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Spontaneous Recovery – The Body’s Power to Heal from Cancer and Chronic Disease

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By Academy of Ideas

The following is a transcript of this video.

“Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease.”

Hippocrates

Modern medicine has achieved remarkable results. Its ability to save people from ailments which a mere generation ago would have led to an untimely death, borders on the miraculous. But when it comes to chronic illness modern medicine has its limits. Sometimes the treatment is worse than the disease. Sometimes the treatment only provides temporary relief from symptoms. Sometimes there is no treatment. Fortunately, modern medicine does not possess a monopoly on our ability to heal as the body possesses innate powers that can heal many chronic health issues. In this video we explore the body’s natural capacity to heal and look the role self-transformation plays in promoting these healing abilities.

“. . .health and illness are not random states in a particular body or body part. They are, in fact, an expression of an entire life lived. . .”

Gabor Mate, The Myth of Normal

Our body is constantly at work healing itself. White blood cells clean out wounds and combat infections, fibroblast cells create new tissue to repair ruptures to our skin and flesh, new bone cells are created to fuse fractures, and the immune system can identify and neutralize all sorts of harmful pathogens. But the body can do more than just heal from wounds, infections, fractures, and viral and bacterial illnesses, it also has the ability to heal itself from virtually all forms of chronic disease as is evidenced by the phenomenon of spontaneous recovery.

A spontaneous recovery occurs when an individual is unexpectedly cured from a disease in a way that cannot be explained through the paradigm of modern medicine. Absent any intervention by doctors, without surgery or pharmaceutical drugs, some people heal from cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, Chron’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and other forms of chronic illness. For example, with regards to cancer, it is well-established that tumors can shrink in size, or even disappear absent surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation, or as was written in the medical journal Oncology Letters:

“. . .malignant tumors as well as metastases, of almost all histological types, can regress spontaneously although certain histological types regress more frequently than others.”

Sante Basso Ricci & Ugo Cerchiari, Spontaneous regression of malignant tumors: Importance of the immune system and other factors

A spontaneous recovery does not necessarily occur suddenly, or without cause, rather as Caryle Hirshberg and Marc Barasch explain in their book Remarkable Recovery:

“The original meaning of the word “spontaneous” (derived from the Latin sponte, “of free will”), has little to do with the suddenness, rapidity, or immediate change without cause which contemporary usage implies. The word, the dictionary reveals, originally had more to do with something occurring due to a “native internal proneness,” a tendency to “act by its own impulse, energy or natural law.” It implies a natural process that arises from within.”

Caryle Hirshberg & Marc Barasch, Remarkable Recovery

While only a small fraction of individuals with a chronic disease will spontaneously recover, and while most spontaneous recoveries go unreported, there are still many cases of this phenomenon documented in the medical literature. For example, in Mind Over Medicine the physician Lissa Rankin points to a case of a man suffering from pancreatic cancer, one of the most devastating forms of this disease. This man was scheduled for surgery, but had a heart attack due to a presurgical procedure which forced delay of the surgery and as Rankin writes:

“Within four weeks of his heart attack, while he was recovering from the cardiac event, the symptoms and laboratory findings of his pancreatic cancer began to resolve. Four months after the initial diagnosis, a CT scan revealed that his tumor had disappeared completely – without surgery, chemotherapy, or any other cancer treatment. Four other case studies in the medical literature report “spontaneous” remissions from inoperable pancreatic cancers.”

Lissa Rankin, Mind Over Medicine

An article titled Notes on Spontaneous Regression of Cancer examines twelve cases of spontaneous remissions and tries to understand what life changes may have led to these recoveries. One of the most remarkable cases involved a patient with a grade four brain tumour:

“Dr. Maurice Green, as an intern, observed the treatment of a physician with glioblastoma multiform [grade 4 brain tumour]. The operation was unsuccessful. The patient, however, had a regression rather than progression of symptoms… Eventually he left the hospital completely well, indicating only that he felt differently about life after facing death ….”

Charles Weinstock, Notes on spontaneous regression of cancer. Journal of the American Society of Psychosomatic Dentistry & Medicine

Examples of spontaneous recoveries are not limited to cancer; they span the spectrum of chronic diseases, from cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases to neurological disorders, blood disorders, and skin conditions. There is even the mysterious Lazarus phenomenon which is the unassisted, or spontaneous recovery, from cardiac arrest after a patient has been declared dead and all attempts at resuscitation have ended.

If the body can bring itself back from the brink of death and cure itself from diseases believed to be terminal, then its capacity for healing is far greater than most of us realize. Our goal should be to harness this power to help us heal from chronic ailments or to prevent their onset. For even if we turn to conventional medicine to treat whatever ails us, when our body is optimized to heal the efficacy of such treatments will improve.

Research into spontaneous recovery has yet to unveil a universal formula or specific set of steps to unlock the body’s vast healing potentials, as many factors influence this capacity, and individual needs vary. Those who have studied numerous cases of spontaneous recovery, however, suggest that there are recurring patterns and shared contributing factors that offer potential insights into how we can prime our body to heal.

On the one hand there are the physical factors that contribute to healing, these include changes to diet, regular exercise, improving the quality of sleep, and the breaking of addictions to drugs or alcohol. Factors related to the health of the body are crucially important to our ability to heal. But there is a psychological factor that stands above these in rank of importance, and this is the willingness to undergo a self-transformation.

Self-transformation is critical to the process of physical healing for two main reasons. Firstly, it is often only when we transform our sense of self that we develop the courage, discipline, and desire to change the physical habits that are thwarting our ability to heal. Secondly, self-transformation helps correct for the unhealthy patterns of thought, belief, and emotion, that through the body-mind connection, keep us locked in a state of sickness. Many of these thought and emotional patterns operate below the threshold of conscious awareness and are the product of our conditioning, bit it an upbring in an unhealthy environment or years of conforming to the sickness of modern society. If we free ourselves from this conditioning through self-transformation, we free ourselves from the damaging physiological responses that are dictated by our maladaptive thoughts, behaviours, and emotions.

The literature on spontaneous recovery supports the assertion that self-transformation facilitates healing, for example in the book Cured Jeffrey Rediger who examined hundreds of cases of spontaneous recoveries, writes:

“People who experienced spontaneous healings disrupted the default mode, got out of that rut, saw and experienced themselves in an entirely new way. . .”

Jeffrey Rediger, Cured

Or as Caryle Hirshberg and Marc Barasch write in Remarkable Recovery:

“. . .it has been noted by a number of researchers that extraordinary healing is often preceded by profound personal change, sometimes even what seems like a startlingly different personality.

Several researchers have noted sudden psychological turning points [or what are called] “existential shifts” preceding remarkable recovery. Dr. Marco DeVries and his associates found that a group of spontaneous remission cases they studied all showed a relatively sudden change toward increased autonomous behavior, and significantly altered attitudes toward illness, treatment, relationships, and spiritual beliefs.”

Caryle Hirshberg and Marc Barasch, Remarkable Recovery

In a paper titled “Psychological Changes Preceding Spontaneous Remission of Cancer” several researchers discovered that common among those who spontaneously healed from cancer was:

“…an increased dystonic reaction to limited aspects of the personality and an increased syntonic reaction to a wider set of characteristics than normally accessed.”

Schilder, J. N., de Vries, M. J., Goodkin, K., & Antoni, M. (2004). Psychological Changes Preceding Spontaneous Remission of Cancer. Clinical Case Studies

In layman’s terms this amounts to a rejection of the limiting aspects of one’s personality and an opening up to, and acceptance of, a greater sense of self.

As self-transformation can lead in many directions, some good and some bad, which form of it primes the body for healing? The etymology of the word heal offers a clue, as at root this word means a return to wholeness. A movement in the direction of psychological wholeness, which Carl Jung identified as the epitome of psychological health, is the form of self-transformation that promotes healing. Psychological wholeness is an ideal state which can only ever be approached, never fully attained, and it entails increased awareness of all aspects of who we are and integration of these aspects into our conscious sense of self. In volume 16 of his Collected Works, Carl Jung wrote that:

“…no previous age has ever needed wholeness so much. It is abundantly clear that this is the prime problem confronting the art of psychic healing in our day.”

Carl Jung, Collected Works Volume 16

Wholeness is attained through self-acceptance, coupled with self-knowledge, and expressed through acts of courage. Without self-acceptance we tend to deny and repress aspects of who we are, thus blocking their healthy expression. Without self-knowledge we never discover our true potential and what we value in life. Without courage we never express our potentials in the service of valued ends. Or as Mate wrote:

“When we heal, we are engaged in recovering our lost parts of self, not trying to change or “better” them. As the depth psychologist and wilderness guide Bill Plotkin told me, the core question is “not so much looking at what’s wrong, but where is the person’s wholeness not fully realized or lived out?””

Gabor Mate, The Myth of Normal

While self-transformation can enhance the healing capacities of the body, the fact remains that we are never in complete control of an illness, nor of matters of life and death. We can take all the steps necessary to heal and yet remain sick. But this does not invalidate the benefits of self-transformation as a response to illness or disease. For the pursuit of wholeness is an enriching and meaningful experience that will help us endure life no matter the health of our body. In fact, many people only wake up to their more authentic self when faced with their mortality and so amidst the great suffering that accompanies disease, a silver lining can be found. An illness or disease may be the necessary spark that inspires us to discover who we truly are and which imbues us with the courage to live in a way more aligned with our authentic sense of self.

 “It is only in the face of death that man’s self is born.”

Saint Augustine

Or as Martin Heidegger wrote:

“If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life – and only then will I be free to become myself.”

Martin Heidegger, Being and Time

EDITORS NOTE: This Academy of Ideas video is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

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What Surprised Tucker Carlson Most About His Putin Interview

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By Rob Bluey

Vladimir Putin said Russia’s war with Ukraine could be “over within a few weeks” if the United States stopped supplying weapons. Until that happens, however, the Russian leader vowed to continue fighting, bluntly telling Tucker Carlson, “We haven’t achieved our aims yet.”

The war, which began in 2014 and escalated with Russia’s invasion in 2022, is currently at a stalemate despite more than $113 billion in U.S. funding and additional aid to Ukraine from its European neighbors. An estimated 500,000 people have died or been injured since 2022, according to news reports.

During the past two years of fighting, Putin acknowledged he hasn’t spoken to President Joe Biden, although the Russian leader said he would entertain peace talks today.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Putin asked rhetorically. “You have issues on the border, issues with migration, issues with the national debt—more than $33 trillion. You have nothing better to do, so you should fight in Ukraine. Wouldn’t it be better to negotiate with Russia? Make an agreement.”

The two-hour interview with Tucker Carlson, recorded Tuesday at the Kremlin in Moscow, was the first between the Russian leader and an American journalist since the conflict in Ukraine escalated in 2022.

In a 10-minute post-interview video shared with paid subscribers of the Tucker Carlson Network, the fabled journalist said he was annoyed that Putin began the interview by “filibustering” with a long and complex history of Russia and Ukraine. For nearly an hour, Carlson diligently listened, occasionally getting needled by Putin for interrupting with questions.

“I understand that my long speeches probably fall outside of the genre of the interview,” Putin told Carlson. “That is why I asked you at the beginning, are we going to have a serious talk or a show? You said a serious talk. So bear with me, please.”

Carlson’s Take

In his post-interview video, Carlson noted that “Putin is not someone who does a lot of interviews.” In fact, his last interview with an American journalist came in October 2021, when he spoke with CNBC’s Hadley Gamble at an energy event in Moscow.

“He’s not good at explaining himself,” Carlson observed. “He’s smart, there’s no question about that. But he’s clearly spending a lot of time in a world where he doesn’t have to explain himself.”

Carlson concluded, “He didn’t lay out his case very coherently.”

Reflecting on Putin’s answers, Carlson noted that the Russian leader became animated when discussing the United States and the West’s approach toward his country.

“He’s very wounded by the rejection of the West,” Carlson said. “The U.S. government doesn’t like Russia. And like a lot of Russians, he expected the end of the Cold War would be Russia’s invitation into Europe.”

Yet despite this tension, Carlson said it was “striking” that Putin admitted he wanted a peace deal.

“Maybe he’s lying in ways I didn’t perceive, but he kept saying it. I don’t know why he would say it if he didn’t mean it,” Carlson said.

During the interview, Putin accused former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson of scuttling previous negotiations, “saying it was better to fight Russia.”

Russia’s Aims

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 prompted worldwide condemnation, yet Putin brashly accused Ukraine of starting the war in 2014 and claimed Russia was attempting to stop it.

Asked by Carlson if Russia had achieved its aims, Putin said, “No. We haven’t achieved our aims yet because one of them is denazification. This means the prohibition of all kinds of neo-Nazi movements.”

The Russian leader then turned his ire on the United States, saving some of his harshest criticism for Biden.

“I talked to him before the special military operation,” Putin told Carlson. “And I said to him then, by the way, I will not go into details, I never do. But I said to him then, ‘I believe that you are making a huge mistake of historic proportions by supporting everything that is happening there, in Ukraine, by pushing Russia away.’”

Carlson pressed Putin on why he wouldn’t call Biden today.

“If you really want to stop fighting, you need to stop supplying weapons,” Putin replied. “It will be over within a few weeks. That’s it. And then we can agree on some terms before you do that, stop. What’s easier? Why would I call him? What should I talk to him about? Or beg him for what?”

The conversation about Ukraine dominated the two-hour interview, including a revelation that Putin suspects the CIA is responsible for the Nord Stream pipeline attack in 2022. Putin also praised his “friend” Xi Jinping of China, and boasted about the growing cooperation between the two countries.

Confrontational Questions

Near the end of the interview, Carlson confronted Putin over Russia’s detainment of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is being held on charges of espionage.

“It’s not my business, but what makes this different is the guy’s obviously not a spy. He’s a kid, and maybe he was breaking your law in some way, but he’s not a super spy and everybody knows that,” Carlson said pointedly.

Gershkovich has denied wrongdoing, although Putin suggested he broke the law by obtaining classified information. Putin indicated that continued U.S.-Russia talks would eventually lead to his release.

“I do not rule out that the person you refer to, Mr. Gershkovich, may return to his motherland,” Putin said. “But at the end of the day, it does not make any sense to keep him in prison in Russia.”

Reflecting on the interview from his hotel room afterward, Carlson refuted critics who have attacked him for giving Putin a platform.

“I’m from La Jolla, California, I’m not flacking for Putin,” Carlson said. “Please.”

*****

This article was published by the Daily Signal and is reproduced with permission.

Image Credit: YouTube screen shot Tucker Carlson Network

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How We Got A Lot Richer

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By Bruce Bialosky

Editors’ Note: We agree with much of the foregoing analysis. We would add that transfer payments for COVID relief, or any other purpose,  financed with debt, is simply wealth borrowed from future generations for the benefit of the present generation. We made ourselves richer and our grandkids poorer. Is that a moral way to get rich? If not “wealth” by borrowing, there is “wealth” by money printing. Inflationary monetary expansion simply increases the claims that can be made on existing wealth and is not the real production of future goods or services. If that were not true, Zimbabwe would be the economic powerhouse of the world.  All nations could simply print themselves into prosperity. In fact, by creating more monetary claims faster than real goods can be produced, we made prices go up. That makes our brokerage accounts and our houses go up. Those with appreciating assets did OK, but those living from paycheck to paycheck, renting, or borrowing on credit cards to stay afloat, got killed by the twin billing of inflationary cost increases and higher costs to borrow. Those without appreciating assets are getting clobbered. So, we are getting richer by exploiting the poor and impoverishing our grandkids. This is a redistribution of wealth from the most vulnerable, not the production of wealth. It is a lousy way to get richer.

The Wall Street Journal ran a column on December 4th entitled “Who Got a Lot Richer During the Pandemic,” https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/savings/who-got-a-lot-richer-and-who-didnt-during-the-pandemic-8dd238ab. I read it with great interest and found a gaping hole in the analysis.

The column starts by telling us the pandemic made Americans richer which many might think counterintuitive to reality. After all, 2020 saw many businesses shut down for extended periods at the beginning of the pandemic. Depending on the state in which you live, the period many businesses were shut down was extensive.

I am sure that you saw the permanent closure of retail businesses and restaurants in your local community. Big businesses were allowed to operate, but smaller retailers were closed along with many service businesses.

The column cites that home values went up during the period. People had fewer opportunities to spend money in the absence of concerts, shows or amusement parks; less eating out; travel, etc.; so, they paid down debt or socked money into a savings account. On the other hand, with the reduction in commerce, the overall income of many people went down.

Apparently, the median household net worth went up 30% during the period. It almost makes you want to yearn for another pandemic.

The column barely touches on the real reason for the financial improvement. That was government handouts. Otherwise, while the citizens of the United States were getting wealthier, the government was getting ever so much deeper in debt.

First, let’s look at one of their assertions. The price of housing would have only gone up for one of two reasons: 1) There was greater cost for replacement housing because of the cost of raw materials and/or labor, or 2) There was greater demand. There certainly was greater demand in certain parts of the country as people used this crisis to reevaluate their lives, particularly in states that had heavy-handed pandemic rules. We all know the states that lost population and the ones that gained new residents which drove up the cost of housing in those states. The only reason the price of housing might not have gone down in the states that lost population is because of government regulation which drove people out in the first place.

Second, the savings that people had from not spending money. During ordinary times people do not save a high enough percentage of their income for two main purposes. First, retirement savings. Second, a cash cushion for emergencies or extraordinary expenses like medical, home repair, or car repairs. If people were putting more money aside for those two reasons and paying down credit card debt that is excellent news. How did that occur? Were people really saving more money from their earnings? Were they cutting down on their expenses and being more responsible? Not really. The major source of how they improved their net worth was through transfer payments – all those “emergency” funding programs.

Proof of this is the significant increase in credit card debt accompanied by delinquencies on that debt. Americans did not become more responsible about their spending habits.

Full disclosure, we did not personally participate in any of these programs, and any money sent to us was immediately donated to PragerU.

The program that has received the most attention is one relieving college loans that the Biden team keeps trying to stuff down everyone’s throat – even those who never went to college. It is nearly impossible to figure out how much has been taken off the debt rolls for individual households. The best figure I could find was $770 billion. A transfer from those with the debt to the rest of us (the American people) is how this was done.

Then there are the various other programs: The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), enhanced unemployment benefit programs, and the Employment Retention Credit (ERC). These programs made some sense when the pandemic started and businesses were forced to be closed, but they dragged on and on and on. The ERC program is still funding money. Transfers were made to businesses and individuals, reducing their debt and increasing their net worth, while our governments — particularly the fed — went deeper into debt.

The WSJ column then breaks down the wealth by race, which is seemingly mandatory today even though no one asked. Of course, those with “white privilege” made off the best. Check that, it is Asians who have the highest average net worth of any group in America. So much for our racist economy.

Since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, the national debt has increased by about $8 trillion. It is good that individuals’ net worth went up an estimated 30% during that period, but did it really when it was largely due to government transfers? We need to be accurate.

*****

This article was published by Flash Report and is reproduced with permission granted by the author.

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Social Insecurity: It’s Not Wrong to be Concerned about Facts

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By Karl Streitel

A December 19, 2023, article by Brett Arends on MarketWatch caught my eye with the oh-so-clickable title of “This Is the Scariest Number for Social Security.” Given the fact that many corporate media articles today focus on pointing out to the Rubes how their senses are wrong and, gosh golly, everything is just peachy, it did not shock me to learn that Mr. Arends was not referring to the program’s unfunded liabilities or the projected depletion of the trust fund. No, Mr. Arends contends that the real problem is the dragooned citizens who foolishly worry about Social Security’s solvency—and the “quiet effort” to rabble-rouse:

The scariest number may be 71%. That astonishing figure, from a new poll, is how many have been persuaded that cuts to Social Security—potentially deep cuts—are either likely or inevitable. And that wasn’t from a biased poll conducted by a pressure group. Or a fly-by-night poll by a startup. It came from a comprehensive survey of 10,000 people conducted by the Harris Poll on behalf of the respected Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies. . . .

Score another victory for the Resistance Is Futile campaign—the quiet effort to persuade Americans to accept cuts to Social Security that they don’t want and that the program doesn’t need.

If our national-pension poachers get their way, it will be because of this.

Mr. Arends then argues that “none of this is remotely needed. It’s pure spin.” His evidence? America is richer than ever, “billionaire boondoggles” can be eliminated in the tax code, and the valiant Internal Revenue Service (IRS) can catch more tax “cheats” to the tune of an estimated $700 billion per year.

However, Mr. Arends’s arguments here do not prove that Americans are foolish to worry about Social Security’s health and whether cuts are likely. Let’s say I’m out walking and see a car careening toward me. Initially, I worry for my life but then remember that the driver has all sorts of possible options for not killing me; thus, it’s silly for me to continue to worry because obviously one of those options will come to pass, right?

Reality Bites

However, in reality, the Social Security program is facing substantial problems, and these problems are mounting each year. To wit, the non-fly-by-night-startup 2023 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds (more commonly referred to as Social Security and disability insurance) discusses the current path of fund depletion and potential benefit reductions: “Under the Trustees’ intermediate assumptions, OASDI cost is projected to exceed total income in 2023, and the dollar level of the hypothetical combined trust fund reserves declines until reserves become depleted in 2034, one year earlier than projected in last year’s report” (emphasis added).

The report then mentions what would be needed to keep the fund solvent over the next seventy-five years:

(1) Revenue would have to increase by an amount equivalent to an immediate and permanent payroll tax rate increase of 3.44 percentage points to 15.84 percent beginning in January 2023; (2) scheduled benefits would have to be reduced by an amount equivalent to an immediate and permanent reduction of 21.3 percent applied to all current and future beneficiaries effective in January 2023, or 25.4 percent if the reductions were applied only to those who become initially eligible for benefits in 2023 or later; or (3) some combination of these approaches would have to be adopted. (emphasis added)

Thus, not only is the trust fund expected to be depleted in 2034—at which point benefits would need to be reduced if no changes are made to the program in the interim—but also that this date is earlier than expected last year. Further, the report notes that the total projected unfunded liability over the next seventy-five years had also increased since last year’s projection—not exactly rosy pictures for current and future beneficiaries.

This is not speculation based on hoping for future changes; this is a fact-based projection founded on current reality and assuming no changes to the program—which is a fiscally prudent approach to projections. If I see that my income will pay for only 80 percent of my lifestyle in ten years but then wave that issue away by saying that I’ll make some changes before that happens, I doubt anyone would think my “planning” is particularly sensible (especially if I have a history of not making any such changes despite similar projections).

It thus seems odd to me that Mr. Arends wants to paint those concerned about Social Security’s solvency as somehow manipulated by the “quiet effort” of people hell-bent on taking away Social Security when the current facts indicate those concerned people are exactly right—their benefits are scheduled to be reduced in 2034, barring any changes. Even the Social Security Administration says so. You may argue that it is obvious that solutions exist to improve the program’s fiscal health before that date, but then you are engaging in “spin” and assuming future actions that may or may not come to pass. The people polled, however, seem to have fears backed by the current state of facts, which does not seem unreasonable at all to me.

The True Manipulation

At the end of the article, Mr. Arends concludes that “the battle lines are drawn: Make the political donor class pay taxes, or steal pensions from middle-class retirees,” but this statement itself epitomizes manipulative, fact-free language.

For one, the “political donor class”—by which Mr. Arends means billionaires—certainly pays taxes. According to the ProPublica investigation into the leaked IRS records from 2014 to 2018, the top four hundred income earners (those earning over $110 million per year) paid an effective tax rate of 22 percent while the top twenty-five richest Americans paid “a total of $13.6 billion in federal income taxes” (or $2.72 billion per year).

Given that the projected deficit in Social Security over the next ten years is $2.572 trillion, even if we expropriated one hundred times more in taxes from the twenty-five richest Americans over those years, we would only just barely cover that projected deficit—which is also increasing in magnitude each year.

The article also explains that the main reason those in the top four hundred paid an effective rate lower than the highest marginal tax rate (37 percent) was that much of their income came from investments—which are taxed at a maximum of 20 percent for long-term gains and qualified dividends—and that they took large deductions, often for charitable contributions. Both of these reasons are legal and do not amount to not paying taxes any more than most people who take deductions for paid real estate taxes or for children or for business mileage amounts.

We can certainly argue over the tax rates and deductions (although I fail to see how donating to charity is a loathsome idea), but claiming that we need to make billionaires “pay taxes” ignores reality once again.

Furthermore, the idea that reducing Social Security benefits amounts to “steal[ing] pensions from middle-class retirees” is also a fiction. For one, no one is stealing anything from retirees if benefits are reduced. This is because Social Security benefits are not a contractual obligation or a “right.” According to the Supreme Court in Fleming v. Nestor in 1960:

To engraft upon the Social Security system a concept of “accrued property rights” would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustment to ever-changing conditions which it demands. . . . It is apparent that the non‐​contractual interest of an employee covered by the [Social Security] Act cannot be soundly analogized to that of the holder of an annuity, whose right to benefits is bottomed on his contractual premium payments. (emphasis added)

Thus, Social Security benefits are always allotted and paid according to the caprices of Congresspeople, who can change the system at any time and in any way they like (or can get away with). We may feel like we are “owed” benefits, but, again, reality disagrees.

Social Security benefits are also paid mainly via payroll taxes levied on current workers, so if there is any theft going on, it is actually from current workers and by current beneficiaries (via politicians). One common myth about the program is that “you’re owed” what you paid in, as if that money goes into a personal account for you. Quite the opposite: the money paid into the program is spent on current beneficiaries, which means that when current workers eventually take Social Security, they will be taking money coercively from their own children and grandchildren to support themselves. In truth, Social Security—like all taxpayer-funded benefits programs—digs itself a deeper hole each year, and the only true solution is to phase out the program entirely and allow people to be responsible for their own retirements instead of being subject to the whims of Congress or the confiscatory ideas of Mr. Arends.

*****

This article was published by the Ludwig von Mises Institute and is reproduced with permission.

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Will We Ever Get the Truth? [The Covid Crisis and Lies]

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By Jeffrey Tucker

Editors’ Note: We agree that it certainly looks like Mr. Trump will be the Republican nominee. It would be very helpful to avoid similar abuse again (likely coming from another pandemic or for reasons of environmental extremism). Mr. Trump publicly should say he was wrong, and today sorry, for the COVID-19 abuse that began under his administration. Everything said about the vaccine(you won’t get Covid and you can’t spread it) was wrong. The six-foot rule was made up. The lockdown did not stop the spread and wrecked the economy. Drug companies were taken off the hook. The government has lied repeatedly about the side effects of the vaccine. Yes, Mike Pence was “in charge”, but he was selected by Trump. Yes, the press bullied the Administration with their worship of Dr. Fauci. Yes, in the early days, there was much confusion. However, The Prickly Pear never bought into any of this and supported the Great Barrington Declaration. But, Donald Trump was in charge and he is a tough man. His instincts for “two weeks to bend the curve” initially were correct. But then, he got rolled by the bureaucracy. He needs to answer for these abuses and use the opportunity to inoculate the public against abuses like we saw, so they never happen again. He can use this as a teachable moment about how the deep state and the media worked hand in hand to create an authoritarian panic.

Donald Trump will certainly get the Republican nomination. With that the issue of truth and honesty about what happened on March 13, 2020, and beyond will likely not be pushed by the executive branch even if Trump wins.

No one in his circles wants any talk of this subject, even if every bit of the current national crisis (health, economics, cultural, societal) traces to those grim days of lockdown and the ensuing disaster. We are very far from gaining anything like transparency on what precisely happened.

The situation today is quite the opposite. Again, Trump’s team long ago accepted a tacit agreement to make the issue go away. This was initially in the interest of securing the nomination (never admit error to your voters). But it soon became an accepted doctrine in those circles. Trump’s opponent wants it this way too, of course, except perhaps to say that Trump didn’t lock down enough soon enough.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has announced every intention to use the last experience as a template for the next. The national media has no regrets about pushing wild panic. The tech companies show no remorse for unrelenting censorship which still continues to this day. Pharma has more power than ever, and so do the armies of bureaucratic enforcers at all levels of government. Academia is out too: here administrators closed their campuses and forced pointless shots on returning students. They are all culpable.

Let’s take a step back and ask a fundamental question: when will truth emerge to the point that your average intellectual in a public space will admit that this whole thing was catastrophic for everything we call civilization? We know the answer involves time but how much time? And how much in the way of effort will it require to get the reckoning we need before the healing we require takes place?

This morning my mind drifted back to the days after 9/11, when the George Bush administration decided to use the public fury over the attacks in New York and Washington to deploy a war that the president’s father began much earlier but did not complete. The Bush administration decided on regime change in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A small minority of people (myself among them) objected that these wars would do nothing to realize justice for 9/11. Indeed they would cause calamity at home and abroad. Americans would lose liberty, and security, and many lives would be lost. Overthrowing Saddam and the Taliban without a viable replacement for each would unleash some unpredictable chaos. Nationalizing security at home would create a bureaucratic monster at home that would be eventually turned on Americans themselves. 

How well we recall the way we dissidents were shouted down, called every name. The most absurd was “coward,” as if our opinions on this grave matter were formed by nothing other than our unwillingness to type cheers as others fought and died.

Sure enough, all our predictions (which were not hard to make) came true. The US wrecked what was the most liberal and secular country in the region, while the war against the Taliban ended with them taking charge again. At some point, the US even facilitated the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, for whatever reason. No one could have anticipated a massive refugee crisis in Europe that would destabilize every government and give rise to massive public anger and distrust.

Some seven years after these invasions, candidate Ron Paul was on the stage at a Republican debate and denounced the whole thing. He was booed. And then smeared. And then shouted down and hated. But that seemed to kick off a rethinking.

Eight years after that, Donald Trump said something similar and his comments elicited the same reaction. Except that he then won the nomination. That was 2016. Since then there seems to have been a gradual dying out of the warhawks who take pride in their wild adventure.

Just this morning, writing in the New York Times, Ross Douthat tossed off the following paragraph without much of a thought, even burying it in an otherwise uneventful column.

The Iraq war and the slower, longer failure in Afghanistan didn’t just begin the unraveling of the Pax Americana. They also discredited the American establishment at home, shattering the center-right and undermining the center-left, dissolving confidence in politicians, bureaucracies and even the military itself, while the war’s social effects lingered in the opioid epidemic and the mental health crisis.

You see how he writes this as if it is nothing controversial? He is merely relaying what everyone knows today. Somewhere between 2001 and 2024, unthinkable thoughts became conventional wisdom. There was never an announcement, never a serious commission, never an apology or some kind of big reckoning or admission of error. What was once radical became mainstream, gradually and then all at once. It’s not even clear when this happened. Eight years ago? A year ago? It’s not clear.

Regardless, nearly a quarter of a century later, it’s now conventional wisdom that the most popular war policy in the US at the time was a catastrophe by every measure. Everyone today knows for sure that the whole thing was backed by deliberate lies. 

Not that anyone involved will ever be held accountable. George Bush himself is still riding high and has never been forced to recant his views or actions. None of the top players have paid any price at all. They all moved on to greater fame and riches than before.

Now everyone just quietly says it was a bad idea all along.

What can we learn from this? Certainly, we can take away that the Covid experience that precipitated the greatest crisis since the Civil War will take a very long time to deal with in any honest way. Will it take 25 years? I seriously doubt it. The work of so many dissidents like those who write daily for Brownstone have dramatically sped up this timeline and contributed to making a repeat much more difficult.

And maybe that is what we can hope for. And maybe that is much better than the record of history would hope for. Consider the disaster called the Bolshevik Revolution. The event was actually extremely popular in US intellectual circles at the time. Most “liberals” heartily approved of it, believing all the reports that were available at the time. It took years before they began to rethink.

After the reports of the initial starvations and Lenin’s shift away from War Communism, there was a Red Scare in the US that warned of Bolshevism coming to the US. Hardly anyone really wanted it here. However the party in power in the new Soviet Union would not and could not admit any error. Fully 70 years went by before there was fundamental regime change in that case. That seems like a long time but consider this. The people who experienced the revolution as young men had become very old men by 1989 and many of them died.

Enough of them eventually died to make the stakes for truth-telling low enough to make it possible. And yet even then, and today, the problem of the past is widely considered to be the crimes of Stalin, not Bolshevism itself. Sure, there is some nostalgia for the Czar but it is not serious.

If you think about it, then, Bolshevism lasted one lifetime and then died out. That’s a pretty short lifespan for a fanatical ideology in one country. Maybe that’s about what we should expect, and why? Because any generation involved in revolutionary destruction is woefully unwilling to admit error, because they are invested and also because they fear reprisals.

So it is for the vast Covid generation, especially two groups: the public-health bureaucrats plus media and tech titans that cheered it, and also for the vast swarms of young people who threw themselves into the disaster as a means by which they would and could experience something meaningful in their otherwise aimless lives.

Will we have to wait for all of them to die out before times change? Will we have to wait 70 years until 2100?

Surely not. Public and intellectual pressure does speed up the timeline. And in this case, we have an interesting sociological development, as Bret Weinstein has pointed out. The censorship and cancellation campaign hit the wrong groups. These people are now seriously motivated to make a difference. They will not let this pass into the history books. They have a passion for truth and a fiery demand for justice. It was for them the trauma of a lifetime and it will not be forgotten.

Picture a pot boiling with a tight lid. It is being held on by ruling-class elites in pharma, tech, and media, along with myriad government agents who don’t want to be found out. But the fire is still burning and the water is boiling. Something will give, and it could be sooner rather than later. What we will discover once it all comes out is awesome to consider. If we have only a fraction of the truth now, the full truth will be mind-blowing.

We cannot wait a lifetime. The fire must still burn.

*****

This article was published by the Brownstone Institute and is reproduced with permission.

Image Credit: YouTube screenshopt CBS News

TAKE ACTION

As we move through 2023 and into the next election cycle, The Prickly Pear will resume Take Action recommendations and information.

Oral Arguments begin February 7th, 2024 before the Florida Supreme Court on Proposed Amendment that Codifies Unrestricted Abortion thumbnail

Oral Arguments begin February 7th, 2024 before the Florida Supreme Court on Proposed Amendment that Codifies Unrestricted Abortion

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By Dr. Rich Swier

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver will be presenting oral arguments before the Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday, February 7, 2024, beginning at 9:00 a.m. EST, regarding a proposed amendment that would codify unrestricted abortion as a right in the state constitution.

Liberty Counsel represents Florida Voters Against Extremism which is urging the Florida Supreme Court not to approve the wording of a proposed amendment that is misleading and deceptive and violates the single subject rule.

The proposed amendment, “Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion,” would create a new section in the Florida Constitution “limiting government interference with abortion.” The full text of the accompanying ballot summary states: “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”

The proposed amendment is sponsored by Floridians Protecting Freedom, Inc., a political committee supported by the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, the American Civil Liberties Union, and other groups that support unrestricted abortion on demand up to birth.

The effect of the proposed amendment would prevent the State of Florida from regulating all abortions that a vague and undefined “healthcare provider” may deem “necessary” to protect the woman’s “health.” The amendment leaves the terms “necessary” and “health” purposefully undefined and vague. The proposed amendment would permit Partial-Birth Abortion, which is banned by the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. This conflict alone with the federal law disqualifies the proposed amendment. The proposed amendment also violates the Florida Constitution’s single-subject requirement by addressing multiple subjects, including pre-viability abortions and health in the same proposal. Those are distinct issues that cannot permissibly be put into a single ballot initiative.

According to the Florida Department of Health, a “healthcare practitioner” includes nearly 60 categories — everything from a massage therapist, audiologist, 911 public safety telecommunicator, and a tattoo artist. According to this proposed amendment, any of those professions could refer a woman for an abortion.

Please text or call Jack Kinnett, Vice President of Constituency Affairs for the Liberty Counsel @ 407.702.7478 or email Jack@LC.org for information if you are interested in attending or want additional info.

Hear Live Argument Here:

Oral Argument Broadcasts & Ceremonial Sessions

Liberty Counsel’s Briefs:

FL Voters Against Extremism PC (PDF)

Brief FL Voters Against Extremism – Filed (PDF)

Press Releases:

FL Supreme Court Will Hear Abortion Initiative Argument

Deceptive Abortion Initiative in Florida Must Be Rejected

FL Supreme Court Asked To Reject Deceptive and Misleading Abortion Amendment

Media:

(AUDIO) The Florida Supreme Court Will Hear Oral Arguments Regarding This Deceptive Amendment

(AUDIO) Florida Supreme Court Will Hear Abortion Initiative Argument

(AUDIO) Florida Supreme Court Must Reject Misleading Abortion Amendment

©2024. Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

Prosecution of Pro-Lifers Continues under Biden’s DOJ, with 6 More Convictions thumbnail

Prosecution of Pro-Lifers Continues under Biden’s DOJ, with 6 More Convictions

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By Family Research Council

On Tuesday, a guilty verdict was announced for six pro-life activists for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act at an abortion facility near Nashville, Tenn. The Biden administration’s Justice Department brought the charges, which stemmed from a peaceful protest on March 5, 2021, in which a group of pro-lifers prayed and sang hymns at the entrance to the Carafem Health Center Clinic.

Video of the protest shows a group of approximately 20-30 pro-life activists peacefully praying and singing hymns while standing and sitting along the walls of a hallway leading to the door of the abortion facility, with a small segment of the group sitting directly in front of the facility’s entrance. Roughly two hours into the vigil, a number of protestors were arrested for blocking the entrance without incident.

In October 2022, the Biden administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it was charging 11 individuals involved in the protest with violating the federal FACE Act, which bars individuals from physically blocking the entrance to an abortion facility. Six of the defendants were eventually convicted on Tuesday, with each facing “up to a maximum of 10 and a half years in prison, three years of supervised release and fines of up to $260,000,” with sentencing set for July 2. Four other defendants are scheduled to stand trial for misdemeanor violations of the FACE Act.

The Thomas More Society, which is representing the defendants, is expected to appeal the convictions.

The DOJ’s FACE Act prosecutions are the latest in a series of legal actions directed at pro-life activists under the Biden administration, in which at least 24 cases have been prosecuted since January 2021. At the same time, there have only been four FACE Act indictments of pro-abortion individuals related to a single attack on a pregnancy resource center in Florida, despite the fact that there have been hundreds of attacks that have occurred against churches and pregnancy resource centers during Biden’s tenure.

As noted by Family Research Council’s Arielle Del Turco during a House Judiciary Committee hearing last year, the FACE Act was originally designed to protect abortion facilities, pregnancy resource centers, and places of worship. The types of attacks committed against churches have included “vandalism, arson, bomb threats, gun-related incidents, and interruption of worship services — all of which are punishable under the FACE Act,” she emphasized.

The disparity in prosecutions has led to Congress taking notice. In October, Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) introduced a bill to repeal the FACE Act, citing the biased enforcement that is being carried out by the Biden administration. “We need to repeal it and then stop giving authority to the Department of Justice to be able to go after [pro-life] people,” he told Tony Perkins in September.

In comments to The Washington Stand, Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, questioned the priorities of the Biden administration’s DOJ in targeting pro-lifers amid a spiraling border crisis and the spreading conflict in the Middle East.

“As countless little boys and girls are being trafficked across the border and wars wage across the world, the Biden administration thinks the most important thing to focus on is prosecuting peaceful protestors attempting to save unborn babies from a brutal death,” she pointed out. “Yes, these protestors violated the FACE Act, but the Biden administration should consider spending taxpayer dollars to protect America’s border — not to stop non-violent men and women who are simply singing hymns while defending the unborn.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: Report Catalogues Dozens of New Incidents of Persecution against Christians in the West

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

American mutation: The pitfalls of plummeting population thumbnail

American mutation: The pitfalls of plummeting population

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By MercatorNet – Navigating Modern Complexities

A groundbreaking study out of Chicago has confirmed a troubling trend that is changing America: the depopulation of our cities.

This leading-edge analysis, Depopulation and associated challenges for US cities by 2100, was a team effort from the University of Illinois Chicago. Their shocking conclusion? Half of America’s 30,000 cities will have population decline this century.

The study’s rigorous scholarship is no less monumental than its findings. Over 24,000 American cities were examined to document that de-urbanisation is no longer an aberration, but the new normal with no end in sight. Consider: urbanisation was prevalent for most of American history. As the economy grew, people left the country and headed for cities where prosperity beckoned. All was well while it lasted.

Those days are over. The Idea of Progress, the secular faith in a country weaned on individualism and unlimited frontiers, is sputtering to an end. As yours truly posited in these pages last year:

The Idea of Progress, the belief that history ineluctably proceeds towards material well-being and a better life, took hold and superseded religious faith. This belief emerged from Enlightenment empiricism. Mankind had come to believe in itself: Master of the Universe. Modernism was born.

The UI Chicago researchers have unwittingly revealed that Modernism is retrogression. “Modern” has done a 180, and the mantra of perpetual growth wanes. Remember that old Chinese curse about living in interesting times?

Fascinating findings

The UI Chicago disquisition elicited a priceless Fox News clickbait header: “Thousands of US cities are predicted to become ghost towns by 2100: New study.” While things are not that dire, urban America’s decline is underway.

That is problematic. Urban infrastructure has been designed and built to accommodate existing populations as well as anticipated growth. Water systems and electrical grids are expensive to maintain; a declining tax base will lead to reduced services:

Given the current challenges with aging infrastructure in the United States, this reduced financial capacity will probably lead to a lower level of service and even cascade to create unaffordable services. For example, repaving some roads and providing some transit services may become prohibitively expensive… and electric and water utilities may have to raise their rates given the reduced revenue from depopulation, which can create affordability issues that disproportionately impact vulnerable populations.

Below replacement fertility, urban blight and tight money signal the mutation of America’s optimistic “progress” zeitgeist to something less rosy.

The impact on suburban and peri-urban (transitioning from rural to urban) areas is pronounced. Population increases there drain residents from the core cities. As a result, the remaining/left-behind urban core is disproportionately poor. Those are the “vulnerable populations” referenced in the study.

Places like Cleveland, Detroit, Birmingham, Memphis and St. Louis are prime examples. Flint, Michigan and Jackson, Mississippi received national attention for their deteriorating water services. While many factors are involved, urban out-migration and shrinking tax bases have set the stage for manifold problems.

Street and road maintenance will be “economised”. Prioritising maintenance and upgrades will be contentious. Reduced public transportation will affect those who need it most. Public water/sewer, waste disposal and electrical systems will curtail services.

Affordable housing will be another casualty as underutilised infrastructure is decommissioned. That happened in Detroit when the middle class decamped for the suburbs. Entire city blocks were condemned, residents relocated, services cut and fenced off. The Visitors and Convention Bureau does not publicise such things.

America has its slowest population growth ever, though illegal alien numbers are elusive. Reliance on immigration has been the easy way to find cheap labour and prop up urban population. That’s not working anymore. Per the study:

  • Asian and Hispanic immigrants now favour smaller communities outside big cities.
  • Urban depopulation is most severe in the Northeast and Midwest. Out West, southern California is the region most affected.
  • Urban depopulation is coming to the Rocky Mountain states, long considered a refuge from frenzied California and the Northeast.

How to address this?

What is certain is that an important cultural shift in planning and engineering communities is needed, away from conventional, growth-based planning, to accommodate a dramatic demographic shift. [Emphasis added]

Note “dramatic demographic shift”. Any way you slice it, we’re talking about the decline of urban America.

How it started

Following the Martin Luther King assassination (1968), cities burned. Turmoil engulfed inner-city ghettoes. Racial tensions flared. White flight ensued, where folks voted with their feet to the suburbs.

What happened? LBJ’s Great Society, a colossal fiasco with its “War on Poverty”. This vastly expanded social welfare bureaucracy, giving rise to illogical relief schemes. One such program mandated higher assistance payments if there was no adult male (potential breadwinner) in the household. Talk about undermining the family. Why work when you could get by otherwise?

Then came food stamps, a second currency undermining the dollar. The welfare class metastasised. That, along with the swelling cadre of social services workers, boosted the client base of the Democratic Party.

PC penetrated law enforcement. Rather than uphold “law and order” (which itself became a code word for racism), authorities ceded the streets and advised people to just avoid certain areas.

Mass immigration depressed wages. Attendant congestion further diminished the appeal of urban living. Drug abuse skyrocketed, savaging families.

Birthrates plunged to below-replacement level, reflecting changing priorities, wokeism and ever-tightening finances. Urban living is no longer worth it for so many upwardly mobile types.

Then came the crippling triple whammy: Covid lockdowns shut down communities, wrecked the economy and sewed fear and division. Remote work became an option. There is no going back.

How others see us

An old friend is a veteran China Hand – sinologist, linguist, and analyst rolled into one. Smart guy. He says some Chinese scholars are fascinated with America’s decline. They say stuff like, “Don’t your leaders see this?” “Why won’t they do something?” “Can’t you even control your borders?”

Like Ancient Rome, America lost the republic and became an empire. Globalism rules. Whenever that happens, the sense of national identity, thus national pride, fades. What it even means to be an American is up for debate. Mammonism, demoralisation and anomie set in, and the rest is history.

It is not surprising that America’s cities are being depopulated. What goes around comes around.

AUTHOR

LOUIS T. MARCH

Louis T. March has a background in government, business, and philanthropy. A former talk show host, author, and public speaker, he is a dedicated student of history and genealogy. Louis lives with his family in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

RELATED ARTICLE: America’s elites are living in a bubble — and here’s the data to prove it

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

Top Peer Reviewed Study Calls for Global Ban on Covid Shots thumbnail

Top Peer Reviewed Study Calls for Global Ban on Covid Shots

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By The Geller Report

“Given the extensive, well-documented SAEs and unacceptably high harm-to-reward ratio, we urge governments to endorse a global moratorium on the modified mRNA products…” — Cureus, Journal of Medical Science.

No media. No mea culpa. They are on a death march.

Think of all those poor souls who lost their jobs, their college placements, their livelihoods for having the temerity to think.

Cureus, Journal of Medical Science, is a web-based peer-reviewed open access general medical journal using prepublication peer review.

Top Study Calls for Global Ban on Covid Shots

By: Frank Bergman, Slay News, January 26, 2024:

A group of world-renowned researchers has published a groundbreaking new study on soaring sudden death rates and called on governments to ban Covid mRNA shots globally.

In a peer-reviewed paper published on Wednesday, researchers re-analyzed the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine phase 3 trial data.

However, the researchers uncovered evidence of far more serious adverse events among those in the vaccine group.

This is not what published reports from Pfizer’s phase 3 trials said.

“Many key trial findings were either misreported or omitted entirely from published reports,” the researchers said.

The study was conducted by seven top researchers:

M. Nathaniel Mead
Stephanie Seneff
Russ Wolfinger
Jessica Rose
Kris Denhaerynck
Steve Kirsch
Peter A. McCullough

In the study’s paper, the researchers explained that they set out to re-analyze Pfizer’s trial data because:

our understanding of covid vaccinations and their impact on health and mortality has evolved substantially since the first vaccine rollouts; and, problems with the methods, execution, and reporting of the pivotal phase 3 trials have emerged.

On Wednesday, they published their findings in a peer-reviewed paper titled “Covid-19 mRNA Vaccines: Lessons Learned from the Registrational Trials and Global Vaccination Campaign.”

The paper was published in the renowned Cureus, a journal of medical science.

“Re-analysis of the Pfizer trial data identified statistically significant increases in serious adverse events (SAEs) in the vaccine group,” the researchers wrote.

Adding, “Numerous SAEs were identified following the Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA), including death, cancer, cardiac events, and various autoimmune, hematological, reproductive, and neurological disorders.”

The EUA the researchers are referring to is the authorization granted to Pfizer by the U.S. Food and Drugs Administration (FDA).

As the paper noted, Pfizer’s Covid vaccines never underwent adequate safety and toxicological testing, according to previously established scientific standards.

Read more

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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

Republican Lawmakers Set Their Sights On Abortion ‘Trafficking’ In Latest Post-Dobbs Fight thumbnail

Republican Lawmakers Set Their Sights On Abortion ‘Trafficking’ In Latest Post-Dobbs Fight

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By Dr. Rich Swier

  • Republican state lawmakers are going after abortion “trafficking” in an effort to stop abortion advocates from evading state bans around the country and protect pregnant minors. 
  • Idaho, Texas and now Tennessee have all pushed legislation on the issue and Republican state Rep. Jason Zachary of Tennessee told the Daily Caller News Foundation that his bill was personal after he had been “directly involved” with a family whose 14-year-old daughter had been taken away to get an abortion without their knowledge.
  • “It should be the easiest thing in the world to say it’s unacceptable for an adult to take somebody else’s kid anywhere without their parents knowing,” Katie Daniels, state policy director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told the DCNF.

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Republican state lawmakers have proposed a variety of pro-life laws, with three states placing a new focus on abortion “trafficking.”

Following the Dobbs decision, Idaho became the first state in 2023 to pass a bill enforcing criminal penalties for individuals “trafficking” a minor to another state to get an abortion and since then, Texas and Tennessee have followed suit on both the state and local levels. Republican state Rep. Jason Zachary of Tennessee told the Daily Caller News Foundation that he introduced his bill Monday after having been involved in a situation where a 14-year-old girl was taken without her parents’ knowledge to get an abortion last year.

“A young girl, a 14-year-old girl in East Tennessee, unbeknownst to her guardian was taken to West Tennessee and was not notified until the child was taken to West Tennessee. The child called the parents and said, ‘I’m in West Tennessee and I’m being taken to get an abortion.’ I was on the phone with the dad and the mom, [who were] crying asking me what I can do to help stop it. There was nothing I could do,” Zachary told the DCNF.

Zachary’s bill would make it a “criminal offense” for anyone other than a parent or guardian to take a minor out of Tennessee for an abortion and also “provide for a civil action against a person committing the offense of abortion trafficking of a minor for the wrongful death of an unborn child that was aborted,” according to the text. If passed a minor could not travel with someone other than their legal guardian to get a chemical or surgical abortion.

Texas has taken a slightly different approach than Idaho or Tennessee as multiple city councils have established new ordinances barring its citizens from being transported on their state highways to get an abortion, according to the Texas Tribune. The city council in Amarillo, Texas, is one of the latest to consider a travel ban but postponed any vote during a meeting on Dec. 19 for further review.

If passed, Amarillo’s ordinance would allow private citizens to sue anyone who “aids and abet[s]” someone to get an abortion using the highways, according to the Texas Tribune. Similar measures have been proposed in other counties, such as Lubbock, Llano, Odessa, Dallas and San Antonio, according to The Washington Post.

Some city council members have expressed concerns that the ordinances and their framing may be too extreme, according to the Post.

“I hate abortion. I’m a Jesus lover like all of you in here,” Llano councilwoman Laura Almond said during a meeting in August, according to the Post. She explained that in college she had once picked up a friend from an abortion clinic and that the law would have put her at risk of a lawsuit despite her personal beliefs on the subject.

“It’s overreaching,” Almond said during the meeting, according to the Post. “We’re talking about people here.”

Republicans have struggled on the issue of abortion over the last several elections due to poor messaging and a divided base regarding how strong candidates should be on pro-life issues. With the presidential election coming up in November, Katie Daniels, state policy director for Susan B. Anthony (SBA) Pro-Life America, told the DCNF that it will be important for Republican candidates endorsing any kind of abortion legislation, including anti-trafficking measures, to “talk about what they are for” and not just what they are against.

“It should be the easiest thing in the world to say it’s unacceptable for an adult to take somebody else’s kid anywhere without their parents knowing, let alone to another state for a medical procedure that’s illegal in their state. That should be a real point of consensus, regardless of political party,” Daniels said. “Beyond that, candidates should be talking about what they’re for. They’re for resources being available to women and their children, they’re for the pregnancy centers that help these women and they are for the life of both the mom and her baby.”

Daniels argued polling had found that “two-thirds of Americans” support parental notification and consent before minors can get a chemical abortion through the mail and a Rasmussen poll from July 2022 found that 64% of Americans support parental notification before a child gets an abortion.

“This is a very common sense position if you ask normal people. It’s politicians who are tied up to the industry that seem to have trouble with it,” Daniels told the DCNF.

AUTHOR

KATE ANDERSON

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: CVS Employee Sues After Company Allegedly Revoked Religious Exemption To Avoid Prescribing Contraceptives

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

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

Ohio Becomes 23rd State to Protect Minors from the Transgender Industry thumbnail

Ohio Becomes 23rd State to Protect Minors from the Transgender Industry

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By Family Research Council

The bellwether state of Ohio has become the 23rd state to protect children from transgender injections and surgeries, and the 24th to safeguard fairness and privacy in women’s sports, as lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to override the Republican governor’s veto. Yet Democratic opponents claimed Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus Christ would have supported transgender surgeries for kids, a transgender activist changed the words of a Christian hymn to support transgender surgeries, and liberals likened withholding cross-sex hormones from children to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

The Ohio State Senate voted 24-8 on Wednesday afternoon to reverse the veto of Substitute H.B. 68 by Governor Mike DeWine (R). (The Senate erroneously announced the tally as 23-9 immediately after the vote.) The bill — which combines the Save Adolescents from Experimentation Act (SAFE) and the Save Women’s Sports Act — bans the use of puberty-blockers, cross-sex hormone injections, and gender mutilation surgeries to anyone under the age of 18. It also prohibits men from competing against women in sports, prevents courts from denying or limiting custody to a parent who refuses to “affirm” their child’s transgender identity, and refuses to fund minors’ transgender procedures through Medicaid.

The Ohio House of Representatives overrode the veto on January 10 by a 65-27 margin — four more votes than when the House first passed the bill on December 14. The bill will become state law in 90 days.

“Given that five legislatures have overridden gubernatorial vetoes of legislation protecting minors from the transgender activists pushing experimental drugs and surgeries, any governor who vetoes these SAFE Act-type laws is either politically tone-deaf or being influenced by those who profit from this morally devastating, but financially lucrative industry,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. (Emphasis in original.) Supermajorities of state legislators voted to override Democratic governors’ vetoes of various gender protection bills in Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and North Carolina in 2023. Arkansas lawmakers also enacted the first SAFE Act over the veto of then-Governor and failed 2024 presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson (R).

Ohio to Trans Industry: ‘We Reject Your Junk Science’

“Today, Ohio has told an exploitative medical industry that we reject your junk science and will no longer allow you to experiment on our children,” said Aaron Baer, president of the Center for Christian Virtue (CCV), an Ohio-based citizen action group that spearheaded support for the override. “This marks a turning point in Ohio: we will not remain silent when our children are being harmed.” Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Matt Sharp thanked Ohio lawmakers for rejecting “the politicized and harmful practice of pushing minors towards irreversible drugs and surgeries in favor of compassionate mental health care that gives them time to grow into comfort with their bodies and true identities.”

“No one has the right to harm children, and, thankfully, states have the power — and duty — to protect them,” said Sharp. “Our most basic duty as parents is to protect our children,” said Peter Range, CEO of Ohio Right to Life, in a statement emailed to The Washington Stand. “Our children are our greatest legacy, and today’s vote ensures our children are protected in Ohio.” Thanks to the vote, “Child gender mutilation and gender ideology as a whole will end with a whimper,” said Chloe Cole, a detransitioner who testified in favor of the bill and returned to Columbus for Wednesday’s vote.

Democrats Invoke Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr., and Japanese Internment Camps to Argue for Transing Kids

The override vote overcame procedural roadblocks, disruptions by radical transgender activists, and disputes over whether the bill represented God’s will. Sen. Bill DeMora (D-25) moved to adjourn before the chamber could vote on the measure.

A transgender activist interrupted the very first speaker, Sen. Kristina Roegner (R-25), by singing an edited version of “Jesus Loves the Little Children” after fellow transgender activists booed and raised their middle fingers. “Jesus loves the little children. L-G-B-T-Q-I-A, He would be here — Jesus would be here — on their side today!” the activist belted out in the manner of a show tune, before being escorted out of the Capitol.

Democrats picked up the talking point, as Sen. Paul Hicks-Hudson (D-11) insisted overriding DeWine’s veto “does not show that Jesus does love all of us.”

“That same Jesus has determined the gender of every child. Let’s respect truly what Jesus” created, retorted Sen. Jerry Cirino (R-18). “Jesus does love all the little children, including the women who compete [in] sports,” said Sen. George F. Lang (R-4).

Yet Senate Democratic Leader Nickie Antonio (D-23) — who announced, “I’m a lesbian” during her floor speech — said refusing to experiment on children “wasn’t the Christianity I was brought up with.”

Hicks-Hudson also told lawmakers, “We are slapping” the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., who once said it is necessary to become “maladjusted.”

Another Democrat compared Republicans denying minors cross-sex hormones and gender-reassignment surgeries to Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s order herding Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II. Sen. Kent Smith (D-21), who noted he encountered men who identify as female in his “side-hustle” as a part-time roller derby announcer, compared his fellow Democrats to then-Colorado Governor Ralph Carr (R), who opposed Roosevelt’s order.

Smith, who accused his opponents of the “systematic dehumanization” of trans-identifying people, said one public school official told him she had more trans-identifying children in school than those who identified as homosexual.

Antonio invoked Issue 1, stating, “A majority of the voters spoke when they told us in November that the government shouldn’t be involved in their own personal, private health care decisions.” Yet during the debate over Issue 1, proponents steadfastly denied the amendment had any impact on transgender procedures for minors.

DeMora also inveighed that H.B. 68 “is anti-science and very hateful,” “horrible,” and “the inevitable outcome of this bill will be loss of life.” Legislators should pass laws “to make it easier” for children to get hormone injections, he stated.

Cross-sex hormone injections have caused females to suffer from side effects including “erythrocytosis, severe liver dysfunction, coronary artery disease, cerebrovascular disease, hypertension, increased risk of breast and uterine cancers, and irreversible infertility,” states H.B. 68. “For biological males,” such injections cause “thromboembolic disease, cholelithiasis, coronary artery disease, macroprolactinoma, cerebrovascular disease, hypertriglyceridemia, breast cancer, and irreversible infertility.”

“Suicide rates, psychiatric morbidities, and mortality rates remain markedly elevated above the background population after inpatient gender reassignment surgery has been performed,” the bill notes.

Lawmakers reluctantly added a grandfather clause for children who had already begun transgender procedures before the bill’s passage at DeWine’s request; yet he vetoed the bill anyway.

Transgender procedures are not what gender-confused minors need, said Sen. Roegner. “What they need to know is that they are loved for who they are. They need compassion; they need counseling. What they do not need is chemical castration, sterilization, or physical mutilation. We cannot let this happen to the children of Ohio,” she said. “It is medical malpractice, and it needs to stop.”

Similarly, Sen. Shane Wilkin (R-17) said safety guided his support for allowing girls to have their own space. “I, along with many in my district, do not want shared locker rooms with boys,” he said. “I find this issue is not as difficult as we’re making it out to be.”

Ohioans largely agree. Sen. Andy Brenner (R-19) revealed on Wednesday’s “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” that 90% of the constituents who contacted his office urged him to protect children.

DeWine Yielded to ‘Experts’ on Transgenderism and COVID

Some in Ohio expressed surprise when DeWine, a centrist Republican, vetoed H.B. 68 on December 29. One week later, DeWine banned transgender surgery for minors by executive order, and he announced new regulations requiring greater psychological counseling for adults before and after transgender procedures. “I think it’s a good way to take this issue off the table” and “talk about other things,” said DeWine.

Brenner said, in lieu of longitudinal studies tracking the long-term impact of puberty-blockers on children, DeWine yielded to the dubious “consensus” of “experts” on transgender studies — much as he did “masking and lockdowns a few years ago” in response to COVID-19. “They don’t really have the data to back up what they’re doing,” Brenner noted.

Between DeWine’s executive actions and H.B. 68, “Ohio now has one of the strongest pieces to protect children in the nation,” said Cole at a press conference alongside the bill’s sponsor, State Rep. Gary Click (R-88), shortly after the vote.

“The SAFE Act and Save Women’s Sports Act are the civil rights issues of our day, ensuring that children have the right to grow up intact and that women are no longer subject to men invading their spaces,” said Click.

Wednesday was a “great day for Ohio women,” agreed State Rep. Jena Powell (R-80), who championed the Save Women’s Sports Act. “I promised to fight for integrity in women’s sports, and I did not give up until we won.” Liberty Counsel Action also called H.B. 68 “a win for the safety of women and children.”

Not everyone was pleased. “F*** the Ohio Senate,” cursed the Ohio Women’s Alliance Action Fund (which did not censor its message). OWA helped craft Issue 1, which opponents said was written to create a constitutional “right” to transgender procedures for minors without parental notification — a position OWA and many of its sponsors support. OWA Deputy Director Jordyn Close, who describes herself as “a sex and pleasure advocate … working on destigmatizing and uplifting sex work,” has said “all barriers to abortion are racist,” because “every abortion is essential.” Similarly, the capital city’s chapter of the Young Women’s Christian Alliance — YWCA Columbus — excoriated the allegedly “discriminatory bill” as “another demonstration of the state weaponizing control over bodily autonomy.”

Ohio Republicans said they stand ready to protect the state’s progress toward protecting the vulnerable and creating a more compassionate state. “I am prepared to defend it against the inevitable legal challenge,” said Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R).

While the bill’s passage is “a milestone for Ohio and the nation, there is still more to be accomplished,” said Rep. Click. “We must ensure that all individuals who experience regret have full access to both medical and mental health resources as they realign with their authentic selves.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Red State Senate Kills Gov’s Veto On Bill Banning Child Sex Changes thumbnail

Red State Senate Kills Gov’s Veto On Bill Banning Child Sex Changes

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By The Daily Caller

The Ohio Senate voted Wednesday to override Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto of a bill that would prohibit doctors from performing sex-change medical procedures on minors.

The state’s House of Representatives voted 65 to 28 on Jan. 10 to override the governor’s veto of the bill, which would bar doctors from performing transgender surgeries or prescribing cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers to minors. State senators voted 28 to 4, largely among party lines, to pass the legislation.

“The Governor does not have [a] new comment today. His previous comments on the bill and his veto reflect his position on the issue,” Dan Tierney, DeWine’s press secretary, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

I proudly stood up for parents and kids across Ohio and voted to override Gov. DeWine’s veto of HB 68!

Now, men will be kept out of women’s sports, and our children will be protected from dangerous experimental gender surgeries. pic.twitter.com/c7708tdhny

— Senator Michael Rulli (@michaelrulli) January 24, 2024

DeWine signed an executive order earlier this month that banned transgender surgeries for minors, but allowed children to obtain cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers. DeWine argued that he never disagreed with his Republican colleagues on the issue, but that other procedures should be left up to parents and medical professionals.

The bill, which is set to go into effect in 90 days, will also prevent men who identify as transgender women from competing in women’s sports, a decision DeWine has publicly come out against in the past. DeWine also received $40,000 in donations between 2018 and 2023 from several state children’s hospitals, at least one of which he visited in December to discuss the bill with families, patients and medical professionals.

A training video from one of the hospitals, Cincinnati Children’s, revealed staff teaching doctors how to work around parental consent when treating a minor transgender patient. The hospital’s CEO, Steven Davis, claimed in his December testimony against the bill that the hospital always gets consent from the parents before performing transgender medical procedures on minors.

AUTHOR

KATE ANDERSON

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

State Legislatures Are Taking On Gender Ideology In First Weeks Of 2024

Swing State Spent Millions On Sex Changes And Trans Hormones, Including For Those Under 18

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

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

Pro-Choice Is a Misnomer thumbnail

Pro-Choice Is a Misnomer

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By Jerry Newcombe

Around this time of year, we remember the infamous Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade of January 22, 1973, which condemned some 65 million preborn people in America to death in abortions. Although Roe was overturned, abortion is very much a pressing issue today.

And it has been and continues to promoted in the name of “choice.” Pro-choice is a misnomer. Those who are pro-choice are in reality pro-abortion.

Although the proponents call themselves “pro-choice,” many studies indicate that the majority of women who have an abortion felt compelled to seek the procedure.

I spoke with Eric Scheidler of the Illinois-based Pro-Life Action League in a recent radio segment on this very topic.

He told me, “When someone tells me now that they’re ‘pro-choice,’ I say, ‘I’m glad to hear that because everyone should have the right to choose to become a parent.’ Then we get into the question of women having a right to motherhood taken away from them by those who are pushing abortion on them.” That includes, says Scheidler, the parents, the boyfriends, the employers, the politicians, and the abortion industry.

OB-GYN Ingrid Skop, M.D., wrote recently: “It is usually assumed that most women in the U.S. freely choose abortion and consider it to have been the best decision for them, all things considered. However, an expanding body of literature calls this assumption into question.”

Skop continues, “A recent peer-reviewed study conducted by [Charlotte Lozier Institute] scholars found that only one-third of abortions are ‘wanted.’ Nearly one in four described their abortion as ‘unwanted’ or ‘coerced.’ An additional 43% described the abortion as ‘accepted’ but ‘inconsistent with their values and preferences.’”

And she adds, “A majority, around 60%, said their preference would have been to give birth had they received more emotional support or had greater financial security….In another 2023 peer-reviewed survey, 61% of women reported “high levels” of pressure to abort.”

So much for choice. As Dr. D. James Kennedy once declared, “The only ‘choice’ the abortionists ever give anybody is ‘Tuesday or Friday? When do you want to have the abortion?’”

Meanwhile, there are crisis pregnancy centers out there doing the Lord’s work as they provide loving options for those seeking abortions. They provide real choice.

Yet these crisis pregnancy centers are often targeted by pro-abortion extremists. For example, on June 7, 2022, in Amherst, New York, the Compass Care crisis pregnancy center was firebombed, causing half-a-million dollars in damages.

I’ve interviewed Jim Harden, the president of Compass Care, about the destruction of his center and on other issues related to abortion. For this piece on how pro-choice is a misnomer, I asked him if he cared to give me a comment.

Harden said, “It is telling that a recent study revealed that nearly 70% of women are coerced to abort their babies….When a woman faces an unplanned pregnancy, she considers abortion because she feels trapped… like she has no choice. Mercenary abortionists masquerade as medical professionals to profiteer from this tragic reality” [emphasis his].

However, Senator Elizabeth Warren has the audacity to claim that these crisis pregnancy centers are “harmful” to women.

Harden continues, “Yet pro-life pregnancy centers help a woman with everything but abortion…for free. Pro-life pregnancy centers are the abortion industry’s only competition, delivering up to 2 million women nearly $358 million worth of free medical care and support every year. And while pro-abortion politicians get re-elected on the coat tails of abortion propaganda, it is the pro-life pregnancy centers that are empowering women with true informed consent and support.”

Thankfully, through the Lord, there is healing and forgiveness available for those who have had an abortion, by choice or otherwise. I saw a news item where a former female rock singer said she is very sorry for her three abortions, which she regrets deeply, but very grateful to God for His forgiveness.

Speaking of regrets, OB-GYN Vivina Napier, M.D. said recently: “In my years in practice, I have never met a woman who has expressed regret over giving birth to her baby, but I have met plenty who shared their regret for having abortions.”

Katie Daniels of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America says, “There is an abortion industry that makes billions of dollars killing children and hurting their moms, and that is who we’re up against. So we need to speak clearly and honestly about that reality while also contrasting our compassion for moms and babies.”

Our nation’s founders declared independence from Great Britain and dependence upon God. They said that our Creator has endowed us with certain inalienable rights, and that first among these is the right to life.

Real choice is as American as apple pie. But “pro-choice” only chooses one option—and a grisly one at that. America can do better than this.

©2024. Jerry Newcombe, D.Min. All rights reserved.

Social Media Goes Ballistic As Biden Speech Devolves Into Word Soup And Supporters Clap ‘Like Brainless Seals’ thumbnail

Social Media Goes Ballistic As Biden Speech Devolves Into Word Soup And Supporters Clap ‘Like Brainless Seals’

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By The Daily Caller

Social media went ballistic after President Joe Biden gave a speech that devolved into a word salad bad enough to rival his vice president and yet his supporters clapped enthusiastically.

Biden, speaking alongside Vice President Kamala Harris at a rally in Virginia on Tuesday, tried to emphasize the issue of abortion heading into the 2024 race.

“We’ll teach Donald Trump a valuable lesson, don’t mess with the women of America unless you want to get the benefit,” Biden said, slurring the entire time and forcing people who are transcribing it to listen several times.

Yet for some reason, the crowd went BALLISTIC. Enthusiasm not seen since for Biden since, well, never.

But social media sleuths took Biden to task for his speech.

Greg Price, who does communications for the State Freedom Caucus Network and is also a former Caller employee, tweeted, “I love how nothing he said made any sense here yet the people still clapped and cheered like brainless seals.”

I love how nothing he said made any sense here yet the people still clapped and cheered like brainless seals.
pic.twitter.com/DJ1LSt1Foq

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 23, 2024

Outkick’s Tomi Lahren challenged viewers to “caption this.”

Other users joked that “idiots just blindly cheer while Grandpa has a stroke on stage.”

Another user said, “Bosses in news companies are going to torture their least favorite employees by assigning them Biden subtitles duty.”

But perhaps the question shouldn’t be “what the hell did our president just say?”

Maybe we should start with something a little easier.

Mr. President, what is a woman?

AUTHOR

BRIANNA LYMAN

News and commentary writer. Follow Brianna on Twitter.

RELATED ARTICLE: McDonald’s, Missiles & Marches: Biden’s Thursday Devolves Into All-Time Gaffe Reel

POST ON X:

Liberating Canada: The Calgary Speech pic.twitter.com/nidv7KHHlz

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) January 25, 2024

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

Mann vs Steyn … and us. An exceptionally important trial just started thumbnail

Mann vs Steyn … and us. An exceptionally important trial just started

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By John Droz, Jr.

Here is a super-brief outline of this VERY BIG deal – that will not be seen on mainstream media…

Dr. Michael E. Mann is a well-known climate activist. e.g., he was the person who invented the hockey-stick climate graph — which intentionally conveys alarmism.

Mark Steyn is a conservative, outspoken public speaker, writer, TV personality, etc. who has a keen interest in public policies, from COVID to climate.

About 12 years ago, Mark (per here) added some comments to an internet post written by someone else. His observations drew a parallel between Jerry Sandusky (the disgraced Penn State football coach), and Mann (also a Penn State employee). Both Mann and Sandusky were investigated by Penn State’s administration in what Steyn characterized as a cover-up. Steyn also described Mann’s famous hockey stick temperature chart as fraudulent.

My understanding is that Mann subsequently told Steyn to retract his comments. However, Steyn refused, saying that what he wrote was accurate. Mann then said that he would sue Steyn if he didn’t retract, and Steyn said be my guest. This began the saga.

There are at least four fascinating aspects of this lawsuit:

  1. Mann’s contention is that this case is primarily about Science.
  2. Steyn’s position is that this is a trial primarily about Free Speech.
  3. Steyn is acting as his own lawyer (i.e. pro se), which is highly unusual.
  4. The case took 12 years to be heard, which seems to violate due process.

I could easily expand on any of those four issues, but for the sake of simplicity, I’ll focus on just the Science element.

Mann’s contention about Science is interesting, and (for multiple reasons) seems to be a very weak argument. E.g., it’s fascinating to note that, despite this being a high-profile case about a topic of paramount interest (climate change), it appears that not a single Science organization formally stepped forward to side with Mann! (See here.)

Also very interesting is that (earlier) the Judge denied Mann’s request for certain experts (some of his climate alarmist buds) to testify on his behalf. What is extremely fascinating is the Judge’s reason:

“Applying Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, and the Daubert standard for scientific evidence, Judge Irving concluded that most of the proffered expert testimony was inadmissible because the experts failed to identify the methodology they used in reaching their conclusions about the contested statements… The methodologies of the expert must be grounded in the Scientific Method, such that another person with similar expertise could replicate them (Daubert 509 US at 591).”

That the Judge is looking for evidence that the Scientific Method is used in the alarmist’s climate arguments is extraordinarily significant, for at least two reasons: 1) alarmists contend that the Scientific Method is not applicable for assessing the validity of climate change claims, as climate is “too complicated,” and 2) as I have explained in earlier commentaries (e.g., here), progressives have specifically attacked the Scientific Method, so that it is no longer taught in almost any K-12 US schools (thanks to the acceptance of the progressive NGSS by some 49 states).

My unsolicited advice is for Steyn to take on Mann about Science. Starting with the definition of Science (“Science is a process”), to what is the main process (the Scientific Method). It’s a major asset that it already appears that the Judge is aware of, and is favorably disposed to, the Scientific Method.

The Scientific Method can be traced back some 4000 years (e.g., here) — and was heavily relied on by essentially every notable scientist in our history (Newton, Curie, Einstein, etc.). That progressives are trying to now throw it in the trash should indeed be vigorously challenged — and this seems like a superior venue.

Steyn should also make it clear that what Mann calls science is really political science. I can not overstate the significance of this distinction. We are inundated with activist scientists who arbitrarily discard the standards of real Science (the process), and substitute their own. Their rationale for this abrogation is the end justifies the means. This is relevant in this trial, as that appears to be exactly what Mann did with the hockey stick graph. (See this excellent detailed discussion about Mann’s graph.)

Mann and Greta Thunberg are birds of a feather. The most relevant difference is that Mann has significantly more academic credentials. He should know better as to what Science is, what the Scientific Method is, what Critical Thinking is, etc. What that translates to is that considering Mann’s dissipations, the sin is greater for him.

If Steyn plays his cards right, he has a superior opportunity to expose Mann’s turpitudes. Ideally, that in turn, could bring about a penitential response by Mann, to begin to make amends for the horrific influence his actions have had on the world, and on genuine Science.

The takeaway here is that Steyn is an odds-on favorite to win this case, based on the merits of either (or both) Science and Free Speech, plus the fact that the judge seems inclined to be serious about this, rather than play politics. Considering that Steyn is an eloquent presenter (see his strong opening statement), this should be savored…

Important — I do not personally know Mark Steyn. If any readers do, please have him contact me as I have some suggestions to help him win this case. I will not post them here for obvious reasons.

Some other sample references of interest:

Watch the Mann-Steyn Trial Live

Mann v. Steyn Finally Gets Under Way

The link between ‘defending Michael Mann is defending climate science’ seems to have been broken

Archive: Judge Strikes All of Michael Mann’s Expert Witnesses from Libel Suit

Injustice Anywhere is a Threat to Justice Everywhere

Day One in Court

Climate Trial of the Century

Go Get ‘Em, Mark!

Mann v. Steyn Goes to Trial After 12 Years

Mann v Ball: How Mann is Losing (an earlier interesting Mann lawsuit)

©2024. John Droz, Jr.. All rights reserved.

GOP Leader Urges Party: ‘Stop Using the A-word and Start Talking about Life’ thumbnail

GOP Leader Urges Party: ‘Stop Using the A-word and Start Talking about Life’

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By Family Research Council

The closer we get to November, the more high-profile Republicans are admitting it: Silence isn’t selling on abortion. From RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel to the head of the House’s GOP fundraising arm, the cry to get off the sidelines on life is echoing off the walls of campaign headquarters. Lt. Governor Mark Robinson (R-N.C.) is the latest to join the chorus of conservatives, telling candidates to “stop being cowards and stand up for what you believe.” But know this first: the problem is as much about how the GOP is messaging as whether they do.

“I’m tired of talking about abortion,” the candidate for governor told reporters. The “a-word,” as he calls it, is what sent the party in a tailspin to begin with. “I’ve changed what I’m saying,” he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “Democrats, the leftists, they want everyone to say the word ‘abortion.’ They want our children to say it in schools. They want us to say it in our churches. They want politicians to say it on the floor of the House and on the floor of the Senate. They want me to say it. As the lieutenant governor, I’m bound and determined to stand up for what I believe in. And what I believe in [is] life — and it’s time for us to start using that word. This is an issue of life, about protecting life, and then about doing what we can to elect officials to make sure that once those lives come into the world, that they have life and have it more abundantly.”

His intentional shift raised the antenna of local media, who’ve started reporting that Robinson is trying to duck the issue now. Baloney, he replies. “They think that I’ve changed my position,” he said. “I have not changed my position.” Instead, he’s doing what he believes every pro-lifer should do: he’s changed the terms. “The subject is not abortion,” the lieutenant governor insisted, “the subject is life.” And that’s where conservatives need to debate.

Perkins nodded emphatically. The FRC president has also called for a shift in language, drawing America’s attention back to the unborn baby, not the procedure. Of course, that’s become more difficult, the “Washington Watch” host pointed out, since Republicans let Democrats define the terms when “so many were just silent.” Now, he shook his head, they’ve “started stuttering.” “We need to go out and tell people what we’re for. We are for protecting the unborn and preserving a culture of life in this country.”

Bringing the conversation back to life also extends an arm to women, Robinson wanted people to know. “… [W]hen I speak, I want to be that person who’s there, who’s understanding. I want to be the person who’s … not up on a platform telling the young woman why she can’t have an abortion. I want to be that person who’s coming down, putting my arm around that young woman who may find [herself] in crisis, and telling them why she doesn’t have to have an abortion… [and that] our folks as elected officials [are] going to fight hard to make sure that you can bring that child into the world — and not only bring that child into the world, but have a great life for that child, yourself, and your family.”

It’s exactly the kind of message he and his wife needed to hear when they were struggling with an unexpected pregnancy before they were married. “My wife and I chose the route of abortion years ago,” he admitted, “and I cannot tell you the immense pain, the solid pain that we went through for so many years over this issue. It was just this unspoken thing that hurt both of us very deeply. And we have always regretted it, almost to the point where we just couldn’t even speak to one another about it because it was so painful.” But the difficulty of reliving that choice hasn’t stopped Robinson from sharing what they’ve been through. “We want to tell those stories to young people.” In fact, “It’s because of this experience and our spiritual journey that we are so adamantly pro-life,” he’s said.

Since that conscious decision to open up about it, the Robinsons have been amazed to see “how God used that to reach so many people who felt the exact same way, to encourage them to keep going and to know the mistakes that they made are shared by so many of us.”

And the beauty of that, Perkins added, is that when you do share it, “Yes, there’s pain, there’s guilt — it still bothers you — but there’s forgiveness. And that’s the good news of Jesus Christ in the gospel message, is that we don’t have to carry that burden. We don’t want others to do it, but we don’t have to carry that burden any longer.”

That’s exactly right, the lieutenant governor agreed. “That’s one of the best things about giving your life to Jesus Christ, you know when Jesus forgives. It’s a forgiveness that you can feel down deep in your soul. … But I would definitely warn anyone, any young person out there, do not take this issue lightly. Do not take this issue lightly. It haunts, it hurts, and it causes deep emotional distress.”

But the abortion crisis didn’t start overnight, he pointed out, and Republicans can’t end it overnight. “Educating our young people is going to be crucial,” Robinson urged. “You want to empower a young person? Empower that young person to know the greatest thing that they can do for their future is hold control of their body and make sure that they’re not falling into those traps that popular culture is pushing so many of them into. That’s real empowerment. That’s real progress.”

That’s not a message North Carolina is hearing form its current governor, Perkins half-joked. Roy Cooper (D) has embraced the radical agenda of the Left on everything from abortion to transgenderism. And yet, his challenger says, “People love [my] message. They love it.” So what advice would he give conservatives who are running from the issue?

“The number one thing I would tell them to do is to stop listening to the bad reports of CNN, CBS, and ABC and all those news agencies that are using this issue to try to browbeat Christian, Bible-believing conservatives. That’s number one. The second thing that I would say is, quite frankly, stop being a coward and stand up for what you say you believe in. It’s time for the people of this nation to realize who we are.” Look, he said, “America’s survival is at stake” in this election. “We need to make our stands strong — and it starts with us standing up for what’s right.” Without apology.

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: WHO Chief: Nations Must ‘Counteract Conservative Opposition’ to Abortion, Promote Transgenderism

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

No Charges Filed Against Illegal Chinese Bio-Lab in California As New 100% Deadly Lab-Created Diseases Emerge thumbnail

No Charges Filed Against Illegal Chinese Bio-Lab in California As New 100% Deadly Lab-Created Diseases Emerge

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By The Geller Report

We need answers as to what exactly was happening at the secret illegal Chinese bio lab found in California.

The lab was oozing with pathogens, housed “transgenic” mice, and even had a freezer labeled “Ebola.”

Yet the CDC did little more than shrug for months.

Robbie Starbucks:

An illegal lab was found in California with Malaria, Dengue Fever, Hepatitis, HIV and Ebola. It was run by a Chinese man named Jia Bei Zhu who came here illegally. He has said he wants to “defeat the American aggressor”.

Fox News says “A recent bipartisan congressional report determined Zhu received significant financial payments from China”

Yet no charges have been filed. Here’s where it gets even weirder…

There were so many chemicals and dangerous biological agents on site that hazmat contractors hired by the Feds have loaded up over 800 containers to remove all of it from the warehouse in Reedley, California.

So they’re investigating this right? Well… The FBI has known about this for over a year but they actually handed control of the case BACK to the local officials in Reedley and Fresno County. No, I’m not joking. Possible international terrorism is apparently a job for the local police so the FBI can focus on old ladies who may have gone to the Capitol on January 6th.

Not only that but Fox News broke details that key parts of the Dept of Homeland Security NEVER got involved in the case.

That’s bad right? Oh I’m not done yet.

What about the CDC? Last year, CDC microbiologists spent time in the lab and produced a report detailing everything in the warehouse but they failed to actually test the vials, including unlabeled vials.

From a Fox News story:

“Despite the probability that the unlabeled or coded vials contained additional unknown and dangerous pathogens, CDC officials refused to take any further investigative steps,” the report stated. It also claimed CDC officials failed to take “meaningful action” when presented with evidence that Ebola, classified at the highest level of concern, may have been present.”

Again, no one has been charged. Why?

• The severe national security risks posed by spies among 🇨🇳 students will cause long-term damage beyond academia.
• For example, Jesse Jia-Bei Zhu, the arrested actual controller of the illegal Chinese bio-lab in Reedley, California, has been to the University of British… https://t.co/WVp9n8tQPJ pic.twitter.com/A0zsBxGF0o

— Dr. Li-Meng YAN (@DrLiMengYAN1) January 17, 2024

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLES:

Illegal, Secret Chinese Bio-Agent Lab In Calif Raided by FBI, CDC, INFECTIOUS BACTERIAL, VIRAL AGENTS Found MALARIA, RUBELLA, HIV, Chlamydia, E. Coli, Streptococcus Pneumonia, Hepatitis B and C, Herpes

Gavin Newsom’s Office Funded Illegal, Secret Chinese Biolab Found With Infectious Material, Viral Agents

POSTS ON X:

Probe of Illegal Chinese Lab in California complete pic.twitter.com/GultNHcZ8j

— The Epoch Times (@EpochTimes) November 17, 2023

Why this happening? Should this really be taking place in China where they very likely had COVID-19 escape from a lab?

Does this scare anyone else? pic.twitter.com/HTYmcHGAbm

— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) January 16, 2024

HOLY CRAP

Remember that illegal Chinese biolab discovered in CA? The one conducting “risky” COVID research on “genetically altered” mice? What’re the odds it was working on this?👇

TODAY: “Chinese lab crafts mutant COVID-19 strain with 100% kill streak in HUMANIZED MICE” pic.twitter.com/vN6FWbituE

— John Hasson (@SonofHas) January 17, 2024

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

Fauci Admits to Multiple COVID-19 Missteps during Closed-Door Hearing thumbnail

Fauci Admits to Multiple COVID-19 Missteps during Closed-Door Hearing

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By Jon Miltimore

Editors’ Note: It is amazing to us that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief proponent of the “Great Covid Panic”, can give closed-session testimony, reveal his errors in judgement,  and so little consequence follows from those admissions. Here is a man who funded the research that set this plague loose on the planet, working hand in glove with the Chinese Communist Party. Once released, the response to the plague he created, trampled personal freedom, killed millions of people, disrupted our elections, divided our people, and even divided families over vaccine policy. In addition, it tanked the world economy, disrupted key supply chains, blew up the national debt, and propelled global inflation. Beyond that, he destroyed trust in medicine and public health officials. It is hard to think of a man more central to perhaps the most destructive chain of events, outside of military aggression.  Yet, he is still an eagerly sought guest on cable television, where he is treated with reverence. Early on, and even up through today, we can think of only one national leader who stood up to him, challenged his policies, and challenged the medical establishment that so meekly fell in line behind him. Great credit must be given to Senator Rand Paul (M.D.) of Kentucky, the most notable hero in this sordid mess. This brings up an important question: When and how are the perpetrators of the Great Covid Panic going to be held accountable?

Fauci’s recent congressional testimony held a surprising number of admissions.

Dr. Anthony Fauci sat down last week with the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. During a 14-hour session, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was grilled by lawmakers on various subjects, including the origins of COVID-19, coerced vaccination, mask mandates, and the lost learning of students due to school closures.

Though the interview took place behind closed doors, parts of Fauci’s testimony were reported by media and lawmakers, offering various revelations — including the fact that Fauci said he was “not convinced” schoolchildren actually experienced learning loss during the pandemic.

An abundance of evidence contradicts Fauci’s belief, including research cited by Harvard Magazine showing “a significant decline” over the past three years in reading, math, and history, part of what the New York Times editorial board recently described as “the most damaging disruption in the history of American education.”

But put learning loss and Fauci’s denials aside for now. His admissions are damning enough.

Take “social distancing,” the idea that people had to be six feet apart from one another to be in public, a ritual virtually all of us participated in at one time or another to grab a bite to eat at our local restaurant. Fauci admitted to lawmakers that the policy was basically a charade, something that “sort of just appeared” and lacked scientific basis.

Or take the unintended consequences of the coercive vaccine policies Fauci advocated and governments initiated at the federal, state, and local levels. Fauci, who privately told officials that “it’s been proven that when you make it difficult for people in their lives, they lose their ideological bulls*** and they get vaccinated,” conceded that the coercive vaccine policies he advocated likely increased vaccine hesitancy. (The evidence suggests he is probably right.)

And then, there was the hypothesis that COVID-19 emerged from a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where the government of the United States was funding risky gain-of-function research. Fauci initially laughed off the possibility that COVID-19 could have emerged from the lab, calling it “molecularly impossible.” (The U.S. government also collaborated with social media companies to censor users who speculated that COVID-19 could have emerged from the institute.)

Fauci now concedes that the lab leak hypothesis was not a conspiracy theory, according to congressional lawmakers.

In summary, Fauci admitted he pushed COVID-19 protocols that lacked scientific rigor, advocated coercive vaccine policies to disrupt people’s lives that likely fueled vaccine hesitancy, and unjustly smeared millions of people as conspiracy theorists for hypothesizing on a COVID-19 origin story that the FBI now admits is likely true.

These admissions are damning, and hopefully, they mark the beginning of a much larger mea culpa from Fauci and his longtime superior, Dr. Francis Collins, the previous director of the National Institutes of Health.

In a little-noticed interview last summer, Collins also admitted “mistakes,” explaining that in public health, officials often take a very narrow view of the trade-offs of health policies.

“You attach infinite value to stopping the disease and saving a life,” Collins said. “You attach zero value to whether this actually totally disrupts people’s lives, ruins the economy, and has many kids kept out of school in a way that they never might quite recover from.”

Collins is not wrong. This is one of the most basic lessons in economics: There are no solutions to complex problems, just trade-offs. That’s why sensible economists raised objections to the “if it saves just one life” mantra early in the pandemic.

“Rational people understand this isn’t how the world works. Regardless of whether we acknowledge them, trade-offs exist,” political scientist James Harrigan and economist Antony Davies wrote in April 2020. “And acknowledging trade-offs is an important part of constructing sound policy.”

Harrigan and Davies were hardly alone. Many economists and public health officials recognized this truth in 2020. But instead of listening or opening a dialogue to craft sensible solutions, Collins and Fauci plotted a “take down” of them. This is not how science operates. Nor is it how public policy should be conducted.

This brings me back to Fauci’s recent congressional testimony.

The fact that Fauci is finally beginning to fess up about the role his policies played in one of the worst disasters in modern history is welcome news. But a two-day closed hearing is not sufficient for something of this magnitude or the allegations facing Fauci, which include an alleged attempt to influence the CIA’s report on the origins of COVID-19.

Fortunately, a public hearing is expected to take place in the coming weeks or months. Let’s hope lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans alike, are prepared to ask important questions.

*****

This article was published by FEE, Foundation for Economic Education, and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

As we move through 2023 and into the next election cycle, The Prickly Pear will resume Take Action recommendations and information.

China Bioengineers Deadlier Coronavirus thumbnail

China Bioengineers Deadlier Coronavirus

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By Family Research Council

Researchers associated with the Chinese military have bioengineered a COVID-related coronavirus (GX_P2V) that “can cause 100% mortality” in lab mice modified with human DNA, according to a “preprint” — a not-yet-reviewed paper — posted online on January 4. The development “is sure to remind many of the Wuhan lab incident,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins warned on “Washington Watch,” as the Chinese research team underscored the “spillover risk of GX_P2V into humans.”

After modifying a coronavirus found in a Malaysian pangolin, researchers were surprised that “all the mice that were infected with the live virus succumbed to the infection within 7-8 days post-inoculation, rendering a mortality rate of 100%.”

The laboratory test was designed and conducted by “researchers from the Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering and the Research Center for Clinical Medicine of the Fifth Medical Center of PLA (the People’s Liberation Army) General Hospital,” according to The New American.

The researchers “detected significant amounts of viral RNA in the brain, lung, turbinate [nose], eye, and trachea [throat],” with a “severe brain infection during the later stages of infection” being the most likely cause of death, in their opinion. By Day Seven, “the mice displayed symptoms such as piloerection, hunched posture, and sluggish movements, and their eyes turned white.”

“It is possible,” they admitted, that the modified coronavirus strain “has undergone a ‘virulence-enhancing mutation.’”

“This paper demonstrates that gain-of-function research on SARS-related viruses continues,” declared Dr. Robert Malone, chief medical and regulatory officer for The Unity Project, who emphasized “the risks of such research” and “the need for robust and verifiable restrictions.”

Rutgers University chemist Richard Ebright observed that “The preprint does not specify the biosafety level and biosafety precautions used for the research.” The absence of this information concerned him that “part or all of this research, like the research in Wuhan in 2016-2019 that likely caused the Covid-19 pandemic, recklessly was performed without the minimal biosafety containment and practices essential for research with a potential pandemic pathogens [sic].”

Malone called the research “alarming” and “deeply troubling” during an appearance on “Washington Watch,” lamenting that Chinese researchers “seem to have learned nothing” after the COVID-19 pandemic likelyoriginated from a lab leak. “This is quite alarming,” Perkins agreed, “given the fact that we know what happened last time.”

“Why would we be doing these types of research, especially given what happened with COVID-19?” Perkins asked.

Researchers rationalize their gain-of-function research with “contrived logic,” Malone responded. “‘Dual function research’ is what it’s technically called because it can be used for weapon purposes or for research and discovery purposes,” he said. Scientists believe that, if they “meddle about with these viruses and demonstrate ways that they can become more lethal, then they can anticipate that happening in nature,” he described.

However, Malone added, “clearly, what we’ve learned over the last four years is that that’s not sufficient to justify the risk to the global population.”

“I would think that, at some place, ethics would come into this,” Perkins responded. “Maybe there might be a remote chance that we … get ahead of [the next pandemic].” But he suggested that possibility seems insignificant “when you weigh the risk with … the fact that people will die if it leaks, like many suspect it did last time.”

Malone responded that, for some researchers, the ethic is a lack of any. “I can’t get into the minds of the people that are doing this,” he said. “But there is an ethic that if things can be done, they should be done. It is rampant in this research environment, in this research culture, that these scientists often believe that they’re the best and the brightest, and they’re entitled to do this.” Perhaps we can call it, “the Fauci Affect.”

Of course, not every virologist is so irresponsible. “It’s a terrible study, scientifically totally pointless,” asserted University College London infectious disease expert Professor Francois Balloux. “I can see nothing of vague interest that could be learned from force-infecting a weird breed of humanized mice with a random virus. Conversely, I could see how such stuff might go wrong.”

It’s relevant to note here that the communist Chinese research team’s study was not entirely devoid of an ethical framework. Their paper even included this “Ethics Statement:”

“All animals involved in this study were housed and cared for in an AAALAC (Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care) accredited facilities. The procedure for animal experiments (IACUC-2019-0027) was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the Fifth Medical Center, General Hospital of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, and complied with IACUC standards.”

They weren’t very concerned about the possibility that their genetically mutated virus will escape the lab and kill millions of human beings. But they were very eager to inform their audience that their mutated lab mice were imprisoned humanely — before they infected them with a disease that caused the subjects to die slow and painful deaths. How comforting to the conscience.

“There needs to be a global ban on this type of research and development activity. It’s clearly not safe, and those that are performing it clearly have few, if any, ethical boundaries,” said Malone. Retired Stanford professor of medicine Dr. Gennadi Glinsky concurred. “This madness must be stopped before [it is] too late.”

One problem is, “we’re talking about the CCP [Chinese Communist Party]. So, their ideas of what is justified are not aligned, let’s say, with classical Western thought,” Malone said wryly. University of Michigan molecular biologist Dr. Christina Parks described the Chinese study as “classic gain-of-function, whether they tell you it is or not.”

As one more exhibit in a fistful of reasons not to trust the Chinse Communist Party, congressional investigators recently learned that Beijing had largely mapped out COVID-19’s genetic sequence two weeks before sharing it with the rest of the world. Dr. Lili Ren of the CCP-affiliated Institute of Pathogen Biology submitted the virus sequence to a U.S.-run genetic database on December 28, 2019; China did not share the virus sequence with the WHO until January 11, 2020. However, the NIH deleted it from the database after Ren failed to respond to questions about technical details. Reading between the lines, we can guess the reason why a scientist in China would suddenly become quiet about information inconvenient to the state.

However, another problem is, our own government is too often complicit in China’s unethical research. For the Chinese Communist Party, who seem to have little to no regard for human life, to engage in such monstrous research is one thing. “But we, as Americans, by and through our government, should be nowhere in the neighborhood,” insisted Perkins. If “we’re funding [gain-of-function research], … we bear responsibility as a nation.” We can’t change the evil nature of the CCP; we can change our participation with it.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) were deeply involved, through an American research consortium called EcoHealth Alliance, in funding research projects at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), including gain-of-function research with coronaviruses similar to Sars-Cov-2, the viral strain which sparked the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), NIH’s parent agency, debarred the WIV in 2023 due to its poor safety practices, but NIH still contract with EcoHealth Alliance, which is currently pursuing research related to Ebola-like viruses and noroviruses.

For Dr. Malone, the only explanation for this behavior was moral, not scientific. “We’re in a post-truth environment,” he said. “We seem to also be in a post-ethical environment for a large segment of our government. It’s driven by other considerations — you know, ‘realpolitik,’ — Henry Kissinger’s world rather than the logic of the United States as the ‘shining city on the hill’ and the ethical beacon for the world.”

For Perkins, Malone’s analysis explained more problems than just some foolish funding on virus research. Rather, it penetrated to the heart of the blight infecting politics across the board. “We live in a post-truth culture,” Perkins reiterated. “I mean, how else can you come up with the failure to recognize what science and biology tells us [about gender]? … [Y]ou talk about ‘deniers.’ These folks are deniers. They’re deniers of truth.” The same theme carries through the intellectual dishonesty recently exposed at the highest levels of academia and the media.

Paul warned his mentee Timothy of a coming time “when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Timothy 4:4). He could have been describing our own time and place.

“We have to stand firm for truth,” said Perkins, “lest our children be carried away in this ungodly culture, this godless culture that is being advanced.”

Meanwhile, global elites have gathered this week in Davos, Switzerland, where World Health Organization (WHO) Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus led a panel on “Preparing for Disease X.” But, instead of suggesting foolish scientists abandon their useless and risky research, WHO is pushing for a global pandemic treaty that would vastly expand their power at the expense of national sovereignty, free speech, and the right to life.

“It’s almost as if the WHO’s working in concert with the CCP,” suggested Perkins. “They’ve got a hand grenade with their finger on the pin saying, ‘Approve this treaty,’ because this [potential deadly virus] is out there.”

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED VIDEO: Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green Holds Hearing on Injuries Caused by Covid-19 Vaccines

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

VIDEO: Tucker Carlson on the Transgender Line of Attack on Civilization and Reality thumbnail

VIDEO: Tucker Carlson on the Transgender Line of Attack on Civilization and Reality

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By Vlad Tepes Blog

This is on someone named, Yen Vy’s YouTube channel so there is no way to know when this was actually broadcast. Rather, there is a way to know but I don’t know when it was broadcast.

Below is our favorite video explaining the nature of the Trans lie.

An explanation of how the trans-issue is a Marxist dialectic attack

Yeah, it’s the usual suspects. If a bunch of us were to sit around a table at a restaurant with a few drinks and a meal and take our time, several hours, and the only topic of discussion was, ‘what would be the most outrageous lie we could foist on the public’, it would have to be that a man who claimed he was a woman, was in fact a real woman.

EDITORS NOTE: This Vlad Tepes Blog column with videos posted by Eeyore is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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