change coming on top of a charged social environment rife with identity politics will manifest itself in new and unexpected ways. In 1980s Miami, whites and blacks allied in a failed attempt to keep Cubans from power. In 2020, liberal pundits were distressed by surprising Latino support for President Trump. But there is no guarantee that new generations of immigrants will be on the political right. Asian Americans have moved left and there is a long history of progressive American politics driven by immigrant populations. Will the affluent liberal white elites in the forefront of woke politics retain both their privileges and their radicalism? Will we all learn to share or will it be the second coming of a racialized political spoils system, Tammany Hall on steroids? Anything is possible in an America which seems hellbent on political and social deconstruction followed by massive demographic shifts.",-0.009118771727033506
"Despite hostility from the Biden Administration, the report stands as a guiding light for future generations.

Former President Trump’s 1776 Commission has issued a report that summarizes “the principles of the American founding and how those principles have shaped our country.” It will be the only such report—President Biden swiftly dissolved the Commission by executive order after being sworn into office on Wednesday.

Biden’s decision is regrettable because “the 1776 report calls for a return to the unifying ideals stated in the Declaration of Independence,” as Chairman Larry P. Arnn, Vice Chair Carol Swain, and Executive Director Matthew Spalding said in a statement. “It quotes the greatest Americans, black and white, men and women, in devotion to these ideals.”

The report rejects the teachings of historians such as Howard Zinn, the New York Times’s 1619 Project, and other efforts aimed at fundamentally transforming how Americans view their country’s history. Neither hiding America’s flaws nor offering a triumphal account of American history, the 1776 Commission aimed to recover “our shared identity rooted in our founding principles”—which, its report argues, is “the path to a renewed American unity and a confident American future.”

“Our country’s founding principles are the key to a peaceful, self-governing people,” Arnn stated, “and the 1776 Commission sets out to educate the American public about them. The Commission’s report is an approachable introduction to the historical facts of the founding and the principles that animate it.”

Beginning with an overview of American founding principles and the constitutional architecture that the founders fashioned to secure them, the report then catalogues the various threats to republican government and proposes tools that Americans can use to recover a way of life conducive to republican citizenship.

Though not denying that America was founded by a particular people with a particular history, religion, and virtues, the report stresses that the nation was nevertheless founded on the universal principles enunciated in the Declaration. This is why Abraham Lincoln argued by implication in the Gettysburg Address that the United States celebrates its birthday on July 4, 1776.

Appealing to both human reason and biblical revelation—for example, the Declaration’s references to the Creator, Providence, and the Supreme Judge—the founders justified the government on the basis of eternal, universal principles. Frederick Douglass once described them as “saving principles” that were the “ring-bolt to the chain of” America’s “destiny.”

It is always true that no human beings are picked by nature to rule others without their consent. It is always true as well that since all human beings are created equal, a just government can only be founded upon the consent of the governed. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, “the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.”

In appealing to a universal standard of justice in separating from Great Britain, the founders did not destroy the concept of separate nations or cultures. Rather, as the report states, these principles “were asserted by a specific people, for a specific purpose, in a specific circumstance”: securing the “safety and happiness” of the American people.

The founders’ task was possible only because a people of sufficient character and morality, grounded in broader civilizational inheritances and fortified in a tradition of rights, liberty, and law, already existed prior to 1776.

The Constitution, in Lincoln’s formulation, is a picture of silver framed around an apple of gold, the Declaration; the Constitution is the document that secures the Declaration’s principles in practice. The 1776 Commission report sums up the dilemma that the founders confronted in creating a governing framework for the United States: “the new government needed to be strong enough to have the power to secure rights without having so much power as to enable or encourage it to infringe rights.”

Based on the sovereignty of the people, the Constitution establishes a federal government of limited but energetic power overseen by the people’s representatives. Through “auxiliary precautions” such as the separation of powers, federalism, and the natural circumstances of a large republic, the people’s rights would be preserved and the threat of tyranny would be kept at bay.

The report then turns to five major threats to republican government throughout our country’s history: slavery, progressivism, fascism, communism, and identity politics.

Though slavery was by no means a unique evil to the United States, founders such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison clearly recognized that human bondage was incompatible with the principle that “all men are created equal.” Though the Constitution recognized slavery as an existing institution, the word slave is never mentioned in its text, and the slave trade was outlawed twenty years after its ratification. Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln understood the Constitution’s antislavery character and worked diligently to stop slavery’s spread and ultimately end the institution itself, at great cost to the nation.

The Progressive movement rejected the idea of permanent truths in favor of constantly evolving group rights meted out by the administrative state, a fourth branch of government composed of independent agencies staffed with experts insulated from political accountability.

Another challenge to free government is the barbarism of fascism and Communism (and its cousin, socialism). These modern ideologies constituted some of the deadliest threats to liberty and human dignity that the world has ever known. As President Ronald Reagan once argued, these ideologies deny that “God-given liberties…are the inalienable right of each person on this planet; indeed they deny the existence of God.”

Today, identity politics strikes at the heart of republican government by demanding “equal results and explicitly sorting citizens into ‘protected classes’ based on race and other demographic categories.” Even worse, the purveyors of identity politics see people of certain races as evil not necessarily because of what they’ve done but simply because of their skin color. The 1776 Commission report states unequivocally that identity politics “makes it less likely that racial reconciliation and healing can be attained” because it rejects “Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream for America.”

In order to preserve the blessings of liberty for future generations, families should raise “morally responsible citizens who love America and embrace the gifts and responsibilities of freedom and self-government”; state and local governments should produce curricula that convey an “enlightened patriotism” through reading primary sources; and songwriters, filmmakers, and social influencers should create content that speaks “to eternal truths” that “embody the American spirit.”

In the words of Commission member Charles Kesler, the 1776 report intends to rebaptize American citizens in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, reinvigorating the American mind in the twenty-first century. President Biden’s move to dissolve the Commission does not change this imperative. Indeed, as Arnn, Swain, and Spalding have declared: “The Commission may be abolished, but these principles and our history cannot be. We will all continue to work together to teach and to defend them.”",1.749736565371003
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"Woke grievance is eating expert inquiry from the inside out.

The parasite leucochloridium paradoxum, shown here infecting a snail, is a flatworm that takes over the brains of gastropods and forces them into self-destructive behaviors. As this essay demonstrates, woke social teaching has been known to do the same with academic departments.

It was Franz Kafka meets Jabba the Hutt. Instead of a seraglio on Tatooine, the location was a hotel ballroom in Arlington, Virginia, at a large gathering of scientists and engineers brought together by the National Science Foundation (NSF). We were there to compete for a very large sum of money.

At stake was funding for a “research center,” something akin to national laboratories like Brookhaven Labs or Livermore Labs. Research centers are built around a strategic theme, like nuclear physics, and are intended to provide a venue for scientists nationwide to come together to explore that theme. Research centers are high-stakes competitions, involving tens of millions of dollars doled out over a term of ten years or so. The prizes are big, and the prestige immense. They are intended to go to the best of the best.

The competition for research centers takes place in two stages. The first stage winnows wheat from chaff. Hopeful teams of scientists apply for a “planning grant,” which supports the work involved in crafting the actual proposal for the center. If a team is awarded a planning grant, the next step is a “planning meeting,” where the NSF gathers the successful teams together to provide detailed guidance on what might make for a successful proposal. I was on one of those teams, and that is how I came to be in that hotel ballroom.

At the opening session, we were told that proposals would be judged on four “foundational components,” or “pillars,” as they were styled in the PowerPoints. A successful proposal would be strong on all four: weakness in one would cast the proposal into the abyss, we were told, no matter how strong the other pillars might be. At the planning meeting, each pillar was to have a dedicated panel discussion, just to make clear to us what the NSF’s expectations were. Three of the four pillars were conventionally scientific and academic: innovation, training, etc. The remaining pillar was “Diversity and Culture of Inclusion” (DCI).

That was where things took a bizarre turn.

The DCI panel consisted of bureaucrats from the NSF’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI). Naturally, there were many questions from the floor about what the criteria for a strong DCI pillar would be. We are talking about engineers, remember, whose culture is: “give us ‘the specs’ and we will solve any problem.” The assembled engineers were looking for “the specs” they needed to build that DCI pillar.

I remember the scene. Each team was seated at its own round table on the ballroom floor. The DCI panel was seated on a raised platform, looking down on us, as from thrones on high. They were, collectively, our Jabba.

One engineer at a neighboring table kept trying to pin the DCI panel down on those DCI specs. Jabba kept deflecting the question. We’ll know it when we see it, was the blithe answer, issued with the monotonous imperiousness of the entitled ruler indulging inconvenient questioning from the proles. Engineering is too white and too male, was one panelist’s message to us, and that needed to be corrected. Irony alert: the engineer pressing the point was not white, but an Indian immigrant.

Nor would Jabba provide the specs the engineers sought, and this is where Franz entered the chat. It became clearer with every question that the specs not only would not be laid out: they would in any event change according to inscrutable whim of the ODI bureaucrats. Foolish engineers, one might imagine Jabba chortling, the “specs” are not to help you solve a problem: they are there to keep you off-balance, uncertain, and in my power. It is enough for you to know you depend upon my mercy for funding.

How Infection Spreads

Speaking of mercy, the coffee break by then intervened to terminate the bizarre exchange—leaving me, Styrofoam cup and stale Danish in hand, to contemplate the message that had just been delivered. We, the diversicrats, not you, the scientists and engineers, will decide what science and engineering is worthy of support. And you will be glad of it when we do.

All are familiar with the Left’s “long march” through the institutions. What might not be so well known is just how thorough the conquest has been. Evidence of this sometimes pops up into prominent public view, as in the recent exposure of “critical race theory” training in federal agencies (including places like Sandia National Labs, where one would expect such hokum to be laughed out the door). Such incidents, though quite frequent, are only the tips of a very large iceberg. In the academic sciences, where I have spent my career, “diversity, inclusion, and equity” (DIE) has become as pervasive as one might expect it to be in any grievance studies department.

How did this happen? More to the point, how could it happen to the supposedly sensible people that scientists are generally thought to be?

The concept of “zombie parasites” provides an apt metaphor for how things got to this point. These are parasites that colonize the brains and nervous systems of their hosts, taking the controls, so to speak, over the host’s behavior. One striking example of a zombie parasite is a worm that infects the brains of snails, which normally crawl around stealthily at night. A snail infected with the parasite crawls out onto a grass stalk during the day, where it is now visible to birds that gobble them up. The parasite then breeds in the bird’s digestive tract and deposits its eggs in the bird’s feces. When uninfected snails eat the feces, the parasite’s life cycle is completed.

DIE has spread into the academic sciences as a kind of zombie parasite. It is not a real worm at work, of course, but a metaphorical “brainworm”—three of them, in fact, that together spread a kind of altered cognitive reality through any institution that is infected by them.

The route of infection usually starts with a “study” that identifies a “problem” that no one knew existed: the overwhelming whiteness of, say, fishery science. Once an unwitting host takes the bait, the next phase of the infection kicks in: all are invited to contemplate with horror the dark future that awaits should fishery scientists not take immediate steps to correct the “problem.” In the final stage of the infection, the brainworm plants its “diversity is our strength” meme in the host’s nervous system. The infected now babble about solving the impending crisis through a crash outreach program to “under-represented” or “marginalized” groups, who, by virtue of their class membership, think differently about fisheries, and so can save the field from stultifying white maleness.

As in those parasitized snails, the DIE brainworm induces a cognitive disconnect in the infected. None of the assertions planted by the DIE zombie parasite have a sound basis in fact or reason. The accusation of too much whiteness usually is based upon a simple observation that the ethnic, gender, and sexual orientation mix in, say, fishery science, departs from the statistical distributions found in the general population. Why this should be, where it is considered at all, is usually buried under a panoply of repetitive charts and diagrams of dubious critical value.

Also lacking is any evidence of a future critical shortage of scientists and engineers that would put, say, fishery science at risk. Colleges and universities are turning out science graduates in far greater numbers than there are jobs that can usefully employ them, and they’ve been doing so for nearly 70 years.

The “diversity is our strength” mantra, for its part, rests on some disturbingly racist presumptions. If “thinking differently” is an inherent attribute of race (or gender, or sexual orientation), this edges up very close to the forbidden argument that there might be inherent racial (or gender, or sexual orientation) disparities in, say, IQ. Both are cognitive attributes. Yet one is beyond the pale, and the other is almost a compulsory point of doctrine. Both cannot simultaneously be true.

Tearing Families Apart

What makes the DIE brainworm a zombie parasite is how it hijacks the host’s behavior to facilitate its spread, to the host’s ultimate detriment. Universities, where future scientists are trained, are a common target. Incubating a future scientist has traditionally involved a very close relationship between a professor and a student (“mentor” and “mentee,” in today’s clumsy parlance). It is not uncommon to speak of this relationship in familial terms: I am the academic “son” of my Ph.D. supervisor, for example, and in turn the academic “grandson” of his Ph.D. supervisor. I am thus the academic “brother” to all the students who studied under my PhD supervisor. Once the rite of Ph.D. passage is cleared, professors will use their “familial” networks to launch the newly minted scientist offspring in their new careers. I could go on, but you get the idea.

Like all families, academic families have their ups and downs, their rifts and triumphs. Despite their imperfections, these familial networks have, for many years, reliably ensured the scientific future, largely because they are held together by a transcendent ideal. Not an ideal as lofty as justice, mind you, but something more elemental and earthy. Fishery scientists, to trot them out again, become fishery scientists because, well, they love fish. They want to devote their lives to getting to know fish better. The same may be said of nearly every scientific endeavor in academia: at the vital core is a love that can verge into obsession. The genius of the academy is that it provides a place where that love can give value to the society that supports it. Disrupt that elemental drive, and you degrade the real social value of the sciences.

This almost primitive love provides a kind of immunity to the DIE brainworm, which makes it a particular target. To spread, the parasite must plant the idea that the familial network of relationships cloaks a hostile and dangerous climate, propped up by cronyism, privilege, racism, sexism, and hostility to the non-binary. The only way to make science “safe” for the marginalized, or excluded, or under-represented, is to disrupt the traditional mentoring family. Students and new faculty who are members of “under-represented” or “marginalized” groups are drawn from their intellectual families into self-referential bubbles of grievance: support groups, safe spaces, counseling services, etc., where the normal stresses of academic life can be transformed into evidence of the hostile climate without.

At some point, earnest administrators, who know nothing about science and understand even less how it works, are brought in to “listen” to the newly aggrieved. At that point, discontent is turned into actionable grievance: committees and study groups are appointed, action plans formulated. Excluded from all this, of course, are the keepers of the academic traditions which, inconveniently for them, have already been condemned in absentia as the problem.

Pressure is brought on these erstwhile traditionalists to conform, to “listen” to other voices, to “check your privilege,” to be “open” to different “perspectives.” If the brainworm has spread far enough to implant a DIE bureaucracy on campus, penalties for non-conformity will be quietly placed in a corner of the room, a visible reminder of the consequences of resistance to the brainworm. Once that happens, the path is open for the entire academic institution to become infected, triggering the next, and most dangerous, stage of the infection.

Follow the Money

Parasites do not simply invade a host: they require fertile ground and food. For the DIE brainworm, the mother’s milk is money. And it is the academic sciences, not the humanities, where the ground is lushest. Compare two sources of federal funds that are often tied to woke ideology on campuses: the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). These are NSF-style agencies that fund academic work in the arts and humanities, and in similar ways. Artists and scholars submit proposals, these are scrutinized by peers, and funds are doled out to the successful proposals.

How much money? The NEA presently enjoys an annual appropriation of about $150 million. For the NEH, it is about $160 million. In contrast, the federal money directed to academic science in 2017 stood at around $40 billion: 250 times more. Over the course of the 50 years of its existence, the NEH has funded a cumulative total of roughly $4.7 billion dollars in grants. The cumulative tally of federal support of academic research over the same time span has been nearly $900 billion: about 200 times more.

It is to the sciences, then, that the DIE brainworm has gone to feed, and there it has spread as if it were an epidemic. Evidence for this can be ferreted out from the NSF’s searchable databases of its grant awards, by searching for keywords such as “under-represented,” “minority,” or “marginalized” in the grant documents. Prior to 2010, no award carried these keywords. The first to do so was in 2010, when the NSF awarded a large research center grant to MIT, which contained within it a significant program of outreach to marginalized groups.

Since that year, NSF expenditures on research grants containing the “woke” keywords have risen exponentially, doubling at a rate of about 50% each year, just as a novel virus would when spreading through a new population. In 2018, the last year for which a complete picture can be discerned, the NSF funded nearly a thousand research grants devoted in whole or part to DIE aims, to the tune of more than $1.3 billion. From 2010 to 2018, a total of more than $4 billion have been awarded to more than 2,200 DIE-oriented grants.

Which is how we get to that scene in the Arlington hotel ballroom, where DIE now holds the trump card in deciding what science is worthy of funding. No matter how stellar the science, the message is clear: gobble up the DIE brainworm, or your funding will dry up, and your career along with it.

Reason’s Last Stand

Is there any hope? I’d like to offer another perspective. In my 40-year career in the academic sciences, I have spent significant time, by my rough count, in ten academic institutions, including post-doctoral fellowships, sabbatical leaves, and regular faculty appointments. The institutions I have inhabited have included a small liberal arts college, a medical school, two colleges in southern Africa, top-flight research universities, and finally, the college where I spent the bulk of my academic career. So, I have seen a pretty good cross-section of campus climates. Here is my impression, for what it’s worth.

Academic family life can be a pretty rough affair, populated as it is by imperfect and sometimes difficult people. The ticket for admission to an academic family can be hard to win, the criteria inscrutable. One vice I have never witnessed, however, is bigotry. Among my colleagues, I have never seen the ticket for admission stamped for having the “right” skin color, gender, or sexual orientation. Rather, admission to the family has turned on whether there is a shared love and the commitment to sustain it.

Where I have seen real bigotry, in contrast, is when the DIE brainworm is challenged. For questioning the DIE orthodoxy, I once was branded an “institutional terrorist” by a high-priced consultant brought in to heal our supposedly sick and bigoted campus culture. It is no surprise that the DIE brainworm has spread through the campuses to an alarming extent, spread largely by acquiescence to the altered cognitive states the worm wants us to accept. When the brainworm acquires the power of the purse and the HR department, the infection has become near-fatal.

Can the patient be cured? The prognosis, as a physician might say, is clouded. “Chemotherapy” is a possibility, which in this instance means cutting off the tens of billions of dollars of federal money the zombie parasite feeds on. At this late stage, however, the infection is far advanced, and the realistic prospects for a successful course of treatment are slim. There is too much money and power at stake for the zombie parasite to passively accept doom.

What hope remains emerges from the same dilemma that confronted those last human survivors in the classic novel about zombie parasites, Jack Finney’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The one thing that defeated that zombie parasite in the end was a superhuman assertion of will against the infection. The one ray of hope against the DIE zombie parasite streams from the few and isolated pockets of the uninfected still lingering in the academic ecosystem. It is there that the parasite will mount its fiercest attack. Can the academic sciences resist and recover? The flame is sputtering. If the wax rises high enough to extinguish the flame, the zombie parasite’s takeover will be complete.",-0.960864468418338
"Vice President Pence was not asked to reject electoral votes.

In his letter of the morning of January 6, Vice President Mike Pence asserted that “[s]ome believe that as Vice President, [he] should be able to accept or reject votes unilaterally.” He repeated the claim later in the letter: “vesting the vice president with unilateral authority to decide presidential election contests would be entirely antithetical to [the] design” of separation of powers and checks and balances given to us by our founders. And then a third time, he wrote: “I do not believe that the Founders of our country intended to invest the vice president with unilateral authority to decide which electoral votes should be counted during the Joint Session of Congress.” And a fourth: “It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.”

With all due respect to the vice president, that is not what the president asked when all was said and done. But before I elaborate on that below, let’s explore just what constitutional authority the vice president has, by way of some hypothetical scenarios.

Suppose a Democrat governor in a state Trump clearly won—North Carolina, perhaps, or Kansas—were to certify the Biden slate of electors and transmit that certificate and the subsequent electoral votes to the president of the Senate (that is, the vice president of the United States). Republican legislators in the state howl about the fraud, but because the governor refuses to call the Legislature into special session, they can do nothing about it except send a letter notifying the vice president of the fraud. Is it really the case that nothing can be done?

Congress has asserted in section 15 of the Electoral Count Act of 1887 that it has the power to reject electoral votes if both houses determine that they were not “regularly given.” Yet there is no direct constitutional support for that assertion of power. The 12th Amendment merely assigns an observational role to the House and Senate during the Joint Session of Congress. Specifically, the relevant language of 12th Amendment provides that “the president of the Senate [that is, the vice president] shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted” (emphasis added). The actual counting of the electoral votes is in the passive voice. However, because the only affirmative role conveyed by the active voice—to open the certificates—is assigned to the vice president, legal scholars and political figures throughout history have contended that the counting is assigned to the vice president as well.

The issue then is whether the power to “open” and to “count” the electoral votes is merely ministerial, as the vice president claimed in his letter of January 6, or whether it implies any power to determine the legitimacy of the votes. Here, another example—one rooted in two historical precedents—will help.

The Vice President’s Role

Suppose that, instead of the false certificates provided by the Governors of North Carolina and Kansas described in the hypothetical above, there were two slates of electors certified from each of those states—the erroneous certificate from the governor, and a certificate from the legislatures of each state that was issued in accord with the actual results of the election. The 12th Amendment specifies that the vice president “shall…open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted.” Read hyper-literally, that would require the vice president to open and count both sets of electoral votes. That cannot possibly be correct, so some judgement has to be made as to which slate of electors to count.

Here again, the Congress has asserted authority to make that judgment. Section 15 of the Electoral Count Act provides that in the case of multiple slates of electors, the one to be counted is the one that the two houses of Congress (i.e., the House of Representatives and the Senate), “acting separately, shall concurrently decide” to count. If the House and the Senate cannot agree, Section 15 further provides that the slate “certified by the executive of the State” shall be dispositive—even though in our hypothetical it was clearly fraudulently given, and countermanded by the certification of the Legislature.

A good number of legal scholars agree that Section 15’s provision of tie-breaking weight to the “executive” (as opposed to the legislatively-sanctioned slate) is a violation of Article II’s assignment to the Legislature of the power to choose the manner for choosing electors. But legal scholars, as well as historical political figures, have also contended that Congress’s claim of authority to make that determination at all is itself a usurpation of power that the 12th Amendment assigns solely and exclusively to “the president of the Senate.”

This view was recently espoused most thoroughly by Vasan Kesavan,[1] who researched the article under the tutelage of prominent Yale Law Professors Bruce Ackerman and Akhil Amar, among others. University of California Law School Professor John Yoo took a similar view, arguing just last October:

Though the 12th Amendment describes the counting in the passive voice, the language seems to envisage a single, continuous process in which the vice president both opens and counts the votes…. And if “counting” the electors’ votes is the vice president’s responsibility, then the inextricably intertwined responsibility for judging the validity of those votes must also be his.

Yoo found this to be “the better reading” and urged “that Vice President Pence would decide between competing slates of electors chosen by state legislators and governors, or decide whether to count votes that remain in litigation.” “The check on error or fraud in the count is that the vice president’s activities are to be done publicly, ‘in the presence’ of Congress,” he added.

Professor Edward Foley, the Director of the Election Law Center at Ohio State University Moritz College of Law,[2] has likewise acknowledged the plausibility of that argument, noting in a recent law review article:

Despite [the Twelfth Amendment’s] ambiguity, or perhaps because of it, the peculiar passive-voice phrasing of this crucial sentence opens up the possibility of interpreting it to provide that the “President of the Senate” has the exclusive constitutional authority to determine which “certificates” to “open” and thus which electoral votes “to be counted.” This interpretation can derive support from the observation that the president of the Senate is the only officer, or instrumentality, of government given an active role in the process of opening the certificates and counting the electoral votes from the states. The Senate and House of Representatives, on this view, have an observational role only. The opening and counting are conducted in their “presence”—for the sake of transparency—but these two legislative bodies do not actually take any actions of their own in this opening and counting process. How could they? Under the Constitution, the Senate and the House of Representatives only act separately, as entirely distinct legislative chambers. They have no constitutional way to act together as one amalgamated corpus. Thus, they can only watch as the president of the Senate opens the certificates of electoral votes from the states and announces the count of the electoral votes contained therein. Edward B. Foley, Preparing for A Disputed Presidential Election: An Exercise in Election Risk Assessment and Management, 51 Loy. U. Chi. L.J. 309 (2019).

Foley also noted that this interpretative argument “has a significant historical pedigree,” albeit one that has also had “vociferous detractors.”

Hitting Pause

All this by way of background to show that whether or not Vice President Pence had the constitutional authority to determine that certain slates of electors were invalid remains an open question. Andrew McCarthy’s claim in a January 8 article in The Hill that “what the president pressured [Vice President Pence] to do was blatantly lawless” is therefore quite inaccurate, though it has certainly been regurgitated in one form or another by others in numerous other media outlets.

But whether it is accurate or not, that was not what the vice president was asked. Here is the relevant portion of the president’s speech from the Ellipse on January 6:

We’re supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our constitution, and protect our constitution. States want to revote. The States got defrauded. They were given false information. They voted on it. Now they want to recertify. They want it back. All Vice-President Pence has to do is send it back to the States to recertify, and we become president, and you are the happiest people (Emphasis added).

That was consistent with my own remarks just prior to the president’s: “And all we are demanding of Vice President Pence is this afternoon at 1:00 he let the Legislatures of the States look into this so we get to the bottom of it and the American people know whether we have control of the direction of our government or not.”

In other words, the vice president was not being asked to decide the matter himself, but to pause the proceedings long enough to give the couple of states whose legislators had asked for more time to assess whether the illegal conduct by their state election officials—illegal conduct that Pence himself twice acknowledged in his statement—was sufficient to warrant revoking the existing certification and submitting a new one that accurately reflected the state’s vote, just as Hawaii had done in 1960.

Pence was thus being asked to let the matter be resolved by the State Legislatures—which is just where Andy McCarthy claimed it should be resolved. “In our system,” he wrote,

it is the states that choose the president, and the Constitution gives them sovereign authority over the disposition of their electoral votes. There is no federal check—not Congress, not the vice president—over how the states, pursuant to their own laws, certify the elections they conduct and the electors they appoint to cast their electoral votes.

The difficulty was that the existing slates of electors had not been certified after an election conducted “pursuant to [the states’] own laws.” Pence was simply being asked to provide the state legislatures in the contested states with the time necessary to properly assess the legitimacy of their electoral votes. (As an aside, McCarthy’s claim that there is “no federal check” in either Congress or the vice president ignores that the Electoral Count Act provides just such a check, allowing Congress itself, as noted above, to determine if the electoral votes transmitted to it were “regularly given.”)

Obstructionism and the Road Ahead

Why did such a request come so close to the designated date for counting electoral votes? Because the governors in each of the contested states simply refused to call the legislatures into special session back in December, when a more orderly and timely investigation might have been had. But as the legislatures were coming back into session in early January, numerous legislators begged Pence to hit the pause button and let them investigate, in a transparent way so that the American people could have the chance to learn the truth about the election, whatever it was.

In a January 4 letter, 21 members of the Pennsylvania Senate, including the powerful president pro tem of the Senate, outlined the numerous instances of violations of state law by state election officials and even the judiciary in the conduct of Pennsylvania’s election, thereby usurping the sole power that the Legislature has pursuant to Article II of the federal constitution to determine the manner for choosing presidential electors. Because of those illegal actions, the Senators noted “that PA election results should not have been certified” and asked that the Congress “delay certification of the Electoral College to allow due process as we pursue election integrity in our Commonwealth.”

Similar letters were sent from Pennsylvania house members, and from legislators in Arizona, Georgia, and Michigan. Arizona’s included this: “based upon the clear and convincing nature of the evidence [of illegality and fraud], we respectfully ask that you recognize our desire to reclaim Arizona’s Electoral College Electors and block the use of any Electors from Arizona until such time as the controversy is properly resolved through the pending litigation or a comprehensive forensic audit.” The Assembly in Wisconsin even passed a formal resolution.

The vice president was apparently advised that he was obligated to allow a count of questionable elector votes to proceed because a minor subsection of the Electoral Count Act of 1887 provides that the “joint meeting [of Congress] shall not be dissolved until the count of electoral votes shall be completed,” and that no recess could be taken except for the separate houses of Congress to decide upon any objections that were raised. On this view, a minor procedural provision of the 1887 Act was so sacrosanct that it could not be suspended even to give the state legislatures time to ensure that illegal electoral votes did not determine the election of the next President of the United States.

Ironically, Vice President Pence, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer all violated other provisions of that sacrosanct Electoral Count Act later in the evening when it served their purpose. Section 17 of that act limits debate on objections to two hours, at which point the presiding officer (that would be VP Pence in the Senate) “shall…put the main question without further debate.” That debate went about 2 hours and 40 minutes (not including the time in recess due to the incursion into the capital), in violation of the statute.

The debate in the House went even longer, also in violation of the statute. And at the conclusion of the vote in the Senate, Majority Leader McConnell moved to take up other business and allow for additional debate, in violation of the provision of the Electoral Count Act that they shall “immediately” reconvene in joint session. So much for the sacrosanct set of procedures in the Electoral Count Act.

A large portion of the American citizenry believes the illegal actions by partisan election officials in a few states have thrown the election. They saw it with their own eyes—in Fulton County, Georgia, where suitcases of ballots were pulled from under the table after election observers had been sent home for the night; in parts of Wayne County (Detroit), Michigan, where there are more absentee votes cast than had been requested; in Dane County (Madison), Wisconsin, where supposedly neutral election officials coordinated with the Biden campaign an illegal ballot harvesting scheme called “Democracy in the Park”; in Nevada, where people were paid with gift cards to vote; and perhaps most profoundly (if it is ultimately shown to have carried over to other counties and states) in Antrim County, Michigan, where votes were electronically flipped from Trump to Biden. The American people also saw state officials alter or ignore election law, such as Pennsylvania’s dispensing of signature verification requirements, or county clerks in Wisconsin who advised voters to illegally claim “indefinitely confined” status in order to avoid that state’s voter ID laws.

That is what the American people know, or strongly suspect, and they are not fools. Yet at every turn, they have been thwarted in merely getting a full, independent forensic audit to confirm (or rebut) that these things happened. The anger over a possibly stolen election will not subside unless and until that investigation occurs, fully and transparently. Only then will the losing side be able to find solace in the fact that a fair and honest election had been conducted, whatever its outcome. Is that really too much to ask?

[1] Vasan Kesavan, Is the Electoral Count Act Unconstitutional?, 80 N.C. L. Rev. 1653, 1688-90, 1699-1701 (2002)

[2] See also Nathan L. Colvin & Edward B. Foley, The Twelfth Amendment: A Constitutional Ticking Time Bomb, 64 U. Miami L. Rev. 475 (2010).



Correction: a previous version of this article incorrectly stated that there were more votes cast than registered voters in Wayne County, MI.",-0.6324711683498162
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"The Roe v. Wade of religious liberty arrived Monday. And it was delivered by the putatively conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, tapped in 2017 by Team Trump to replace the late Antonin Scalia. Chief Justice John Roberts tagged along, making a six-justice majority that included the high court’s liberals. The decision epitomizes the legal conservative movement’s sad-sack failure to deliver for conservatives.

In Bostock v. Clayton County, the majority informed us that the interpretation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, held unchallenged between its enactment and the year 2017, was, in fact, erroneous. The statute’s prohibition against employment discrimination on the basis of sex, Gorsuch told us, extends to “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”

This isn’t textualism. It’s ivory-tower liberalism. And it’s completely at odds with the Supreme Court’s longstanding dictum that Congress, in drafting statutes, won’t inscribe a hidden meaning in otherwise plain language: As Justice Samuel Alito sharply noted in dissent, “sex,” in 1964, meant biological sex — man and woman — not orientation and certainly not subjective gender identity.

The tangible results will be harrowing. Following Bostock, can a Catholic school deny employment to a teacher whose sexual lifestyle blatantly flouts millennia of Catholic moral teaching? Can an Orthodox Jewish day school refuse to hire a male teacher who self-identifies as a woman, contravening traditional teaching rooted in Genesis?

Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried to enact much of this agenda legislatively in 2019 with the so-called Equality Act — and failed. All it took was a Republican justice to impose it ­nationwide via judicial fiat.

Religious employers’ conscience rights aside, long-settled employment law has now been thrown into chaos. The court concedes that such issues as sex-specific bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams will be on the chopping block in future litigation. As my former boss, Judge James C. Ho of the Fifth Circuit, noted in a similar case last year, the underlying legal issues ­“affect every American who uses the restroom at any restaurant, buys clothes at any department store or exercises at any gym.”

The substitution of subjective gender identity for embodied sex particularly threatens biological women, whose rights Congress specifically set out to protect with the 1964 act. The entire edifice of American anti-discrimination law, after all, rests on the principle that the bodily differences between men and women — in athletic competition, in private or sensitive spaces — mean something. Can that edifice survive if its cornerstone is ­removed? I don’t see how.

Bostock is no joke, and it lays bare the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the conservative legal movement.

Let’s say this in the bluntest possible terms: The conservative legal movement and its various institutional vessels, such as the Federalist Society, have failed conservatism. There is simply no avoiding that straightforward conclusion — not when the blow is delivered from the Federalist Society-vetted Neil Gorsuch.

Generations of right-leaning law students have now been taught that the only proper way to interpret law is to obsess over the text while eschewing the thorny moral questions raised by cases. But as Bostock shows, even a conservative, “textualist” jurist can massage a text enough to divine a new meaning that simply wasn’t there when Congress framed a law like the 1964 act. Meanwhile, a more authentic textualist like Alito can reach the ­opposite conclusion.

The result is that the legal left makes loud arguments about justice and the good, by its lights, and triumphs, while the legal right mutters about textualism.

Something more is needed to stop a progressive judicial revolution that would upend natural law, counter popular preferences and further usurp the right of We the People to have our laws made in Congress, by elected representatives.

The conservative legal eagles have failed to deliver that. What we need is a more forceful conservative legal movement, just as willing as the left to make moral arguments in court, based on principles of justice, natural law (the rules embedded in our very nature as human beings), the common good and the religious and moral traditions underlying Anglo-American constitutional order.

Otherwise, the conservative legal movement deserves to perish.

Josh Hammer is a syndicated columnist and former federal court of appeals law clerk. Twitter: @Josh_Hammer",-0.36335614479441536
"Conservatives were bracing for the defection of Justice Gorsuch on the cases dealing with the “transgendered” and “sexual orientation.” But even the anticipation of the jolt did not diminish its depressing force. The reactions, coming with disbelief and anger, have not been understated. For make no mistake, this case of Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC will be the Roe v. Wade for transgenderism, with effects that will ripple out widely in our country, touching and disfiguring our private lives. After all, the Court has pronounced it quite wrongful to cast an adverse judgment, a disapproving judgment, on people who affect to shift their “genders.” As we saw in the case of same-sex marriage, children will have to be instructed in school on this new civic culture that the Court has ordered into place. The companion cases of Bostock v. Clayton County and Altitude Express v. Zarda bring the same force to the side of discriminations based on “sexual orientation” or homosexuality. What Congress failed persistently to add to the Civil Rights Act, Neil Gorsuch and John Roberts managed to accomplish in a stroke, with the reliable help of the four liberal justices, who could always be depended on to vote in a phalanx for the ethic of sexual liberation.



But in his opening remarks on the Harris case, Justice Gorsuch already made a radical move that ran well beyond anything made explicit in the body of his opinion. He said that Aimee Stephens, the one who had been known to the world and his own wife as Anthony Stephens, had “presented as a male” when “she first got the job.” Without the slightest strain, Gorsuch had simply incorporated as his own the predicate of Stephens’s claim: that he had in fact become a woman. That this was no trifling move had been made clear in that graceful and compelling brief written for this case by Michael Hanby, David Crawford, and Margaret McCarthy of the John Paul II Institute. What was at issue, as they pointed out, was not the freedom of Anthony Stephens to dress as he wished and present himself as a woman. For the Court to come down on his side the judges would have to do nothing less than confirm, as a matter of controlling fact, that in the eyes of the law Stephens was indeed a woman if he regarded himself as a woman. And the effects would instantly radiate outward: Stephens’s colleagues would be obliged to accept his definition of himself, and the pronouns that came along. If they did not, they and their employer could be accused of sustaining a hostile work environment and put themselves at legal hazard.

Justice Alito did not hold back from unfolding the ramifications here: There were about 100 statutes forbidding discriminations based on sex, whether in construction, housing, hospitals. Small religious schools may have a serious concern for the kinds of lives they model to their students in the people they hire, and yet for jobs other than ministers they could be punished from turning away from the transgendered.

Gorsuch noted that this decision said nothing about locker rooms and bathrooms, for those matters were not raised in this case. But as Justice Alito pointed out, the Court had pronounced any turning away from the transgendered as a wrongful discrimination. What could be cited then by the people of either sex who professed to be deeply uncomfortable about sharing those private quarters with people of the other sex? What would they be able to say then that they could not have said even now if Justice Gorsuch and his colleagues had been willing to engage their awareness of what plausible and legitimate things ordinary people could indeed say to explain their discomfort, anchored by their dubiety, grounded in science, that people are free simply to will away their sex with a flick of their feelings?

What makes the decision all the more disappointing and demoralizing for conservatives is that Justice Gorsuch was the highly celebrated successor to Justice Scalia. He was vetted and heralded as an “Originalist” and a “textualist” by the reigning authorities at the Federalist Society, along with votaries in the Administration. But the mirage of textualism should have been evident as we found liberal professors, who favored gays and the transgendered, quite content to argue on the basis of the text of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The statute has barred discriminations based on “sex” as well as race. As Justice Alito pointed out, virtually no one in 1964 could have dreamed that the statute barred those who would have an aversion to the homosexual life or the transgendered. But I warned myself, in an earlier piece, that it just would not do for the conservatives to cite the dictionaries on the meaning of sex in 1964. The liberals would be free to play the trump card of Lyman Trumbull. Trumbull had steered the Fourteenth Amendment to passage in the Senate, and he had to assure his colleagues up and down that there was nothing in the Equal Protection Clause that barred those laws in Illinois as well as Virginia that barred marriage across racial lines. But now we have an amplified and clearer sense of why that principle on racial discrimination would bar those laws on miscegenation. Judges could easily argue now in the same way that we must bring to the Civil Rights Act a more amplified view of what “sex” has come to mean. The only way to deal with that argument is to make the move that conservative judges have been so averse to making: to move beyond the text of the statute to those objective truths, confirmed in nature, on the differences that must ever separate males from females.

That was the understanding of “sex” that Justice Alito had in mind as he countered every case and example cited by Gorsuch. Justice Gorsuch noted the many ways in which the meaning of discrimination on the basis of sex could extend to sexual harassment or simply treating people differently on the basis of sex. A woman is refused a job because she has children at home, while the job is not refused to a man with children at home. But as Alito points out, at every turn the discrimination pivots on the difference between men and women, as that difference has been plain enough for millennia. The Western States had long established policies barring discriminations based on “sex” in education, and the Nineteenth Amendment had drawn on the same understanding when it barred the denial of the right to vote “on account of sex.” It was understood in all cases that the laws were assuming the biological definition of sex.

Ryan Anderson, drawing on the full range of texts in biology, condensed the truth of the matter in this way: “Sex, in terms of male or female, is identified by the organization of the organism for sexually reproductive acts.” The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith noted years ago that there has not always been an Italy or Hungary, but as long as there are human beings, there will be males and females. That is the purpose, or the telos, or the very reason that we have males and females. This was the understanding that Justice Alito was seeking so artfully to defend. But he defended it entirely as the meaning of sex contained in a long list of statutes and the Constitution. What he could not quite move himself to say was that this was indeed the inescapable truth of the matter, the only coherent way of explaining what sex must really mean. There is something, in the shaping of conservative judges, that makes them deeply reluctant to make that move beyond “tradition” and statutes to the moral truth of the matter.

Our friend Carrie Severino declared that this decision by Gorsuch was “the highjacking of textualism.” But it was there to be hijacked by the liberals—along with anyone else—because it had no anchoring truth. She is left then to explain this: Gorsuch was recruited and vetted—and endorsed—by the most credentialed spokesmen for “textualism.” How did they not manage to see that his principles offered no barrier to this kind of judgment? What was it they neglected to ask him?

In the aftermath of the wreckage, as we start assembling the pieces, we discover that we have now Originalists who defend the rights to abortion, same-sex marriage, and transgenderism, while others have long resisted these moral novelties. But if Originalism is divided on questions of this kind, is it indecorous to pronounce the plain truth?: That Originalism indeed has nothing to say on matters of real consequence. It is a morally empty jurisprudence. If there is any lingering doubt on this matter it was swept away by one young professor, who looked on the decision in these cases and pronounced it a proud day after all for conservative jurisprudence: “One can agree on method,” he cheerily said, “and still disagree in particular cases. That all the opinions were textualist is a huge victory in and of itself!” I suppose that if the justices had decided to take out pen and quill and write the opinions in longhand, he could have pronounced this a grand day for Penmanship. But to attend precisely to what he was saying, he has given us the latest, ringing affirmation of Justice Holmes: For what he celebrates is a style of jurisprudence, so serene now in its detachment from moral judgment, that it is proud to have nothing to say, as a system of jurisprudence, on the things that are right or wrong, just or unjust.

Hadley Arkes is the Ney Professor of Jurisprudence Emeritus at Amherst College and the Founder/Director of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights & the American Founding in Washington, D.C. He was an architect of the Born-Alive Infants' Protection Act of 2002, and of the sequel, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. Among his books is, most notably, First Things (1986).

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"I rise today to offer a few thoughts about the Bostock case handed down by the Supreme Court yesterday. I have it here. I have now had the chance to read the case, the decision by the majority of the court, and the two dissenting opinions, and I have to say I agree with the news reports that have said that this is truly a seismic decision. It is truly a historic decision.

It is truly a historic piece of legislation.

This piece of legislation changes the scope of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It changes the meaning of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It changes the text of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In fact, you might well argue it is one of the most significant and far-reaching updates to that historic piece of legislation since it was adopted all of those years ago.

Make no mistake: this decision, this piece of legislation, will have effects that range from employment law to sports to churches. There’s only one problem with this piece of legislation: it was issued by a court, not by a legislature.

Make no mistake: this decision, this piece of legislation, will have effects that range from employment law to sports to churches. There’s only one problem with this piece of legislation: it was issued by a court, not by a legislature.

It was written by judges, not by the elected representatives of the people. And it did what this Congress has pointedly declined to do for years now, which is to change the text and the meaning and the application and the scope of a historic piece of legislation.

I think it’s significant for another reason, as well.

This decision, and the majority who wrote it, represents the end of something. It represents the end of the conservative legal movement, or the conservative legal project, as we know it. After Bostock, that effort, as it has existed up to now, is over. I say this because if textualism and originalism give you this decision, if you can invoke textualism and originalism in order to reach such a decision—an outcome that fundamentally changes the scope and meaning and application of statutory law—then textualism and originalism and all of those phrases don’t mean much at all.

And if those are the things that we’ve been fighting for—it’s what I thought we had been fighting for, those of us who call ourselves legal conservatives—if we’ve been fighting for originalism and textualism, and this is the result of that, then I have to say it turns out we haven’t been fighting for very much.

Or maybe we’ve been fighting for quite a lot, but it’s been exactly the opposite of what we thought we were fighting for.

Now, this is a very significant decision and it marks a turning point for every conservative. And it marks a turning point for the legal conservative movement.

The legal conservative project has always depended on one group of people in particular in order to carry the weight of the votes to actually support this out in public, to get out there and make it possible electorally. And those are religious conservatives. I am one myself. Evangelicals, conservative Catholics, conservative Jews: let’s be honest, they’re the ones who have been the core of the legal conservative effort.

The legal conservative project has always depended on one group of people in particular in order to carry the weight of the votes to actually support this out in public, to get out there and make it possible electorally. And those are religious conservatives.

And the reason for that dates back decades now, back to the 1970s. The reason for that is these religious conservatives, from different backgrounds, have consistently worked together to seek protection for their right to worship, for their right to freely exercise their faith as the First Amendment guarantees, for the right to gather in their communities, for their right to pursue the way of life that their scriptures variously command and that the Constitution absolutely protects. That’s what they have asked for, that’s what they have sought, all these years.

But, as to those religious conservatives, how do they fare in yesterday’s decision? What will this rewrite of Title VII mean for churches? What will it mean for religious schools? What will it mean for religious charities?

Well, in the many pages of its opinion—thirty-three pages, to be exact—the majority does finally get around to saying something about religious liberty. On one page. What does it say? Here’s the substance of the court’s analysis: “How the doctrines protecting religious liberty interact with Title VII,” as reinterpreted now by the court, “are questions for future cases.”

I’ll say that again. “How the doctrines protecting religious liberty interact with Title VII are questions for future cases.”

Oh, no doubt they are. Huge questions. And we eagerly await the decisions of our super-legislators across the street in the Supreme Court building, there at 1 First Street, to see how they will legislate on this question. What will become of church hiring liberty? What will become of the policies of religious schools? What will become of the fate of religious charities? Who knows? Who’s to say? They’re questions for future cases.

Now I will say this in defense of the court: it is difficult to anticipate in one case all future possible implications. That’s why courts are supposed to leave legislating to legislators. That’s why Article III does not give the United States Supreme Court or any federal court the power to legislate, but only the judicial power to decide cases and controversies, not to decide policies. But I will also say this: that everybody knows, every honest person knows, that the laws in this country today are made almost entirely by unelected bureaucrats and courts. They’re not made by this body.

Why not? Because this body doesn’t want to make law. That’s why not.

Every honest person knows that the laws in this country today are made almost entirely by unelected bureaucrats and courts. They're not made by this body. Why not? Because this body doesn't want to make law. That's why not.

That’s because in order to make law, you have to take a vote. In order to vote, you have to be on the record. And to be on the record is to be held accountable. That’s what this body fears above all else. This body is terrified of being held accountable for anything on any subject.

So can we be so surprised that where the legislature fears to tread, where the Article I body—this body—that is charged by the Constitution for legislating, refuses to do its job, courts rush in and bureaucrats, too?

Are they accountable to the people? No, not at all.

Do we have any recourse? Not really.

Now what must we do? Well, now we must wait to see what the super-legislators will say about our rights in future cases.

If this case makes anything clear, it is that the bargain that has been offered to religious conservatives for years now is a bad one. It’s time to reject it.

If this case makes anything clear, it is that the bargain that has been offered to religious conservatives for years now is a bad one. It’s time to reject it.

The bargain has never been explicitly articulated, but religious conservatives know what it is. The bargain is that you go along with the party establishment, you support their policies and priorities—or at least keep your mouth shut about it—and, in return, the establishment will put some judges on the bench who supposedly will protect your constitutional rights to freedom of worship, to freedom of exercise. That’s what we’ve been told for years now.

We were told that we’re supposed to shut up while the party establishment focuses more on cutting taxes and handing out favors for corporations, multinational corporations who don’t share our values, who will not stand up for American principles, who were only too happy to ship American jobs overseas. But we’re supposed to say nothing about that. We’re supposed to keep our mouths shut because maybe we’ll get a judge out of the deal. That was the implicit bargain.

We’re supposed to keep our mouths shut while the party establishment opens borders, while the party establishment pursues ruinous trade policies.

We’re supposed to keep our mouths shut while those at the upper end of the income bracket get all of the attention. While working families and college students and those who don’t want to go to college but can’t get a good job, while they get what? What attention?

Workers? Children? What about parents looking for help with the cost of raising children? Looking for help with the culture in which they have to raise children? Looking for help with the communities, rebuilding the communities in which they must carry out their family life?

What about college students trying to find an education that isn’t ruinously expensive and then figure out some way to pay back that enormous debt? What about those who don’t have a college degree and don’t want one, but would like to get a good job? What about them?

No, we’re supposed to stay quiet about all of that, and more, because there may be pro-Constitution, religious liberty judges. Except for that there aren’t. Except for that these judges don’t follow the Constitution. Except for these judges invoke “textualism” and “originalism” in order to reach their preferred outcome.

Now I want to be clear, I am not personally criticizing any justice who joined the majority opinion or wrote it. I believe one hundred percent that the justices—the justice—who principally authored this opinion, Justice Gorsuch, and those who joined him are sincere and who were writing to the best of their ability, reasoning to the best of their ability. And the opinion is, whatever else you might say about it, is not sloppily reasoned. No, I think that they were doing what they thought was best and using all of the skills and gifts that they had.

No, I question how we got here. I question how judges who hold to this philosophy ended up on that bench. I question the bargain that people of faith have been offered and asked to hold to for all of these years.

And the truth is, to those who have objected to my own questioning of judicial nominees in this body, to those who said I was wrong to question judges who came for the Judiciary Committee, to those who chided me for asking tough questions even of nominees by a Republican president, for those who said that I was slowing the process down, that I was out of line, for the supposedly conservative groups who threatened to buy television time in my own state to punish me for asking questions about conservative judges, I just have this to say: this is why I asked questions. This is why I won’t stop. And I wish some more people would ask some harder questions. Because this outcome is not acceptable. And the bargain which religious conservatives have been offered is not tenable.

So, I would just say, it’s not time for religious conservatives to shut up. No, we’ve done that for too long. No, it’s time for religious conservatives to stand up and to speak out.

It’s not time for religious conservatives to shut up. No, we’ve done that for too long. No, it’s time for religious conservatives to stand up and to speak out.

It’s time for religious conservatives to bring forward the best of our ideas on every policy affecting this nation. We should be out in the forefront leading on economics, on trade, on race, on class, on every subject that matters for what our founders called the “general welfare;” because we have a lot to offer, not just to protect our own rights, but for the good of all of our fellow citizens; because as religious believers, we know that serving our fellow citizens—of whatever their religious faith, whatever their commitments may be—serving them, aiding them, working for them, is one of the signature ways that we show a love of neighbor. It’s time for religious conservatives to do that.

It’s time for religious conservatives to take the lead rather than being pushed to the back.

It’s time for religious conservatives to stand up and speak out rather than being told to sit down and shut up.

And because I’m confident that people of faith, of goodwill, all across this country are ready to do that, and want to do that, and have something to offer this country—and every person in this country, whatever their background or income or race or religion—because of that, I’m confident in the future. But I’m also confident that the old ways will not do.

So, let this be a departure. Let this be a new beginning, let this be the start of something better.

The above text was delivered as a floor speech by Senator Hawley on June 16th, 2020.",0.7307966701132842
"(mj0007/Getty Images)

I’m still not sure which side is right, but they both approached the employment-discrimination cases the right way.

The question of whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 covers sexual orientation or gender identity was always a closer one than either side made it out to be. And after reading Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion, as well as the dissents by Justices Sam Alito and Brett Kavanaugh, respectively, I’m still scratching my head at who is right.

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On the one hand, it’s patently absurd to suggest that anyone in the 1964 Congress thought the bill they were voting on included such protections. Homosexuality was considered a psychological disorder at the time — and homosexual activity still criminalized in many states — while transgenderism wasn’t even “a thing,” as the kids would put it. Indeed, when various versions of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act came up for congressional hearings in the late 2000s and early 2010s, progressive groups and Obama administration civil-rights officials spoke of the urgent need to update Title VII to protect vulnerable sexual minorities.

So it’s not bigoted reactionism to suggest that Title VII, as written, doesn’t contain so-called SOGI (sexual orientation/gender identity) protections.

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On the other hand, the relevant statutory language refers to adverse employment actions taken “because of . . . sex.” “Sex,” as we know from many contexts, is a big, loaded word. Like Walt Whitman, it contains multitudes. One’s sexual orientation refers to whether someone is attracted to people of the same or opposite sex. Whether someone is transgender refers to whether the person thinks of himself, herself, or [insert pronoun here] as the sex “assigned at birth.” Lord knows that the people who draft statutory language don’t always have the precision of professional grammarians — and often leave purposeful ambiguities as a legislative compromise or to toss the tough line-drawing problems to the administrative state.

So it’s not relativistic Humpty-Dumpty-ism to suggest that Title VII, as written, already contains those same SOGI protections.

Instead, if we throw out both legislative-intent arguments and result-oriented ones based on the idea that the meaning of statutes changes with the times — living U.S. Code-ism? — what we’re left with is a case of statutory interpretation with no clear answer. That’s why my own Cato Institute — which filed briefs supporting constitutional rights for gay people in Lawrence v. Texas, United States v. Windsor, and Obergefell v. Hodges — sat out the three cases consolidated under the name Bostock v. Clayton County.

But regardless, it’s gratifying that all the justices seemed to agree with Justice Gorsuch’s mode of analysis: “When the express terms of a statute give us one answer and the extratextual considerations suggest another, it’s no contest. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit.” We’re all textualists now!

Where the disagreement came was in Gorsuch’s textualist analysis that “it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex,” because an employer who fires someone for being gay or trans “fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex.” My colleague Walter Olson has characterized this approach as “surprise plain meaning,” in that it would indeed surprise time travelers from the 1960s, but it’s based on the plain meaning of the relevant words found in 1960s dictionaries.

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Of course, Justice Alito, in a dissent joined by Justice Thomas, counters that Gorsuch’s opinion is a “pirate ship” sailing under a false “textualist flag.” That’s because “neither ‘sexual orientation’ nor ‘gender identity’ is tied to either of the two biological sexes.” An employer can implement a “no-LGBTQ employees” policy “without paying any attention to or even knowing the biological sex” of applicants.

Moreover, Justice Kavanaugh points out, Gorsuch’s interpretation not only allows all those who would prefer SOGI protections codified into antidiscrimination law to do an end run around the separation of powers, it privileges a “literalist” statutory meaning over an “ordinary” one. Even if “sex” includes “sexual orientation, “the plaintiffs must also establish one of two other points . . . . [1] that courts, when interpreting a statute, adhere to literal meaning rather than ordinary meaning. Or alternatively, [2] that the ordinary meaning of ‘discriminate because of sex’ . . . encompasses sexual orientation discrimination.”

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I rather think that Kavanaugh’s sophisticated analysis wins the day, but that’s because I read it last; I had previously been convinced by Gorsuch, and then Alito, until finally settling on the newest justice. Ask me tomorrow and I’ll surely have a different answer.

But regardless of who got the better of the lawyering, Bostock shows that those who group all the “conservative” justices together are missing the boat. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are both committed textualists, and both were appointed not just by a Republican president but by the same one (Trump). Progressive critics who discount their independence or claim they’re just result-oriented reactionaries have egg on their face. And when they find a mirror in which to clean up, they should look deeper, because it’s actually the liberal justices who vote in lockstep.

As a policy matter, it certainly would’ve been better for Bostock’s result to have come through legislative rather than judicial action. As someone who doesn’t like adding evermore regulations onto struggling business owners — and this is all about small business, not the woke corporations that long ago changed their employment practices —I’m uncomfortable extending further intrusions into the freedom of contract. That’s particularly so in a fraught area where courts are ill-equipped when making such close statutory calls to also consider and write rules regarding religious exemptions, women’s sports, and other hard cases that a legislative body would’ve hashed out.

Over to you, Congress.",0.09995234064578414
"Much ink has been spilled about the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, in which Justice Neil Gorsuch held that the plain meaning of the relevant words in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 entails forbidding employment discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity as part of forbidding discrimination based on “sex.” The decision appears to be a major step toward bringing to completion the Court’s legal institutionalization of the sexual revolution that began in 1965 with its fabrication of a general right of privacy in matters concerning sexual intimacy.

While the dissenting opinions of Justices Alito and Kavanaugh are sufficiently persuasive to defeat the majority’s inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity within Title VII’s understanding of “sex,” I wish to bring to light another feature of the issue before the Court in Bostock. This feature is the wider jurisprudential background that bears upon not merely the issue in these cases, but legal interpretation more generally. One can only hope that the approach offered in the majority opinion does not become the new normal, because such a move would trash more than two millennia of legal development.

One can only hope that the approach offered in the majority opinion does not become the new normal, because such a move would trash more than two millennia of legal development.

The Rules of Interpretation in Western Jurisprudence

Justice Gorsuch’s opinion for the Court in Bostock has been hailed as an exercise in “textualism,” an “-ism” that is often touted for its apparent simplicity—a simplicity that is, sadly, most often illusory. The “textualism” employed by Justice Gorsuch in Bostock is not merely wrong (as Justice Kavanaugh effectively demonstrates), but a blatant circumvention of time-honored rules of statutory interpretation in the Western legal tradition. Mere analysis of the words in a legal text is not—and has never been—an end in itself for courts. Rather, it is a means of assisting courts in ascertaining the will of a lawgiver. In the section on “Powers and Duties of Judges,” Justinian’s Institutes declares that “[a]bove all he [the judge] must be sure not to depart from the statutes, imperial pronouncements, and custom.”

Following Justinian, in the Anglo-American legal tradition the most important conventions for interpreting legal documents embody various mixtures of text, tradition and logic. All have the sole purpose of directing courts in their search for the legislative will. In other words, these rules are all “intentionalist”: they are premised on the idea that there is a “true” meaning underlying any written legal text, and that this meaning is founded on the historical intentions of the makers of that text.

In the words of William Blackstone, the most influential legal commentator of the American Founding era, one must interpret the law “by signs the most natural and probable.” These signs include the words, not construed literally, but “understood in their usual and most known signification; not so much regarding the propriety of grammar, as their general and popular use.” Also included for consideration are the context, the subject-matter, the effects and consequences, and the reason and spirit of the law, or “the cause which moved the legislator to enact it.” On this last point, Blackstone adds that “when this reason ceases, the law itself ought to cease with it.”

Blackstone did not invent these rules. They are based on a tradition that runs back at least as far as the Twelve Tables of Roman Law. Indeed, Blackstone relies on the Twelve Tables, Cicero, Samuel Pufendorf, and canon law in his exposition of the rules. In a formulation almost identical with Blackstone’s, the great seventeenth-century Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius says that the “measure of correct interpretation is the inference of intent from the most probable indications.”

Likewise, Emmerich de Vattel insists that words “are only designed to express the thoughts; thus the true signification of an expression, in common use, is the idea which custom has affixed to that expression. . . . For, by a true interpretation, we endeavor to discover the thoughts of the persons speaking.” Thus “the reason of the law . . . that is to say, the motive which led to the making of it, and the object in contemplation at the time,—is the most certain clue to lead us to the discovery of its true meaning. When once we certainly know the reason which alone has determined the will of the person speaking, we ought to interpret and apply his words in a manner suitable to that reason alone.” Finally, Vattel concludes that “in unforeseen cases, that is to say, when the state of things happens to be such as the author . . . has not foreseen, and could not have thought of, we should rather be guided by his intention than by his words.”

These are just a few of the most prominent examples in a seemingly endless train of commentary —with few if any contrary examples. They attest to a centuries-long agreement that the law cannot be read from the mere words of a legal text, but only from the will, or intention, of the lawgiver. Discernment of intent must begin from a consideration of the words used by the lawgiver to express the law, but it cannot end there. The object, end or purpose of the law—more precisely, the “mischief” that it was enacted to overcome—is crucial for determining its meaning. Any uncertainties in the meaning of the terms employed by the lawgiver must be resolved in accord with general custom and common usage at the time the law was enacted.

This principled approach to determining the meaning of legal texts is not a mere convenience to be disregarded whenever it is found inconvenient by a judge or court. It is a set of universal rules developed by civilian and common lawyers alike over a long stretch of time from the dawn of civilized legal order in the West. It has never been disavowed even by a modern Supreme Court bent on imposing its will on the American people via an illegitimate “living constitution.” Rather, the Court simply ignores the tradition when it is inconvenient, and pays it lip service when convenient. To abandon this long-standing approach is to risk a descent into lawlessness, and that is exactly what the Court’s Bostock opinion portends.

Bostock should not be regarded as law. Justice Alito calls it an act of pure legislation. I would add that it is an act of legislation the Court has no legitimate authority to make.

Textual Literalism and Legal Positivism

Textual literalism is an illicit preoccupation with the words of a writing divorced from consideration of the meaning being communicated by the writer. According to Vattel, it is a species of fraud: “Good-faith adheres to the intention; fraud insists on the terms, when it thinks that they can furnish a cloak for its prevarications.” Pushed to its logical extreme, as was done in the Bostock opinion, this kind of textual preoccupation generates meaninglessness—which is exactly what an interpreter wishing to attribute meanings not intended by the writer wants to do. Under this approach, words become mere empty vessels into which interpreters can pour anything they like.

We have been heading down this road since legal positivism began its rise in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Prior to the onset of legal positivism, the judge’s art was universally conceded to be a process of discovery, and what is to be discovered is the ratio legis, the “reason of the law.” Recall that in the formulations of Blackstone and Vattel noted above, the reason of a law is the motive that impels the lawgiver to enact it, the mischief that is to be overcome. Since the ratio legis constitutes the main ground and justification of the law, it follows that the meaning of the law transcends the words and the text has a source outside itself. That meaning is the objective truth of the law that is to be discovered and applied by the court.

Under positivism, however, there is no objective truth—legal or otherwise—and so the court can make up any meaning that it likes to fill the empty vessel that constitutes the text of the law. Thus textual literalism is simply a judicial variant of legal positivism in action. It is the logical outgrowth of a jurisprudence that has been emptied of objective truth, in which law is merely the command of a sovereign bully having the power to visit pain upon subjects. Ironically, it is also—at bottom—lawless.

Thomas Aquinas says in his Treatise on Law that an unjust law is not fully law, except in a purely conventional or “perverse” sense. For a law to be just, it must be oriented to the common good, and it must be legislative. Thus judicial application of law is not law. After quoting Aristotle, who said that it is “better that law direct all things than that they be left to the decisions of judges,” Thomas goes on to explain why:

First, indeed, it is easier to find the few wise persons sufficient to establish right laws than the many wise persons necessary to judge rightly about particular matters. Second, lawmakers consider over a long time what to impose by law, but judges reach decisions about particular deeds as cases spontaneously arise. And human beings can more easily perceive what is right by considering many instances than they can by considering only one deed. Third, lawmakers decide in general and about future events, but presiding judges decide current cases, and love or hatred or covetousness affects such decisions. And so their decisions are perverted. Therefore, since few embody the justice required of a judge, and since that justice can be perverted, it was necessary that law determine, whenever possible, what judges should decide, and commit very few matters to the decisions of human beings.

This statement is no less true today than it was in the thirteenth century. The will of the lawgiver, not the will of the judge, is the law. It is the lawgiver who is charged with the job of advancing the common good through legislation. The common good cannot be advanced through adjudication, which is about advancing the good of particular individuals involved in cases and controversies by impartial administration of justice according to standing law. According to Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison, “[t]he province of the court is, solely, to decide on the rights of individuals.” That is why the Constitution carefully limits the judicial power to “cases and controversies.” It is not the job of the courts to advance the common good, the public interest, the general welfare, or any such equivalent goal. But that is what the Court tries to do in Bostock, as it has been trying to do since the onset of the living constitution in the twentieth century, in derogation of the constitutional separation of powers and to the ruination of our culture. Hence Justice Alito is correct when he pejoratively describes the Court’s ruling as “legislation.”

When the Court employs Bostock-style textual literalism, unmoored from the constraints imposed by a more rigorous originalism tied to the will of the lawgiver, it abdicates the judicial function and intrudes into the legislative domain, as salivating progressives began to envision on the very day of the decision.

Bostock reminds us why faithful adherence to the traditional rules of interpretation is so important. When the Court employs Bostock-style textual literalism, unmoored from the constraints imposed by a more rigorous originalism tied to the will of the lawgiver, it abdicates the judicial function and intrudes into the legislative domain, as salivating progressives began to envision on the very day of the decision. As an illegitimate exercise of judicial supremacy, Bostock should not be regarded as law. Justice Alito calls it an act of pure legislation. I would add that it is an act of legislation the Court has no legitimate authority to make.",-0.29734776460495627
"The intramural dialogue between the New York Post’s Sohrab Ahmari and National Review’s David French continues to unfold. Some may wonder when it will end—but there is no more important intellectual debate in all of contemporary political discourse, and it is crucial that we all grasp the stakes.

There is much to be said about the procedural protections for a free citizenry that developed in the English common law system and were subsequently incorporated into the American constitutional order. But the right to a jury trial, habeas corpus, due process under law—these procedural niceties are not, contra Enlightenment apologists and Lockean purists, epistemologically “self-evident” due to unaided reason. The late Andrew Breitbart knew that our politics is ultimately downstream of culture, and so too is our Anglo-American legal and constitutional tradition downstream of culture. Vitiating the ties that attach our citizenry to the peculiar traditions we have inherited weakens the procedural protections we rightfully hold dear, empowering a new culture wherein self-appointed victims become their own judges and those targeted for summary “cancellation” have no appeal. If not carefully nourished, classical liberal procedural protections will be swept away.

If we were to lose touch with our unique Anglo-American tradition, the lofty promises of the Declaration of Independence and the structural ingenuities of the Constitution alike would be broken. Recognizing that culture and tradition are necessary prerequisites for the genuine restoration and preservation of our procedural norms should make us comfortable nudging the levers of political power to reclaim cultural influence from the revanchist illiberal Left. From the Jacobin menagerie in the streets to the Woke, Inc. staffers on academic and corporate campuses, the illiberal Left rejects dialogue and preempts from the public square even the most anodyne right-of-center beliefs. Against that backdrop, procedural neutrality as a purported panacea to our culture war is a plea that rings hollow at best. Ahmari is fundamentally correct in his ongoing feud with French. A substantive and not strictly procedural political agenda oriented toward the highest good responds best to the crippling crises leftist illiberalism deepens: balkanization, mass despondency, and moral decay. Ahmari has offered more to directly confront these attacks on our heart and soul than French.

But, crucially, Ahmari can also lay claim to more: better reflecting the Founders’ vision of America and its constitutional order. In crafting the Declaration and the Constitution, the Founders did not put the procedural norms of English common law first. On the contrary, they built our regime directly on the foundation of the substantive political virtues: justice, human flourishing, and the pursuit of the common good.

“The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society,” writes Madison in Federalist 57, “and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.” The original “aim” of our Constitution, in other words, was not to secure habeas corpus or due process rights, important as those may be. It was to cultivate leaders in whom “virtue” had been inculcated—without whom “the common good of the society” would not best be realized. The Constitution’s Preamble clearly defines the Union’s goals substantively: “establish Justice, … promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty.” Even “liberty,” which takes on an ahistorical meaning in today’s licentious age, had a more traditional meaning for Founding-era political thinkers: the freedom to pursue virtue and worship and obey God according to one’s Judeo-Christian conscience.

Constitutional structure—procedural novelties such as federalism and our tripartite separation of powers—followed as a means to implement our substantive aims. As early 20th-century senators Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge phrased it, the Declaration’s natural rights proclamations and the Constitution’s carefully prescribed means to diffuse and contain governmental power were inextricably linked “to the end that individual liberty might be preserved.” Even more direct was Abraham Lincoln, for whom the Constitution’s ingenious procedural innovations merely formed an encompassing “frame of silver” for the Declaration’s substantive “apple of gold.”

The relevant question today is how best to deliberate in pursuit of justice in a post-constitutional age—one beset by a radicalized Left that rejects intellectual contestation in the name of expelling all enemies. Genuflecting and begging our illiberal brethren for “tolerance” and “respect” is a proven failure; values-neutral pluralistic liberalism has been tried and found wanting as a remedy. “Public accommodation” is not a suicide pact.

Instead of retreating to procedural neutrality, conservatives must be willing to advance moral arguments and wield the levers of political power to guide our culture toward a rediscovery of virtue and the promotion of the common weal. Without its substance restored, the foundation of our Constitutional order is destroyed. Our cherished procedural protections will, in the end, have protected nothing.",0.3602026901197432
"The New Right renews Americanism.

The debate between Sohrab Ahmari and David French is not about Sohrab Ahmari and David French. Nor is it merely a debate within the Right over the ferocity and tone with which it ought to oppose the Left. At root, this is nothing less than a debate over the future of “conservatism” and the American Right. More specifically, it is a debate over the role of “libertarian” or “liberal” ideology on the American Right—a specific set of ideas that are, unbeknownst to many conservatives, contradictory to the principles and purposes of the American founding itself.

The sudden ferocity of this debate reveals that people on all sides sense it involves underlying issues of importance, and are itching to engage each other. In the article that launched 1,000 think pieces, Ahmari said we must “fight the culture war with the aim of defeating the enemy and enjoying the spoils in the form of a public square re-ordered to the common good and ultimately the Highest Good.” For this, Charles Cooke, the editor of National Review Online, called Ahmari a “Leninist.”

Remarkably, to speak explicitly of the common good—never mind justice—as the end and purpose of government makes many of today’s conservatives nervous, if not queasy, perhaps in large part because of how, over the last century, the Left has appropriated the words that traditionally signified the purpose of government. Abandoning the language of Western tradition to describe the purpose of government has grievously weakened the Right, helping habituate it to playing the role of a losing army engaged in long retreat.

But many on the Right have done more than shrink from using the classic words of the Western world. For a variety of reasons, not least of which is ignorance, significant elements of the old coalition have gradually abandoned the foundational political thought of the Western tradition—and the American founding itself. Ahmari and the coalescing New Right do not represent new members of the coalition, but re-present traditional arguments and ideas that have been too long forgotten. The New Right does not argue for anything new, but is refocusing and reordering the priorities of the Right on what is now most needful. In order to reform itself and build a new foundation in the age of Trump, conservatives must reevaluate their “libertarianism” or “liberalism,” concepts which have metastasized and become harmful ideologies masquerading as traditional principles.

I signed a statement in March entitled “Against the Dead Consensus” with Ahmari, which asserted that “even during the Cold War, this conservatism too often tracked the same lodestar liberalism did—namely, individual autonomy. The fetishizing of autonomy paradoxically yielded the very tyranny that consensus conservatives claim most to detest.” There is perhaps no greater example than when Justice Anthony Kennedy, “while upholding the constitutional ‘right’ to abortion,” as we said in our statement, asserted in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that “[a]t the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and the mystery of human life.”

Conservatives ostensibly oppose this notion and often revile this sentence, buoyed by the understanding that it was employed to prevent states from passing laws thwarting the extermination of the unborn. But it is a telling definition because it serves as a neat distillation of decades of rhetoric and political action (or the lack of it) on the American Left and Right. It encapsulates the worst of the baby boomers when confronted with the thorniest of political issues. It sums up their solipsistic platitudes of self-help that still dominate our culture and obscure the very existence of the higher goods every human being must seek out in order to achieve a fulfilling measure of happiness.

There is in fact no greater example of the artful dodging of autonomous individualism—and a line that might wrongly resonate with many leaders on the Right today—than the Court’s opinion in Casey that its “obligation is to define liberty for all, not to mandate our own moral code.” But, of course, a moral code based on their understanding of human nature is precisely what they mandated. To define liberty is to define morality, for to define liberty is to define what is permitted and therefore deemed good or neutral and what is not permitted and thereby deemed evil or dangerous.

Outside of the regnant ignorance of many of our “elite” leaders on all sides over the last decades, millennia of western civilization speak loudly and clearly: all law is—or is based upon—a moral code. That the highest court in the land could offer up such inanities reveals that in some very serious way we have broken with that tradition. What have we become? We need a clear-eyed and agreed upon understanding about whatever ideology seems to guide us now, even if we disagree about how and why we got here.

The American Right and Libertarian Liberalism

As the political landscapes shift in the Trump era, amidst the dizzying confusion of yawning realignment, words like “libertarianism” and “liberalism” do not help us clarify matters. We must avoid equivocation and define our terms. Our old words do not accurately describe a newly unveiled world full of strange new gods.

When the emerging New Right refers to “liberalism” and “libertarianism” negatively, it refers to the idea among many mainstream Right-leaning leaders that the goal of government is not to achieve a national common good beyond individual material prosperity and the bodily satisfaction of individuals. Above all, the New Right rejects the notion that the purpose of government is morally neutral, or merely to give autonomous individuals the freedom to do whatever they wish.

Let us call what the New Right rejects “libertarian liberalism.”

When we oppose “libertarianism,” we do not primarily refer to those who explicitly call themselves “libertarians,” even if we disagree with libertarians profoundly about the role of liberty, morality, economics, and government and the relationship between them. In fact, the New Right might have reason to work politically with those who call themselves libertarians on overly interventionist foreign policy, the danger and unintended negative consequences of government overreach, the importance of constitutionalism vs. arbitrary rule, and the tyranny of the administrative state and the class of ill-educated “experts” who now govern America.

What “liberalism” means today is more complicated and varied. There is no rising coalition rejecting democratic republicanism as a valid form of government while simultaneously throwing out the entire concept of individual rights (although younger members of the Right and Left increasingly dispute the efficacy of both). But among those who speak of “liberalism” negatively, there is unifying and serious disagreement with a notion that arose among progressives in the West over the last century: namely, that the purpose of government is to discover, dispense, and protect an ever-expanding catalogue of individual rights primarily for economic purposes. Whatever its ultimate origins or widest meaning, “liberalism” used negatively stands for the idea that the overriding purpose of government is the continual promotion of individual freedom over and against what were formerly considered moral and material constraints, and that this endless movement constitutes “progress.”

Thus, the combination of the libertarian notion of the role of liberty, morality, and government with liberalism, or liberalism severed from the deeper classical and Christian political thought, is what the New Right stands against. The libertarian liberal intellectual framework currently prevents conservatives of good will from rethinking and reexamining their political strategy and policy stances—concepts in dire need of recalibration if they wish to respond wisely to radically different circumstances in the age of Trump. Lamentably, too many understand the original principles and purposes of American government itself in terms of libertarian liberalism. After all, is not the purpose of America “liberty for all,” as opposed to the rise in the last century of an unaccountable administrative state, and is not this maxim a unifying antidote to the tyrannical urges of the Left?

The American Founding Rejected Libertarian-Liberalism

Whatever their flaws, the founding generations who created and designed the original form of the United States of America roundly and explicitly rejected libertarian-liberalism.

We do not now live in the same regime our Founders wrought. As the Claremont Institute has long argued, elite and educated society began to roundly and explicitly reject the thought of the American Founders in the late 19th century. And during the early part of the 20th century, this intellectual rejection was legislated into being by enormously influential political leaders such as Woodrow Wilson, inexorably changing—for the worse—the course of our political and cultural life.

During the same time period, scholars (often historicists and watered-down Marxists) increasingly downplayed the role of ideas in human life, rejected the concept of morality and order in nature, and embraced a strict materialist view of human beings and their affairs. Accordingly, they proffered a revisionist history of the Founding. They ripped documents and quotes out of context (such as Federalist 10 and 51, which had never before been given such weight) to assert the Founding was merely about economic self-interest, and the Constitution amounted to an amoral, outdated, clunky 18th century contraption of checks and balances.

Scholars, those all-too-human beings, treat the American Founding as a Rorschach test for whatever they find wrong (or right) with American life in the era within which live. As the 20th century wore on, especially post-World War II, intellectuals on the Left who found much to despise in American life began to decry consumerism, the notion of individual property rights, and everything else they didn’t like in contemporary politics as a baleful product of the “Lockean individualism” of the founding generations. But scholars on the Right who opposed them often accepted their premises, arguing instead that such notions were positive goods, leading to America’s success.

The result is that many on the Left and Right today wrongly think that the American Founding was a product of libertarian liberalism.

Liberty Versus Licentiousness

For the founding generation, however, liberty was defined and limited by the higher purposes of human life. As Federalist 51 famously proclaimed in 1788, arguing for the acceptance of the Constitution of the United States of America:

Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.

Even at the birth of the western republics that still lead the world, which often call themselves democracies and for which liberty has always been considered a constituent part of political justice, America acknowledged that justice, not liberty or freedom, was the ultimate purpose of human governance. Justice refers to the right way to order ourselves and our relationships with others so as to achieve what is truly good for all of us together. Freedom itself had be justified by means of argument about its purpose, and whether or not it was conducive to the common good of all.

The preamble to the U.S. Constitution refers last in its list of purposes to securing the “Blessings of Liberty.” The suggestion that this meant autonomous individualism as the Supreme Court defined it in Casey is absurd. Official documents such as the Virginia Bill of Rights of 1776 make crystal clear what the phrase meant to the founding generations: “…no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.” Liberty’s blessings, in other words, require virtue, or certain salutary habits of behavior—well defined by both reason and revelation in Western tradition—in order to enjoy and exercise them.

One of the central arguments for the passage of the Constitution was to promote this form of liberty consonant with classical and Christian virtues over and against licentiousness. As Noah Webster defined it in the first American dictionary in 1806, “Licentiousness” referred to the “contempt of just restraint,” i.e., freedom unrestrained by, and therefore in, opposition to justice.

This distinction was embedded deep in American political thought from the start. Even as the Constitution of the State of New York protected “the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference,” in 1777, for instance, it qualified this freedom, “[p]rovided that the liberty of conscience hereby granted, shall not be so construed, as to excuse acts of licentiousness, or justify practices inconsistent with the peace or safety of this State.” A century later, over and against arguments based on the principle of religious liberty, the American political system had little hesitation enforcing laws against the Mormon practice of bigamy.

When George Washington argued that stronger governmental unity between the states was needed in his Circular to the States in 1783, he warned that “arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.” The sentiment ultimately became part and parcel of the argument for the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. Benjamin Rush echoed the rest of the Federalists in 1787 when he said:

In our opposition to monarchy, we forgot that the temple of tyranny has two doors. We bolted one of them by proper restraints; but we left the other open, by neglecting to guard against the effects of our own ignorance and licentiousness. Most of the present difficulties of this country arise from the weakness and other defects of our governments.

In designing and supporting the Constitution, the Federalists thus supported the federal centralization of power—especially over commercial activity—in moral terms, for moral reasons (see the section on “Lincoln and the Founders” here). Like the rest of the Federalists, when Oliver Ellsworth argued for the adoption of the Constitution with economic policy in mind, he called opposition in the name of freedom to the new centralized government licentious:

Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world. Justly understood, it is sacred next to those which we appropriate in divine adoration; but in the mouths of some, it means anything which will enervate a necessary government…and keep society in confusion for want of a power sufficiently concentered to promote its good. It is not strange that the licentious should tell us a government of energy is inconsistent with liberty, for being inconsistent with their wishes and their vices, they would have us think it contrary to human happiness.

The federal government was meant to promote the good of society for the sake of human happiness, which meant directly countering licentiousness.

In the Virginia ratifying convention, James Madison himself made clear he was arguing for “a well regulated Republican Government. The establishment of such in America was my most ardent desire. I have considered attentively (and my consideration has been aided by experience) the tendency of a relaxation of laws, and licentiousness of manners.” (“Manners,” at the time, also meant “morals.”) Madison warned that “[t]he rapid increase of population in every State is an additional reason to check dissipation and licentiousness. Does it not strongly call for the friends of Republican Government to endeavour to establish a Republican organization?” In the same ratifying convention, Edmund Randolph said “An additional reason to induce us to adopt [the Constitution] is, that excessive licentiousness which has resulted from the relaxation of our laws, and which will be checked by this Government. Let us judge from the fate of more ancient nations; licentiousness has produced tyranny among many of them: It has contributed as much (if not more) as any other cause whatsoever, to the loss of their liberties.”

The understanding that unrestrained liberty led to tyranny not only informed the creation and design of the Constitution but was also perhaps the most prominent proviso the Founders provided along with its passage. Apocryphal or not, when Benjamin Franklin told the woman waiting outside that the Philadelphia Convention had created “A Republic—if you can keep it,” he was underscoring the point. In James Wilson’s 1788 “Oration on the Fourth of July” celebrating the new Constitution, he said “among the virtues necessary to merit and preserve the advantages of a good government, I number a warm and uniform ATTACHMENT to LIBERTY, and to the CONSTITUTION,” but he warned “[t]he enemies of liberty are artful and insidious.”

A counterfeit steals her dress, imitates her manner, forges her signature, and assumes her name. But the real name of the deceiver is Licentiousness. Such is her effrontery that she will charge liberty to her face with imposture; and she will, with shameless front, insist that she alone is the genuine character, and that she alone is entitled to the respect, which the genuine character deserves…She receives the honors of liberty, and liberty herself is treated as a traitor and usurper.

Licentiousness, as the founding generation routinely counseled, is not just a personal problem, but a political one. Liberty without justice is always twisted into a tool of tyranny: “her motions are regulated by dark ambition, who sits concealed behind the curtain, and who knows that despotism…can always follow the success of licentiousness.” Wilson ended his speech with a summation of the early American regime, in which “LIBERTY, VIRTUE and RELIGION go hand in hand harmoniously, protecting, enlivening, and exalting all!”

Virtue and Happiness

The key to understanding the founding generation’s understanding of liberty is to understand what they meant by “virtue.” As Harry Jaffa argued, the American Founding, “in its understanding of the connection between happiness and virtue, aligns itself decisively with traditional moral philosophy and moral theology.” Further, the Founding was based on the understanding that there was an overlap between moral philosophy and moral theology, as it “rests not only upon its defusing of the tension between reason and revelation, but upon [the founders’] fundamental agreement on a moral code which can guide human life both privately and publicly. This moral code is the work both of ‘Nature’s God’—reason—and the ‘Creator’—revelation.”

Even the major early American figures influenced most strongly by “Enlightenment” era thought, such as Thomas Jefferson, espoused a brand of theism in which Christian understanding of human nature and good and evil overlapped with that of reason. In designing the University of Virginia in 1818, Jefferson made clear that while the state would not fund a professor of divinity, “the proofs of the being of a god, the creator, preserver, & supreme ruler of the universe, the author of all the relations of morality, & of the laws & obligations these infer, will be within the province of the professor of ethics.” In other words, reason showed that God existed, nature and human nature were ordered towards certain purpose, and thus there were certain ways in which human beings ought to act (virtues) in order to achieve happiness. Nor was this view of human nature and virtue a private matter; rather, it was necessary for the very existence and operation of republican government and even Jefferson thought it deserved state funding.

As James Madison said in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, “I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom. Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks—no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.”

When the Declaration of Independence said the Creator endowed all human beings with unalienable Rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” “happiness” was not understood in the wide-open terms of libertarian liberalism. As James Madison said, writing to James Monroe in 1786:

There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong. Taking the word “interest” as synonymous with “ultimate happiness,” in which sense it is qualified with every necessary moral ingredient, the proposition is no doubt true. But taking it in the popular sense as referring to immediate augmentation of property and wealth nothing can be more false. In the latter it would be the interest of the majority in every community to despoil and enslave the minority of individuals.

As Madison goes on to say, if one disregards the “ultimate happiness” of human beings—if one thinks that the interest even of a lawful democratic majority in regard to their property and wealth is all that politics is about—one is “only re-establishing under another name and a more specious form, force as the measure of right.” But force, or might, does not make right. Abraham Lincoln famously made the same point to Steven Douglas when Douglas argued that slavery should simply be voted up or down in federal territories, and the federal government should stay out of it.

Education

It was not unreasonable for Madison and friends to assume that the definition of liberty and happiness as tied to virtue would be taught to future generations of American leaders. While many figures in the early Republic such as George Washington proposed and supported the funding of a national university, there was little reason to think that the vast network of state legislation, the Christian churches, or the educational institutions of their day were not up to the task of forming the citizenry.

At commencement in early America, colleges like Harvard and Yale would publish lists of ideas in Latin that graduates would have to publicly defend in order to graduate. These theses reveal what they stood for institutionally. As one of them from Yale in 1797 said: “Without virtue and literature no republic can exist happy and free. In order that citizens may be gifted with virtue and intelligence it is necessary that they should be instructed in letters and good morals; therefore such institutions being neglected a free and happy republic cannot exist.”

The colleges generally testified to a natural equality and liberty of all human beings (“to reduce Africans to perpetual slavery agrees neither with divine nor human law,” Brown, 1769) but this liberty was shaped by a classical conception of virtue based on right reason’s study of human nature. On the one hand, “if a man aspires to true happiness, he must make his actions conform to the laws of God” (University of Pennsylvania, 1762). While “God demands the actions which beget happiness” and “prohibits those which bring misery,” “the difference between good and evil, virtue and vice, set up by God is immutable; because it is founded on the nature of things (Harvard, 1810).”

But nature is accessible to reason. Rational investigation of morality and religion is possible since “the principles of religion are in harmony with human nature” and “in all matters reasonableness marked the apostles” (Harvard, 1769). “Demonstration shows us the existence of God” and “when concerning any action there is question of knowing the will of God by the light of nature the investigation must determine whether that action seems to be connected with the increasing of general happiness or the lessening of it” (Harvard, 1810). Systematic thinking about human nature uncovers the habits of behavior or virtues that lead to our happiness. The study of Ethics explained how “prudence is the most difficult of virtues” and “justice is the mother of virtues” (Harvard, 1693), and “even though the future life should be taken away there still remains an obligation to virtue” (Harvard, 1653).

Thus “[t]he will of God, revealed by the light either of nature, or of sacred scripture, is an adequate rule and norm of conscience” (Harvard, 1810). This is why “no civil law is just unless it agrees with the principles of the natural law” (Harvard, 1778) and “whatever is opposed to the common good is also opposed to the law of nature” (University of Pennsylvania, 1762).

Yet “philosophy,” by itself, “can provide no stable and sure foundation of moral obligation” (Yale, 1797). “Human reason alone does not suffice to explain how the true religion was introduced and built up so firmly in the world” and “with reason alone as a leader would never have been accepted”: “There was need of divine revelation for Christianity” (Harvard, 1769); “Holy Scripture preserved the knowledge of God among men” (Yale, 1797).

The Ivy League schools whose hollow shells still exist today taught then that ultimately—as almost every major American Founder proclaimed, regardless of their own beliefs—Christianity was necessary for the sake of true happiness or, at least, a functioning political order. Washington (and Alexander Hamilton, who helped in the writing) went out of their way in Washington’s Farewell Address to the nation to say “let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

Natural Rights

Similarly, the notion of individual rights at the time of the founding was inextricably bound up with virtue and religion, for the rights the Founders spoke of were natural, i.e., they arose from the purpose and form of human nature rather than being the nominal creation of government and law. On another July 4th, 59 years after Wilson’s speech, John Quincy Adams explained, “the Declaration of Independence announced the One People, assuming their station among the powers of the earth, as a civilized, religious, and Christian people,—acknowledging themselves bound by the obligations, and claiming the rights to which they were entitled by the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” Such natural rights were explicitly bound up with obligations, or duties, ordered toward higher purpose.

The authors of the Declaration, Adams said, “appealed to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of their intentions, and neither claimed nor conferred authority to do any thing but of right.” After all, the Declaration was an argument justifying freedom based on the claim that the King of England sought an “establishment of an absolute Tyranny.” “To prove this” the first of the “Facts [to] be submitted to a candid world” was that “He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.” In other words, the colonists, far from libertarian liberal mythology of the late 20th century, were trying to pass laws for the sake of the common good, and the first thing they singled the King out for was his prevention of them so doing.

From the start, in other words, when Americans defined their understanding of republican form of government, in which the people rule through representatives, who, in turn, serve to protect the natural rights of the whole, they understood these rights came with obligations limited by, and ordered toward, a higher understanding of good and evil, accessible by means of reason and revelation. As Adams went on to say in 1837, “The sovereign authority, conferred upon the People of the Colonies by the Declaration of Independence, could not dispense them, nor any individual citizen of them, from the fulfilment of all their moral obligations; for to these they were bound by the laws of Nature’s God; nor is there any power upon earth capable of granting absolution from them.” The American founding “acknowledged, therefore, a rule of right…and virtually disclaimed all power to do wrong…A moral Ruler of the universe, the Governor and Controller of all human power is the only unlimited sovereign acknowledged by the Declaration of Independence; and it claims for the United States of America…only the power to do all that may be done of right.”

Common Good

The Constitution was ordained and established first to form “a more perfect Union,” or the unity without which no political community is possible, and, next, to “establish Justice.” It was established and ordained for the sake of peace and safety, and “to promote the general Welfare.” The idea that it rejected the notion of the common good based on the verbal formulation of official documents alone, never mind a modicum of research into what it meant to those who wrote it, is specious.

The immediate objection of the libertarian liberal is that this interpretation is tyrannical. After all, asserting a common good beyond individual material satisfaction, as America has done in regard to bigamy, will result in a loss of liberty on the part of those who disagree. But as John Marshall once said, “When we consult the common good, we consult our own.” One presumes Marshall, the founding father of the Supreme Court, pace Charles Cooke, was not a Stalinist.

The notion of a common good is of course abused if it is used as cover for the good of a tyrant or elites as opposed to the good of all. This is the very definition of corruption going back to Aristotle: when one man, a group of people, or the majority rules for their own good rather than the good of the whole. But as the political philosopher Leo Strauss proclaimed:

The goal of the general is victory, whereas the goal of the statesman is the common good. What victory means is not essentially controversial, but the meaning of the common good is essentially controversial. The ambiguity of the political goal is due to its comprehensive character. Thus the temptation arises to deny, or to evade, the comprehensive character of politics and to treat politics as one compartment among many. This temptation must be resisted if we are to face our situation as human beings, i.e., the whole situation.

All human politics is an argument about the common good. We can’t scrub the morality out of politics. To deny that political life is ultimately an ongoing argument about what is good and evil constitutes a vain attempt to transcend all politics, and the reality of human nature itself.

The New Consensus

Sohrab Ahmari did not speak in the spirit of Lenin. His message comes to us on the wings of the American Founders—who are not done teaching us yet.

On Right and Left, the libertarian liberalism consensus that has heretofore covered over our fundamental disagreements is fraying. A new consensus dawns. But on both sides, it is leading to a growing awareness of what divides us.

The message of the New Right is not that we can necessarily return to the original consensus that formed America, but that the notion of unfettered liberty is utterly antithetical to the American regime this consensus formed. As Senator Joshua Hawley recently argued against this harmful understanding of freedom, “Though it proclaims liberty, it destroys the life that makes liberty possible.” The Founders’ warnings about liberty without justice were prescient; they haunt us still. Regardless of their intent, those who ceaselessly couch their arguments in terms of morally neutral freedoms and procedural abstractions do not always serve the cause of true liberty.

Civil government can’t be fully responsible for the final good of man, nor provide it. Not even the greatest proponents of the integration of Church and State thought as much, and any government that assumes that it alone can define and provide for the highest or final good of human beings, rather than remaining open to it or pointing towards it, is inevitably tyrannical. But regardless of whether or not religion is even on the table, as Matthew Schmitz has argued, summoning Aristotle at the base of Western political tradition, all government will order itself toward what those within it think that good is, and point toward it.

The great lie of libertarian liberalism, slowly adopted over the last century by the technocratic nations of the West and their ignorant elites, is that politics can somehow remain neutral and untainted by that problem. To accept this lie—that government and law can somehow avoid taking a stand on what justice is and how human beings ought to live their lives—is in fact to give power to those who mouth seemingly “value-neutral” language while establishing their own notion of the good as law.

If American conservatives continue to believe and act upon this lie, they will lose the culture war and die out as a movement.

They will not be able to say the American Founders didn’t warn them.",-0.006143194402381768
"The 2016 election laid bare profound but long-hidden ideological divisions among America’s conservative intellectuals.

Some of us heartily supported the Trumpian insurgency. Others reluctantly pulled the lever for Trump. Still others opposed his candidacy, adopted the label “Never Trump,” or even endorsed Hillary Clinton.

Yet more than two years later, we speak with one voice: There is no returning to the pre-Trump conservative consensus that collapsed in 2016. Any attempt to revive the failed conservative consensus that preceded Trump would be misguided and harmful to the right.

We give credit where it is due: Consensus conservatism played a heroic role in defeating Communism in the last century, by promoting prosperity at home and the expansion of a rules-based international order. At its best, the old consensus defended the natural rights of Americans and the “transcendent dignity of the human person, as the visible image of the invisible God” (Pope John Paul II, Centesimus Annus) against the depredations of totalitarian regimes.

But even during the Cold War, this conservatism too often tracked the same lodestar liberalism did—namely, individual autonomy. The fetishizing of autonomy paradoxically yielded the very tyranny that consensus conservatives claim most to detest.

America’s public philosophy now puts great stock in “the right to define one’s own concept of . . . the mystery of human life,” as Justice Anthony Kennedy, the libertarian conservative par excellence, wrote while upholding the constitutional “right” to abortion. But this vast leeway to discover the meaning of existence extends to destroying the freedom and lives of others (the unborn child’s, in the case of abortion).

Yes, the old conservative consensus paid lip service to traditional values. But it failed to retard, much less reverse, the eclipse of permanent truths, family stability, communal solidarity, and much else. It surrendered to the pornographization of daily life, to the culture of death, to the cult of competitiveness. It too often bowed to a poisonous and censorious multiculturalism.

Faced with voters’ resounding “No!” to these centrifugal forces, consensus conservatives have grown only more rigid in their certainties. They have elevated prudential judgments and policies into sacred dogmas. These dogmas—free trade on every front, free movement through every boundary, small government as an end in itself, technological advancement as a cure-all—foreclose debate about the nature and purpose of our common life.

Consensus conservatism long ago ceased to inquire into the first things. But we will not.

We oppose the soulless society of individual affluence.

Our society must not prioritize the needs of the childless, the healthy, and the intellectually competitive. Our policy must accommodate the messy demands of authentic human attachments: family, faith, and the political community. We welcome allies who oppose dehumanizing attempts at “liberation” such as pornography, “designer babies,” wombs for rent, and the severing of the link between sex and gender.

We stand with the American citizen.

In recent years, some have argued for immigration by saying that working-class Americans are less hard-working, less fertile, in some sense less worthy than potential immigrants. We oppose attempts to displace American citizens. Advancing the common good requires standing with, rather than abandoning, our countrymen. They are our fellow citizens, not interchangeable economic units. And as Americans we owe each other a distinct allegiance and must put each other first.

We reject attempts to compromise on human dignity.

In 2013, the Republican National Committee released an “autopsy report” that proposed compromising on social issues in order to appeal to young voters. In fact, millennials are the most pro-life generation in America, while economic libertarianism isn’t nearly as popular as its Beltway proponents imagine. We affirm the nonnegotiable dignity of every unborn life and oppose the transhumanist project of radical self-identification.

We resist a tyrannical liberalism.

We seek to revive the virtues of liberality and neighborliness that many people describe as “liberalism.” But we oppose any attempt to conflate American interests with liberal ideology. When an ideological liberalism seeks to dictate our foreign policy and dominate our religious and charitable institutions, tyranny is the result, at home and abroad.

We want a country that works for workers.

The Republican Party has for too long held investors and “job creators” above workers and citizens, dismissing vast swaths of Americans as takers unworthy of its time. Trump’s victory, driven in part by his appeal to working-class voters, shows the potential of a political movement that heeds the cries of the working class as much as the demands of capital. Americans take more pride in their identity as workers than their identity as consumers. Economic and welfare policy should prioritize work over consumption.

We believe home matters.

For those who enjoy the upsides, a borderless world brings intoxicating new liberties. They can go anywhere, work anywhere. They can call themselves “citizens” of the world. But the jet-setters’ vision clashes with the human need for a common life. And it has bred resentments that are only beginning to surface. We embrace the new nationalism insofar as it stands against the utopian ideal of a borderless world that, in practice, leads to universal tyranny.

Whatever else might be said about it, the Trump phenomenon has opened up space in which to pose these questions anew. We will guard that space jealously. And we respectfully decline to join with those who would resurrect warmed-over Reaganism and foreclose honest debate.

Sohrab Ahmari

New York Post

Jeffrey Blehar



Patrick Deneen

University of Notre Dame

Rod Dreher

The American Conservative

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry

Ethics and Public Policy Center

Darel Paul

Williams College

C. C. Pecknold

The Catholic University of America

Matthew Peterson

The Claremont Institute

James Poulos

The American Mind

Mark Regnerus

University of Texas at Austin

Matthew Schmitz

First Things

Kevin E. Stuart

Austin Institute

David Upham

University of Dallas

Matthew Walther

The Week

Julia Yost

First Things

Institutional affiliations are for identification purposes only and do not represent institutional endorsement.

Become a fan of First Things on Facebook, subscribe to First Things via RSS, and follow First Things on Twitter.",-0.2095371777067082
"We conservatives now find ourselves trying to plot a course forward in the aftermath of the tumultuous Trump presidency.

It is imperative that all conservatives, whatever our various doctrinal or attitudinal differences, unify around a rejection of the “dead consensus.” We must accept that there is no going back to the outmoded pieties of John McCain and Paul Ryan. President Trump was a wrecking ball—a hurricane, as American Compass’s Oren Cass has often described him, whose destructive warpath laid bare the dilapidated foundations of decaying infrastructure, institutions, and ideas. But the hurricane left in its wake little in the way of substance. Now is the moment to start building anew.

Toward that end, the editors of Public Discourse have performed a great public service with their exemplary recent statement, “Toward a New Consensus: An Invitation.” The editors are correct to commend both a tactical ecumenicism, centered around a statesmanship of prudence and a humble recognition of politics’ inherent limitations, and a substantive prioritization of issues pertaining to marriage and life, religion, education, and justice. Furthermore, their exhortation that “any viable conservative coalition must find ways to preserve the goods that unite us by honestly confronting and responding to the forces that endanger them” is a great place for any forward-looking conservative reckoning to begin. Any such coalition must be cognizant of the left’s ever-ascendant hegemony over and near-monopoly on institutions of meaningful cultural and economic clout.

This emerging conservative consensus, centered around a multiracial working-class political coalition and sometimes referred to as the “New Right,” is one unafraid to challenge the economic and cultural deregulatory excesses of neoliberalism. It is a political consensus more comfortable wielding genuine political power in service of conservative ends, eschewing the overly liberalized and defensive politics of yore by reconceiving politics along more traditionalist lines, as the classical civilizations might have done—as a craft and an art form, the perfection of which is perhaps impossible but the adept development of which is nonetheless necessary given man’s condition. Such a conception of conservatism might sit in a state of very mild tension with the Public Discourse editors’ appeal to reject a “totalizing politics,” but that mild tension—if it does exist—is intellectually healthy.

But while there has been no shortage of think pieces about what the tactical, coalitional, or substantive elements of the new conservative fusion or agenda might look like, too few have theorized about what a jurisprudential component of this agenda might entail. I have lent my modest help to this effort, and will continue to do so.

I call my jurisprudential framework “common good originalism,” and I would humbly submit that it be adopted as conservatives’ new legal standard-bearer—a worthy complement to other simultaneously unfolding New Right/“new consensus” intellectual efforts.

While there has been no shortage of think pieces about what the tactical, coalitional, or substantive elements of the new conservative fusion or agenda might look like, too few have theorized about what a jurisprudential component of this agenda might entail.

Why Do Conservatives Need a New Legal Framework?

The regnant “legal conservative” status quo was dealt a grievous blow in last June’s Bostock v. Clayton County. In that case, Justice Neil Gorsuch, the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s carefully vetted successor, rewrote the anti-employment discrimination Title VII provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to define “sex” as also encompassing sexual orientation and “gender identity.”

Gorsuch’s rank analytical sophistry baffled many leading social conservatives. It also laid bare the pitfalls of a morally denuded, overtly positivist jurisprudence that is at odds with the broader Anglo-American legal tradition and belies our unique American constitutional order’s unambiguous prioritization of substantive ends: to “establish Justice,” “provide for the common defense,” “promote the general Welfare,” and so forth. Bostock exposed just how far unmoored contemporary originalism has become from the “centuries-long agreement that the law cannot be read from the mere words of a legal text, but only from the will, or intention, of the lawgiver.” It arguably heralded “the end of the conservative legal movement, or conservative legal project, as we know it,” as Senator Josh Hawley put it.

Something more is clearly needed: a flavor of originalist jurisprudence that is substantively conservative as such and not strictly positivist or value-neutral. Moreover, this substantively conservative hue of originalism must eschew the libertarian-infused “strict constructionism” that idolizes limitations on governmental power and individual-autonomy maximization. It should prefer instead a looser, “comfortable [jurisprudential] garment” that allows constitutional actors more ample room to pursue the traditional conservative political goals of justice, human flourishing, and the common good within their constitutionally allocated spheres of influence. Put more simply: The concerns of nation, community, and family alike must be prioritized over the one-way push toward ever-greater economic, sexual, and cultural liberationism. And this must be true not merely as a matter of public policy, but as a matter of legal interpretation.

To the extent that conservative originalism purports to elevate judicial actors as somehow truly morally neutral, even on the most rudimentary of civilizational issues, it is not merely a methodological outlier—it is also at odds with human nature itself, thus making it profoundly un-conservative.

There is nothing disreputable or otherwise illegitimate about a methodology of originalist constitutional interpretation—or, for that matter, statutory construction—that is intrinsically oriented toward substantive conservatism. On the contrary, progressive and libertarian strands of originalism, as they have been theorized, both already achieve this for their own respective political philosophies. Rather, it is conservative originalism—insofar as the term refers to the largely positivist, proceduralist, and judicial restraint-emphasizing mode of jurisprudence most closely associated with those like Scalia and the late Judge Robert Bork—that is the originalist family outlier, due to its lack of any intrinsic substantive orientation. To the extent that conservative originalism purports to elevate judicial actors as somehow truly morally neutral, even on the most rudimentary of civilizational issues, it is not merely a methodological outlier—it is also at odds with human nature itself, thus making it profoundly un-conservative.

Common good originalism turns this outlier status on its head by offering a genuinely, earnestly conservative jurisprudence. The originalism of Founding-era luminaries such as Alexander Hamilton, Chief Justice John Marshall, and Justice James Wilson was centered on the common good that is our true Anglo-American inheritance, going back to the English common law. It rejects both insipid positivism and hapless literalism—encapsulated by Cohen v. California’s “one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric” sophistry and Gorsuch’s Bostock casuistry, respectively. It seeks to rehabilitate from the fringes of contemporary originalist theory the exegetical legitimacy of ratio legis, or “reason of the law,” that necessarily undergirds our Constitution and all statutes enacted into law pursuant thereto. It emphasizes that it is impossible to truly understand the meaning of any legal text without grappling with the idiosyncratic teleology of that text. And while it recognizes and appreciates the importance of the Constitution’s carefully devised structural safeguards—namely, federalism and the separation of powers—it is also more pliable, contra Jeffersonian “strict constructionism,” and thus more suitable to a complementary populist-inspired conservative politics eager to exercise political power in the service of good political order.

Authentic Constitutional Interpretation Starts with the Preamble

Fortunately, such a method of constitutional interpretation is not merely legitimate—it is the most authentic of all forms of originalist jurisprudence. That’s because it is anchored in the prescribed aims of the Constitution’s Preamble, the Constitution’s “statement to explain ‘whither we are going.’” While the Declaration of Independence—Abraham Lincoln’s “apple of gold” around which the Constitution was but a surrounding “frame of silver”—is undoubtedly important in constitutional interpretation, the geopolitical circumstances in July 1776 were quite different from those during the 1787 Constitutional Convention. The leading draftsmen of both documents, moreover, were also very different. It is rather curious, then, that the Preamble has been so readily ignored in constitutional interpretation. Common good originalism seeks to rectify this mistake.

There are seven enumerated ends of self-government in the Preamble: a more perfect Union, establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, securing the blessings of liberty for us, and securing the blessings of liberty for our posterity. Each and every one of these political ends pertains to the statesman’s view of the common good of the nation, communities, and families. They do not pertain to the protection and promotion of individual rights. And interpreting both constitutional provisions and statutes passed pursuant to the Constitution through the exegetical prism of the Preamble is the sine qua non of common good originalism.

The originalism of Founding-era luminaries such as Alexander Hamilton, Chief Justice John Marshall, and Justice James Wilson was centered on the common good that is our true Anglo-American inheritance, going back to the English common law. It rejects both insipid positivism and hapless literalism.

Crucially, common good originalism, closely affiliated with Hamilton’s Founding-era Federalist Party, was validated during the republic’s first few decades as our Anglo-American constitutional inheritance. Indeed, it was legitimated by no less an authority than Chief Justice John Marshall in the famous 1819 case of McCulloch v. Maryland.

In that case, Marshall rejected the Jeffersonian/Madisonian plea for an “absolute necessity” construction of the Constitution’s Necessary and Proper Clause, preferring instead the Hamiltonian conception: “Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the Constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, are Constitutional.” This is a prudential, nationalist jurisprudence—one that is less fixated upon limiting political actors at all costs, and one more attuned to the latitude required by political actors as they pursue the common good of nation, communities, and families. It is the jurisprudence of the great Justice Joseph Story, that “proponent of constitutional nationalism” and pious Christian whose influential Commentaries on the Constitution were “overtly conservative in spirit.”

This Is the Jurisprudence the New Consensus Needs

The upshot is that common good originalism is the worthy complement to the New Right/“new consensus”—the jurisprudence best equipped to judicially and politically secure the substantive goods the likes of which the Public Discourse editors elevate, such as marriage and life, religion, education, and justice.

Consider a few examples. Common good originalism stands athwart individual autonomy-maximizing, natural law-undermining marriage cases such as Obergefell v. Hodges. It would lend legitimate interpretive support to “The Lincoln Proposal” in the all-important right-to-life context. It would mightily oppose Jeffersonian notions of “separation of church and state” and the concomitant Supreme Court case of Everson v. Board of Education, bestowing a constitutional imprimatur upon political actors’ various attempts to codify ancient and biblical principles of natural justice. In the economic sphere, it would more directly aid political actors who seek to enact means—such as the “American System” elements of a national bank and internal improvements—best suited to creating jobs and locking in political support for the emergent multiracial working-class coalition upon which American conservatism must, and will, depend in the twenty-first century.

Lawyers often tend to bore, and the study of law itself can veer toward the soporific. But a proper conception of law—and the American rule of law predicated on our constitutional order, in particular—will be a necessary foundation for any meaningful post-Trump, “new consensus” conservative revival. Common good originalism is the best chance for a constitutional complement to a politics of a conservative restoration: a profoundly and distinctly conservative politics that is faithful to our traditions and oriented toward the timeless political ends of justice, human flourishing, and the common good.",1.6701993008046596
"Claremont Review of Books editor Charles Kesler discusses his new book, Crisis of the Two Constitutions: The Rise, Decline, and Recovery of American Greatness at an event in Palm Beach in February.

Read Hillsdale College President Larry P. Arnn’s review of the book in the Winter 2021 issue of the Claremont Review of Books.

Order your copy of Crisis of the Two Constitutions today!",-0.5107182861182603
"The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Matt Peterson, James Poulos, Seth Barron, and Spencer Klavan devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

The Woke Orthodoxy | The Roundtable Ep. 60

If you’re a wealthy prep school parent wanting to discuss how the maw of woke culture is swallowing up all things good and true, you’ll have to do it in secret or face instant cancellation. Meanwhile, the House passed the dubiously-titled “For the People Act,” which would do a number on representative government. Plus: The good and bad of National Review.",-0.11638751140437935
"Seth Barron joins ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ to discuss the Democrats’ recent change of heart towards Governor Cuomo, while conveniently ignoring his COVID-19 mismangement scandal.

Seth Barron is managing editor of The American Mind.",-1.8457415137601363
"The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Matt Peterson, James Poulos, Seth Barron, and Spencer Klavan devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

COVID and Cancel Culture | The Roundtable Ep. 59

The light at the end of the COVID tunnel is finally within sight—provided you live in a red state. Blue states remain under the thumbs of petty tyrants. Meanwhile, cancel culture claims new victims, from Mr. Potato Head to Dr. Seuss. Plus: Sacramento’s school district is pushing for the formation of “racial affinity groups”—a new caste system looms.",1.0065488192375407
"The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Matt Peterson, James Poulos, Seth Barron, and Spencer Klavan devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

Can Clubhouse Survive? | The Roundtable Ep. 58

While free speech finds a new venue in the popular app Clubhouse, Democrats in Congress are openly asking TV carriers why Republican and conservative-leaning channels like OANN and Fox News are allowed on the air. It’s a new front in the war between digital renegades and regime flunkies: a profusion of energy on one side, a chilling desire to squash dissidents on the other. Can Clubhouse and other apps like it survive a coming onslaught by petty tyrants?",-0.4635618269404283
"The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Matt Peterson, James Poulos, Seth Barron, and Spencer Klavan devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

The Egotist and the Icon | The Roundtable Ep. 57

Rush Limbaugh passed away yesterday—his work touched tens of millions of people, our editors included. Then there’s Governor Cuomo, who is embroiled in a scandal after covering up COVID nursing home deaths from the public. Plus: the Claremont Institute has launched a new DC-based branch: The Center for the American Way of Life. Arthur Milikh, the Center’s executive director, joins to talk about reclaiming a more robust kind of conservatism.",0.7897837531854002
"The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Matt Peterson, James Poulos, David Bahr, and Spencer Klavan devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

Creeping Progressive Policy | The Roundtable Ep. 56

The second impeachment trial of former President Trump lumbers on, but does anybody even care about this undisguised show trial? Melinda Gates and elites like her would appreciate it if you would just think that everything fits neatly into a Marxist box. That notion isn’t just wrong—it’s degrading—especially when applied to women. Plus: Mitt Romney has proposed cutting checks to families that have children. Our editors analyze.",-0.27797687251320785
"The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Matt Peterson, James Poulos, David Bahr, and Spencer Klavan devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

Thrasymachus All the Way Down | The Roundtable Ep. 55

The Left is laying the rhetorical groundwork for a domestic war on Trump supporters, as red state governments start planning how to respond. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced plans to push back on the Big Tech Cartel—will they work? Our editors, joined for the first time by new managing editor Seth Barron, discuss the desperation and discreditation of the mainstream media.",-0.6588782903558346
"We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.",0.4625016227808175
"We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.",-0.9559015926295663
"The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Matt Peterson, James Poulos, David Bahr, and Spencer Klavan devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

Biden’s Opening Salvo | The Roundtable Ep. 53

It’s official: Biden is the 46th president. Beneath the inane boilerplate of the new president’s speech (accompanied by a tearful chorus of celebration from the usual journos) lurked a much more sinister kind of rhetoric. Our editors give a close reading of the address. Plus: Biden scrapped the 1776 Commission. What’s he up to?",-1.3556479472069143
"We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.",-0.5607263332142425
"There’s a social media site whose glitzy videos populate your newsfeed. Its content overflows with typical leftist tropes. No, it’s not CNN or MSNBC. You should know what it is and the nefarious people backing it. Raheem Kassam, author of No Go Zones and 2018 Claremont Lincoln Fellow, joins PragerU to explain why, when you come across these videos, you should swipe left.",0.7642436576422752
"We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.",-1.1596187822100263
"The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Matt Peterson, James Poulos, David Bahr, and Spencer Klavan devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

Banned from Everything | The Roundtable Ep. 52

In the wake of January 6, a multitude of personalities—from both sides of the aisle—came out of the woodwork to call for banning Trump and many of his supporters from the largest social media platforms. The editors discuss this dropping of the banhammer, focusing especially on David French’s “analysis” of the situation. Plus: Trump has been impeached for a second time.",0.11831422386200657