Ten (10) Ways Science is Being Attacked thumbnail

Ten (10) Ways Science is Being Attacked

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By John Droz, Jr.

There are more, but this is the condensed version…

Our modern society is 100% based on Science. Without Science, we would revert to Neanderthal (cave-man) status (i.e., lower than third-world country levels).

By and large, the public is unaware that Science has been under an intense assault for several decades now. Citizens are uninformed as the anti-Science agents are subtle in their attacks: they never come out and say that they are trying to undermine Science, they just do it. Further, the Mainstream Media is complicit with their campaign.

A good example is the K-12 Next Generation Science Standards now adopted in 49 states. It says “Next Generation” so what’s the problem? There are many — like the fact that they have scrapped the traditional Scientific Method! I’ve spelled out ten (10) problems with the NGSS in my Report: The Key to Fixing the US K-12 Education System.

A primary driver behind the assault on Science is that many environmental activists want to kill our modern society and revert to an agrarian version (think Bill McKibben). What they are effectively advocating is an idealized society that would be something like the 1800s — live in the country, with an outhouse, cow, chickens, and a few acres to grow vegetables. A horse would provide transportation.

Any practical person would see that such aspirations are fairy dust — but that is (in effect) what the result of a true “Net Zero” policy would be. Oh, and two hundred million plus American citizens would have to be “eliminated” in the process. This is exactly what happens when we substitute political science for real Science.

Put another way, these people hate Science, as it has made what we have today (modernity) possible. Some other reasons they want to kill Science are:

a) They are anti-American. We cannot maintain our lifestyle, or our position of world leadership, without many more competent STEM professionals. Globalists are working here to undermine the competency part, and thus America’s leadership.

b) They want nonsensical policies. Science is a gatekeeper that exposes when political policies on technical matters (COVID, climate, energy, etc.) are nonsense. When Science is diluted, the protection it offers to our country and its citizens is severely diminished.

c) They want citizens to support their nonsensical policies. Citizens need a Science background to be able to intelligently appreciate and apply to their own life, today’s complex technical issues.Regressives do not want Science-educated citizens making informed decisions.

d) Studentsneed some Science background to be able to better understand (and effectively use), the many technical gadgets that have become an integral part of our modern daily life. The Left prefers that students focus on superficial things like social media.

e) Yet another liability of our time, is that more children (minors) are being given the authority to make major medical decisions. I’m opposed to that, but it follows that the more genuine Science education they have received, the better off they will be in deciding about potentially life-changing health matters.

f) Real Science involves polite, open-minded debate about problem-solving. Students need to be taught how to constructively discuss differences of opinion. The Woke mentality disdains discussion and debate.

g) In addition to the K-12 educational basics (3 R’s), we need graduates to be Critically Thinking, problem-solvers. Science is the most appropriate subject area to teach both Critical Thinking and problem-solving. Education opponents are aggressively working to cut those off at the pass

HOW are they assaulting Science? In my well-attended 2012 Congressional talks (sponsored by the House Science and Technology Committee), I discussed fifteen (15) ways Science is being attacked. To keep this condensed, here are ten (10) of them:

  1. Using Consensus to imply Correctness
  2. Using Peer Review to imply Accuracy
  3. Using Scientists to imply Scientificness
  4. Using Computer Models to imply Reality
  5. Using Correlation to imply Causality
  6. Using Selective Data to imply Actuality
  7. Using Precautionary Principle to imply Reasonableness
  8. Using Engineering to Replace Science
  9. Misusing words, like “Theory”
  10. Adjusting the Raw Data, to Support Political or Economic Agendas…

If you prefer soundbites, what is going on here is that the Left is taking advantage of the fact that most citizens are technically challenged, so they are trying to substitute political science for real Science, and are counting on most people not noticing.

Again, all this and more is explained in my Report: The Key to Fixing the US K-12 Education System. For those in a hurry, just read five pages, starting on Page 3.

Currently, 49 States have gone off the rails regarding their K-12 Science Standards! Unless we fix this — quickly — our future will be severely compromised.

Here are other materials by this scientist that you might find interesting:

Check out the Archives of this Critical Thinking substack.

WiseEnergy.org: discusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.

C19Science.info: covers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.

Election-Integrity.info: multiple major reports on the election integrity issue.

Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2023 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time – but why would you?

The U.S. Navy faces a new crisis: Years of delays expected for new warships thumbnail

The U.S. Navy faces a new crisis: Years of delays expected for new warships

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By Center For Security Policy

The U.S. Navy’s ambitious shipbuilding projects, including the Constellation-class frigates, Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers, and Virginia Block V submarines, are facing significant delays.

These setbacks, highlighted in a Navy review ordered by Secretary Carlos Del Toro, stem from supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, and budget constraints.

Notably, the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines, critical to America’s nuclear deterrent, are delayed by over a year due to issues like tardy deliveries of essential components and challenges in workforce recruitment at key shipyards. Such delays could compromise the readiness and effectiveness of the Navy’s future fleet.

Delays in Ship Delivery Threaten U.S. Navy’s Future Fleet Capabilities

The U.S. Navy’s highly anticipated shipbuilding projects all face years-long delays. The upcoming Constellation class of frigates, the next Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier, and the latest Virginia Block V submarines are just some of the vessels impacted by these delays, according to a review ordered earlier this year by Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro.

The report concluded that a range of shortfalls are contributing to the delays, including supply chain issues, labor shortages, and budgetary constraints.

The Columbia-Class SSBN

Designed to replace the Navy’s Ohio class, the Columbia class of ballistic missile submarines will uphold America’s sea-based nuclear deterrent. But the Navy expects the lead ship of the new class, the USS District of Columbia (SSBN-826), to arrive more than one year later than planned.

Manufacturers General Dynamics and Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) were tasked with constructing the 12-boat class for approximately $130 billion.

As part of the development phase, HII is charged with building what it calls super modules, fitted with specific systems and connections, before shipping these parts to General Dynamics for final assembly. However, according to reports, HII is 13 months behind schedule. To make matters worse, the turbine generators Northrop Grumman is building for the class are not projected to be delivered until 2025.

Constellation-Class Frigates

The Navy’s new Constellation-class guided-missile frigates will conduct air warfare, surface warfare, electronic warfare, anti-submarine warfare and information operations. These are critical capabilities, but the ships are falling behind schedule, with the lead ship of the class expected to be delivered at least one year later than expected.

According to reports, Fincantieri’s Marinette Marine shipyard has undertaken its own review to determine the extent of the issues. The manufacturer’s program executive officer for unmanned and small combatants revealed that the shipyard is having trouble hiring enough welders.

These new warships are based on the Italian FREMM multi-mission frigate, and they are currently sitting at 80% design completion.

Virginia-Class Block V Submarines

The latest Virginia-class iteration will be one of the best underwater vessels in the world once introduced.  These highly sophisticated submarines will feature the Virginia Payload Module, equipping the Block V SSNs for seabed warfare operations.

Additionally, the class’ extended mid-body section will store extra Tomahawk cruise missiles and other munitions, increasing the ships’ payload substantially. But the Block V variants are looking at a nearly three-year delay.

All of the Navy’s next-generation projects are important, and frequent delays in production jeopardize the prowess of the fleet.

Originally published by The National Interest

AUTHOR

Maya Carlin

Maya Carlin is an analyst at the Center for Security Policy, located in Washington D.C. She also has a M.A. in Counter-Terrorism and Homeland Security from IDC Herzliya’s Lauder School of Government in Israel.

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We saw road & airport blockades last week, & encampments on colleges this week. Why? Bcuz in Civil Resistance methodology you want to continuously change up your tactics to keep opponents off balance. Ivan Marovic in “Path of Most Resistance” calls this “Tactical Sequencing.”

— Kyle Shideler (@ShidelerK) April 22, 2024

EDITORS NOTE: This Center for Security Policy column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Despite Police Pushback, Biden Presses On With Visit To Syracuse After Two Cops Were Just Slain thumbnail

Despite Police Pushback, Biden Presses On With Visit To Syracuse After Two Cops Were Just Slain

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By The Daily Caller

President Joe Biden is pressing on with his scheduled trip to Syracuse, New York, despite pushback from law enforcement who are grieving the loss of fellow officers in the line of duty.

Biden is set to travel to the city on Thursday to promote the CHIPS and Science Act and announce a grant delivered by the legislation, according to CNY Central News. The president opted not to delay the trip following the loss Syracuse Police Officer Michael Jensen and Onondaga County Lt. Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Hoosock in the line of duty on April 14 during a shootout.

Because officers are still grieving the loss, local law enforcement expressed worry to the White House over the timing of the trip, Jeff Moran, the president of the Syracuse Police Benevolent Association, the union representing the city’s officers, told the Daily Caller.

“The department expressed their concerns to the Biden administration regarding his visit, and the quick turnaround of a Syracuse police officer being buried and an Onondaga County Sheriff’s deputy being buried, and then the manpower that it would take and everything that our members have been through in the past week. Those concerns were expressed to the Biden administration and the Biden administration elected to move forward with the visit,” Moran told the Daily Caller.

FU COPS: Biden White House rejects law enforcement requests to delay campaign trip to Syracuse, will come Thursday as planned. Agencies asked for time to mourn and recover after a Syracuse officer and a sheriff’s lieutenant were murdered. Biden Administration refused.

— Bob Lonsberry (@BobLonsberry) April 22, 2024

The Syracuse Police Department told the Daily Caller that while they never asked for the White House to postpone the trip, they did express concerns about their ability to handle the president’s visit amid the loss of two officers.

‘The Syracuse Police Department did not request that President Biden postpone his visit to Syracuse. We did, however, in early conversations with the Secret Service, express our concern about SPD’s capacity to adequately cover this detail, as we were grieving the loss of two fallen officers—Syracuse Police Officer Michael Jensen and Onondaga County Sheriff Deputy Lt. Michael Hoosock—and planning their services,” Syracuse Police Department Chief Joseph Cecile told the Daily Caller in a statement.

Local law enforcement officials had told CNY Central News that they hoped the trip would be delayed in order to give them time to grieve and recover from the loss of their officers. The officers told the outlet that they had not had time to mourn the loss while also having to plan the funerals for the fallen officers.

Republican New York Rep. Brandon Williams expressed his concerns to the president about the trip on Monday in a letter obtained by the Daily Caller.

“In light of these tragic events, we are hearing from local law enforcement officers that personnel are still recovering from this tragedy and grieving their fallen brothers. I echo their request that you postpone this week’s speaking engagement in Central New York,” Williams wrote.

“I would be happy to join you in announcing this critical funding at a later date—it is worth celebrating. Mr. President, I ask you to heed the calls of local law enforcement and postpone it to a later date,” he continued.

The courageous men and women of @SyracusePolice and the Onondaga Sheriff’s office should not be burdened by the President’s visit after last Sunday’s tragedy.

I fully support our law enforcement, and stand with them in opposition to this misguided and cruel move by the Biden… https://t.co/BjkVgOT8ez

— Rep. Claudia Tenney (@RepTenney) April 20, 2024

Several New York congresswomen echoed Williams’ sentiments in Monday tweets.

“I stand with our local Police officers in asking Joe Biden to postpone his poorly timed visit to Upstate New York in the best interest of our brave and hardworking law enforcement officers who are already facing additional strains following the death of two beloved officers only days ago. Our Upstate New York law enforcement deserves our full support from every level of government,” Republican New York Rep. Elise Stefanik tweeted.

“The courageous men and women of [Syracuse Police] and the Onondaga Sheriff’s office should not be burdened by the President’s visit after last Sunday’s tragedy. I fully support our law enforcement, and stand with them in opposition to this misguided and cruel move by the Biden Administration,” Republican New York Rep. Claudia Tenney said in a tweet.

Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh’s office told the Daily Caller that they did not make a request to the White House to delay the trip, though he did ask Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to provide the state’s police force to assist with the visit, and the request was granted.

“President Biden will travel to Syracuse, New York to discuss how the CHIPS and Science Act and his Investing in America agenda are creating jobs and opportunity in communities across the country,” an administration official told the Daily Caller.

Moran expressed concern over the amount of police presence the president’s trip will require and the strain it will put on the grieving officers.

“We’ll have to wait to see how many volunteers actually sign up for the detail but at this point in time, we still have members out on administrative leave because of the critical incident and our protocol,” Moran told the Daily Caller. “I just, I can’t emphasize enough, I mean, we’re crushed. We’re heartbroken. The result of the loss of Officer retention. And now we’re being told that we have to fill President Biden’s detail.”

AUTHOR

REAGAN REESE

White House correspondent.

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden To Visit NYC For Record-Shattering Celeb Fundraiser Same Day Trump Honors Fallen Cop

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

Military Could Hit Troops With Courts-Martial For Refusing To Use Preferred Pronouns, Experts Say thumbnail

Military Could Hit Troops With Courts-Martial For Refusing To Use Preferred Pronouns, Experts Say

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By The Daily Caller

The military could seek to formally punish service members for refusing to use another service member’s preferred pronouns under existing policy, according to military experts.

A 2020 Equal Opportunity law opened the door for commanders to subject someone who refuses to affirm a transgender servicemember’s so-called gender identity to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) for charges related to harassment, Capt. Thomas Wheatley, an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Such a move would likely infringe on a servicemember’s constitutional rights to uphold their conscience, but it might not prevent leaders from employing more subtle ways of disciplining service members.

Military experts told the DCNF Congress should step in before it’s too late.

The military “is right to want to protect the rights and welfare of its transgender service members. But it owes the same protection to those who share a different perspective on the issue, especially when that perspective is a deep-seated expression of personal conscience,” Wheatley told the DCNF.

None of the military’s rules explicitly prohibit so-called “misgendering,” when someone uses pronouns to describe a transgender person which do not correspond to the person’s new gender identity, Wheatley explained. However, existing guidance implies that using pronouns rejected by another person violates Military Equal Opportunity (MEO) regulations against sex-based harassment and discrimination.

The UCMJ enforces those regulations.

Service members could conceivably be court-martialed for “refusing to use another person’s self-identified pronouns, even when their refusal stems from principled religious conviction,” Wheatley told the DCNF. “This law applies to service members at all times and in all locations, even when they’re off duty and in the privacy of their off-post residence.”

The UCMJ also prohibits “conduct unbecoming of an officer” under Article 133 and activity that could be seen to discredit the military institution under Article 134 — the same article the military uses to prosecute child pornographers and other acts of sexual deviance, he explained.

“Is it now ‘unbecoming’ and incompatible with service as a commissioned officer to openly hold sincere religious convictions surrounding the act of creation and the nature of human sex?” Wheatley asked.

Wheatley said his interest in the issue was sparked four years ago, when the Army updated its MEO policy stating “violations of MEO and Harassment Prevention and Response policies may result in disciplinary action under the UCMJ.”

The possibility of levying a criminal trial on a servicemember for perceived harassment if that person “misgendered” another service member troubled Wheatley, he said. The Supreme Court had just ruled on Bostock v. Clayton County in favor of the gay and transgender plaintiffs alleging their employers fired them on the basis of their self-described sexual orientation, or gender identity. Conservative justices warned the case could have far-reaching consequences for organizations operating based on religious belief and free exercise of religion in the workplace.

“I knew, given the cultural gap between the civilian world and the military, the issue would be overlooked as it concerned service members. So, I got to work,” he told the DCNF.

In a peer reviewed article recently published in the Texas Review of Law and Politics, Wheatley argued that, despite the existing EO policy, Articles 133 and 134 of the UCMJ are not strong enough to prosecute troops for spurning another’s preferred pronouns.

Under a legal doctrine that “obligates military courts to avoid interpreting the UCMJ in a way that brings it into conflict with the Constitution if possible, that would normally be the end of the analysis,” he wrote. But, the national security imperatives inbuilt with military service often justify curtailing a servicemember’s constitutional rights — for example, the UCMJ’s Article 134 “indecent language.”

Wheatley countered in the article that the military’s special mission can inform judicial analysis but does not require a separate standard.

“A court that applies a standard lower than strict scrutiny would be placing not just a thumb on the scale in the government’s favor, but an anvil — one which virtually guarantees victory for the government in every case where a service member asserts his or her First Amendment rights,” he wrote. It would be “tough” for the military to prove it had a strong enough mission-related argument to mandate gender-pronoun usage.

Arguments that might be considered, such as preserving harmony within military units and safeguarding transgender troops’ emotional and psychological well-being, are certainly important, he wrote. But the former relies too heavily on the vicissitudes of individual interpretation to survive judicial review, while the latter does not take into account the health of the servicemember seeking to live out their religious convictions.

“Preserving unit cohesion and safeguarding the mental and emotional health of transgender service members, though compelling government interests, do not justify the sweeping prior restraints on speech,” made possible in the Army policy, Wheatley wrote.

Previous case law shows that even in military contexts, the standard for what may be prohibited compelled speech is strong, he found.

Looking at previous cases of public employment law governing speech, where free speech has been more frequently challenged than in military-specific case law, he likewise found no strong case for mandating pronoun use.

“The use of one pronoun over another reflects the speaker’s private views on human sex and gender” and isn’t conditioned on the person’s employment, Wheatley argued.

The Pentagon referred the DCNF to the services, which did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.

This Lieutenant Colonel is in charge of acquisitions for the U.S. Space Force.

Lt. Col. Bree Fram is in charge of developing, designing and acquiring space craft.

“I have people staring at me and basically asking, ‘Are You Real’?” pic.twitter.com/LXJgBkHYnp

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) April 12, 2024

Wheatley’s research highlights ongoing concerns about the military’s respect for matters of conscience.

Pentagon leaders have pushed diversity and inclusion as an indispensable component of warfighting effectiveness. Opponents say the focus focus on race, gender and sexual identity has distracted the military from more important issues and unfairly privileged minorities. DEI priorities have now overtaken matters of conscience in multiple domains. 

In lawsuits over the slow-rolling of religious waivers to the COVID-19 vaccine, for example, victims argued the services issued blanket denials rather than considering each request individually, as they are legally required to do.

Defense Department documents, including the 2022 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Strategic Plan, discuss the freedom to “speak candidly” about issues as a “readiness imperative,” ensuring troops feel included as part of a whole.

“The military policy and legal infrastructure clearly exist to wage war on Americans with deeply-held traditional beliefs about man and woman,” William Thibeau, director of the Claremont Institute’s American Military Project, told the DCNF. Wheatley’s article “should be a red flag to policy makers and elected officials to end this tyranny of liberalism before it is formally levied against American Soldiers preferring to live in reality.”

Experts were not aware of any incidents where a branch of the armed services had attempted to use the UCMJ to punish a servicemember for refusing preferred pronouns.

Commanders do have a wide berth to discipline servicemembers in ways that do not involve a criminal trial but can still have serious implications for a servicemember’s career, possibly including separation from the military under less than honorable circumstances, Wheatley said. Such measures resolve more quickly, have a lower burden of proof than “are almost always shielded from public scrutiny.”

Instead of leaving it to chance, Congress could force the military to establish a servicemember’s “unqualified” right to use pronouns consistent with their religious convictions, a one-pager provided by Claremont suggested. The experts advocated stronger measures too, including decriminalizing unspecified MEO violations and to narrow its scope so that it only applies to activities a servicemember performs while on normal duty hours or contributing to an official military mission.

Congress should develop a public record of incidents in the military where religious freedom is seen to come under threat, the document stated.

Claremont suggested the military conduct regular training on the importance of religious freedom throughout the armed forces and study ways to strengthen protections on service members’ religious expression.

Wheatley also said service chiefs could consider demands for a service member to speak in violation of his or her religious convictions as harassment.

AUTHOR

MICAELA BURROW

Investigative reporter, defense.

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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.

DAVID BLACKMON: Having Biden Declare A Climate Emergency Is A Crazy Idea thumbnail

DAVID BLACKMON: Having Biden Declare A Climate Emergency Is A Crazy Idea

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By The Daily Caller

I recorded a podcast this week in which the host told me I am an “outlier” for being willing to write the truth about the destructive nature of the Biden administration’s energy policies. It was one of the kindest things anyone has ever said to me, frankly.

So, I guess I will be an outlier again when I write that the idea being considered again by White House officials of having President Biden declare a climate emergency so he can implement a draconian crackdown on the domestic oil and gas industry is frankly crazy. That’s the truth.

Bloomberg reported Thursday that unnamed officials inside the White House said the idea of declaring a climate emergency, first considered in 2021 and again in 2022, is once again under consideration. The only “emergency,” of course, is the president’s flagging approval ratings among impressionable young voters that threaten to derail his re-election chances. Declaring a climate emergency would arm the president with dictatorial powers to hamstring the domestic industry more than his regulators and hundreds of executive orders have already managed to do.

According to Bloomberg’s sources, actions being considered would include suspending offshore drilling, restricting exports of oil and LNG, and “throttling” the industry’s ability to transport its production via pipelines and rail. Given the industry’s crucial nature, it all sounds like a recipe for massive economic disaster.

“The average American is certainly not demanding a climate emergency declaration. It’s the losing team of left-wing Democrat activists and the shrinking base of elites who are,” U.S. Oil and Gas Association President Tim Stewart told me in an interview. “It’s not about climate, it’s about control: Control over the entire U.S. economy, control of production, manufacturing, distribution, and consumption. If you control energy, you control all these things. Which means you have control of the people.”

Stewart notes that the use of emergency powers in this instance would represent the same playbook used by federal, state, and local governments to restrict citizens’ freedoms and choices during COVID pandemic. But for the president, it would also be a means of shoring up support among the billionaire class that funds both the climate alarmist movement and so many Democrat Party campaigns, including his own campaign for re-election.

That angle was echoed by Tom Pyle, president of the D.C.-based think tank, the Institute for Energy Research. “By now, we have gotten used to incredibly damaging and stupid decisions from the Biden administration, but the idea of declaring a ‘climate emergency’ is in a class by itself,” Pyle told me. “Like the freeze on new LNG permits, the only emergency President Biden is seeking to address with this latest threat is his slippage in the polls among young voters.”

Others with whom I spoke on the matter were skeptical that the White House would really take such an extreme step in the middle of a re-election effort, but that outlook seems naïve, really. After all, who would have predicted last December that the administration would halt all permitting of new LNG export facilities purely for political reasons? Who would have predicted in late 2021 that the president would order the draining of 40% of the nation’s wartime Strategic Petroleum Reserve for no reason other than a pure political calculation designed to try to influence the 2022 midterm election?

Anyone thinking such a move would be made out of a real, good faith effort to somehow impact climate change needs to consider this: Demand for oil and natural gas is a global phenomenon that will not be reduced just because Biden cracks down on the U.S. domestic industry. Such a crackdown would inevitably create the flight of billions of dollars in capital to other parts of the world where environmental regulations are far less stringent than in the United States.

The climate alarmists advocating for this crazy policy action like to ignore the reality that the Earth has only one atmosphere which everyone shares. The U.S. oil and gas industry has dramatically cut emissions of both methane and CO2 even as it has achieved new records in production. No other nation on Earth can make a similar claim.

This is indeed a crazy idea, but it would be a mistake to assume it is not being seriously considered, and for all the wrong reasons.

AUTHOR

DAVID BLACKMON

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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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.

Texas Border Operation Captures Half a Million Illegal Immigrants, Thousands of Felons thumbnail

Texas Border Operation Captures Half a Million Illegal Immigrants, Thousands of Felons

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By Judicial Watch

The Biden administration’s failure to secure the Mexican border forced Texas officials to establish a security initiative that has endured heavy criticism from Democrats and the media despite its success in apprehending hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants—including thousands of criminals—and seizing millions of lethal doses of fentanyl. It is known as Operation Lone Star, and it was launched by Governor Greg Abbott in March 2021 as the illegal immigration crisis gripped his border state. Under the program, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the Texas National Guard pick up the slack for the federal government, which is charged with protecting the famously porous southern border but has failed miserably to do so. Operation Lone Star works to stop the smuggling of drugs, weapons and people into Texas, and interdict transnational criminal activity between ports of entry.

This month the state published an update on the security initiative’s work. Since it was put into place, over 507,200 illegal immigrants have been captured and more than 41,500 criminal arrests have been made with more than 36,900 felony charges filed. Additionally, Texas officials have transported over 100,000 illegal aliens to sanctuary cities throughout the country that openly welcome and protect migrants. New York received the largest chunk—42,000—of relocated migrants caught entering Texas illegally, followed by Chicago (34,400), Denver (18,000), Washington D.C. (12,500), Philadelphia (3,400) and Los Angeles (1,500). “Operation Lone Star continues to fill the dangerous gaps created by the Biden Administration’s refusal to secure the border,” reads the statement announcing the latest figures. “Every individual who is apprehended or arrested and every ounce of drugs seized would have otherwise made their way into communities across Texas and the nation due to President Joe Biden’s open border policies.”

Among the examples offered in the latest update is the arrest of an illegal immigrant from Mexico by the DPS after a brush team working the Rio Grande Valley saw the man get picked up by a human smuggler while crossing the Rio Grande River on a jet ski. After vetting the migrant, Gabriel Gutierrez-Perez, the law enforcement agency found that he was wanted in Florida for sexual assault on a child, sexual battery on a child and child molestation. In another case a DPS trooper busted a smuggling operation during a traffic stop after observing two passengers, illegal immigrants, attempting to conceal themselves in the rear of the vehicle. Two more migrants were in the car’s trunk and the driver was arrested and charged with smuggling of persons. All four were Mexican nationals. During a separate traffic stop a DPS trooper noticed multiple people crammed in the rear of a large sports utility vehicle. It turns out five illegal immigrants were smuggled in the vehicle and the driver and passenger were both charged with smuggling of persons. The passenger was also charged with evading arrest and resisting arrest.

Texas is not the only state to take matters into its own hands in the absence of federal immigration enforcement. A handful of others, such as Arizona, Montana, and North Dakota, have enacted measures to help mitigate the mess caused by the president’s open border policies, though Texas has been the most proactive and its initiative has had the biggest impact. As we delve deeper into the Biden presidency, the situation is only getting worse, leaving local governments on their own to deal with national security threats, elevated crime, and other detrimental impacts of lawlessness along the southern border. In fiscal year 2021 a then record-setting 1.73 million illegal aliens entered the country through Mexico only to be topped the following year with 2.4 million. In fiscal year 2023 a ghastly 2.48 million illegal aliens entered the U.S through Mexico and, unbelievably, 2024 is on track to surpass that. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) records recently published in a congressional report show that the agency recorded 256,094 encounters nationwide in February alone, accounting for the worst February for illegal immigration in decades.

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

MARC MORANO: Biden May Declare ‘Dictatorial U.S. Climate Emergency’ Bypassing U.S. The Constitution thumbnail

MARC MORANO: Biden May Declare ‘Dictatorial U.S. Climate Emergency’ Bypassing U.S. The Constitution

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By Marc Morano

Morano on Fox talks Biden’s access to ‘COVID-like powers’ if he declares a national ‘Climate Emergency’ – ‘Dictatorial Powers’

Fox Business – The Bottom Line w/ Dagen McDowell & Sean Duffy – Broadcast April 19, 2024

Sean Duffy: The White House told Fox Business that it is now considering declaring a national ‘climate emergency.’ If the President declares a climbing emergency, what impact would that have?

Marc Morano: This is the serious story of the day. NBC News has reported that if Joe Biden declared a national climate emergency, he would have COVID-like powers under that emergency and NBC also compared the climate emergency powers to the 911 emergency powers. The Center for Biological Diversity has estimated Joe Biden would get about 130 wartime-like powers by which to bypass democracy and impose the Green New Deal on America without a single vote of Congress. This is truly a  Halloween story, not a story for Earth Day. This is a truly frightening story, and he might just be desperate enough to declare it.

This is being widely reported in the media. The Biden White House is leaking this out. This might happen, and it is going to give Joe Biden these kind — you want to say the words dictatorial powers. He doesn’t need no stinking democracy to impose the Green New Deal if he does this.

Fox Business – The Bottom Line w/ Dagen McDowell & Sean Duffy – Broadcast April 19, 2024 – White House weighs declaring a national climate emergency: Climate Depot executive editor Marc Morano reacts to President Biden reportedly planning to block millions of acres in Alaska from oil and gas drilling on ‘The Bottom Line.’

Sean Duffy: Here now reaction, ClimateDepot.com, executive editor Marc Morano. Marc, good to see you so. As we talk about Joe Biden taking millions of acres out of exploration in Alaska. …

Marc Morano: They are doing everything possible to make our country more expensive to live in, disrupt supply chains, create inflation, harm economic growth, and impact our national security. In addition to just the obvious oil and gas drilling limits, this affects a copper mine access road that would have helped us directly compete with China, which has record copper production and is now a top-three country in the world with its copper Mining. The Republic of Congo is number four, which China largely dominates. And the Biden administration’s going after the rare Earth mining, oil, gas, at the same time, they’re claiming it’s all for the climate. The climate’s not going to notice one bit, but this is going to hammer Americans. I can’t imagine, other than cheap politics for their environmental base, why they thought this was a good idea six months before the presidential election. …

Dagen McDowell: Do these dumb asses know that an oil derrick here is the same as an oil derrick over there when it comes to well emissions and the climate because? It’s called global warming, not national warming, you deep dongs.

Marc Morano: Well, it’s even worse than that because if we’re outsourcing now to these other nations in the Middle East or Venezuela, the Biden administrations beg them for more oil, and whether it’s the Mining from China, they have lower environmental standards, lower human rights, so it’s actually not only are. We are outsourcing our emissions to virtue signal and say we meet our climate goals. Instead, we’re actually raising global emissions, much higher than they would have been had we done the energy production here in the United States — It takes half a million pounds of materials to make one 1000 pound EV battery. By shutting down oil and gas and shutting down this exploration of copper in Alaska, we just made energy a lot more expensive and made the U.S. much more reliant on China. Donald Trump’s 2000 2012 tweet about climate change benefiting China comes true every single day.

Sean Duffy: The White House told Fox Business that it is now considering declaring a national ‘climate emergency.’ If the President declares a climbing emergency, what impact would that have?

Marc Morano: This is the serious story of the day. NBC News has reported that if Joe Biden declared a national climate emergency, he would have COVID-like powers under that emergency and NBC also compared the climate emergency powers to the 911 emergency powers. The Center for Biological Diversity has estimated Joe Biden would get about 130 wartime-like powers by which to bypass democracy and impose the Green New Deal on America without a single vote of Congress. This is truly a  Halloween story, not a story for Earth Day. This is a truly frightening story, and he might just be desperate enough to declare it.

This is being widely reported in the media. The Biden White House is leaking this out. This might happen, and it is going to give Joe Biden these kind — you want to say the words dictatorial powers. He doesn’t need no stinking democracy to impose the Green New Deal if he does this.

Dagen McDowell: Marc Morano, thank you so much.

End transcript

Background: 

April 17, 2024: Bloomberg News: White House Renews Internal Talks on Invoking ‘Climate Emergency’ Before 2024 Election – ‘Could be used to halt exports, drilling’

2023: Watch: NBC News: ‘Biden urged to declare climate change a national emergency’ – ‘Can unlock special powers for a president in a crisis without needing approval from Congress’ – Similar to COVID & 9/11 Emergency Powers
Hallie Jackson of NBC – Aug. 22, 2023: “So what would that even do? Declaring an emergency can unlock special powers for a president in a crisis without needing approval from Congress, thanks to a law passed nearly 50 years ago. Since then, every President has declared at least one emergency during their time in office. Former President Trump for example, signing one in the pandemic. Former President George W. Bush declaring one after 911.”

2022: What it would mean for Biden to declare a national ‘climate emergency’ – ‘Triggers ability for him to deploy around 130 different powers’ – Center for Biological Diversity

Watch: The Weather Channel demands to know why Biden hasn’t declared a ‘climate emergency’ – Presses White House Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi

If Biden declares a ‘Climate Emergency,’ he would seize 130 new powers – Seeks repeat of COVID-style lockdowns with bypassing of democracy – Morano Responds

2023: LA TIMES EDITORIAL: Biden says he’s ‘practically’ declared a climate emergency. – ‘He should’ do it for real – ‘With GOP-controlled House blocking climate action, the country needs the executive branch to respond more aggressively’

August 27, 2023

Biden Admin Announces Massive Restrictions On Alaskan Oil Reserve And Hampers Key Mining Project In One Fell Swoop – The Department of the Interior (DOI) finalized a plan that will restrict future oil leasing and development on about half of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), an area in the state’s north approximately the size of Indiana first designated by former President Warren Harding as an emergency source of fuel for the U.S. Navy, according to Bloomberg News. The DOI also moved to all but shoot down the Ambler Access Project, a previously-approved proposal for a mining company to build a 211-mile long road needed to mine copper reserves potentially worth billions of dollars.

Copyright © 2024 Climate Depot, All rights reserved. .

Hatred of Trump Is Rooted In Contempt For Ordinary Voters thumbnail

Hatred of Trump Is Rooted In Contempt For Ordinary Voters

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By The Geller Report

Trump is our proxy. Everything thrown at Trump is thrown at us. If they can destroy Trump, what shot does any of us have?

“Far from the bully, Trump is the champion of those who have been bullied relentlessly and mercilessly by a self-appointed elite who holds them in contempt. In Trump, they have found a modern George Bailey….”

By: Louis Markos, The Federalist, April 22, 2024

In Trump, his supporters hear a spirited defense of the hard-working despised and a fearless denouncing of the fashionable despisers.

A complaint I hear increasingly leveled at contemporary American politicians is that they are out of touch with voters, if not downright contemptuous of them. On a number of core issues, politicians seem less concerned with pursuing policies that are deeply unpopular with ordinary Americans than with upholding the ideologies and self-interests of the ruling elite. Two dramatic examples of this political disconnect with average citizens are the refusal of urban governments to prosecute violent criminals, which has caused a surge in crime, and the White House’s tolerance of mass immigration, which threatens jobs, security, and the rule of law.

As I survey the current political and intellectual landscape, I cannot help but see a resurgence of the arrogance and disdain of the 18th-century French revolutionaries for those they considered to be incapable of rational thought and moral behavior. But I am moving too fast. Let me slow down and give some historical background.

In The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenments (2004), Gertrude Himmelfarb distinguishes, convincingly, between the French philosophes, who championed reason; the American Founding Fathers, who concentrated on liberty; and the British moral philosophers, who emphasized human nature, benevolence, and our shared, internal moral sense.

While the English reformers showed compassion for the poor and uneducated and treated them as members of the same human race, and the American framers sought to ensure freedom for all classes, most of the French intellectuals looked down on the peasants, dismissing them as bestial and irrational, filled to the brim with the prejudices and superstitions of the Catholic Church. To the philosophes, the common people were neither honorable nor moral, but ignorant and unteachable, enthralled by religion and profoundly non-progressive. They were not citizens but the rabble. Even Rousseau, who extended some sympathy to the masses of the countryside, felt they needed to be guided by those who were enlightened to adopt the “general will.”

“In his article on the Encyclopédie,” Himmelfarb writes, “Diderot made it clear that the common people had no part in the ‘philosophical age’ celebrated in this enterprise. ‘The general mass of men are not so made that they can either promote or understand this forward march of the human spirit.’ In another article, ‘Multitude,’ he was more dismissive, indeed contemptuous, of the masses. ‘Distrust the judgment of the multitude in matters of reasoning and philosophy; its voice is that of wickedness, stupidity, inhumanity, unreason, and prejudice. … The multitude is ignorant and stupefied. … Distrust it in matters of morality; it is not capable of strong and generous actions … heroism is practically folly in its eyes.’”

As a citizen in a representative democracy, I expect our political leaders, including Donald Trump, to be held up to public scrutiny and questioned, even investigated, when the facts warrant it. What I do not expect, and find increasingly troubling, is the widespread and ongoing demonization and character assassination of all those who support Trump and approve of his candidacy and his policies.

I am old enough to remember how roughly the political establishment treated supporters of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, especially if they identified with a conservative branch of Christianity. Reagan and Bush supporters routinely had their concerns ridiculed, motives suspected, and intelligence doubted. Still, the dismissal of Reaganites and Bushies as boobs and rednecks pales in comparison to the viciously sanctimonious profiling of Trump supporters as authoritarian, narcissistic white supremacists utterly unconcerned for the common good.

Whereas the liberal progressives of the 1980s expressed some compassion for the needs and struggles of the working man, the woke philosophes of today express only contempt for those who work with their hands. While carrying on the oppressor/oppressed identity politics of Karl Marx and his heirs, they have reduced America’s blue-collar proletariat to a racist, sexist, transphobic rabble who must be suppressed, managed, and reeducated.

Convinced, as the philosophes were, of the “wickedness, stupidity, inhumanity, unreason, and prejudice” of the rabble, today’s progressive philosophical, political, and social engineers have appointed themselves the task of redefining for the masses what it ought to mean “to be a man, a citizen, a subject, a father, a child, and when it is suitable to live or to die.”

The ironic difference between the philosophes of the past and the progressives of the present is that the latter have jettisoned reason altogether in their anti-scientific embrace of transgenderism and other uprootings of natural law. The superiority they claim over the masses is not, like that of Diderot, based on their more refined power of reason. On the contrary, their claims of superiority rest on the dubious ground of rejecting truth, logic, and reason as the product of white, patriarchal, heterosexual, and cisgender minds.

No wonder the majority of working men and women in America look to Trump as their advocate. He not only defends their traditional family values, common sense, and God-given humanity. His seems to be the only voice in Washington speaking up for, or even understanding, the joys and woes, hopes and fears, victories and struggles of that “rabble” that the political establishment, on both the left and right, seems only to dismiss, disparage, and despise.

Read the whole thing here.

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

‘Too Little, Too Late’: Congress’ $60 Billion Aid Package Won’t Get Ukraine Off The Ropes, Experts Say thumbnail

‘Too Little, Too Late’: Congress’ $60 Billion Aid Package Won’t Get Ukraine Off The Ropes, Experts Say

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By The Daily Caller

Congress’ new $60 billion aid package is unlikely to move the needle in Ukraine’s war against Russia, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The House overwhelmingly voted to pass the $60.8 billion package on Saturday that aims to bolster Ukraine’s war effort and replenish U.S. stockpiles, and the Pentagon is reportedly quickly sketching up a plan to deliver Kyiv tactical vehicles, armored personnel carriers and missiles if the bill is ultimately signed off on by President Joe Biden, according to Politico. But given the lack of an endgame strategy to end the war and Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive in the face of a growing Russian military, the aid could help bolster Kyiv’s defenses for a while, but is unlikely to push it closer to a military victory, former U.S. officials and defense experts told the DCNF.

“By itself, the latest tranche of U.S. aid is not zero-sum and it’s hard to imagine it will prompt a turning point in the war. However, if used properly the funds should be helpful for a period of time,” Michael Bars, former White House senior communications advisor and National Security Council official, told the DCNF. “It’s disappointing that another $60 billion went out the door without a penny for U.S. border enforcement, on which the Speaker long-conditioned additional Ukraine aid.”

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who helped spearhead the bill’s creation and passing, previously insisted that any future Ukraine aid needed to be tied to border security. Johnson ultimately discarded that idea and helped pass the Ukraine bill separately, provoking ire from several GOP lawmakers.

This is the U.S. House of Representatives under the direction of Speaker Mike Johnson. Democrats are celebrating his total capitulation with no victory for securing our border. #MTV pic.twitter.com/TtaIgnX9eg

This is the U.S. House of Representatives under the direction of Speaker Mike Johnson. Democrats are celebrating his total capitulation with no victory for securing our border. #MTV pic.twitter.com/TtaIgnX9eg

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) April 20, 2024

“I think there’s not enough money available, either in this bill or in a much larger one, to help Ukraine achieve their goals of retaking all their territory or even go on offense in a sustained way,” Benjamin Friedman, policy director at Defense Priorities, told the DCNF. “So in a sense, moving forward is beyond their grasp, even if we give them a lot more weapons. The aid might be useful in helping them hold the line and not suffer some kind of breakthrough where the Russians start to make real progress. So I think it’s a little bit opaque exactly how dire things are for Ukraine.”

Ukraine has thus far received approximately $73 billion in aid, including military and economic assistance, from the U.S. alone since the country’s war with Russia began in February 2022. Ukraine has burned through existing aid and yet has failed to make any territorial advances in its counteroffensive operations.

Ukraine suffers not only from a lack of munitions and weaponry but also a shortage of manpower, having lost an estimated 70,000 troops as of December, U.S. officials previously told The New York Times. Ukrainian forces took a significant blow during the withdrawal of Avdiivka in Eastern Ukraine amid a shortage of manpower as Russian forces advanced and seized control of the city.

Zelenskyy is lowering broadening conscription standards in a bid to increase mobilization, but it may be too late to make a difference now, even with additional munitions, Michael DiMino, a senior fellow at Defense Priorities and former CIA officer, told the DCNF.

“It’s kind of too little, too late,” DiMino told the DCNF. “Even if you mobilize those people now, you’re 30 points down right now… if you want to do the right thing, Zelenskyy should have made that call two, three years ago at this point.”

Complicating matters further is Russia’s military-industrial complex, which, despite heavy sanctions from the West, is at full operational capacity and producing armaments at a swift rate. Despite sustaining heavy manpower losses, Russia’s military has recovered back to pre-war levels and is growing much faster than Ukraine’s, head of U.S. European Command Gen. Christopher Cavoli warned Congress last week.

“It appears that Russia, with a reputedly sanction-proofed economy, is prepared for a long haul and will continue insisting on territorial concessions from Ukraine,” Bars told the DCNF. “This will put the U.S. on the hook for even more aid down the road as part of protracted conflict.”

Russia has economically allied itself more closely with Western adversaries such as China, Moscow’s largest trading partner as of 2024, to ease some of the weight of sanctions. Russia has also deepened its military cooperation with Iran and North Korea, both of whom are also burdened by sanctions.

The new Ukraine aid package, if signed into law, will provide Kyiv with approximately $14 billion for the direct purchase of weapons and munitions through the Pentagon’s Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. At least $13.4 billion will go toward replenishing the U.S.’ weapons stockpile, which can be transferred to foreign allies through the presidential drawdown authority.

Roughly $10 billion will be provided as an economic loan under the package, which the president would eventually be able to waive in its entirety.

“The loan system itself is an innovation and allows for much-needed oversight. Otherwise, it would be a straight grant and no oversight,” Johnson’s office told the DCNF on Monday. “Every single dollar that goes to Ukraine for aid is now a loan. The other money goes to our own national security and replenishes our stockpile.”

“The loan system is split in a tiered system so it cannot all be forgiven immediately or at one time,” Johnson’s office told the DCNF. “The process for congressional review puts heavy oversight on the president’s ability to forgive the loan.”

DiMino told the DCNF he is not opposed to sending Ukraine more military aid so long as it is attached to a cohesive war strategy, which he felt has thus far not been presented by the Biden administration or supporters in Congress.

“Whether people are in favor of the aid or not, I don’t really care about that. What I care about is, what is the theory of victory? I would argue right now that this current administration does not have a theory of victory.” DiMino told the DCNF. “President Biden mentioned Ukraine for two minutes at the top of the State of the Union, and he said, ‘Putin is evil, and democracy is important.’ And that’s great, and we can probably agree on that. But that’s not a strategy to win a war. That doesn’t actually discuss the tactical realities on the ground.”

“$50 billion, $60 billion, $10 billion — it doesn’t matter. It has to be tied to a strategy and to an objective that’s achievable,” DiMino told the DCNF. “It has to be a realistic objective. And I would argue that taking back 100% of Ukraine’s territory is not really a feasible military objective at this juncture.”

AUTHOR

JAKE SMITH

Contributor.

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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.

An Overlooked Trump Cabinet Pick Could Upend The Left’s Grip On Power thumbnail

An Overlooked Trump Cabinet Pick Could Upend The Left’s Grip On Power

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By The Daily Caller

President Joe Biden summed up his education vision last year with a few words.

“There is no such thing as someone else’s child. No such thing as someone else’s child. Our nation’s children are all our children,” Biden said while honoring the 2023 teacher of the year.

Biden’s remarks triggered a firestorm among Republicans, education activists and parents alike.

Now those Biden critics are strategizing for a potential second Trump administration. Priorities have been outlined, shortlists have been drawn. Some are preparing to join the administration.

But it’ll be up to Trump to make his pick for the unheralded but critical cabinet spot of education secretary.

“It’s pretty much impossible to overstate the importance of the education secretary. Not just to Americans today, but to America’s future,” Angela Morabito, spokesperson for the Defense of Freedom Institute, told the Daily Caller.

“It is not a secret that our country is falling behind while we’re spending more per student on education than nearly anywhere else on Earth. And yet, our results are mediocre to put it generously,” Morabito said.

There’s been no shortage of anonymously sourced conjecture on who might take other cabinet roles. But the Secretary of Education has flown under the radar despite being a hot-button issue for Republican voters — and a position that influences the future of the country in a way that’s unique from any other.

The issue of education has exploded into the spotlight during Biden’s term after accelerating at a slow burn during the Obama years, which prompted a pendulum swing under Trump. Conservatives now have a set of priorities ranging from reeling in Title IX to rooting out bias from academia and teacher training.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced students into their homes and onto their computers for months of remote learning. In the summer of 2020, the killing of George Floyd sparked racial outrage throughout the country. In response, higher education institutions raced to affirm their anti-racism and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) bona fides.

The takeover runs deep — in just a handful of years of full-blown DEI capture of higher education, universities have churned out a generation of insubordinate anti-American bureaucrats, Orwellian tech overlords and a protester industrial complex. The ideological opponents of conservatives virtually all share one common trait: they were trained and equipped on American college campuses.

FLASHBACK: At an event just two months after 9/11, Columbia University’s current president Minouche Shafik remarked that terrorism “is a form of protesting” pic.twitter.com/UkSP4iqDZu

— Brent Scher (@BrentScher) April 22, 2024

Colleges and universities across the country implemented racial quotas, dropped standardized testing requirements and added segregated graduation ceremonies all in the name of DEI.

“I think, looking at all the DEI programs in higher ed is extremely important and starting to deny funds to colleges, who do the DEI programs. That way they either have to scale them back as we’re seeing some state schools doing like Texas and Florida, they’re scaling them back to stay there and try to hide the program or there’s abolishing the program altogether. But either one is incredibly important,” founder of the 1776 Project PAC, Ryan Girdusky, told the Daily Caller.

By 2023, the downstream effects of DEI and remote learning brought communities to a boiling point.

In K-12 education, a grassroots movement was born. Parents had become exposed to what their children were learning at school as lessons took place in the living room via Zoom. Concerned guardians cried out against critical race theory (CRT) lessons teaching students to value each other on the basis of their skin color. Communities sought to prevent their kids from being exposed to literature that could confuse them about sexuality and gender.

But it was too late. In K-12 education, students have fallen grade levels behind in math, reading and civics. Numerous jurisdictions have implemented policies allowing students to use bathrooms and join sports teams on the basis of their gender identity, rather than sex. Other K-12 schools host student clubs on the basis of race and themselves have implemented DEI initiatives.

“The idea of deconstructing, decolonizing math and decolonizing science are coming out of these teachers colleges, to get teachers who are just promoting critical theory in all its forms into K through 12 education. So the teachers colleges are essential place to look at,” Girdusky said.

The Biden administration has pushed many of the efforts rankling conservatives. The Department of Education has finalized a rule that would modify Title IX to protect students from discrimination on the basis of gender identity, a change that would allow boys — identifying as girls — to enter the ladies’ restroom.

On the higher education front, DEI policies have thrown out merit, experience and qualification, all things the nation’s universities were once highly renowned for. Student groups and activities on campuses have been divided into different racial groups. And in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, college students protested Israel at universities across America, in some cases threatening the lives of Jewish students.

Former Harvard University President Claudine Gay, former University of Pennsylvania President Liz MaGill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth sat in front of Congress on Dec. 5, 2023, fumbling through attempts to condemn antisemitism and explain how their institutions had become a cesspool of hatred.

Here are @MIT students proudly chanting for the genocide of Jews in Israel:

They shout in Arabic: “From the river to the sea, Palestine is Arab.”

MIT’s president, Sally Kornbluth, has resisted calls for her to resign for not protecting Jewish students.pic.twitter.com/FmIbVboUKj

— Shelley G (@ShelleyGldschmt) April 19, 2024

“Our schools can and should be the best in the world. And they’re not,” Morabito told the Daily Caller.

Gay was ousted from her position after conservative journalists and activists uncovered numerous instances of alleged plagiarism in her academic writings. One of those conservative education activists, Christopher Rufo, told the Caller he’d like to see the next education secretary pursue an aggressive anti-DEI campaign nationwide.

“I think the next education secretary should be very aggressive in withholding or even terminating expenditures to universities that don’t meet a basic standard of fairness, equal treatment and compliance with American civil rights law,” Rufo told the Daily Caller. “This would send shockwaves through the entire public and private university system and start getting some of these ideologues who have captured University bureaucracies to start thinking twice before they administer discriminatory and illegal programs, which they do flagrantly at the moment.”

He added the next education secretary should make it clear to universities that if their policies fall out of line with the administration’s priorities, funding will be stripped.

Transforming America’s education system to meet conservatives’ vision will require the right person running the Department of Education. Numerous current Republican elected officials and activists have interest in the job, if offered, the Daily Caller has learned.

“I think when the country calls you to service, you have to listen. And when the president is looking to assemble a team to advance these ideas, these principles and these policies, he’s going to need the best people he can get. And I think something like that would be an offer that would be very difficult, if not impossible to refuse,” Rufo told the Daily Caller about the education secretary job.

“Me, I would do it,” Tiffany Justice, the co-founder of Moms for Liberty, told the Daily Caller. “I think that there are a lot of other people that I’ve met over the past three years who would be willing to serve in the next administration for the purpose of putting the focus back on academic achievement and meritocracy across America.”

Moms for Liberty has grown into one of the most prominent grassroots organizations advocating for parental rights in the nation’s K-12 schools. Focused on school board races and policies enacted at the state level, Moms for Liberty has become known for its battle against age-inappropriate gender ideology lessons and the implementation of CRT.

Justice added that she has been working with a team of individuals through the parental rights movement that she thought would make good leaders in the education department for the administration, including Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, South Carolina Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver, Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters, Arkansas Secretary of Education Jacob Oliva and Florida Rep. Byron Donalds’ wife Erica.

Grassroots activists aren’t the only candidates to lead a potential Trump Department of Education. A who’s-who of elected Republican officials have the support of education groups that spoke to the Daily Caller, and there were indications some might be interested in the job.

One education group listed several current and former government officials on their shortlist for the position, including former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Sanders, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, former Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, former New Mexico Secretary of Education Hannah Skandera and Louisiana Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley.

“From her perspective, it’s something that she is interested in,” a spokesperson for Reynolds told the Daily Caller.

“Is this satire?” said a former campaign aide for Sasse, who is still close with the now-President of the University of Florida.

Walters, who didn’t indicate whether he would accept the position himself, listed Heritage Foundation President Dr. Kevin Roberts, PragerU CEO Dennis Prager, Youngkin, former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and Sanders as his ideal candidates.

“First, I will do everything I can to support and help get President Donald Trump reelected,” Walters told the Daily Caller about whether he would accept the education secretary role if offered.

“I am focused on my role to ensure Oklahoma schools are rid of woke indoctrination, liberal union strangleholds, and reawaken a love for our country. The focus must be on firing Joe Biden and ending the culture for hating America,” Walters continued.

Another Oklahoman, Gov. Kevin Stitt, is “open-minded” about the position, an operative in the state told the Caller.

“I don’t have a firm answer on a yes or no, that he would take it. I do know that his reason that he got into public policy was because of the vitriol he has for the Department of Education and his number one personal goal in life is to see it completely dissolved,” an adviser to Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts told the Daily Caller.

Though the Heritage Foundation doesn’t have a formal endorsement for who it would like to see in the administration, there are role models the organization thinks are good examples for the movement.

“I know we’ve had multiple conversations with a handful of the current state superintendents, who I wouldn’t on the record say these are people that we would recommend or who we’d like to see, but people like Ryan Walters in Oklahoma, Manny Diaz in Florida, Ellen Weaver in South Carolina,” Crystal Bonham, a senior advisor to Roberts in communications at the Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Caller.

“They’re all doing work that we have pretty much wholesale endorsed and someone with their kind of character and background that would be ideal, if not Dr. Roberts. Or Lindsay Burke, she’s phenomenal,” Bonham continued.

As for Youngkin, his camp suggested he is very focused on continuing his leadership in Virginia.

“He’s got a clock behind his desk, in his office, in the Patrick Henry building where the governor’s suites are. It’s a countdown clock, because it’s only four years, you can’t run for reelection. So you know, this would all be just speculation. I certainly haven’t heard it. And I don’t know of any conversations that have occurred, but I do know that that his focus is definitely on Virginia,” Zach Roday, a former political adviser to the governor, told the Daily Caller.

The governor’s spokesperson pointed to how proud Youngkin is of his education track record in a statement to the Daily Caller.

“He’s focused on doing that right here in Virginia during his remaining time as Governor,” Christian Martinez told the Daily Caller.

Others are looking back for the best path forward.

“Secretary DeVos would be fantastic — I can’t think of anyone better and more battle-tested for the job,” school choice activist Corey DeAngelis told the Daily Caller. “She would be able to continue the momentum she started when she was at the helm of the department last time. If she is not interested in stepping back from private life again, the next Secretary of Education should be someone who will show a similar commitment to students.”

DeVos provided the Caller with several priorities she would like to see in a second Trump administration, including school choice legislation and undoing changes to Title IX that the Biden administration is eyeing. DeVos did not indicate whether she’d return to her old job, or if she had discussed it with the Trump team.

The Biden Admin has just officially abolished Title IX as we knew it. Now, sex = gender identity.

In a nutshell, the new rewrite means:
– men can take academic AND athletic scholarships from women
– men will have FULL access to bathrooms, locker rooms, etc
– men could be… pic.twitter.com/JfQVI9Yfph

— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) April 19, 2024

Girdusky was unsure who he would like to see in the education secretary role, noting that many contenders have a focus on school choice — a topic he thinks should be a priority but not a hyperfocus.

What the next Secretary of Education does will be even more critical than who it is. While right-leaning education advocates have been able to make progress against DEI policies and gender ideology, leading activists had different takes on what the department should prioritize if Trump takes the White House.

But rather than use federal power to enact change to the nation’s education system, some think the best solution is to get rid of what they consider to be the very problem.

“We need to dismantle the Department of Education,” Justice told the Daily Caller.

“Over the past 40 years that the federal government has really inserted its tentacles into every crack and crevice of American public education. And we need to tear it out root and branch so we are working at Moms for Liberty to ensure that we have a lot of advocacy at the state level. And in the counties where local control is so incredibly important,” she continued.

Justice added she wants to rid education of influence from outside agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In addition to dismantling the Department of Education, Walters told the Caller that he wanted the potential education secretary to drive DEI, CRT and transgender ideology out of schools, while also working to take down teachers’ unions.

Above all, Laurie Todd-Smith, director of America First Policy Institute’s Center for Education Opportunity, told the Daily Caller that she hoped a Trump education secretary would close the nation’s learning loss gap that students suffered after the pandemic. Todd-Smith also stressed the importance of undoing the Biden administration’s changes to Title IX.

Pandemic school closures didn’t stop the spread of COVID and resulted in high levels of learning loss for students. | By @BrighamTomco https://t.co/my6cKY1OqH

— Deseret News (@Deseret) April 14, 2024

In Texas, the state legislature has laid out the blueprint for using the government to rid universities of race-based initiatives, like Girdusky, Rufo and others have advocated.

Introduced by Republican state Sen. Brandon Creighton in March 2023, Texas State Bill 17 quickly passed through the state legislature to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk, where it was signed into law in June 2023. Under the legislation, an institution is not permitted to spend money appropriated to the institution for a state fiscal year until the Board of Regents submits to the legislature and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board a report certifying that it has complied with restrictions on DEI.

The Texas law bans DEI offices and initiatives at state-funded higher education institutions. The law also prohibits institutions from considering diversity statements from job applicants and bans mandatory DEI training for staff.

Now, Texas universities are facing consequences because of the law.

In April, the University of Texas Dallas laid off nearly two dozen of its DEI faculty in an effort to comply with the law, CBS News reported. The University of Texas at Austin eliminated 60 jobs and its Division of Campus and Community Engagement (previously called the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement.)

While Justice and Rufo have priorities focused on their expertise, some education activists have a two-pronged approach in mind.

Girdusky said he hoped to see the future education secretary prioritize both K-12 learning loss while tackling issues in higher education.

“But really what there is, is there’s a two-step priority, one is going to be higher ed and the other one’s going to be lower education K through 12. A huge priority has to be to go after the teacher’s colleges. Because a lot of the problems that we’re seeing as far as education goes comes from teachers and colleges,” Girdusky told the Daily Caller.

In the same vein as Girdusky, Morabito expressed that the future education secretary should withhold funds from institutions or K-12 schools that engage in divisive activities.

“The first and the most powerful is federal civil rights law. It is unlawful for any federally-funded program or activity to discriminate based on race or sex, or perceived national origin. So federal funding should not be going to anywhere that discriminates based on sex or race or discriminates against the Jewish students based on shared national origin or perceived ancestry,” Morabito told the Daily Caller.

As for what Trump plans to focus on in a potential second administration, Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, pointed the Caller to the former president’s already-released education plans.

Under the former president’s priorities for a second administration are several education focused initiatives. To tackle higher education, Trump says he will “fire the radical Left accreditors” and impose standards to remove all “DEI bureaucrats.”

Trump also released his 12-step plan for K-12 education, which would include passing legislation to prioritize “curriculum transparency and a form of universal school choice.” The priorities note that Trump would “keep men out of women’s sports,” an indication that he would undo any changes the Biden administration makes to Title IX.

Several education groups and activists that the Caller spoke with said they had not had any engagement with the Trump campaign about their vision for education.

Leavitt referred the Caller to a December 2023 statement from advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita on media speculation over transition team efforts. The statement, Leavitt said, makes it clear “that outside groups do not reflect official campaign policy or strategy.”

“People publicly discussing potential administration jobs for themselves or their friends are, in fact, hurting President Trump…and themselves. These are an unwelcomed distraction,” the statement from Wiles and LaCivita reads. “Second term policy priorities and staffing decisions will not – in no uncertain terms – be led by anonymous or thinly sourced speculation in mainstream media news stories.”

“I think it’s very important that we need an education secretary who is youthful, aggressive, intelligent, and ruthlessly determined to shatter the status quo. And so, establishment figures will no longer make the cut, and even Trump’s ambitious policy agenda on education, he’s going to need a leader who can step in day one, with the courage to get things done,” Rufo told the Daily Caller, also noting that he has a very good relationship with the former president’s policy team.

Girdusky said he asked the Trump campaign about the position around the turn of the new year.

“He had not gotten the nomination at the time and it just wasn’t the biggest priority at the time, which it was probably like, January when I spoke to them, maybe December even. So the nomination process hadn’t even come up. And I was just talking about the idea of education secretary or whatnot, and they didn’t have a list of names. It was a very informal conversation,” Girdusky told the Daily Caller.

Three prominent education groups that the Daily Caller spoke to had not had much communication with the Trump campaign about the issue. DeAngelis, Defense of Freedom Institute and Freedom Works’ education initiative “B.E.S.T’ all told the Daily Caller that they had not spoken with the campaign about their priorities or their short list.

Roberts, while in touch with the Trump campaign regarding Heritage’s transition project, has not spoken with the campaign about serving in the administration himself, a senior adviser told the Caller.

“Not at this point. They do talk fairly regularly. Most of that has to do with Project 2025 and kind of general, kind of getting ready for the transition period. So at this point, they haven’t yet talked about specifics in terms of if he’d be willing to take a cabinet position or if that’s even been offered,” an adviser told the Caller.

The same could be said for Justice.

“I’m throwing my hat in the ring now. How’s that?” she said.

AUTHOR

REAGAN REESE

White House correspondent.

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Columbia University Descends Into Pure Racist Hatred

University of Michigan: ‘Freedom for Palestine means Death to America’

Yale: Police storm campus with riot gear, arrest students at pro-Hamas protest encampment

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

Screwtape returns with an updated dictionary for woke folks thumbnail

Screwtape returns with an updated dictionary for woke folks

/in , , , /by

By MercatorNet – Navigating Modern Complexities

In 1942, C.S. Lewis published The Screwtape Letters, in which Screwtape, a devil, mentored his nephew Wormwood on how to manage his patient, so as to serve their common spiritual master. Screwtape advised: “Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church.” “Do remember you are there to fuddle him.”

Wormwood failed in the end and was eaten. 

A recent letter from Screwtape has been intercepted. It is addressed to Dr Slubgob, Principal of the Tempters’ Training College for Young Devils. The text of the new letter follows. 

Dear Dr. Slubgob,

The Supreme Council has been long in hammering out our duties in this hour to Our Father Below. Designs grow more intricate. I trust your pupils’ progress.

In haste I write to ensure your terminology, and your program’s instruction, is current (as of when I write this, April 2024). Herewith a small lexicon showing the true significations for you and the young devils to comprehend and for their patients not to:

Social justice: The subserving of Our Father Below. (By adding “social” to “justice”, we encumber the concern for human society inherent in their word justice.)

Democracy: The interpretation, judgment, and rule of Our Father Below and His votaries, and extending to our institutions, satellites, cut-outs, and other allies.

Populism: Political movements that oppose us, particularly if represented by a popular personality.

Misinformation: Miscreancy (which, as you know, changes monthly, so tell the pupils to stay current). WrongThink.

Disinformation: The witting expressing of miscreancy.

Malinformation: (Under review: we’re reconsidering how and whether to utilise this term, because the “information” deceit is too exposed. Exclude for now from the active vocabulary.)

Fact-checker: One who guards our big lies with auxiliary lies.

X denier: One who differs from our dicta about X.

Y apologist: One who differs from our dicta about a person Y, whom we detest.

An extremist: One who makes plain that he disfavours us.

A fascist: Anyone who disfavours us.

A misogynist: One who disfavours us. Use for males.

A racist: One who disfavours us. Use especially for whites.

A white supremacist: One who disfavours us. Use especially for whites.

A right-winger: One who disfavours us.

Conspiracy theorist: One who is onto us and exposing our secrets.

Diversity: Use while favouring those of diverse ethnicities, races, genders, and sexual orientations who favour us.

Multicultural: Use while celebrating those of diverse ethnicities, races, genders, and sexual orientations who favour us.

Inclusion: The inclusion of those of diverse ethnicities, races, genders, and sexual orientations who favour us, and the excluding of all else.

Equity: Exercising power to favour those who favour us and to disfavour all else.

Hate: Dislike by one of our opponents of something we pretend to respect.

Hate crime: The expressing of such dislike by one of our opponents.

Hater: An opponent who expresses dislike of something we pretend to respect.

Rules-based international order: Geopolitical decision-making conformant to our diktats of late.

Promoting democracy abroad: Our undertaking regime change.

To be clear: Something we say to summon intimidation of our opponents.

The Great Reset: Something we say to convey to our opponents: Knuckle under or we will hurt you.

Build Back Better: Dispossessing our opponents of their stuff.

DEI: Something we say to convey to our opponents: Knuckle under or we will hurt you.

ESG: Something we say to convey to our opponents: Knuckle under or we will hurt you.

Sustainability: To our liking, as opposed to our disliking.

The truth: Our dicta.

Decency: Conforming to our dicta and diktats.

The Constitution: Our agenda.

God Bless America: Oil we sometimes pour on those liable to draw away from the presence of Our Father Below.

Keep an eye out for my next, for terms and significations shall change, as change is one of our best devices. Colleagues here express concern that the significations may be dwindling to such an extent that our verbalisms lose their effect.

The moment is critical, so temporise elsewise — remember our faithfuls, vanity, careerism, bodily pleasure, and confusion — to carry your patient through to what must be our decisive triumph.

Yours truly,

SCREWTAPE

Is this dissection of woke language on point? Leave a comment if you have more for the list.

This article has been republished with permission from the Brownstone Institute.

AUTHOR

DANIEL KLEIN

Daniel Klein is professor of economics and JIN Chair at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, where he leads a program in Adam Smith. He is also associate fellow at the Ratio Institute (Stockholm), research fellow at the Independent Institute, and chief editor of Econ Journal Watch.

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

Biden Admin Weighs California’s Latest Green Gambit That Could Set Off Chain Reaction Of Economic Pain thumbnail

Biden Admin Weighs California’s Latest Green Gambit That Could Set Off Chain Reaction Of Economic Pain

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By The Daily Caller

The Biden administration could allow California to implement a rule designed to push green locomotives, but a growing list of stakeholders are warning that the regulation would severely impact the state’s economy and the national rail industry.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could soon determine whether it will allow the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to move forward with a state regulation that would ban the use of locomotives that are more than 23 years past their manufacturing date unless they run using zero-emissions technology, according to Progressive Railroading.

The rule could disrupt supply chains and saddle the state’s railway industry with huge new costs that would flow to consumers, with the effects of the rule potentially spilling out in other parts of the country, according to numerous trade groups, lawmakers and policy experts who believe the Biden administration should reject CARB’s request.

CARB passed the locomotive rule in April 2023, but the agency must first receive the EPA’s permission before it enacts a regulation that goes above and beyond federal rules, according to the EPA’s Federal Register entry on the request. Monday was the last day to file comments with the EPA about the matter, signaling that a final determination could be coming soon.

“When you look at regulations in California, they’re being promulgated by people who don’t really understand the ramifications of what they’re requiring,” Edward Ring, a veteran of the railroad industry who is now the director of water and energy policy for the California Policy Center, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “CARB is asking for something — zero-emissions locomotives — that do not yet exist. And what’s going to happen is it’s going to dramatically raise the cost of shipping anywhere in California, and that’s going to have a ripple effect across the country. This is another example of California’s environmentalist regulations raising the cost of living.”

California Is Staring Down The Barrel Of A Yawning Budget Deficit. Can It Even Be Fixed? https://t.co/pxy1zh0Smp

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 11, 2024

The rule for locomotives would take effect in 2030, assuming EPA allows CARB to proceed. Some of the rule’s critics say that timeline is too tight to meet given the current lack of dependable, affordable zero-emissions technology available for locomotives on the market.

Moreover, the rule also would require locomotive operators to pay into their own trust accounts to fund the acquisition of zero-emissions locomotives and related infrastructure, according to CARB. The payment structure requires operators to contribute more into the accounts for operating dirtier locomotives than they have to put up for running cleaner ones.

Because many other states adhere to CARB guidelines, the EPA’s approval could set off a chain reaction expanding the impact of the rule well beyond California’s borders, according to Ted Greener, vice president of public affairs for the Association of American Railroads (AAR).

“If EPA approves the waiver the rule becomes a national matter on the first day. Roughly 65% of the locomotive fleet goes in and out of California and almost all of the freight rail traffic that moves in the state of California traverses state lines,” Ted Greener, vice president of public affairs for the Association of American Railroads (AAR), told the DCNF. “Moreover, EPA granting the waiver enables other states to opt-in and replicate the regulation in full – including the phase out dates and the spending accounts. Such a balkanized system would be unspeakably costly, but also disruptive to the flow of goods.”

A “large number” of locomotives would be impacted by the rule, Greener told the DCNF. Typically, locomotives have a lifespan ranging from 30 to 50 years, and they are regularly upgraded or otherwise modified to be more fuel-efficient, Greener added.

Other rail industry interest groups, such as the American Short Line and Railroad Association (ASLRRA), have also opposed the rule.

“While the spirit behind this rule is consistent with short lines’ environmental commitment, the rule itself is impractical, unworkable, and simply not feasible for most short lines,” Chuck Baker, president of ASLRRA, said of CARB’s rule in May 2023. “In addition, this rulemaking does not acknowledge the impact of the elimination of some short line rail service to Californians … Short lines would not in fact be able to pass on these costs to their customers and some of them would be eliminated by this rule.”

For its part, CARB downplays most of these criticisms and concerns.

“Despite the availability of cleaner options, railroad companies have failed to make investments to replace their outdated, dirty locomotives that contribute to the state’s air quality problems and endanger the lives and health of Californians,” a CARB spokesperson told the DCNF. “Passenger vehicles, heavy-duty trucks, ocean-going vessels, heavy off-road equipment, small off-road engines used in landscaping, among other emissions sectors are all doing their part. It’s time for the rail industry to join and work with us to become part of the solution rather than focusing their efforts on litigation and PR campaigns.”

“In addition, under CARB’s Locomotive Regulation, railroads need not purchase new locomotives, but instead have many options available to them, including the use of zero-emission tender cars, rail electrification, or retrofitting of their existing locomotive fleet to ensure zero-emission operation while operating within California,” the spokesperson continued.

California is suing oil companies over climate change https://t.co/jM65aSB2px

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 17, 2023

Labor unions, including the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, have filed comments with EPA making their opposition to CARB’s rule clear.

Moreover, a diverse coalition of more than 60 trade groups — including the National Association of Manufacturers, the Beer Institute and the Aluminum Association — wrote a letter Friday to Karl Simon, the director of EPA’s Transportation and Climate Division, expressing significant concerns with the rule should CARB be allowed to proceed.

“This regulation from CARB has the potential to create significant disruptions in the supply chain for all sectors of the U.S. economy, especially manufacturers and shippers who rely on consistent, reliable rail service,” the letter reads. “This rule could lead to delays for businesses and increased costs for both shippers and consumers that could ultimately lead to a massive supply chain crisis. If railroads are forced to spend large amounts of money to ensure compliance with this rule, those costs will be passed along the entire supply chain and could inhibit rail service at facilities across the country – not just in California.”

“The issue is that no viable technology exists today to move freight beyond yards on a zero-emissions basis,” the letter continues. “Despite aggressive [research and development] and innovation in the rail sector and significant private investments, the technologies to achieve this rule simply do not exist at this point.”

Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and 11 Republican Senators also wrote their own letter expressing concern about the CARB rule to EPA Administrator Michael Reagan on April 16. In addition to raising questions about the legality of CARB’s rule, the lawmakers urged the EPA to “carefully consider the environmental, supply chain, and modal shift implications that EPA approving CARB’s waiver request would have.”

The EPA did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

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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.

“Bidenbucks” Make “Zuckbucks” Look Like Chump Change thumbnail

“Bidenbucks” Make “Zuckbucks” Look Like Chump Change

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By M.D. Kittle

Election integrity watchdogs say private funds in elections pale in comparison to what Biden has wrought through the power of his pen.

Think “Zuckbucks” are bad? The leftists who crafted “Bidenbucks” say, “Hold my beer.”

Earlier this month, Wisconsin became the 28th state to tell Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and the private-money-in-elections mob to go Zuck themselves — and for good reason. The Badger State knows as well as any what millions of dollars of leftist-led activist cash in the administration of elections can do to election integrity and voter confidence.

Zuckbucks — the nickname for the $400 million-plus that Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, dumped into the 2020 elections — predominately flowed to Democrat-centric cities in battleground states such as Wisconsin. Contracts devised by the Chicago-based Center for Tech and Civic Life, which has deep ties to the Democrat Party, and signed by city mayors required that election officials work with Democrat activists under the auspices of making voting “safe” during Covid.

Emails show activists, including a longtime Democrat operative, embedded in local election offices, offering to “correct” ballots and engaging in other suspicious conduct.

But as bad as Zuckbucks are, election integrity watchdogs say such private funds in elections pale in comparison to what President Joe Biden has wrought through the power of his pen. As wealthy as Zuckerberg is, his grant initiative was chump change compared to the resources of a politically weaponized federal government.

Cabal at the Core

On Aug. 9, 2021, just five months after Biden signed the executive order that would command the federal government to serve as a get-out-the-vote arm of the Democrat Party, Adam Lioz emailed “Team USDA.” Lioz, who at the time served as senior counsel for left-wing policy activist group Demos, wanted to circle back with Department of Agriculture staff and thank them for “a productive conversation,” according to records obtained by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project.

“As we noted, we’ll have our ‘best practices’ slides ready in the next 1-2 weeks and in the meantime, y’all had asked for data on voter registration at the state level, which I’ve pasted below,” Lioz, who these days serves as senior policy counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, wrote in the email with the subject line, “Demos Meeting on Voting Rights EO.”

“We’re eager to schedule follow up conversations to dig into specific programs and help with integration in any way we can. Just let us know when you are available for that,” he added.

Not surprisingly, Biden’s USDA did just that. New York-based Demos reportedly helped draft Biden’s Executive Order 14019, which directs each federal agency head to develop a plan to “promote voter registration and voter participation.” As the Foundation for Government Accountability notes, Biden’s fiat “follows the same strategy” contained in a Demos policy paper.

If you’re filling your leftist bingo card, Demos is closely tied to the far-left Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., wing of the Democrat Party, according to activist tracker InfluenceWatch.

“The organization emphasizes three areas of commitment: voting rights expansion, a hybrid environmentalist-left agenda it calls ‘pathways to ensure a diverse, expanded middle class in a new, sustainable economy,’ and advocacy for communitarianism and a liberal interpretation of racial equality,” InfluenceWatch reports.

Biden tapped former Demos executive K. Sabeel Rahman to serve as Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs senior counselor and Chiraag Bains, the group’s former director of legal strategies, as the president’s deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council for Racial Justice and Equity at the White House. They were responsible for reviewing the actions taken to fulfill Bidenbucks, according to the Foundation for Government Accountability. The GOTV effort is being carried out by Susan Rice, Biden’s domestic policy adviser who served as President Barack Obama’s national security adviser and ambassador to the United Nations.

“This is a coordinated effort from left-leaning third parties and the Biden administration to use executive power and taxpayer resources for the purpose of federalizing elections and taking power away from the states,” said Chase Martin, legal affairs director at FGA.

‘Leftist Voter-Turnout Operation’

There are definitely some similarities between Zuckbucks and Bidenbucks. Much like private corporate funds in elections and their contract demands of involving activist groups, Biden’s order mandates federal agencies work with the White House’s “approved, nonpartisan third-party organizations.” These are NINOs, nonpartisan in name only.

Despite repeated requests for information on the implementation of the executive order, including the criteria for the third-party groups, the Biden administration has either slow-walked or altogether stonewalled the release of documents.

“Federal executive agencies, which have no business engaging in voter registration or mobilization efforts, as the EO directs, will surely exceed the scope of their authority under federal law,” House Republicans wrote in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland. “Moreover, in carrying out this EO, employees of these agencies will likely violate other laws such as the Hatch Act, designed to keep federal agencies, led by political appointees, from engaging in political activities to benefit one political party over another.”

The October 2022 letter goes on to note that any expenditure by the DOJ for this “could violate the Antideficiency Act, which prohibited executive agencies from spending funds Congress has not authorized or accepting volunteer services from ‘approved’ third-party organizations as EO 14019 directs.”

It’s clear the administration doesn’t care about any such constitutional entanglements, as Biden’s lawless record over the past three years suggests. Congressional Republicans have checked Democrats’ sweeping assaults on election integrity such as the ill-named “For the People Act,” so Biden is doing their work for them through executive order.

“Biden has turned the entire federal government into a leftist voter-turnout operation,” Tom Fitton, president of the government watchdog group Judicial Watch, wrote on his X account.

Now federal agencies are working overtime to realize the left’s plan.

Zuckbucks on Steroids

The USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service is working with state agencies that administer school breakfast and lunch programs to “provide local program operators with promotional materials, including voter registration and non-partisan, non-campaign election information, to disseminate among voting-age program participants and their families.” That includes promoting voter registration in school cafeterias to high school students turning 18 by Election Day and working with leftist groups in Democrat-rich cities.

As The Federalist has reported, Milwaukee Public Schools has joined forces with the California-based VoteRiders and the League of Women Voters to do so. A faculty member at each school is tapped to serve as “Voter Champion” to assist those 18 or approaching 18 who don’t have a photo ID. On the taxpayer’s dime, the school employee connects the student with a representative from the leftist VoteRiders. MPS and the Biden administration have refused to turn over records to The Federalist and the Foundation for Government Accountability.

Meanwhile, the Democrat-led Michigan Department of State recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the U.S. Small Business Administration “to promote civic engagement and voter registration in Michigan.” The first-of-its-kind collaboration is expected to run through Jan. 1, 2036.

And the Department of Education recently announced a “clarification” to its rules allowing the taxpayer-funded work-study program to be used to hire college students to register their peers to vote — one of the more reliable Democrat voting blocs. My Federalist colleague Shawn Fleetwood has reported on several other ways the federal government is using Bidenbucks “to rig the 2024 election.”

In her book Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections, Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway wrote about how a cabal of Democrat activists and business titans used Covid “as a pretext to maximize absentee and early voting.”

“Here, one billionaire in particular took a leading role: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg,” Hemingway wrote.

The left doesn’t have Covid to lean on this time around. So it’s using the full force of the federal government in its attempt to keep and consolidate its power.

“The president is acting unconstitutionally, the agencies are acting unlawfully, and they’re doing so with taxpayer money with next to zero transparency for the taxpayer,” David Craig, senior legal fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability, told me. “That’s something that has to be fixed.”

*****

This article was published by The Federalist and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

Please click the following link to learn more.

Biden’s Title IX Rewrite Strips Away Protections For Women, Denies Women Equal Opportunity thumbnail

Biden’s Title IX Rewrite Strips Away Protections For Women, Denies Women Equal Opportunity

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By Editors of The Independent Women’s Forum

Editors’ Note: Democrats cast themselves as the party of “women’s rights”, while they actually are the party of unrestricted abortion to be paid for with public money.  We hope the knowledge of this most recent decision will change the minds of not only Arizona women, but women across the nation. By using school lunch money for extortion, they impose by bureaucratic non-democratic means the whole of the transgender agenda. No elected representative accountable to the people even got to vote on this. This is pure bureaucratic fiat, showing the grotesque nature of the Administrative State in action. They would rather take the food out of children’s mouths than listen to the public will, which overwhelmingly rejects this action. It defines women as nonexistent. And they will be doing this from the college level down to kindergarten. Wherever schools use Federal money, they will by the nature of the incentives adopt the program of the radical transgenders. This action by the Biden Administration will do great damage to the cause of female advancement, will harm and confuse our children, curtail the rights and prerogatives of parents, and severely damage the public school system. It needs to be fought aggressively and tenaciously. 

”Taking opportunities from women and giving them to men doesn’t enforce Title IX, it violates it. That was true before the Administration dropped this rule, and it is still true today.” – Jennifer C. Braceras

Today, the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), the nation’s most impactful policy organization for women, condemned the Biden administration’s unlawful Title IX regulation, which unilaterally rewrites the landmark sex equality law and undermines women’s rights, and free speech, and due process. This new Omnibus Rule, which governs all aspects of the educational experience, turns Title IX on its head through extra-statutory regulations that require schools to allow males to self-identify into women’s spaces, opportunities, and athletics.

Independent Women’s Forum and Independent Women’s Law Center (IWLC) are preparing to sue the Biden administration to enjoin this unlawful action.

Announcing IWF’s lawsuits against the administration, May Mailman, director of Independent Women’s Law Center said, “Title IX was designed to give women equal opportunities in academic settings. It forbids discrimination on the basis of “sex,” which it affirms throughout the statute is binary and biological. The unlawful Omnibus Regulation re-imagines Title IX to permit the invasion of women’s spaces and the reduction of women’s rights in the name of elevating protections for “gender identity,” which is contrary to the text and purpose of Title IX. This is illegal, and we plan to sue.”

”Taking opportunities from women and giving them to men doesn’t enforce Title IX, it violates it. That was true before the Administration dropped this rule, and it is still true today,” added Jennifer C. Braceras, vice president for legal affairs at IWF and founder of IWLC. “The Department of Education can’t just rewrite the statute by administrative fiat. We are confident the courts will remind the Department of this basic principle and strike down this unlawful rule.”

By claiming that Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of “gender identity,” a term never mentioned in the original statute, the Biden administration’s rewrite forces schools to let male who identify as women take women’s scholarships and invade women’s private spaces — including women’s athletic teams.

Polling reflects that 69% of Americans believe athletes should play on teams that correspond with their biological sex.

In an election year, the Biden administration’s lie that this Title IX rewrite does not impact women’s sports is a dishonest attempt to hide their woke agenda from to the American people.

In addition to its impact on sports, the Title IX Omnibus Rule also redefines “sexual harassment” to encompass a single instance of speech, which will, in effect:

1. force students and teachers to use “preferred pronouns” or face discipline;
2. require schools to eliminate all sexual misconduct, even such conduct of which they are unaware, pressuring schools to create woke bureaucracies to police speech; and
3. dissolve protections for accused students (again, whose action may be failure to use the “correct” pronouns), including the right to see evidence against them.

The administration’s draft rules, released on June 23, 2022, “in celebration” of the 50th anniversary of Title IX, generated overwhelming public opposition, with citizens filing a record number of comments with the Department of Education.

Independent Women’s Voice, IWF’s 501(c)(4) sister organization, drove more than 20,000 public comments to the Department of Education opposing the Biden administration’s plan to gut Title IX. The legal and policy objections filed by IWF and Independent Women’s Law Center can be read below:

Female athletes and IWF ambassadors react to the Biden administration’s Title IX Omnibus Rule:

Coach Kim Russell, former Head Women’s Lacrosse Coach at Oberlin College and Independent Women’s Forum ambassador, said: “Make no mistake, this rule will be used by schools as justification for unlawfully punishing anyone who dares to dissent from the orthodoxy of gender ideology. I experienced first hand the desire of woke bureaucrats to punish people who speak out on behalf of women. For now, the Biden administration has provided those bureaucrats cover. But I am confident that this rule will not stand and will be struck down as a flagrant violation of the First Amendment.”

Paula Scanlan, former University of Pennsylvania swimmer and Independent Women’s Forum ambassador said: “If allowed to stand, the Biden administration’s new rule will set women back decades, eroding the impressive gains that Title IX ushered in.”

Riley Gaines, former 12-time All-American swimmer at the University of Kentucky and Independent Women’s Forum ambassador, said: “With its new Title IX rewrite, the Biden administration is unilaterally erasing fifty years of equal opportunity law for women. The president and his administration can’t act like they care about women or our opportunities and then go and wipe out women’s protections under the country’s landmark sex equality law.”

Independent Women’s Forum has been leading the fight to Take Back Title IX and save women’s sports. Learn more below:

Independent Women’s Forum ambassadors recently joined the “Take Back Title IX” roundtable, hosted by U.S. Senators on Capitol Hill, to advocate fairness in women’s sports. Read their written testimonies here.

IWF and IWLC have produced a first-of-its-kind report entitled, “Competition Report: Title IX, Male-Bodied Athletes, and the Threat To Women’s Sports,” to help athletic associations, policymakers, and courts understand the growing threat to female athletes.

IWF’s Female Athlete Storytelling drive featuring real stories from real women athletes can be found here.

IWF organized the first Our Bodies, Our Sports Rally in Washington DC on June 23, 2022 to take back Title IX. The rally, held across the street from the White House, featured female athletes, coaches, parents, and advocates and 17 organizations across the political spectrum to celebrate 50 years of Title IX and urge policymakers to help keep women’s sports female.

*****

This article was produced by the Independent Women’s Forum and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

Please click the following link to learn more.

Medical Groups Silent After Review Finds ‘Weak Evidence’ for Recommending Puberty Blockers to Kids thumbnail

Medical Groups Silent After Review Finds ‘Weak Evidence’ for Recommending Puberty Blockers to Kids

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By Katelynn Richardson

Editors’ Note: It is appalling that American medical organizations either remain opposed or silent on this latest study. Already Scotland is looking at banning puberty blockers and several other European countries now severely restrict their use. Among these are Norway, U.K. Sweden, Denmark, France, and Finland. In addition, 22 American states have banned the use of puberty blockers. Between the abuses of COVID-19 vaccines and jumping on the transgender bandwagon, the American medical establishment looks less scientific and less medical every day. Maybe they should drop the pretense and just become left-wing political lobbyists. 

Major medical associations remain silent after the results of a four-year review commissioned by the National Health Service England undermined their recommendations for giving puberty blockers to children with gender dysphoria.

The Cass Report, conducted by Dr. Hilary Cass, a pediatrician and former president of the U.K.’s Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, found only “weak evidence” for offering puberty blockers to children.

Cass concluded that her findings, released April 10, “raise questions about the quality of currently available guidelines” offered by associations such as the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and the Endocrine Society, yet neither organization has committed to reviewing their guidelines.

The review recommends against treating children with puberty blockers outside of a research setting. It also urged “extreme caution” for providing cross-sex hormones to minors under 18 and stressed the need for a “clear clinical rationale.”

The review further suggested a “full programme of research be established” to “look at the characteristics, interventions, and outcomes of every young person presenting to the NHS [National Health Service] gender services.”

“Although a diagnosis of gender dysphoria has been seen as necessary for initiating medical treatment, it is not reliably predictive of whether that young person will have longstanding gender incongruence in the future, or whether medical intervention will be the best option for them,” The Cass Report noted.

The American Medical Association, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Endocrine Society did not respond to multiple inquiries over the past week from the Daily Caller News Foundation asking whether they had concerns with the report’s findings or intended to conduct their own review.

Aside from WPATH, these organizations largely have failed to address the report publicly. In a written statement, the transgender health organization said it “supports policies that increase access to high-quality ethical care for transgender youth” and claimed that the report is rooted in a “false premise.”

The organization’s standards of care, eighth version, states that waiting several years to start a young adolescent on puberty blockers “is not always practical nor necessary given the premise of the treatment as a means to buy time while avoiding distress from irreversible pubertal changes.” However, it acknowledges that establishing a “sustained experience of gender incongruence” can be important before starting.

“The foundation of The Cass Report is rooted in the false premise that non-medical alternatives to care will result in less adolescent distress for most adolescents and is based on a lack of knowledge of and experience working with this patient population,” the World Professional Association for Transgender Health said in a press release. “It is harmful to perpetuate this notion and does not acknowledge the very real fact that medical pathways are an important treatment option for many young people.”

The Endocrine Society characterizes puberty blockers as a “reversible pause to puberty” and “a first step in treatment to allow the adolescent to explore their gender identity and/or to provide relief from distress.” WPATH’s guidelines likewise recommend putting adolescents on “puberty-suppressing hormones” to “alleviate gender dysphoria.”

Physicians at the World Professional Association for Transgender Health acknowledged puberty blockers can cause irreversible consequences in minors such as infertility, bone loss, and disrupted brain development in educational sessions from September 2022 previously obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Both the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry recommend WPATH’s guidance for handling gender dysphoria in children. The AMA often opposes red state laws that ban sex-change procedures for minors, including puberty blockers.

The Cass Report notes that “there is no evidence that puberty blockers buy time to think, and some concern that they may change the trajectory of psychosexual and gender identity development.”

The report also questions WPATH and the Endocrine Society on the “circularity” of their citations, which make support for their positions appear stronger than they are.

Early versions of the two organizations’ guidelines influenced “nearly all” guidelines set by other organizations, the report notes. Their guidelines are also “closely interlinked” because WPATH provided input on the Endocrine Society’s recommendations, it says.

“The circularity of this approach may explain why there has been an apparent consensus on key areas of practice despite the evidence being poor,” the report states.

*****

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

TAKE ACTION

The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

Please click the following link to learn more.

Hold Obama-Biden Foreign Policy Responsible for Iran’s Unprecedented Attack on Israel thumbnail

Hold Obama-Biden Foreign Policy Responsible for Iran’s Unprecedented Attack on Israel

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By Family Research Council

The terrorist Iranian regime’s unprecedented recent attack on Israel, which included 185 drones, 36 cruise missiles, and 110 surface-to-surface missiles, is an unambiguous casus belli — an act of war — under international law.

Of course, Iranian proxies spread across the Middle East, such as Lebanon-based Hezbollah, Gaza-based Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Yemen-based Houthis, have committed countless previous acts of war against Israel. But last weekend was something different entirely: For the very first time since fanatical Islamists overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and took power in 1979, Iran launched such attacks directly from its own soil.

The regime’s attack against the Jewish state, a tactical failure in which 99% of Iran’s varying projectiles were successfully intercepted by the Israel Defense Forces and a U.S.-led multinational coalition, is highly revealing. No longer can anyone deny the Iranian regime’s role as “head of the snake” of Middle East chaos; nor can anyone now deny the regime’s genocidal intentions. It turns out that when they chant “Death to Israel” in the streets of Tehran, they really mean it. (They also chant “Death to America,” incidentally.)

The obvious question: How? How did we reach the point where Iran feels so emboldened, and so unafraid of any repercussions, that it lobs hundreds of offensive weapons from its own territory toward another sovereign nation — especially one so closely allied with the U.S. and interconnected with the broader Western order?

The answer is just as clear as it is troubling: The Middle East “realignment” so doggedly pursued by President Joe Biden, and by former President Barack Obama before him, got us here. Under the Obama-Biden foreign policy doctrine, an Iran so emboldened that it feels free to wage offensive war against Israel in such brazen fashion is not a bug; it’s a feature.

Steeped in pseudo-academic theories, such as postcolonialism and surrounded by left-wing ideologues who held America and Western civilization responsible for collective global sin, Obama sought to remake the Middle East map. On the one hand, he sought to hamstring the region’s sole outpost of Western civilization, Israel, as well as America’s traditional Sunni Arab allies such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. On the other hand, he bolstered those countries’ natural foes: Iran, Qatar, and the political Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The apotheosis of the Obama-Biden Middle East “realignment” was the terrible Iran nuclear deal of 2015, laundered to a skeptical American people by failed novelist-turned-Obama White House apparatchik Ben Rhodes via a cynical, astroturfed “echo chamber” of a PR campaign.

In 2016, Obama secretly delivered $400 million in wooden pallets of cash to the mullahs — on the same day the nuke deal went into effect. More recently, the Biden administration agreed to cough up a whopping $6 billion in return for five illegally detained U.S. citizens — just weeks before the Iran-sponsored Hamas pogrom of Oct. 7. And just last month, Biden approved a fresh $10 billion sanctions waiver for Iran.

There are too many other examples to count. But it is all in service of the Obama-Biden doctrine: Punish America’s allies in the Middle East and reward its enemies.

Just as bad, the Iranian regime has also shown itself capable of infiltrating and co-opting America’s corridors of power: Last September, Semafor scooped emails revealing an Iranian regime-supported intelligence operation seeking to influence high-ranking government offices, think tanks and academic institutions in the U.S. The man at the center of it all? Robert Malley, Obama’s lead negotiator for the 2015 nuke deal and Biden’s now-suspended special envoy for Iran.

Most recently, Iranian reporter Vahid Beheshti revealed a stunning internal Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps document this week that inculpates the Iranian regime in helping to orchestrate America’s day of anarchic, crippling, pro-Hamas “demonstrations” on Monday.

The Trump administration, something of an interregnum between the two “realignment” presidencies, pursued the precise opposite policies: Punish America’s enemies and reward its friends. That is what basic logic would dictate, and the results were historic: new peace deals forged between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco under the umbrella of the Abraham Accords.

It turns out that the obvious thing is often also the best thing.

The Hamas pogrom and the ensuing war in Gaza was the first real test for the accords — and the Iran-containment coalition they represent. Crucially, none of the Arab signees have severed relations with Israel. Even more remarkably, Saudi Arabia — not part of the accords — acknowledged on Monday that it assisted the U.S.-led coalition that foiled Iran’s weekend attack.

All of this is a tribute to the statesmanship of former President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who shepherded the accords across the finish line. And it is a glimmer of hope that more peace — and less Iran-emboldening Obama-Biden foolishness —might be just around the corner.

Josh Hammer is senior editor-at-large at Newsweek.

This article appeared in The Daily Signal.

AUTHOR

Josh Hammer

RELATED ARTICLE: Iran’s Attack on Israel Was a Direct Result of American Weakness

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.

‘Blank Checks and Slush Funds’: House Passes $95 Billion Foreign Aid Package for Ukraine, Israel thumbnail

‘Blank Checks and Slush Funds’: House Passes $95 Billion Foreign Aid Package for Ukraine, Israel

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By Family Research Council

Members of Congress chanted “Ukraine!” and waved a sea of rippling, blue-and-gold flags across the House floor, as the House of Representatives approved a massive $95 billion foreign aid package that benefits Ukraine, Taiwan, and both sides of the Israel-Hamas war.

The aid package contained approximately $61 billion in additional funding for Ukraine’s war against Russia, which supporters say will pay for the military’s next year of efforts. The bill also contains $26 billion for Israel, $9 billion of which is constituted as “humanitarian aid” for the Gaza Strip. The Awdah Palestinian TV, owned by the Fatah Party, accused Gaza’s Hamas-controlled government of stealing and absconding with food and other vital supplies intended for its citizens “to their own homes.” The package also contains $8 billion for the “Indo-Pacific” region, primarily Taiwan.

The bill passed the House on Saturday by a 311-112 vote. While Democrats voted unanimously in favor of the bill, a majority of Republicans opposed additional aid (112-101). One congressman, Rep. Daniel Meuser (R-Pa.), voted present. The Democrat-controlled Senate is expected to pass the bill on Tuesday.

Raucous congressmen began chanting, “Ukraine! Ukraine!” and waving foreign flags in the lower chamber of the U.S. people’s House immediately upon the bill’s passage, putting off critics of continued aid. “Too much Ukraine. Not enough USA,” remarked Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah).

The only member of the House born in Ukraine, Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), voted against sending more aid to her homeland, saying she would only vote to forward additional aid if it came with tighter oversight and provisions to secure the U.S. border. This aid package continues the Biden administration’s policy of “blank checks and slush funds,” Spartz declared on the House floor. “Unfortunately, this strategy has failed the American people. Biden has failed the American people.”

“If we don’t have proper oversight, we are not going to achieve our goals,” said Spartz earlier this month. “We cannot have these never-ending wars.”

House Republicans hoped to at least secure additional border enforcement from the aid package, but the measure failed to get the necessary two-thirds supermajority to be included in this bill.

House Democrats deemed the measure unnecessary. “Some say, ‘Well, we have to deal with our border first.’ The Ukrainian-Russian border is our border,” declared Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.).

Ultimately, insiders familiar with the process say, the Ukrainian aid package “would not have passed without Donald Trump.” Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told “Fox News Sunday” that “President Trump has created a loan component to this package that gives us leverage down the road.”

The legislation allows the U.S. to ask Ukraine to repay $10 billion in aid. But Ukraine is not expected to pay back U.S. taxpayers.

Controversially, the bill gives the president the ability to absolve Ukraine of half of that remaining $10 billion debt after the next presidential election but before the next president takes office.

“The ‘loan’ for Ukraine is all smoke and mirrors,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) posted on the social media platform X. “It allows the president to cancel up to 50% of funds owed after November 15, 2024, and all remaining funds owed after January 1, 2026. No bank would allow this.” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) dismissed the loan as “a joke.”

The deepening fissure within Republican ranks had been signaled during a procedural, rules vote on Friday. “What was significant about it is that the Democrats actually joined Republicans in voting in favor of the bill,” reporter Victoria Marshall told “Washington Watch” guest host Joseph Backholm shortly after that tally.

That bipartisan support may have cost Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) vital support among his own House caucus, as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) doubled down on their threat to vacate the chair, terminating Speaker Johnson’s short and embattled tenure in office. Observers say that could result in a unified Democratic caucus overpowering a fractured Republican bloc to hand far-Left Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) the speaker’s gavel — and its attendant powers to move, or block, legislation.

“One of the things that’ll be interesting to track is how this plays in the Republican caucus that Speaker Johnson continues to try to hold together,” said Backholm on Friday. This weekend’s vote holds “lots of political ramifications for him personally and certainly for the caucus, as they head into November.”

Alongside the aid package, Congress passed the REPO Act, which allows the Biden administration to freeze, seize, and redistribute an estimated $6 billion in Russian assets, sending the proceeds to Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has already promised “retaliatory actions and legal proceedings” if Washington follows through with its threat.

An ebullient Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told “Meet the Press” the fresh injection of U.S. taxpayer funds gives his nation “a chance for victory” over Russia. Likewise, CIA Director William Burns insisted the additional resources were aimed at “puncturing Putin’s arrogant view that time is on his side” during a speech at the Bush Center Forum on Leadership in Dallas on Thursday.

But military experts say Ukraine’s defeat is inevitable.

“This aid does not enable Ukraine to win the battle,” Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst now with the America First Policy Institute, told Newsmax TV on Monday morning. “It simply keeps Ukraine in the fight.”

“The best option, which Zelensky and Biden won’t talk about, is to end the war — to start a ceasefire and a process to end the killing,” said Fleitz. “Because Ukraine will eventually lose this war of attrition.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

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

RELATED ARTICLE: Rep. Anna Paulina Luna Scolds Dems Waving Ukrainian Flags After Vote – ‘Put Those Damn Flags Away!’ 

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.

The Largest Christian University in the U.S. Was Fined $37 Million. Coincidence or Targeted Attack? thumbnail

The Largest Christian University in the U.S. Was Fined $37 Million. Coincidence or Targeted Attack?

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By Family Research Council

A dust storm of political madness is brewing in Phoenix, Arizona as Grand Canyon University faces the continued threats of Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. Christians have watched as the Biden administration attacks biblical views left and right, with a particularly vehement disregard of the sanctity of life and marriage. As such, it can’t be too surprising that Cardona, a part of this leftist administration, has “vowed” to shut down America’s largest Christian university.

In late October, GCU was hit with “a $37.7 million fine brought by the federal government over allegations that it lied to students about the cost of its programs,” AP News reported — an accusation GCU President Brian Mueller described as “ridiculous.” Around the same time, Liberty University, America’s second largest Christian university, was also fined $37 million “over alleged underreporting of crimes.” GCU appealed its fine in November even though a hearing is not expected until January 2025. But the question Mueller has is one of integrity. Is this genuine consideration for the well-being of students, or is this a targeted attack against religious institutions?

“It’s interesting, isn’t it, that the two largest Christian universities in the country, this one and Liberty University, are both being fined almost the identical amount at almost the identical time?” the college president speculated in a speech. “Now is there a cause and effect there? I don’t know. But it’s a fact.”

This April, the House Appropriations Committee held a hearing specifically about the administration’s decision to “crack down on GCU and other universities like it.” During the proceedings, Cardona and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), made their disapproval for GCU and similar universities obvious. “[W]e are cracking down not only to shut them down, but to send a message to not prey on students,” Cardona emphasized.

Supporters of GCU agree the fine seems unprecedented and motivated by ideological bias, including American Principles Project Policy Director Jon Schweppe, who said, “The federal government’s education agenda is punishing schools that do not conform to their progressive ideology. It’s time we take a stand against this egregious abuse of power.” Another conservative think tank, the Goldwater Institute (GI), sued the Department of Education for “refusing to turn over” public “documents that explain why” they’re fining GCU. The goal of their lawsuit is to unmask the reason behind the fine.

“With its motto of ‘private, Christian, affordable’ and its track record of graduating students into high-demand and high-paying jobs, GCU is a success story by any metric. And it stands apart from universities across the country that are facing declining enrollment, that are indoctrinating students with radical politics, and that are under attack for failing to defend the First Amendment,” GI wrote. “So then why are the feds targeting GCU, a popular university that seems to be doing everything right? That’s exactly what we’re going to find out.”

While there is still immense uncertainty surrounding this case, GCU president took the time to share with The Washington Stand how his staff, faculty, and students are fairing in these troubling times and how believers everywhere can help. Mueller emphasized that GCU has faced various issues over the years. But despite the government’s action, he wanted people to know that “interestingly enough, “it has had zero impact on anything that we’re doing.”

He continued, “The enrollments are just continuing to grow … [and] the morale is very high in terms of our faculty and staff. The campus is extremely vibrant. I mean, the students absolutely love this place. They’re extremely loyal to it, and so we just keep marching through it.” And while the fine they’re being dealt by the Department of Education is “a problem,” Mueller is just thankful that GCU remains optimistic.

The Christian “mission, not politics, is our motivation and it is our hope,” he told TWS. As a university, Mueller explained how they exist to “pour into” the community around them. He added, “[O]ur reach into the neighborhood and caring for disadvantaged populations has been a way to live out our faith” in a way “that has risen above … political divide.” Ultimately, with support from “both sides of the aisle” in Arizona, he noted, “[A]ll the issues we have are with a very small number of people in Washington D.C.”

“We encourage people to be involved politically and vote,” Mueller said. “… But our faith will stand above the politics always, and our politics will never become our religion.” Because, for “many people in our country today, their politics have become their religion, and that’s when things … go really bad in our society.” He pointed out that GCU is “trying to be an example of a Christian community that can rise above those things and focus on helping people” through service, as Scripture calls believers to do.

Mueller concluded with a request for prayer as they work through these troubling times and for “the hearts of certain people in Washington, D.C. to be softened,” adding that “it’s hard to make progress and resolve differences when people just … don’t want to talk to each other.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter 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.

‘That Is Not a Religion’: DeSantis Bars Satanists from Florida School Chaplaincy Program thumbnail

‘That Is Not a Religion’: DeSantis Bars Satanists from Florida School Chaplaincy Program

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By Family Research Council

The Sunshine State is now welcoming chaplains into public schools, but Satanists need not apply. On Thursday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill into law allowing chaplains to volunteer to offer counseling at public and charter schools. However, the Catholic governor warned that Satanists would not be accepted into the program, as some Christian and conservative groups had feared.

“Now some have said if you do a school chaplain program that somehow you’re going to have Satanists running around in all our schools,” DeSantis said in a press conference. “We’re not playing those games in Florida. That is not a religion. That is not qualifying to be able to participate in this. We’re going to be using common sense when it comes to this, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

The Florida Senate version of the Bill was approved in February and the House version approved early last month. The legislation’s text states, “Each school district or charter school may adopt a policy to authorize volunteer school chaplains to provide supports, services, and programs to students as assigned by the district school board or charter school governing board.” The new law requires volunteer chaplains to pass a background check and would require school administrators to publicize each volunteer chaplain’s religious affiliation and obtain parental consent before a student begins counseling.

“Any opportunity that exists for ministers or chaplains in the public sector must not discriminate based on religious affiliation,” said The Satanic Temple’s (TST) “Director of Ministry” Penemue Grigori in February. “Our ministers look forward to participating in opportunities to do good in the community, including the opportunities created by this bill, right alongside the clergy of other religions.” Ryan Jayne of the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s Action Fund added, “I think there is a 100% chance you see satanic chaplains, and also of course other religious minorities that the majority-Christian population might not be a fan of. The Satanic Temple is a church, whether people like it or not.”

“It is wonderful to have such a strong statement denying the legitimacy of Satanism as a religion or church from Governor DeSantis. But I worry that appeals to common sense will not hold in the most ideological school systems, even in Florida,” Family Research Council’s Senior Fellow for Education Studies Meg Kilgannon commented to The Washington Stand. “Regardless, this is an important step in acknowledging the role that faith plays in our lives and how important it is that the big questions students have about morality, life and death, and God’s plan for their lives are best answered by a parent or priest, pastor, or chaplain.”

DeSantis has criticized Satanism in the past, arguing that it is not a religion. In December, after military veteran and outspoken Christian Michael Cassidy toppled and beheaded a Baphomet idol erected in the Iowa state capitol building by TST, the Florida governor declared, “Satan has no place in our society and should not be recognized as a ‘religion’ by the federal government. … Good prevails over evil — that’s the American spirit.”

On its website, TST responds to the question “Do you worship Satan?” The organization states, “No, nor do we believe in the existence of Satan or the supernatural.” TST adds, “Satan is a symbol of the Eternal Rebel in opposition to arbitrary authority, forever defending personal sovereignty even in the face of insurmountable odds. … Our metaphoric representation is the literary Satan best exemplified by Milton and the Romantic Satanists from Blake to Shelley to Anatole France.”

Now that it has been signed by DeSantis, Florida’s new law goes into effect on July 1.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: The Largest Christian University in the U.S. Was Fined $37 Million. Coincidence or Targeted Attack?

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.

A Female Jewish Yale Student Stabbed in Eye By Male Terrorist Student thumbnail

A Female Jewish Yale Student Stabbed in Eye By Male Terrorist Student

/in , , , , , /by

By The Geller Report

Hitler youth have taken over college campuses. Horrific.

Where did America think all this jihad porn and islamophilia would lead would lead?

Geller Reader commenter, ‘Will National and Conn. Jewish Federation, ADL, AJC demand appropriate punishment – or just have another meeting to tell parents and students how to “handle” antisemitism? Think how powerfully the establishment Jewish organizations would act if the victim was part of any other minority group other than a Jew.’ 

Jewish Yale student stabbed in eye with PLO flag

BY: JNS, April 21, 2024:

A Jewish student at Yale University was stabbed in the eye with a PLO flag during an anti-Israel demonstration at the school’s New Haven, Conn., campus on Saturday night.

“Tonight at Yale, I was assaulted by a student today at an anti-Israel protest. He stabbed me in the eye with a Palestinian flag. Now I’m in the hospital. This is what happens when visibly Jewish students try to attend and document these rallies,” Sahar Tartak, a sophomore, tweeted after the incident.

Tonight at Yale, I was assaulted by a student today at an anti-Israel protest. He stabbed me in the eye with a Palestinian flag. Now I’m in the hospital. This is what happens when visibly Jewish students try to attend and document these rallies.

— Sahar Tartak🇮🇱🇺🇸 (@sahar_tartak) April 21, 2024

Tartak, who is studying history and is the editor-in-chief of the independent Yale Free Press college newspaper, was attempting to film the pro-Palestinian encampment set when she and a friend were confronted by five activists who formed a wall and would not let them pass.

“One of them takes their Palestinian flag and waves it in my face and then jabs it in the face,” Tartak told The Jerusalem Post.

Tartak reported the incident to the campus police who called her an ambulance. She went to the hospital and was discharged without suffering permanent damage.

She said that protesters pushed her and her friend repeatedly. Earlier documentation Tartak posted to X showed the demonstrators commemorating the recently deceased Walid Daqqa, a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist who was convicted of murdering an Israeli soldier in 1984.

Here is the terrorist that Yale student group Yalies4Palestine put on display on campus Walid Daqqa. Convicted of commanding a group which kidnapped, tortured, mutilated, and murdered an Israeli soldier in 1984. Students put flowers at his shrine at Yale pic.twitter.com/X6LDVmcN5b

— Sahar Tartak🇮🇱🇺🇸 (@sahar_tartak) April 21, 2024

Tartak also posted video she took of protesters at Yale yelling, “Viva via Palestina” as they pull down an American flag, cheering when it hits the ground. She noted that the university police and administration did nothing in response.

A mob of Yale students shout “VIVA VIVA PALESTINA” as they tear down an American flag on campus, cheering when it hits the floor.t but they said they needed “authorization.” She also noted that they were outnumbered by the pro-Palestinian mob of thousands of activists to only seven police officers.

No arrests were made during the protests, according to two groups involved—Yalies for Palestine and American Muslims for Palestine Connecticut. They said the protest started on Friday night in response to attempts to break up a similar encampment on the Columbia University campus.

“These students are violating every policy in the books, they should have been disbanded immediately,” Tartak told the Post. “These students have taken over campus, and it’s an intimidation tactic.”

In her tweet and Post interview, Tartak did not identify the assailant who stabbed her with the flag or say if she will press charges.

A mob of Yale students shout “VIVA VIVA PALESTINA” as they tear down an American flag on campus, cheering when it hits the floor.

(Oh, and university cops do nothing in response. Nor does the administration) pic.twitter.com/4aghYw1NBo

— Sahar Tartak🇮🇱🇺🇸 (@sahar_tartak) April 21, 2024

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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POSTS ON X:

Yale University – a female Jewish student was stabbed in the eye by the pictured man at last night’s pro terror rally on campus.

Recognize him? DM us and help secure his arrest!

Enough is enough. pic.twitter.com/GOa8l0fwkb

— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) April 21, 2024

Yale: Jewish student told by protest organizers blockading me at a violent anti-Jewish rally that he can only join the rally on the “outskirts” and “outside.” Jews can’t get too close—when I tried to walk forward, they blockaded. Then I got stabbed in the eye by a 🇵🇸 flag pic.twitter.com/lhKnOirJJv

— Sahar Tartak🇮🇱🇺🇸 (@sahar_tartak) April 21, 2024

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

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