Day: March 15, 2023

Fingerprints of Unvaccinated NYC School Teachers Sent to FBI

BY CAROLYN HENDLER, J.D.

SEE: https://thevaccinereaction.org/2023/03/fingerprints-of-unvaccinated-nyc-school-teachers-sent-to-fbi/;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

The fingerprints of unvaccinated school teachers in New York City who lost their jobs due to their vaccine status have allegedly been sent to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) flagged with a “problem code.” These “problem code” flags in the FBI files on the fired teachers could impact their ability to obtain future employment.1

According to the attorney representing the teachers who were fired for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine:

When the city puts these problem codes on employees who have been terminated because of their unconstitutional policies, not only do they have this flag in their files, but their fingerprints are sent with that flag to the FBI and the New York Criminal Justice Services, so it impacts their ongoing ability to get employment at other places.2

New York City’s vaccine mandate forced approximately 148,000 public school staff to receive COVID shots by Oct. 4, 2021 or be placed on administrative leave. While the vaccine mandate provided for religious and medical exemptions, it did not allow for the option to test for past or current infection instead of receiving the shots.3 In practice, however, all vaccine exemption requests were denied and only 10 percent were granted after an appeal.4

“Why Is My Fingerprint Being Sent to the FBI?”

A veteran teacher of 15 years who was fired for not getting the controversial vaccine asked:

This is both outrageous and infuriating because my first question to the government or whatever, is basically, what did I do? What kind of criminal activity did I participate besides denying something that I felt that was right for me? Religiously, mentally, I just didn’t want anything experimental on my body, so what criminal activity does that persist? I don’t understand. Like with why am I being flagged? Why is my fingerprint being sent to the FBI?5

The media was alerted to what happened to the fired teachers when investigative journalist Betsy Combier wrote an affidavit in which she noted that the fingerprints of unvaccinated teachers were marked with a “problem code” and sent to the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).  Combier explained that when a teacher did not comply with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, the Department of Education (DOE) put a problem code in their personnel file… 6

When the DOE puts a problem code in the employee’s personnel file, it also places a flag on the employee’s fingerprints, which is then sent to the national databases at both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the State Division of Criminal Justice Services.7

Combier further pointed out that once a teacher provided proof of vaccination, the problem code was taken off their personnel file. New York City’s Mayor Eric Adams has denied that unvaccinated teachers had their personnel files marked with problem codes.

According to Mary Holland, JD, lead counsel for the Children’s Health Defense the “problem codes” could have a significant negative impact on the teachers’ ability to get another job as it is the same code used for someone accused of molesting, raping or injuring a child.8

Mayor Adams lifted the COVID vaccine mandate for public employees in early February 2023, but the 1,780 fired city workers did not automatically get their jobs back. City workers fired due to their COVID vaccine status are forced to reapply for their jobs and will not receive backpay if rehired.9

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Click here to view References:

1 Hill B. Fingerprints of unvaccinated NYC teachers reportedly sent to FBI with ‘problem codes’: ‘Invasion of privacy’. Fox News Feb. 14, 2023.
2 Ibid.
3 New York City teachers must be vaccinated by today or face unpaid leave. NPR Oct. 4, 2021.
4 Children’s Health Defense. CHD Calls for Congressional Investigation After New York City Places ‘Problem Codes’ in Files of Unvaccinated Teachers. The Defender Mar. 1, 2023.
5 Hill B. Fingerprints of unvaccinated NYC teachers reportedly sent to FBI with ‘problem codes’: ‘Invasion of privacy’. Fox News Feb. 14, 2023.
6 Ibid.
7 Campanile C. NYC teachers who refused COVID vaccine slapped with ‘scarlet letter’ in personnel files: lawyer. New York Post Feb. 14, 2023.
8 Children’s Health Defense. CHD Calls for Congressional Investigation After New York City Places ‘Problem Codes’ in Files of Unvaccinated Teachers. The Defender Mar. 1, 2023.
9 Ibid.

Biden’s “Epiphany”: Not Supporting Transgender Madness Is ‘Close to Sinful’~NO WONDER HE HAS A VACATION HOUSE IN GAY REHOBOTH BEACH, DE

Biden said he had an “epiphany.”

Ο Joe Biden υπόσχεται να πολεμήσει την πολιτική τρανσφοβία: «Η απαγόρευση των trans δικαιωμάτων είναι αμαρτία»

Kal Penn & President Biden Talk Same-Sex Marriage

Joe Biden joins Kal Penn to discuss his evolution on same-sex marriage and how the government can protect the transgender community.

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2023/03/14/biden-says-opposing-the-mutilation-of-children-is-close-to-sinful-n1678275;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Old Joe Biden appeared on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show Monday night, where the guest host Kal Penn, star of the deathless classic Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, asked him about same-sex marriage and boys who want to become girls and girls boys. In response, Biden struck a moral tone, suggesting that support for same-sex marriage and the genital mutilation of children in pursuit of delusions and fantasies was simply the decent position to take, and darn it, Lunchbucket Joe didn’t see why it had to be any more complicated than that.

As we have all come to expect by now, Biden lied when he told a story that he has told before about his alleged “epiphany” on same-sex marriage. As Matt Margolis shows here, Biden claims to have begun to support same-sex marriage as a teenager, when he saw two men kissing. This was the 1950s when no one was talking about same-sex marriage and it was extremely rare to see homosexuals kissing in public, so his story is dubious on its face. But Matt demonstrates that Biden opposed same-sex marriage decades after that, casting his entire “epiphany” into doubt. Old Joe even threw in his patented insistence “I’m not joking,” which he often says when he’s in the middle of telling a lie.

Then, when Biden turned to a discussion of today’s fashionable gender madness, the conversation got even worse.

Penn had asked the ostensible president about what the government could do to protect the “trans kids who are dealing with all these regressive state laws that are popping up right now.” Biden replied, “Transgender kids is a really harder dnnnn. Thing. What’s going on in Florida,” and here he paused, shaking his head, weary at the evil of it all, “is, as my mother would say, close to sinful.”

What’s going on in Florida? Last October, the Florida Board of Medicine voted to ban the mutilation of children in the name of attempting to aid them to pretend that they’re of the opposite sex. At a Board workshop on this issue, a woman named Chloe Cole, who had embarked upon the path that she thought would make her a man, described the monstrousness of the procedures involved in abetting these delusions:  “My breasts were beautiful, now they’ve been incinerated for nothing. Thank you, modern medicine. At 13, I started taking puberty blockers and testosterone, and at 15, I underwent a double mastectomy in which my breasts were removed and my nipples were grafted. And yet, at 16, after years of medically transitioning, I came to realize that I severely regretted my transition.”

Woke doctors sold Cole a lie: “During my diagnosis for dysphoria and the consultations for these treatments, the overall picture of my life just went completely unaddressed….I was introduced to inappropriate content and an echo chamber of far-left ideology, such as that sex and gender are separate, women are inherently victims, men are inherently superior in every way, and that dysphoric children need hormones and surgeries in order to live.” This Mengelian manipulation is what Old Joe Biden was saying it’s “close to sinful” to stop.

Old Joe rambled on semi-coherently, claiming to be on the side of the good and loving: “It’s terrible what they’re doing. It’s not like a kid wakes up one morning and says, ‘You know, I decided I want to become a man’ or ‘I want to become a woman’ or ‘I want to change.’ I mean, what are they thinking about here? They’re human beings. They love. They have feelings. They have inclinations that are… I mean, it just, to me, is, I don’t know, is, it’s cruel.” No. What’s cruel is putting children on a path that they think will help them attain their delusions, only to find that it’s impossible for them to discard what they are and become something else.

Related: Biden Claims He Had an ‘Epiphany’ on Same-Sex Marriage as a Teen, but We Have the Receipts

What’s cruel is Old Joe Biden pretending that any of this butchery and mutilation is compassionate. But he is determined to protect these Frankensteinian, life-destroying procedures by law: he said that we need to “make sure we pass legislation like we passed with same-sex marriage. You mess with that, you’re breaking the law and you’re going to be held accountable.”

Will Biden himself ever be held accountable for the human cost of his misplaced “compassion”? Almost certainly not. He’s more likely to get a Nobel Prize than to face the repudiation and shame that should be coming to him for endorsing this inhuman social contagion. Still, Biden’s appropriation of religious language to support this disgusting barbarism is one of the most disgraceful episodes of this singularly repulsive man’s noxious career.

Xi Jinping Signals That the ChiComs Will Soon Seize Taiwan

Xi Says China Will Take a More 'Active Part' in ‘Global Governance’

Xi Says China Will Take a More 'Active Part' in ‘Global Governance’

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2023/03/14/xi-says-china-will-take-a-more-active-part-in-global-governance-n1678265;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Global Times, a mouthpiece of the Chinese government, reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping told the first session of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) Monday that China “will play an active part in the reform and development of the global governance system.” Meanwhile, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said Tuesday, “According to bank documents we’ve already obtained, we know one company owned by a Biden associate received a $3 million dollar wire from a Chinese energy company two months after Joe Biden left the vice presidency. Soon after, hundreds of thousands of dollars in payouts went to members of the Biden family.” Will Biden stand up to China as it begins to “reform” global “governance”? Or does he have a few million reasons not to do so?

There was a great deal more that was noteworthy, if not downright ominous, in Xi’s remarks, which Global Times is touting as a significant indication of what China’s policy will be in the coming years: “Chinese analysts said the remarks have highlighted the direction China will take on its march after the 20th CPC National Congress, and 2023 is the opening year of this new journey.” The speech, according to this government press organ, is “key for Chinese society and also the international community to better understand how the CPC will lead China to reform, develop and more actively participate in global governance and contribute to world peace and development.” CPC is China’s official abbreviation for the Chinese Communist Party.

The goal leading up to the middle of this century, according to Global Times, is to “build China into a great modern socialist country in all respects.” In a passage that should make Old Joe Biden’s woke military brass tear itself away from its Critical Race Theory lessons for a minute or two, Xi made it clear that part of being a “modern socialist country in all respects” is not having a breakaway province nearby where people live freely and are not slaves of the all-encompassing state. Xi declared, “Realizing the complete reunification of the motherland is a shared aspiration of all Chinese sons and daughters, and it is the key part of the meaning of national rejuvenation.” That means that seizing Taiwan and incorporating it into the People’s Republic is high on Xi’s priority list.

Global Times emphasized this by adding: “Expert [sic, and no, it didn’t say which one, either] said this has once again sent a clear message to the world that there is nothing that can stop the process of China’s national reunification, and the Taiwan question will and must be resolved in China’s journey toward national rejuvenation.” Xi, it said, “stressed adhering to the one-China principle and the 1992 Consensus, actively promoting the peaceful development of cross-Straits relations, resolutely opposing external interference and ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist activities, and firmly advancing the process of national reunification.” Of course, it helps that there is a desperately corrupt octogenarian with dementia in the Oval Office.

Xi also emphasized that China was going to remain under the boot of the Communist Party: “It is important to stay alert and determined to tackle the special challenges that a large party like the CPC faces.” Global Times’ unnamed experts chimed in to opine that the “strong leadership” of the ChiComs was “the most crucial advantage that helped China realize successful development in the past and that will help it to achieve the goal of national rejuvenation in the future, especially when the world is currently seeing great turbulence, but the Chinese leadership has also wisely and farsightedly seen the special challenges for a large political party that must be overcome.” In the face of this challenge, instead of standing resolutely for the principles of a free society, the Biden regime is growing increasingly authoritarian and hostile to the freedom of speech. So the global rivalry is shaping up to be one frankly authoritarian regime versus one stealthily authoritarian one. And may the least authoritarian regime win.

Related: China vs. USA

Sounding like Democrats waxing lyrical about “our democracy,” by which they mean their own hegemony, a Global Times “expert” said: “The key in the next stage is to institutionalize our successful anti-corruption efforts and to modernize the democratic supervision over the operation of political power, and this is why we need to fully implement and promote whole-process people’s democracy and all-round law-based governance.” Democratic supervision over the operation of political power? That’s just what the Left is working toward and has largely already obtained here.

Xi is looking toward the future of the People’s Republic as a world power: “China will make efforts to promote the building of a community with a shared future for humanity…. We will be dedicated to peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefit, stand firmly on the right side of history, practice true multilateralism, and uphold the shared values of humanity.” It sounded like a speech Old Joe Biden himself could have made.

NSSF Reaction to President BIDEN’S Gun Control Executive Order

BY JIM GRANT

SEE: https://www.ammoland.com/2023/03/nssf-reaction-to-presidents-gun-control-executive-order/;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — NSSF, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, takes exception with President Joe Biden’s Executive Order to increase gun control measures. In the name of “doing something,” the Biden administration is chilling fundamental Constitutional rights and simply rehashing existing laws, many of which were previously supported by the firearm industry.

“The Biden administration should demand that soft-on-crime prosecutors and lawmakers use the laws already in existence to lock up criminals that misuse firearms to prey on innocent Americans,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President, and General Counsel. “Instead, this administration continues to scapegoat the firearm industry for its unwillingness to address crime. The failure of this administration to seriously address spiraling crime and instead focus its attacks on a Constitutionally-protected industry that works diligently to remain in compliance with laws and regulations and actively cooperates with law enforcement, especially ATF, exposes the lack of urgency Americans’ demand to curb rampant and out-of-control crime.”

The firearm industry worked with Congress to update the statutory definition of “in the business” in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was passed last year and signed into law by President Biden. The update defined those Americans “in the business” of selling firearms as those “predominantly earning a profit.”

Further, The White House accused industry members, without evidence, of selling firearms without required FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verifications. This is disingenuous, at best. The firearm industry was the progenitor of the point-of-sale instant background check to ensure firearms are sold only to those the law has determined can be trusted to possess a firearm. The firearm industry has been on the leading edge to improve the quality of the FBI’s NICS, including supporting the FIX NICS Act of 2017 that incentivized states and required federal agencies to submit all disqualifying background information to the FBI to ensure prohibited individuals are barred from purchasing firearms. NSSF supports increasing the submission of disqualifying records to FBI NICS but rejects the Biden administration’s demand to move closer to universal background checks, which will not work without a national firearm registry, which is forbidden by federal law.

The firearm industry has also been consistently addressing compliance with federal regulations to report the loss or theft of firearms during shipping. NSSF has repeatedly held compliance seminars with members of the firearm industry and common carriers to be aware of and remain in compliance with reporting requirements when firearms go missing during shipping. NSSF has led this effort to ensure firearms are accounted for during transit from manufacturer to distributor to retailer and finally to retail sale.

NSSF welcomes the Biden administration’s renewed attention to the safe storage of firearms in the home. This has been an issue on which the firearm industry has led from the front for over two decades. Every firearm shipped from the factory includes a locking device. Additionally, through NSSF’s leadership with Project ChildSafe, over 40 million firearm safety kits, including locking devices, have been distributed to communities across America through partnerships with over 15,000 law enforcement agencies in all 50 states and five U.S. territories. This campaign has been recognized by the National Safety Council’s Green Cross Awards and the Government Accountability Office for its efficacy in reducing the criminal and negligent misuse of firearms through voluntary safe storage. NSSF welcomes the Biden administration’s support to increase the reach of this firearm-industry financed effort.

In 2013, then-Vice President Joe Biden held a White House meeting in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook tragedy. He spoke to then-NSSF CEO Steve Sanetti, and referring to NSSF, the president said, “You guys are doing a lot of good things, including the gunlock thing. And this isn’t Joe Biden just blowing smoke. I mean it.”

NSSF has not opposed the use of emergency risk protection orders, or so-called “red flag” laws, so long as those laws include adequate protections for Constitutional Due Process considerations. To date, none of the “red flag” laws in the 19 states and District of Columbia include these Constitutional protections. NSSF urges the Biden administration and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to address these Constitutional concerns that would encourage additional states to consider these laws.

President Biden’s demand to close “the dating violence restraining order loophole” has already been addressed and was not opposed by the firearm industry. Definitions of domestic partners were updated in the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Congress expanded domestic and dating partners to the list of prohibited individuals to include those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence. Those laws were signed by President Biden.

NSSF recognized that the Department of Defense (DoD) instructs all military members on firearm safety during entry-level training. These include the fundamental rules of firearm safety. The firearm industry welcomes the Biden administration’s acknowledgment of proven firearm safety practices that have been the hallmark of the firearm industry for over a century. To the extent that the Biden administration is attempting to politicize the acquisition of the warfighter, the only criteria should be which firearm is the best one to meet the needs of America’s warfighters. Injecting gun control politics into the process is dangerous. Gun control politics should never have a place in DoD’s selection processes.

NSSF does not oppose the reauthorization of the Undetectable Firearms Act, which requires 3.7 ounces of metal be included in a major component part of a firearm. Detection technology has improved to the point where image detectors have been able to identify polymer-framed firearms. Demands to modernize this act deserve strict scrutiny. The Undetectable Firearms Act as it is currently written should be made permanent.

NSSF rejects the Biden administration’s demands to ban Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs) and standard-capacity magazines. This demand is clearly unconstitutional, as affirmed by the Heller, McDonald and Bruen decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court that affirmed the individual right to possess firearms in common use. More than 24.4 million MSRs are in circulation today. That’s more than there are Ford F-150s on the road, the most-popular selling pickup truck. MSRs are semiautomatic firearms, which operate the same way as the most popular handguns and duck hunting shotguns. One cartridge is expended for each pull of the trigger. Likewise, efforts to ban standard-capacity magazines are an attempt to infringe on the Constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans. The courts have affirmed that magazine possession is essential to the ability to exercise Second Amendment rights. NSSF knows from government studies that banning MSRs and restricting magazine capacity will not make our communities safer.

NSSF rejects the Biden administration’s demand to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). This law is the expressed will of Congress that was passed with a wide bipartisan majority and prevents frivolous lawsuits against the firearm industry for the criminal misuse of firearms by remote third parties. This would be akin to suing Ford and Anheuser-Busch for criminal drunk driving incidents. Criminals are responsible for the crimes they commit.

NSSF rejects President Biden’s weaponization of the nonpartisan Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to squelch the First Amendment rights of firearm businesses. The heavy-handed approach is nothing short of an attempt to chill First Amendment-protected commercial free speech about products protected by the Second Amendment. The firearm industry markets firearms only to those who are legally able to possess them. Only those over the age of 18 can legally purchase a firearm at retail after submitting to an FBI NICS verification.

NSSF also rejects the Biden administration’s attempt to weaponize the “zero tolerance” policy of revoking federal firearms licenses for minor clerical errors by compounding that ill-conceived policy to expand it to a “name-and-shame” effort. Firearm retailers are the front line for ensuring firearms are sold only to those legally able to purchase them and “zero-tolerance” risks the cooperative relationship between firearm retailers and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). This weaponization of the ATF would codify the Biden administration’s efforts to transform the ATF from a law enforcement and regulatory agency to one that is a political arm of an antigun administration.

About The National Shooting Sports Foundation

NSSF is the trade association for the firearm industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of thousands of manufacturers, distributors, firearm retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations, and publishers nationwide. For more information, visit nssf.org

National Shooting Sports Foundation

  

From Queer to Christ: How God Can Rescue People from LGBTism

God can and does rescue people from homosexual lifestyles, transgenderism, and other sins, explains former homosexual George Carneal, author of From Queer to Christ: My Journey Into the Light, in this interview on Conversations That Matter with The New American magazine’s Alex Newman. Carneal was immersed in the world of LGBT for many years, which the media and the culture glamorize, and he says the reality is that it is fraught with pain and suffering. However, Christ set him free from that. Now, Carneal wants to sound the alarm and warn young people about the spiritual and even physical horror involved.  

Why Nations are Increasingly Siding with Russia-China Over US

BY LUIS MIGUEL

SEE: https://thenewamerican.com/why-nations-are-increasingly-siding-with-russia-china-over-u-s/;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

For decades, the Washington foreign-policy establishment thought itself invincible, foolishly believing that its liberal-globalist vision would inevitably become the world’s standard protocol. 

Now, however, a competing vision — led by China and Russia — is rapidly gaining ground and threatening to make not just the D.C. establishment, but the United States as a country, irrelevant.

One by one, nation after nation is forsaking the U.S.-led world order and entering the column of the Russo-Sino alliance.

Africa has been an ongoing project in western humanitarianism with questionable returns. In 2022 alone, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) gave over $6 billion in multi-sector humanitarian assistance to Africa.

Despite this, Africa is increasingly becoming a fertile ground of recruitment for new allies to Moscow and Beijing.

Recent developments demonstrate South Africa’s drift toward Russia and China. 

As Breitbart News reported, the South African electoral commission collected disclosures from all of the nation’s political parties during the last quarter.

It turns out the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), took 15 million rand ($826,000) from United Manganese of Kalahari Ltd., a mining company linked to Russian businessman Viktor Vekselberg — who is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Opposition party Democratic Alliance (DA) accused ANC of letting these donations influence its position on the Russia-Ukraine War. The South African government has taken a stance of neutrality, and the country twice abstained from UN resolutions condemning Russia.

“This explains what the ANC government’s approach to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is because it’s on the receiving end of millions of rands in donations from Russian oligarchs. It flies in the face of South Africa’s quest for and respect for human rights as the light that guides our foreign policy,” DA spokesman Solly Malatsi said to Voice of America News.

And as The New American previously reported, South Africa last month hosted joint military exercises with Russia and China.

TNA’s Anthea Pollock previously wrote how China is winning over many African nations:

Many Africans view Europe as a self-serving continent that has deliberately “misunderstood” what Africans have wanted or needed through the centuries, and they view Westerners in general as being under the misguided notion that the “dark continent” is a passive, helpless entity to be exploited — a trove of natural resources and cheap labor.

On the contrary, for at least the last decade, China has effectively portrayed itself as a safe and favored economic partner for African countries wishing to emulate the Asian nation’s rapid development. However, China’s traits of “new colonialism” and inhumane tendencies are slowly being unveiled to Africans with each passing day.        

It remains to be seen whether outrage with Beijing’s “new colonialism” will be enough to dissuade African countries from rejecting Chinese business funding and medical aid, especially given Africa’s long resentment against the west.

And just as China is leveraging long-running resentment against Europeans to gain support in Africa, Russia is likewise playing to many countries’ long-held resentment against U.S. hegemony in order to win them over to its side.

This can be seen in Eastern Europe, where Putin has varying levels of support from leaders in countries such as Hungary and Croatia.

But Russia is also successfully playing this card in global hotspots such as the Middle East, where anti-American animosity is especially high. Putin is particularly using this tactic to make allies out of regimes that Washington has turned into international pariahs, such as Iran.

In fact, Moscow has now become the number-one foreign investor in Iran.

In addition, Russia is striving to win over countries that have typically been seen as friendly to the United States. Moscow has now started exporting diesel to Saudi Arabia and welcomed an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran restoring relations between the two nations.

Russia has also carefully moved to add India to its column, helping it build up its military and becoming India’s fourth-largest source of imports — especially crude oil.

Ultimately, much of the appeal of the Russo-Sino alliance has been a reactionary one stemming from Washington’s own blunders. Through its incessant interventionism, war-mongering, and sanction diplomacy, the United States has made enemies of a large swath of the international community. Not surprisingly, these nations are all too happy to join a new world order that provides them with economic and military security from Washington’s punitive actions.

In short, Washington has itself to blame; its long train of neoconservative internationalism has resulted in many burned bridges and the creation of enemies where it should have had allies.

In addition, Putin and Xi have intelligently taken the opposite approach to Washington, which seeks to force its vision of diversity, open borders, LGBT acceptance, and “democracy” on the world. Russia and China don’t demand their allies completely reshape their societies; they simply ask to scratch each other’s backs when it comes to trade and war.

Nations that inevitably want to preserve, not erase, their identities and socio-political systems are naturally drawn to the appeal of a system in which they aren’t forced to become carbon copies of liberal New York or California or else face the economic and military wrath of Washington.

Bank Bailouts Leading to Government-controlled Banking

Bank Bailouts Leading to Government-controlled Banking

BY DAVID KELLY

SEE: https://thenewamerican.com/bank-bailouts-leading-to-government-controlled-banking/;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Federal regulators moved quickly on Friday to take over the insolvent Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), as customers withdrew billions from accounts in an apparent bank run. Then over the weekend regulators did the same with New York-based Signature Bank, potentially sending a ripple effect across the American financial industry.  

Over the weekend, President Biden, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard began working with bank regulators to ease concern over a potential repeat to the 2008 banking crisis.  

Biden praised the team working on the bank failures, saying in a statement on Sunday, “I am pleased that they reached a prompt solution that protects American workers and small businesses and keeps our financial system safe. The solution also ensures that taxpayer dollars are not put at risk.”  

To help ease fears, Biden reassured the nation, stating, “The American people and American businesses can have confidence that their bank deposits will be there when they need them. I am firmly committed to holding those responsible for this mess fully accountable and to continuing our efforts to strengthen oversight and regulation of larger banks so that we are not in this position again.” 

But by Monday, as more information came out as to what caused these banks to fail, confidence that all would be well began to wane. Americans from financial experts to the man on the street started to understand that government intervention would definitely lead to taxpayer dollars being used to shore up the billions lost. 

SVB and Signature Bank accounts were covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) for up to $250,000. However, on Monday, Biden announced that the FDIC would cover all of the deposits, including uninsured deposits at the two banks. 

Biden declared in a statement, “All customers who had deposits in these banks can rest assured — I want to — rest assured they’ll be protected, and they’ll have access to their money as of today.” He then reiterated, “No losses will be — and I want — this is an important point — no losses will be borne by the taxpayers. Let me repeat that: No losses will be borne by the taxpayers. Instead, the money will come from the fees that banks pay into the Deposit Insurance Fund.”  

The Washington Times reported that the two banks combined had “$240 billion in uninsured deposits” that the government will cover with Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) monies. Paying out coverage for these deposits will be the largest payout since the 2008 banking crisis. The DIF is funded by fees from banks and from the government’s earnings on interest from bank investments in Treasury securities and bonds — and those fees are usually funded by depositors. Or, in other words, taxpayers.  

“Joe Biden is pretending this isn’t a bailout. It is. Now depositors at healthy banks are forced to subsidize Silicon Valley Bank’s mismanagement. When the Deposit Insurance Fund runs dry, all bank customers are on the hook. That’s a public bailout,” said former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, now a Republican presidential hopeful, as reported by the Washington Times.  

Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.), ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, released a statement on Sunday seeking answers to the bailout. He said: 

Building a culture of government intervention does nothing to stop future institutions from relying on the government to swoop in after taking excessive risks. I remain committed to bringing accountability and answers to the American people, both from the banks and our regulators. We deserve to know what exactly happened and why.

Adding to the concern that Senator Scott and Nikki Hailey shared on this bailout, the Washington Times reported, 

Steve H. Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University who served on President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers, said it moves the banking sector closer to a public utility or government-backed entity. 

“With the Biden bank bailout, and it is a bailout, banking is becoming a government-backed business — if that’s what you call a business,” he said.  

The recent actions by Biden and the Treasury are designed to give Americans confidence that their federally insured deposits are safe and that banks are secure. But the truth is that this administration is willing to, as stated above, allow the banking sector to become a government–backed entity. And with that, the taxpayers know all too well that they will ultimately be paying the bill. 

‘The Left’: Born of the Lowest Circles of Hell

‘The Left’: Born of the Lowest Circles of Hell

BY RAYMOND IBRAHIM

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/columns/raymond-ibrahim/2023/03/14/the-left-born-of-the-lowest-circles-of-hell-n1678131;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

What’s worse, physical evil from an open enemy, or clandestine evil from a supposed friend?

One need look no further than to Islam and the so-called “Left” — in this case, in the guise of the K-through-college education system — to appreciate the distinction.

First, consider the Islamic institution of slave-soldiery. For many centuries in those southeastern European regions that were subjugated by Islam, especially in the Balkans, the Turks compelled Christian families to make an annual blood tribute of their own sons.

The Muslims would select the strongest, healthiest, and most talented young European boys and then march them off to the Ottoman heartland. There, the youths would be forcibly converted to Islam, indoctrinated in the teachings of jihad, and trained to be — and rewarded for being — warriors par excellence. The Turks would then set loose these janissaries — meaning, “new soldiers” — on their former Christian kin, thereby perpetuating the cycle of conquest, enslavement, and conversion, always to Islam’s demographic gain and Christendom’s demographic loss.

As the author of Balkan Wars explains:

Despite their Christian upbringing, they [janissaries] became fanatical Muslims and earnestly maintained their faith as warriors of Islam.  This cruel practice of what today can be defined as the “brain cleansing” of the Christian populations of the Ottoman Empire is perhaps the most inhuman Turkish legacy.

As bad as all this sounds, in his recent review of Defenders of the West, William Kilpatrick makes some interesting observations concerning Islam’s slave-soldiers:

Thus indoctrinated, the youngsters [Christians-turned-jihadists, or janissaries] often developed a slavish devotion to Islam and their Islamic masters, and a deep hostility toward Christians. Although the institution of the janissaries was novel at the time, we have seen several similar examples in the modern era. Both the Hitler Youth and the Soviet-era Young Pioneers aimed to inculcate youngsters with beliefs and values that were often in opposition to those of their parents. Moreover, children who betrayed their parents to the authorities were held up as models for other youth to emulate.

The most recent example of an organized attempt to separate children from their families and from the faith of their families can be found no further away than your neighborhood school. All across the country, children are being indoctrinated to believe that gay is okay, that boys have the right to use the girls’ locker room, and that children can choose their own gender.

Some teachers and counselors even encourage children to believe that they have been assigned the wrong gender and offer to assist them in transitioning to their “true” identity. In the meantime, they advise the children not to inform their parents.

And why should parents be informed? Like the Ottoman rulers of old, many education “professionals” have convinced themselves that the children belong to the state, not to their parents. Never mind what parents believe, teachers know best. And, indeed, it is now common knowledge that a K-through-college education often has the effect of turning children away from the values of their parents.

Not only is all of this true; it highlights the two primary forms of evil, as well described in Dante’s masterpiece, The Divine Comedy. The first part, Inferno, describes the nine circles, or levels, of hell. Broadly speaking, its denizens can be categorized as having committed one of two sins — sins of force or fraud. As author Ron Tobias summarizes:

In Dante’s Inferno there are only two basic sins in all the levels of hell.  One is called forza, crimes of violence and force.  The other basic sin is called forda, Italian for fraud.  Force and fraud.  The damned who have been sent to Hell for crimes of violence weren’t at the lowest circles of Hell; those were reserved for people who committed fraud…  In Dante’s mind, anyway, crimes of the mind were far worse than crimes of violence [italics added].

Another author describes the divisions as follows:

Each successive circle [of hell] represents progressively more heinous sins…. The eighth circle of hell is reserved for those guilty of … various types of fraud: seducers, flatterers, simonists, sorcerers, unscrupulous politicians, hypocrites, thieves, deceivers, schismatics and falsifiers.

Although the Inferno is a product of 14th-century Italy, surely some of these categories — unscrupulous politicians, hypocrites, deceivers, seducers, and falsifiers — ring a bell.

In short, when it comes to indoctrinating children into hating their parents and heritage, the American school system is not unlike the Muslim institution of slave-soldiery. However, whereas the Muslims had forcibly (but at least openly) enslaved and indoctrinated Christian children into hating their parents and heritage, the kindergarten-through-college system is insidious — a fraud being committed by those who present themselves and are trusted as “friends.”

Raymond Ibrahim

Raymond Ibrahim, an expert in Islamic history and doctrine, is the author of Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam (2022); Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West (2018); Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (2013); and The Al Qaeda Reader (2007). He has appeared on C-SPAN, Al-Jazeera, CNN, NPR, and PBS and has been published by the New York Times Syndicate, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Weekly Standard, Chronicle of Higher Education, and Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst. Formerly an Arabic linguist at the Library of Congress, Ibrahim has guest lectured at many universities, including the U.S. Army War College, briefed governmental agencies such as U.S. Strategic Command, and testified before Congress. He has been a visiting fellow/scholar at a variety of Institutes—from the Hoover Institution to the National Intelligence University—and is currently the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Friedman Rosen Fellow at the Middle East Forum. His full biography is available here.  Follow Raymond at Twitter and Facebook. For media inquiries, please contact communications@pjmedia.com