Transgender people can be baptized Catholic, serve as godparents, Vatican says

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The Vatican Says Transgender Catholics Can Be Baptized, Following Years Of Critical Statements

Vatican Says Transgender Adults & Children Can Be Baptized

Pope's lunch with transgender women cements unlikely friendship in the changing church

VATICAN CITY, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Transgender people can be godparents at Roman Catholic baptisms, witnesses at religious weddings, and receive baptism themselves, the Vatican's doctrinal office said on Wednesday, responding to questions from a bishop.

The department, known as the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, was vague however, in response to a question of whether a same-sex couple could have a Church baptism for an adopted child or one obtained through a surrogate mother.

Bishop Jose Negri of Santo Amaro in Brazil sent the doctrinal office six questions in July regarding LGBT people and their participation in the sacraments of baptism and matrimony.

The three pages of questions and answers were signed by the department's head, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, and approved by Pope Francis on Oct. 31. They were posted on the department's website on Wednesday using the Italian word for "transsexuals".

Francis, 86, has tried to make the Church more welcoming to the LGBT community without changing Church teachings, including one saying that same-sex attraction is not sinful but same-sex acts are.

In response to a question of whether transgender people can be baptized, the doctrinal office said they could with some conditions and as long as there is "no risk of causing a public scandal or disorientation among the faithful".

It said transgender people could be godparents at a baptism at the discretion of the local priest as well as a witness at a Church wedding, but the local priest should exercise "pastoral prudence" in his decision.

Pope Francis holds a weekly audience at the Vatican

Pope Francis leads the weekly general audience in Saint Peter's Square, at the Vatican, November 8, 2023. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane/file photo Acquire Licensing Rights

"This is an important step forward in the Church seeing transgender people not only as people (in a Church where some say they don't really exist) but as Catholics," Father James Martin, a prominent Jesuit priest and supporter of LGBT rights in the Church said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Francis has met with transgender people and in July, he told a transgender person: "Even if we are sinners, he (God) draws near to help us. The Lord loves us as we are, this is God's crazy love."

The document said a person in a same-sex relationship could also be a witness at a Catholic wedding, the office said, citing current Church canonical legislation which contained no prohibition against it.

The response was less clear regarding persons in same-sex relationships and their role in baptism, which is the initiation into the Church for infants, children, or adults.

The Brazilian bishop sought guidance on whether a same-sex couple who had adopted a child or obtained it from a surrogate mother could have that child baptized in a Catholic ceremony.

The response said that for the child of a same-sex couple to be baptized, there had to be "a well-founded hope that it would be educated in the Catholic religion".

There was a similarly nuanced response to the question of whether a person in a same-sex relationship could be a godparent at a Church baptism. It said the person had to "lead a life that conforms to the faith".

Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by David Gregorio

Hamas is holding a 10-month-old baby as a hostage, refuses to release him

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/11/hamas-is-holding-a-10-month-old-baby-as-a-hostage-refuses-to-release-him;

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

Family of baby Kfir Bibas worried 10-month old will not be freed by the end of ceasefire

Youngest Israeli hostage in captivity, his 4-year-old brother and parents not on the list of those due for release before the end of the ceasefire

Further adventures of the self-proclaimed moral high ground.

“Palestinian Terror Group Holding Israeli Baby Hostage Refusing to Release Him, Israel Says,” by Bruce Golding, The Messenger, November 27, 2023:

A 10-month-old Israeli baby remained in captivity Monday as Hamas began handing over a fourth group of hostages following a deal to extend by at least two days the cease-fire that has seen nearly 70 captives freed by the terror group.

Kfir Bibas is believed to be the youngest of about 240 people who were kidnapped during the surprise Oct. 7 attacks that killed 1,200 people and sparked the latest war between both sides.

Baby Kfir had reportedly just learned to crawl when he was abducted.

An Israeli-American girl who turned 4 last week, Abigail Edan, was part of the third group of hostages released on Sunday.

But Kfir and his older brother are no longer believed to be in Hamas custody after they were among a group that was transferred to “other organizations,” an Israeli military official reportedly told Arabic media on Monday….

Seattle Middle School Teacher Leads Students in Attacking Parental Rights Group Moms for Liberty

(Image by David Mark from Pixabay.)
On Saturday, Moms for Liberty shared images of a package they received from a Seattle middle school containing letters made during class attacking the parental rights organization and accusing them of "bullying" LGBTQ youth.

The package included a typed letter from Ann Christianson, a middle school social studies teacher and Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) Coordinator.

Dear Moms for Liberty,

Please read the enclosed cards from concerned middle school students in Seattle, Washington.

Sincerely,

Ann Christianson

Seattle Public School Middle School Teacher & GSA Coordinator

The included letters featured rainbow-colored messages. The students were clearly given some instructions as to what to write. One letter, written in pencil, reads, “Dear Moms for Liberty, stop bullying and excluding LGBTQ+ youth and families. It hurts people who just want to love who they love and be who they are. The oppressed are always the protagonists.” 

Another letter, written in black marker, reads, “Dear Moms for Liberty, stop bullying and excluding LGBTQ+ youth and families. From a Seattle Public Schools student.” Yet another letter, written in green marker, reads, “Dear Moms for Liberty, stop bullying and excluding LGBTQ+ youth and families. Please and thank you. Sincerely, a trans student, Seattle Public Schools.” 

For our VIPs: Preferred Pronouns or Prison? I’ll Take Prison.

Various common slogans are also peppered throughout the letters: “Love is love,” “Say gay,” and “Gay is slay.” Rainbows, rainbow hearts, and rainbow peace signs are also shown on the letters.

Another common theme between the letters is the use of broken heart imagery with a written message: "My heart when people are homophobic."

The Post Millennial reached out to Seattle Public Schools for comment and received the following statement

Seattle Public Schools is dedicated to fostering welcoming, inclusive, and identity-safe environments for all our students. We firmly uphold the rights of our students, staff, and families to express their authentic selves. We take great pride in our unwavering support for LGBTQIA+ students, staff, and families, which is reflected in our policies and everyday practices.

The statement also added that the material was sent  "...as an independent activity and not part of the school curriculum."

Related: WATCH: 'Queer' Pre-K Teacher Says She Tells Kids to Be Gay

Moms for Liberty is not an anti-LGBTQ group. They are a parent rights group that, amongst other things, opposes sexually explicit materials being made available to young children in public schools. We’ve shown examples of the kind of content leftists want available to young children under the guise of LGBTQ inclusivity, and I can’t help but wonder if Ann Christianson truly believes that opposition to this material being available to young children is appropriate. The same can be asked of actor LeVar Burton, who, earlier this month, threatened Moms for Liberty with violence when he hosted the National Book Awards.

"Before we get going, are there any Moms for Liberty in the house?” Burton said during the opening ceremony. "No? Good. Then hands will not need to be thrown tonight." 

CDC Reports Largest Increase in U.S. Infant Mortality Rate in Two Decades~15-Month-Old Girl Dies Two Days After ‘Well-Baby Visit’ Vaccinations

The United States is seeing an increase in infant deaths. That’s the headline from a new report from the CDC. It says there’s been a year-to-year increase in the infant mortality rate—the first in about 20 years. The report caused concern at the CDC. They’re worried that the back-to-back increase might become a trend. … Losing a child is a terrible grief that more and more parents are experiencing in the U.S., according to new data from the CDC. The report shows the infant mortality in 2021 was 5.44. In 2022, it was 5.6—a three percent increase.

_________________________________________________________

15-Month-Old Girl Dies Two Days After ‘Well-Baby Visit’ Vaccinations

Melody Rain

A 15-month-old girl died in Warwick, New York on Oct. 19, 2023, two days after receiving three shots of five vaccines during a routine well-baby visit with a pediatrician at the Herbert Kania Pediatric Group. Melody Rain Palombi-Malmgren was a “perfectly healthy child,” according to her mother, Katherine Palombi. She was administered varicella (chickenpox), DTaP (Diphtheria, Tetanus, and acellular Pertussis) and Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type b bacteria) on Oct. 17, and two days later suffered a heart attack and stopped breathing.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Hospital records show that the child also suffered liver and kidney failure.1 2 5

Melody was being cared for by her grandmother when her symptoms began. The grandmother called Palombi and told her that Melody was having trouble breathing. “I just kept saying, she just had vaccines, she just had vaccines,” Palombi recalls.1 2 3 4 5 8

The grandmother then called 911 and was instructed to perform CPR until the paramedics could arrive. Melody was subsequently transported by ambulance to St. Anthony’s Community Hospital where EMTs and medical staff tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate her.3 4 5 8

“By the time I got to the hospital, they put me in a room,” Palombi said, “and they just kept saying, ‘We’re working on her.’”3 5

“They were going over everything from that morning because she’d gotten into something,” she said, and “I just kept saying, ‘She had vaccines. A couple of days before this, she had vaccines.’”3 5

Child Had Previously Been Hospitalized Soon After Vaccinations

Palombi said that her daughter had been hospitalized before with a fever of 104° and a body rash all over her body that she developed within 24 hours after being vaccinated when she was two months old. Palombi said that the doctors had told her they did not think the symptoms were an allergic reaction to the vaccines but rather were caused by a virus. But she believes that, in both cases, the vaccines were too much for her daughter’s body.1 3 4 5

Palombi said she believed the five vaccines her daughter got were too much for her daughter’s body to handle. In an interview with News 12 Westchester, Palombi advised other parents, “Trust your gut and don’t let them push anything on to your children that you don’t want to do.”1 3 4 5

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends a total of 10 shots of 16 vaccines for a 15-month-old child. In addition to the ones Melody received, the CDC recommends  the following shots: the HepA (Hepatitis A), Influenza, MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella), PCV (Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine), IPV (Inactivated Polio Vaccine) RV (Rotavirus Vaccine) and COVID-19.9

“I just want to spread awareness in Melody’s name,” Palombi said. “Maybe she can save other children.”1 3 4 5

In an interview with The Defender, Palombi recounted how a mother had recently reached out to her when her two-month-old child suffered a reaction to a vaccine…

The baby was passing blood in the stool and everything else. So I told her, ‘You need to get the baby back to the emergency room immediately.’ And she did. The pediatrician admitted to this mom, ‘If you didn’t bring the baby in, the baby would have been dead by Monday.’3

Palombi also recalled how another woman had reached out to her to share how her grandson had died at six months old following a well-baby visit. “They told her it was SIDS,” she said. “That’s not what it is. It’s so sad to keep hearing that I’m not the only one.”3

“I just want to keep educating parents on the dangers of vaccines, encourage them to spread them out, give them when the child is older, or get tested for the [methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase] gene,” Palombi said. Some physicians believe that the “MTHFR” gene places certain children at higher risk for serious reactions to vaccines.3


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Target Hasn’t Learned Its Lesson, Doubles Down on Grooming Kids

AP Photo/Seth Wenig
This summer, a few short months after Bud Light destroyed its brand by partnering with Dylan Mulvaney, retail giant Target also experienced the wrath of consumers for not only offering merchandise and clothing with trans-friendly slogans and books pushing radical leftist gender ideology to children but also placing these displays front and center in their stores. A boycott ensued, and the company lost billions in market value.

Target’s situation wasn’t much different from Bud Light’s. After angering its consumer base by partnering with Mulvaney, Anheuser-Busch tried to walk back its disastrous partnership with him, which only angered LGBT activists, prompting them to boycott the company as well. Target similarly tried to contain the damage of the child-grooming merchandise scandal by moving its pride displays to the back of a handful of stores in select markets, causing a similar outrage from LGBT activists.

But the company didn’t really learn a lesson from it all and continues to push woke merchandise. Images on social media show that Target is selling a disabled black Santa Claus in a wheelchair ornament and LGBTQ pride nutcrackers.

Santa Claus in a wheelchair? Last time I checked, the incline of your typical gabled roof isn’t ADA-compliant.

As for the pride nutcrackers, a search of Target’s website shows they have several variations.

"Show your love and support for the LGBTQIA+ community with this Pride Nutcracker Figurine from Wondershop™,” the product description for one of the nutcrackers reads on the Target website. “This charming nutcracker figurine with a light purple beard and hair wears a blue and white jacket with golden trim and rainbow lapels, black and blue dress pants, and a rainbow hat, and it also holds a Pride flag in hand. Supported on a flat base with embossed ‘2023' for easy placement on any flat surface, it makes a great option for displaying on your mantel, shelf, or tabletop, either alone or as part of a larger holiday display."

Yeah, no thanks.

It actually isn’t all that surprising that Target is still pushing woke products despite the backlash it experienced for its transgender attire for children. After the initial backlash, Target CEO Brian Cornell insisted that he thinks that going woke is good for the company, and Christina Hennington, the chief growth officer for Target, said that the company believes it can simply wait out the storm and that eventually the backlash will die down.

“We anticipated some of the headwinds at play throughout the second quarter, including the continued pullback in discretionary spending,” Hennington said in an earnings conference call. “Other headwinds were incremental, including the strong reaction to this year’s pride assortment.”

Target’s stock prices haven’t recovered from the initial backlash yet, so clearly, they haven’t gotten the message. Here at PJ Media, we’ll continue to expose the woke grooming efforts of companies like Target — even when doing so puts us at risk of being censored or demonized. The good news is that you can help us survive the censorship by becoming a PJ Media member today. 

VIP members have access to a wealth of exclusive content. VIP Gold subscribers get even more. With VIP Gold, members can access all of the VIP content across the Townhall Media family (Townhall, RedState, PJ Media, and more) and participate in live chats — a nearly $300 value.

With your support, we can continue exposing the truth about these woke corporations that are trying to groom our children. Use the promo code WOKE for a 25% discount today.

Sacrificial Lambs: The Child Victims of Drag Queen Story Hours

Scott Threlkeld/The Advocate via AP

I’m old enough to remember those vintage movie projectors from K-12, on which our social studies teachers would show us anthropological films about ancient civilizations in Mesopotamia or Central America, where child sacrifice was a normal part of everyday life. There were angry deities to placate, diseases to stave off, bountiful harvests to be reaped. The sacrifice of something greatly valued by those offering it, be it an animal, a virgin, or a child, was the necessary evil for the cost of progress.

In the modern Middle East, little has changed.  The ethnic Arabs “Palestinians” waging jihad against Israel have no qualms about sacrificing their children. The late Maryam Mohammad Yousif Farhat was a microcosm of this filicidal mindset. She had several sons, three of whom were killed engaging in terrorist campaigns against Israel. Not that this troubled Maryam much. Indeed, she helped train her teenage son Muhammed to carry out a suicide attack against an Israeli military school. She called the day she sent him off to die "the best day of my life” and, upon receiving news of his death, yelled “Allahu Akbar!” and handed out chocolates to his friends. At the funeral of her third son, she stated, “I have four sons left. I hope they all become martyrs.”

In the West, parents also sacrifice their children. Parents oppose voucher programs, even though they would benefit all schools, including public schools, by forcing them to compete. Parents support adding trillions to our national debt, knowing full well their children will be stuck with the bill. Parents support feel-good green energy initiatives, even if they make the cost of living prohibitively expensive for their children, whose mere existence, I might add, is considered by the eco-cultists to be an offense against the planet. Parents support men masquerading as women dominating and destroying women’s sports and having access to women’s-only areas. 

Admittedly, some of these examples reflect hypocrisy rather than an actual willingness to sacrifice one’s child. I’ll concede that many liberal parents simply mouth their yard-sign platitudes, so long as their child is insulated enough from the social remedies they expect others to endure. Hence, their children attend private schools while yours get indoctrinated by slovenly, purple-haired androgynes. Their children dine out and vacation while yours waste away, all masked up, in lockdown. Their children enjoy private security, while your children's police are defunded. Their children live behind gates and walls, while yours endure the criminal repercussions of “no human is illegal.”

But there are true believers, none more evident than those who offer their children unto the current transgender fad (and a fad is precisely what it is) or bring them to drag queen story hours. Volumes of wisdom expounded by those smarter than me have dealt sufficiently with the former, so I’ll use my space to comment on the latter.

If you bring your children to drag queen story hour, there is something wrong with you. Pure and simple. You’re not “opening their minds,” you’re conditioning them to believe that grown men who dress as sexually provocative women and explicitly seek the company of kindergarteners do so from a sense of love and tolerance. You are misleading them to ignore those alarm bells in their heads when those alarm bells should be ringing full blast. In short, you’re acting as the drag queen’s accomplice. 

And make no mistake, the drag queens are not there for the unicorns and rainbows. They’re there to groom your children, and to satisfy whatever sick fetishes they harbor. You might object that, in a library room full of parents, the drag queen isn’t actually doing anything physically or sexually to the children. Sure, and if I were, uh, “reading a book” to a room full of Victoria’s Secret angels, I wouldn’t need to physically interact with them to experience some sort of sexual thrill. And if I were an ill-intentioned, manipulative predator, I might fantasize about which one of them is gullible enough to follow me a little bit further down a darker path. 

certainly wouldn’t expect their parents and siblings to believe some drivel about me being there for the diversity outreach. And if I was able to lure a few children in the audience to roll around on the floor with me (as a drag queen did with children at an Oregon library), I would expect to be pulled off and hospitalized by more than a few angry family members.

And the most pathetic part is the negligible return on the sacrifice. The people in ancient civilizations or the modern Islamic world sacrifice their children because they think the gods command it, and that the benefit (a successful harvest, the eradication of infidels, etc.) outweighs the sacrifice. How do American parents benefit from coercing their children to cavort with pedophiles in clown paint? Does it boost their social status? Does it entrench their woke credentials? Is the safety of their children actually worth less to them than the approval of their hipster neighbors?

And at that point, if their children mean that little to them, one has to wonder if they mean anything to them at all. If something as trivial as a few laudatory nods from chinless Bohemians is enough to motivate them to abuse their children, then, verily, they don’t value their children.  All those adults in the picture above, smiling and applauding like it’s a Khmer Rouge re-education session as their children are literally being used as propaganda, are not good parents. They are self-centered cowards.

I never understood the appeal of drag, which always struck me as a creepy mix of Comic-Con with John Wayne Gacy.  But if consenting adults want to dress in drag, swing on a pole, smear themselves with peanut butter, and wallop each other with ball-peen hammers, have at it. And, to be fair, I’m sure there are plenty of drag queens who understand the immorality of sexualizing children from any angle, be it gay, straight, or whatever, and keep their entertainment in adult venues.  But it’s impossible for anyone to keep the child predators out of the school libraries when the kids’ own parents are allowing and encouraging it.

As with everything, all politics is local. Our elected leaders can pass all the laws they want, but that won’t diminish the monstrous egos of parents who use their children as pawns to signal virtue. Social pressure is our most effective weapon. Don’t be the schmuck at the BBQ who meekly “keeps the peace” when another parent starts crowing about letting their kid sit on the lap of a sex offender.

Groups like Mass Resistance pursue FOIA requests on story readers’ criminal backgrounds and document when convicted sexual predators have been allowed near children. Cite these examples. Come prepared to debate. If they attempt to derail you with insipid platitudes about “tolerance,” keep steering it back toward child safety and age appropriateness. Stick to the indisputable evidence. You keep civil, and allow the faux-parent to do the yelling and stammering and the hand-waving and the name-calling. Your logic and demeanor won’t budge them, but it can sway the fence-sitters in your audience.  And that’s how tides are turned.

Possible Deal to Free Most Israeli Women and Children Hostages Reportedly Near

AP Photo/Adel Hana
Joe Biden said during a briefing at the White House that a deal to release hostages being held by Hamas is near. “I’ve been talking with the people involved every single day. I believe it’s going to happen. But I don’t want to get into detail,” Biden told reporters at the White House.

In Israel, long-time Washington Post foreign correspondent David Ignatius reports on the outlines of a deal.

“The general outline of the deal is understood,” the Israeli official explained in an interview Monday, requesting anonymity to discuss the sensitive subject. The tentative agreement calls for Israeli women and children to be released in groups, simultaneously with Palestinian women and young people held in Israeli prisons.

Ignatius reports that Mossad is very much involved in this part of the process, verifying the identities of Israeli citizens that Hamas is considering releasing and making sure that Palestinians being released are not connected to Hamas. In exchange for the approximately 70 Israeli women and children, about 120 Palestinian women and children will be released by Israel.

CNN:

As CNN previously reported, in the deal currently being discussed, hostages would exit Gaza in stages on a rolling basis – with priority placed on extra vulnerable groups like children and women. The process is expected to take multiple days.

Only a handful of hostages – including two American citizens – have been released so far since the start of the war. After their exit, Biden revealed that Israel had agreed to a brief pause to secure their release.

One of the complications in the ongoing talks has been verifying the list of names of both hostages and Palestinian prisoners that Hamas and Israel would respectively release as part of the deal, two officials told CNN. Israel wants to make sure none of the prisoners released are connected to Hamas and has been scrutinizing names proposed as part of the process.

Related: Biden's Pledge to 'Stand With Israel' Fraying Around the Edges

Sources for these stories stress that this is not a done deal and that it could blow up at any time at any point.

One of the sticking points is that Hamas itself does not hold all the hostages. Affiliated groups like Palestinian Islamic Jihad hold an unknown number.

Washington Post:

The Israeli official said his government is committed to freeing all the hostages, including roughly 90 male civilians and a smaller group of soldiers, whom Hamas probably sees as the most valuable. “We want as many as possible, as quickly as possible, and no one stays behind,” the official stressed.

Hamas has told the Qataris that its operatives seized only Israeli soldiers, but the Israeli official said this claim is false. Hamas holds the “vast majority” of the hostages, including a small number of dead bodies that were taken into Gaza by the terrorists, the Israeli said. Some hostages are kept by other groups, in disparate locations, but Hamas has the power to negotiate for nearly all of them, he argued. One smaller group called Palestinian Islamic Jihad holds about 35 captives, and a militia known as the “shabiha” and other smaller groups hold a few dozen more, the high-ranking Israeli said.

The unnecessary complexity of the negotiations has a purpose; Hamas wants to be able to interpret whatever deal emerges as the most advantageous to them. Then again, this could all be a psychological ploy by Hamas to play with the emotions of the Israeli people to force them to put even more pressure on the government to end the attempt to annihilate Hamas.

Muslim prof at University of Pennsylvania brings scissors, helps students tear down posters of kidnapped Israelis

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/11/muslim-prof-at-university-of-pennsylvania-brings-scissors-helps-students-tear-down-posters-of-kidnapped-israelis;

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

Open support of Hamas jihadis’ inhumanity and bloodlust is all the rage on the Left today. Will the University of Pennsylvania fire Dr. Alghamdi? No, they’ll probably give him an award and a raise, if they’re consistent with what they’ve taught for decades.

NYC: Pre-K teacher spreads pro-Hamas propaganda to four-year-olds UPDATE: Dhimmi Christian

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/11/nyc-muslim-pre-k-teacher-spreads-pro-hamas-propaganda-to-four-year-olds;

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

UPDATE: It turns out she is a dhimmi Christian, sold out to the Islamic agenda, as so many are.

—–Raising up a new generation of jihadis.

“NYC pre-K teacher pushes anti-Israel agenda with lessons about ‘land theft, displacement, and ethnic cleansing,’” by Deirdre Bardolf and Susan Edelman, New York Post, November 4, 2023:

A Manhattan pre-K teacher is spreading anti-Israel hate to the city’s youngest learners – and offering parents and teachers tips to indoctrinate kids to her left-wing agenda, educators and insiders told The Post.

Siriana Abboud, 29, a city Department of Education teacher at PS 59 in Midtown, offers social-media guides on how to talk to 4-year-olds about “land theft, displacement, and ethnic cleansing.”

She encourages parents to take them to pro-Palestinian protests — while blasting Israel as a “fascist ethnostate” in her Instagram stories, even in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks by Hamas terrorists.

Abboud’s exclusive “teach-ins” for educators and activists cover Palestine, Zionism, and the “struggle against colonization.” She proselytized online that “teaching can never be radical or revolutionary, so long as you deny the ongoing and violent colonization of Palestine by Zionism” and that early education can be a “tool for liberation.”

“Justice-informed teaching means breaking down power imbalances I’ve been given as a classroom teacher,” she has said, and that “we aren’t teaching the truth if we’re silent on Palestine.”…

New York County public defender Victoria Ruiz removes posters of Israeli children kidnapped by Hamas jihadis

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/11/new-york-county-public-defender-victoria-ruiz-removes-posters-of-israeli-children-kidnapped-by-hamas-jihadis;

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

 

Fired? Pah. She’ll probably get a promotion and a raise.

Muslim Woman Jokes About ‘Seasoning’ the Israeli Baby Baked in an Oven

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/11/muslim-woman-jokes-about-seasoning-the-israeli-baby-baked-in-an-oven;

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

Who says Muslims don’t have a sense of humor? In France, Warda Anwar posted a video on Instagram in which she discussed the Israeli baby baked alive by Hamas murderers at Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7. Did the “cook” use salt, pepper, a bit of thyme, she wondered, and “what fat did they roast it in?” And what were the side dishes that accompanied the main dish — the traditional pommes frites, with ketchup and mayonnaise as condiments, or something else?

More on this surpassingly evil young woman and her sense of humor can be found here: “France Takes Legal Action Against Woman Joking About Jewish Baby Cooked in an Oven: ‘Did they Use Salt, Pepper, Thyme, what Fat Did They Roast It In’ (Video),” by Amy Mek, RAIR Foundation, November 4, 2023:

A recent Instagram video, posted by an individual using the pseudonym ‘Haneia Nakei’ but identified as Warda Anwar, has sparked outrage and condemnation. The footage contained offensive jokes about a Jewish baby allegedly burned in an oven by Muslim terrorists during the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has taken legal action in response to this disturbing content, fueling a broader discussion about freedom of speech and the efforts of left-wing governments to restrict it.

The video featured “Haneia Nakei” [the social media alias used by Warda Anwar] jokingly discussing the recent murder of a baby, humorously speculating about the “accompaniments” for the baby’s leg, and even facetiously declaring, “Each time I come across the story of the baby that was put in the oven. I wonder if they put salt pepper, did they add thyme, and what (fat) did they roast it in? And what were the side dishes… You don’t ask yourself the question? I don’t know. The side dish to this baby leg was just a classic plate of fries with a ketchup and mayonnaise. And we marinated it in salt, thyme, and a barbecue sauce, and paprika. Not bad! I think it’s a rather nice menu!” These highly insensitive remarks have provoked widespread outrage by non-Muslims and pro-Israel supporters.

The offensive video prompted swift condemnation from many leaders, including the Israeli ambassador to France, who strongly denounced the “filthy denialist and antisemitic remarks of the young woman.” The Israeli embassy issued a statement calling for the removal of “Warda Anwar” (a.k.a. Haneia Nakei) from social media platforms, such as Instagram and TikTok. The video made light of a grave incident during the Israel-Hamas conflict when Hamas executed over 1,400 people, including babies, pregnant women, and elderly individuals, in a barbaric manner.

An Israeli first responder to the October 7 Islamic terror attack reported that Hamas terrorists roasted a baby in an oven in shocking video testimony. Asher Moskowitz of the United Hatzalah first responder group published a video of himself speaking to a camera, delivering his eyewitness account.

In it, he claims he saw the remains of a baby who had been baked to death in an oven at Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where more than 100 civilians were killed

The gravity of the woman’s video led to a significant response from the French government. Minister Gérald Darmanin announced on November 3 that he had referred the case to the national prosecutor’s office in Paris, invoking “Article 40 of the Criminal Code.” This action raises important questions about the boundaries of free speech in France, as many argue that such measures may infringe on the principle of freedom of expression.

The woman behind the offensive video, “Haneia Nakei” [Warda Anwar], now faces potential legal consequences. The referral to the national prosecutor’s office means that the legal authorities will review the case to determine whether her comments violated any laws, such as those related to France’s hate speech or incitement to violence. If her actions are found to have breached these laws, she could face criminal charges, fines, or other legal penalties.

Is it conceivable that this kind of grotesque and evil hilarity would not be considered hate speech? It makes light of the murder of a Jewish baby. And think of all the jokes that will now be circulating in “can-you-top-this” competitions on social media, possibly about the kinds of mutilations — the eyes gouged out, the genitalia cut off, the breasts sliced off — that the Israeli victims suffered that day.

The incident highlights the persistent contentious issue of content moderation on social media platforms. It emphasizes the various ways governments exert influence on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat and the increasing pressure placed on them to take action against what governments consider “hate speech” and “offensive” content. Notably, the Israeli embassy has explicitly called for the removal of Warda Anwar’s accounts from these platforms.

Can there be any doubt that Warda Anwar should not just have her accounts removed from social media, but also should be prosecuted for hate speech, and receive not only a stiff fine, but also a prison term, where behind bars (let her sentence be as long as the law allows, and ideally one to be served in solitary confinement), she can indulge her sense of humor to her heart’s content, telling her thigh-slapping jokes to her only audience, the four walls of her cell?

Kingsway Regional School District in Kingsway, New Jersey, has adopted a “tiered” policy for classifying students who want to transition their gender without their parent’s knowledge.

A school district in New Jersey has been socially transitioning students behind parent's backs, according to email and video obtained exclusively by OMG. Kingsway Regional School District in Kingsway, New Jersey, has adopted a "tiered" policy for classifying students who want to transition without their parent's knowledge. "I had one of my students reach out to me about their preferred name for next year. Do we know how we can input their name into Genesis without it being visible by families?" states an email from School counselor Fallon Corcoran to counselor Michael Schiff, referencing Genesis, a student database. A source within the school recorded Fallon stating, "I am not calling home... everything we talk about stays between us." According to emails obtained from OMG, Kingsway Regional has developed a tiered ranking system to classify students. Students in the second tier are allowed to use the gender and name of their choice, and that information is kept from parents. In one email we obtained, a teacher or school counselor writes that they "heard from a [redacted] student over the summer with questions about sharing her preferred name and pronouns with teachers but does not want her family to be aware." We reached out to Kingsway Regional Superintendent James Lavender, who said the policy was handed down to the district by the New Jersey Department of Education.

Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital Depositions Reveal Terrifying Reality for Moms With Sick Kids

Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital Depositions Reveal Terrifying Reality for Moms With Sick Kids
Hopkinsallchildrens, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Taking a child to the hospital is fraught with dangers for parents whose children suffer from rare disorders. Instead of receiving compassionate care from inquisitive doctors with a passion for healing, many parents can encounter cold indifference and skepticism that leads to false accusations of child abuse. But none are in more danger of these accusations than mothers

PJ Media covered several cases where false allegations by hospitals or DCF/CPS workers tore families apart. Rachel Bruno sued a California children’s hospital and county officials who removed her sons over false allegations and won over $2 million. The outrageous case of Cynthia Abcug, whose child officials removed from her after false allegations of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy and a ginned-up kidnapping plot, revealed the massive efforts state workers would take to stop a mother from advocating for her rights.

In Abcug’s case, she agreed with doctors and specialists and did everything they said. That didn’t protect her from the false allegations. In the case of Maya Kowalski, who is suing Johns Hopkins All Children’s (JHAC) in Florida for false imprisonment, her mother Beata’s desire to decline treatment she believed to be unhelpful to Maya was the catalyst for false accusations against her.

The psychological disorder that child abuse doctors love to wield against problem moms, called Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP), only affects women. Much like the “hysteria” diagnoses of women many years ago when doctors would order women to have sex with “young and strong men” to “cure them” from their hysteric malady, MSBP is a similarly laughable “disorder” for which there is no test or diagnostic tool. As people come to understand MSBP to be a controversial psychological fiction fraught with fraud, the medical community prefers to use terms like “factitious disorder” or “medical child abuse” to describe the same thing.

I’ve never read a case of a father being accused of MSBP. The “symptoms” include “attention seeking” and being “too interested” in the care of one’s children. This puts mothers of chronically ill children in the sights of malicious social workers and doctors who see monsters instead of worried parents when answers to complex medical issues aren’t readily apparent.

In Beata Kowalski’s case, as well as Bruno’s, Abcug’s, and others across the country, all it took was one “child abuse” doctor leveling the charge and POOF! They’re guilty! Call the state! Take the children! Abcug passed every psychological test they gave her, only showing signs of PTSD that the trauma with child services and the court gave her. No one examined Kowalski before declaring her sick and a danger to her child before barring her from the hospital where her 10-year-old child suffered from a rare pain disorder called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS).

In most of these MSBP (or medical neglect or factitious disorder) cases, the people responsible for the false allegations never face the hot stare of a prosecuting attorney. But the Kowalskis sued All Children’s after Beata took her own life to escape the hell that the Florida Department of Child Services and the hospital put her family through. That lawsuit is currently being televised.

To get caught up on the background of this case, this is a thorough article, but the TLDR version is this: 10-year-old Maya Kowalski was under the care of treating physicians who are experts in CRPS, and they were controlling her pain with large doses of ketamine. When she checked into JHAC during a relapse, they disbelieved her diagnosis of CRPS and decided her mother was the cause of her pain and was drugging her with ketamine for no reason.

In the process of removing her mother from her, they also denied Maya access to her priest and Communion and wouldn’t allow her to have a rosary or even make friends in the ward where she was isolated. At one point, they stripped her to her underwear and took photos of her while she protested and cried with no medical reason or order to do so. They kept her under surveillance to “catch” her walking without help and forced her to wet and soil herself because they believed she could get to the bathroom on her own. She couldn’t.

After being denied by the hospital and the court the ability to see her child, Beata Kowalski hung herself, and DCF and the hospital immediately returned the child to her family a week later. Maya is now 17 and suing for damages.

Yesterday, the plaintiff had its best day yet and exposed what every parent fears could happen to them in a hospital. Deposition testimony is usually boring. But these depositions were very different than most and resulted in a very bad day for Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital.

First was Dr. Laura Ann Vose, who unbelievably sat on the ethics panel at the hospital yet texted a fellow doctor disparagingly calling Maya Kowalski “ketamine girl” and admitting she knew Beata was suicidal after being separated from her child.

“Learned today that ketamine girl’s mom committed suicide yesterday. Sorry to say my prediction was correct,” wrote Vose. “We definitely did the right thing for the child.”

Related: Colorado Mom Convicted of ‘QAnon’ Kidnapping Plot that Never Happened Sentenced to 60 Days in Jail

The plaintiff’s attorneys had argued that JHAC’s actions led to the suicide of Beata Kowalski, and now there’s proof that at least one doctor knew it could happen and even predicted it would happen and did nothing to stop it. But what might be even worse is Vose’s testimony that Beata wasn’t the first mother driven to suicide at JHAC over an MSBP allegation. Vose told of another mother who committed suicide after being accused of MSBP by All Children’s in 1994-1995.

“I had a previous experience during my residency where there was a child the court had determined was Munchausen by proxy, and that mother had committed suicide,” testified Voss. “That happened at All Children’s,” she continued. “I believe it happened in my intern year which would have been 1994, or 95.”

How many mothers has JHAC accused of MSBP who have committed suicide? This calls for a full criminal investigation. There are now two suicides connected to JHAC based on MSBP allegations. How many other mothers were driven to suicide across the country due to false allegations by agents of hospitals or the state? This is something we should find out.

I searched diligently for a report of a suicide in 1994 to 1995 linked to MSBP and JHAC and came up empty. Whatever happened there was hidden until this trial revealed it. (And if you have any information on this case or know of any other parents falsely accused of child abuse by JHAC, contact me at MeganFox.Writer@protonmail.com.)

The next terrifying admission came from JHAC Dr. Joseph Perno, the chief of staff, who unapologetically declared that stripping a child to her underwear against her will and the will of her parents and taking photos while she cried was perfectly acceptable and “part of our standard care and treatment plan.”

Perhaps the scariest thing about Perno’s position is that the “consent to treat” form that all doctors and hospitals force you to sign when you seek medical help can be used to abuse you or your child. It appears from his testimony that hospitals believe the patient loses the right to rescind consent once that form is signed all the way up to forcible stripping and photographing your minor child against your will and without your consent.

The plaintiff’s next witness was an expert who ran another hospital, including a children’s hospital in Las Vegas, which the defense tried desperately to keep from testifying and objected to almost every question he was asked. Luckily, Dr. Joseph Corcoran, who had never testified as an expert before, managed to get the truth out. The consent form only gave permission for the hospital to use photos or videos “during the course of treatment.”

In Maya’s case, neither the photographs of her nor the 48 hours of surveillance video were used in any treatment, did not make it into the medical record, and were clearly only used to provide ginned-up evidence to the custody court where the hospital with DCF was fighting the family. Nothing that is in dispute in this case was a treatment designed to help Maya’s symptoms in any way. Instead, it appears to be an elaborate set-up created to convince a family court judge to take Maya away from her parents.

Pfizer exec named to Williamson County School Board, TN upsetting some parents~OMG questions Josh Brown, Pfizer National VP, Govt. Relations at Williamson Co. School board

Pfizer Whistleblower Debbie Bernal asked Brown about the employment status of Walker.  James O'Keefe followed up with Brown and other board members.

SEE: https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/williamson/2021/10/11/williamson-commissioners-wcs-board-nomination-pfizer-executive-draws-negative-feedback/6086114001/

SEE: https://thefederalist.com/2021/10/11/tennessee-county-considers-adding-pfizer-lobbyist-to-school-board-that-sets-covid-policy-for-kids/

Pfizer exec named to Williamson County School Board, upsetting some parents

Josh Brown,{ }National Vice President for the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, named to Williamson County School Board (WCS)

Josh Brown, National Vice President for the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, named to Williamson County School Board (WCS)

The Williamson County Commission voted to appoint Josh Brown to fill a vacancy on the Williamson County School Board - but not without some controversy.

Brown is a graduate of Williamson County Schools and has three children who attend school in the district. But Brown's profession is the issue that has several parents unhappy about his appointment. He is a National Vice President for the pharmaceutical company Pfizer.

"You care not about the division you are causing in this county," parent Robin Steenman said to the commission. "You are not listening to we the people. If you will not listen we change who is listening in 2022."

"There's too much stink going on here," parent Jeff Price said. "A representative for Pfizer. Really?"

Brown is also facing criticism from some parents for having multiple friends on the commission who voted for him over two other candidates. Brown responded to the allegations.

"On any issue related to my employer I'm going to recuse myself if there is a conflict of interest," Brown told the commission before the vote. "I'm not going to apologize for who I work for. I'm not going to apologize for living here all my life and knowing some of you people on the commission. If that's the criticism I guess I can't do much about that."

RELATED: Williamson County Schools take steps to vet, limit speakers amid ongoing mask debate

Brown will serve the rest of the term representing District 4 on the school board after Brad Fiscus, the husband of Tennessee's former vaccine director, resigned last month. The next election for the seat will be August of 2022.

ALSO READ: Ex-Tennessee vaccinations director planning to leave state

‘Equitable Weeding’ in School Libraries and Replacing History With Perversion

'Equitable Weeding' in School Libraries and Replacing History With Perversion
(AP Photo/Max Black)
It’s easy to get weary with the liberal left. They clearly have an agenda and their prey is obviously our children. The left can’t win an argument on merit, they don’t follow science, they hate tradition, and they live in an altered state of reality. They have abandoned life as we know it, and are choosing instead to poison societal structure and morals, all for the sake of power.

Libraries, both public and those found in schools, have been a global source of education for centuries. School libraries in particular are sacred because all of the searchers of knowledge in those are either children or young adults. The books found in those libraries must evoke interest and provide knowledge. Ideally, the information should be geared to match the study criteria of the student and any interests that they may have, such as sports, hobbies, history, etc. Very importantly, the information must always be age-appropriate.

The saying “let kids be kids” isn’t just some old knock-about cliché. It is steeped in reality. Every one of us goes through a childhood phase, adolescence, and then adulthood. Each one of those phases is unique and necessary, which is in direct contradiction to what the left is trying to do. Young minds, when properly guided, are inquisitive and full of promise. They’re playful, gregarious, and at times perhaps a little cantankerous. They are also inevitably naïve, innocent, impressionable, and vulnerable — traits that just come with the territory of being young.

It’s those latter traits that the left seizes on. Instead of nurturing these young blossoming minds and feeding them knowledge that will enable them to live healthy, happy, and productive lives, they burden them with concerns that are overwhelming for a child. In far too many cases, teachers have become activists. Instead of educating, they are preaching the gospel of the left. A gospel that is not based in any type of reality. A gospel that the left is using to turn children into tools of anarchy.

These activists are a despicable breed. Self-righteous to the core, they smugly spew out their agenda daily to these young, impressionable minds. Can you imagine being a child and instead of just dealing with normal childhood issues, you are burdened with the thought that you may not be what you are? It’s a dilemma that no child should have to consider. It’s the fabrication of a cruel and wicked part of society that is not looking out for the child’s welfare; they simply want another notch in their woke belts.

What better way to reinforce the agenda you’re preaching than to back it up with the written word? So these radicals are infiltrating school libraries with smut containing very explicit sexual acts, sexual deviance, and transgenderism. As they force these handbooks of perversion into libraries and children’s lives, parents and those with a moral compass push back and protest. Which of course results in the left screaming that books are being banned. These claims are obviously invalid, but they are still exploited by a complicit media.

The result is a battle that leaves bewildered children in the middle. All they want to do is go to school, learn, and enjoy their classmates. Instead, the left uses them as chess pieces, hoping to eliminate their parents from all decisions concerning their sex and gender, thus creating a mentally imbalanced social warrior.

In one of the most egregious acts of deliberate grooming, the Peel District School Board in Ontario has removed all books that were not published within the last 15 years. So, all books published before 2008 have been removed. The board also removed any books that they deemed to have “racist content,” stereotypes, or didn’t affirm students identities [sic].” Even books such as Harry Potter and The Hunger Games were removed.

The district refers to this mind-numbing purge of history as “equitable weeding.” A group of fascists that sit on the board gets to decide what is offensive and then remove it. They claim that removing these outdated books will limit “the harm caused by outdated and oppressive resources that remain in circulation.”

In an internal memo, the board directed the staff to “affirm identities,” stating that using “anti-racist, anti-oppressive, and anti-colonial texts is crucial.”

There are several steps involved in this decimation of the past, which includes in many cases not just removing the books but throwing them away. Step number one was referred to as the “equitable curation cycle.” This included removing any damaged, outdated, and uncirculated books. The group then moved on to step two, which allowed the board to conduct what in their minds was an “anti-racist and inclusive audit.” The misguided attempt here was to ensure that books didn’t “perpetuate or reinforce racist content, stereotypes or promote deficit-thinking.”

Step three encompassed what the board determined would “intentionally affirm students” identities, such as “Black, Indigenous, 2SLGBTQ+, Muslim, Latinx, Jewish, and South Asian identities.”

In defense of the book culling, PDSB released the following statement: “Books published prior to 2008 that are damaged, inaccurate, or do not have strong circulation data (are not being checked out by students) are removed.”

The statement went on to say that if damaged books have strong circulation, they may be replaced regardless of the publication date, and older titles can stay in the collection if they are “accurate, serve the curriculum, align with board initiatives and are responsive to student interest and engagement.”

“The Peel District School Board works to ensure that the books available in our school libraries are culturally responsive, relevant, inclusive, and reflective of the diversity of our school communities and the broader society,”

Following widespread media attention, Ontario’s Education Minister Stephen Lecce wrote a letter to the school board instructing them to immediately cease the practice.

“Ontario is committed to ensuring that the addition of new books better reflects the rich diversity of our communities. It is offensive, illogical and counterintuitive to remove books from years past that educate students on Canada’s history, antisemitism, or celebrated literary classics.”

Exclusively for our VIPs: Portland School District Institutes ‘Equitable’ Grading Policies

In a memo received and reviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the entire book purge apparently originated from something called Directive 18 from the Minister of Education. The directive was based upon a Ministry review in 2020 that documented widespread cases of systematic discrimination within PDSB.

Directive 18 instructs the board to complete a diversity audit of schools, including libraries.

“The Board shall evaluate books, media, and all other resources currently in use for teaching and learning English, History, and Social Sciences for the purpose of utilizing resources that are inclusive and culturally responsive, relevant and reflective of students, and the Board’s broader school communities.”

The equitable weeding process begins with teachers and librarians focusing on books published before 2008. The librarians then go through each book and consider the acronym MUSTIE as a criteria guideline for which books can stay and which must go.  MUSTIE stands for:

  • Misleading – information may be factually inaccurate or obsolete.
  • Unpleasant – refers to the physical condition of the book, and may require replacement.
  • Superseded – A book has been overtaken by a new edition or a more current resource.
  • Trivial – of no discernible literary or scientific merit; poorly written or presented.
  • Irrelevant – doesn’t meet the needs and interests of the library’s community.
  • Elsewhere – the book or the material in it may be better obtained from other sources.

When the time comes, the books that are weeded are disposed of because they are causing harm, either as a health hazard because of the condition of the book or because “they are not inclusive, culturally responsive, relevant or accurate.”

For those reasons, the documents say the books cannot be donated, as “they are not suitable for any learners.”

 Removing history is fine. Replacing it with perverse smut — that’s okay, too. However, the PDSB wants to make sure that the discarded history doesn’t anger any tree huggers. So, a PDSB spokesperson said the board supports its schools “in the disposal of books in a responsible manner by following Peel Region’s recycling guidelines.” Peel Region allows for the recycling of book paper, as long as hardcovers and any plastics are removed first and put in the garbage.

It’s been reported that in some of the district schools, over half of the books have been removed.

Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, goes the old saying.

Those who attempt to destroy history and replace it with fallacy are eternally damned.

Child Patriot Shamed, School Punishes 12 YEAR OLD for Daring to Be Patriotic~Colorado School Retreats After Violating Student’s Rights

 

Picture this: a 12-year-old boy, an American classroom, and a small but powerful patch of fabric that’s got the woke brigade at his school losing their minds. I’m talking about Jaiden Rodriguez, who dared to display the iconic Gadsden flag—yes, the "Don't Tread on Me" flag—on his backpack. Now he finds himself at the center of a cultural warzone.

SEE: http://TEACHREALPRICIPLES.COM

DR. STEVE TURLEY: Massive BACKLASH as WOKE School Tries to BAN Patriot Flag!!!

 

VICTORY! Colorado School Retreats After Violating Student's Rights (Gadsden Flag)

A Mother’s Heartbreaking Tale of Losing Her Son in the Maui Fires

A Mother's Heartbreaking Tale of Losing Her Son in the Maui Fires
(Matthew Thayer/The Maui News via AP)
The people of Maui have been through a disaster of biblical proportions as wildfires swept the area earlier this month, leaving a path of destruction so vast that it left hundreds of people dead, thousands missing, and even more without homes. To make matters worse, it appears that an incompetent government may have actually added to the misery they have experienced. Somehow, that always seems to be the case, doesn’t it?

Both PJ Media’s Lincoln Brown and The Blaze reported that left-wing politics may have played a part in setting Maui up to burn to ashes, along with the delayed distribution of water the area needed badly. Guys, this is going to make you absolutely livid, so, if you have high blood pressure, you might want to do a little deep breathing and meditation before continuing on because this is horrendous.

The reports state that Herman Andaya, the administrator of the Maui Emergency Management Agency — who has since stepped down from his post — did not trust the public to react in a civilized, orderly manner, so he opted to not sound the alarm as the wildfires began to decimate the city of Lahaina. It doesn’t matter how you might think people will react; sound the alarm. That was literally his main job. His failure to execute his job duties is responsible for some of the loss of life that occurred during this tragedy.

It actually gets worse from here. Other officials for the city had been warned for years now that Lahaina is a high risk for wildfires, but they did nothing to work on implementing some sort of system that would help prevent such a disaster, including a lack of practiced escape plans and no early evacuations.

The Blaze goes on to point out that a large portion of the survivors were individuals who ignored orders issued by the government and state authorities. One mother who put her trust in those authorities to help the citizens of Lahaina has learned the hard way that her belief in the rightness of the government’s orders was misplaced.

Here’s more from a CBS report:

Luz Vargas ran a cleaning service in Lahaina and was working the day her town was reduced to ash and ruin. Her adopted son, Keyiro Fuentes, who would have turned 15 on Sunday, was five miles away at home, enjoying the last day of his summer vacation.

CBS News reported that when Vargas and her husband, Andres, learned about the threat of the fires, they jumped in the car and desperately tried to race home to their son.

Vargas told the media that she was told not to go and responded by only uttering two words: “My son.” She was in a race against time to reach her boy but encountered severe gridlock. They decided to leave the vehicle and try to get there on foot. Unfortunately, they were stopped by yet another obstacle in the form of a police barricade.

Related: State-Level Incompetence Made the Maui Fires Possible

National Public Radio reported that local law enforcement officers were preventing people from going back toward where the fires were raging.

“I told them my son is still in our house. I said he’s at this house on this street,” Vargas recounted in the conversation she had with CBS News, pointing out there was a language barrier making things even more difficult.

Vargas then revealed she managed to get by police, her flip-flops melting from the intensity of the heat, where a man on a motorcycle took her toward the fires where her son was located. However, when she attempted to enter the fire zone, she was stopped by first responders who told her they had already cleared the area and there was no one left, encouraging her to “have faith” that her son had escaped the blaze.

She and her husband, having been assured that the boy had escaped from the area, waited for him to show up at Honokowai Beach, regularly checking with authorities to see if he had arrived while also calling around the area. Two days later, Vargas made her way home, where she found out the area had, in fact, not been cleared, and one person remained.

Vargas found her son’s body in his bedroom, his arms wrapped around his dog. It just does not get more tragic than this. What’s to blame for her loss? Government ineptness. It’s infuriating.

“He was not as I expected, in ashes. God maintained him like this. So we knew it was him,” Vargas stated, revealing she prayed over her dead son’s body, “Please God, hold him for me.”

The child’s body was wrapped up in a blanket and carried half a mile to a police station. The victim’s brother, Josue, who also spoke with CBS News, said, “He was too young. If we still had time, I know he would have been a very, very, very good man.”

A report by the Associated Press revealed that the same barricades that slowed down Vargas also caused other residents of the area to actually lose their lives in the fires that tore their community apart.

West Maui residents attempting to flee the fires attempted to exit via the only paved road out of town, but authorities had reportedly set up a barricade, barring access to Highway 30. As a result, numerous cars were sent back into the flames, resulting in a number of people perishing in their vehicles.

Those who disregarded the barricade managed to survive, including one family who ignored the barricade and drove around it. Having ignored the instruction of authorities, the family ended up safe and secure in a nearby town 48 minutes later, reported the Associated Press.

Much of the loss of life could have been prevented had the alarm been sounded and proper precautions taken long before the wildfires broke out. Authorities knew it was a big risk for their town, yet they did nothing to ensure the safety of residents. There needs to be consequences for this level of incompetence.

Federal Judge Blocks Part of Georgia’s Law That Protects Kids From Transgender Treatment

Federal Judge Blocks Part of Georgia's Law That Protects Kids From Transgender Treatment

By Chris Queen 2:44 PM on August 21, 2023

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/columns/chris-queen/2023/08/21/federal-judge-blocks-part-of-georgias-law-that-protects-kids-from-transgender-treatment-n1720854;

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

Federal Judge Blocks Part of Georgia's Law That Protects Kids From Transgender Treatment
AP Photo/Armando Franca
This past spring, the Georgia General Assembly passed a law that was intended to protect kids from transgender treatment. The new law was a step in the right direction, but as is far too often the case, Georgia Republicans stopped just short of what the bill should have been.

And now a federal judge has issued an injunction blocking part of the law after two physicians groups sued to dismantle it. United States District Judge Sarah Geraghty “announced earlier this month that she needed to ‘take some additional time to make sure I get this right,'” according to Fox 5.

“According to the court document, the motion was granted to halt part of the law until a trial can determine whether or not it is constitutional,” reports WSB Radio. However, the injunction only affects part of the law.

“The ban on surgery is still in place,” the WSB report continues. “The injunction only stops the law from preventing hormone therapy for transgender kids.”

The lawsuit states that the law, which took effect on July 1, undermines parents’ ability to make the right medical decisions for their kids and “singles out transgender minors for the denial of essential medical care.”

“It interferes with a parent’s right to govern their children’s medical care, for one, which is a pretty substantial right,” Ed Buckley, one of the attorneys involved in the suit, told WSB.

Related: Georgia Passes a Bill Against Transing Kids, but Does It Do Enough?

“This law unapologetically targets transgender minors and denies them essential health care,” read a statement from attorneys representing the plaintiffs. “The ruling restores parents’ rights to make medical decisions that are in their child’s best interest, including hormone therapy for their transgender children when needed for them to thrive and be healthy.”

Supporters of the bill maintain that the law is intended to save children from unnecessary medical treatments. State Sen. Carden Summers (R-District 13), who wrote the original bill, said, “We’re just trying to protect the children. That was the bill’s intent, and that’s where we’re at.”

“It’s major judicial overreach based on a false ideology,” Cole Muzio of Frontline Policy Council said of the ruling in a statement to PJ Media. “While Georgia’s SB 140 is both weak and poorly constructed, there is nothing unconstitutional about it.”

The left is fond of the old saying that “It takes a village to raise a child.” These days, it takes a movement to save kids from the harm that the left wants to do to these precious young souls.

Here at PJ Media, we want the next generations of kids to live their lives free of the baggage that the transgender lobby is trying to foist on them. You can join us in our mission to protect children by becoming a PJ Media VIP.

Your support helps us to report the truth without fear of censorship, and it offers you some awesome benefits too, including access to the comments section, exclusive articles, podcasts, and an ad-free experience at your fingertips.

VIP Gold gives you even more goodies: VIP access to all of the sites in the Townhall family, along with live chats! Our VIPs really are a community of people committed to the mission of telling the truth, and we appreciate every one of them.

VIP membership is a great value all its own, but you can use the code SAVEAMERICA to get a 50% discount. There’s never been a better time — and a better opportunity — to stand up for the truth.

Taxpayer-Funded Minneapolis Art Center Holds ‘Family’ Class on Summoning Demons

Taxpayer-Funded Minneapolis Art Center Holds 'Family' Class on Summoning Demons
(AP Photo/Warner Home Video)
It’s back to school time! What better way to get the year off to a great start than by taking the whole family to a demon-summoning class? Summon a few demons, sell your soul, and then head out for some last-minute shopping for school supplies. Then ice cream for everyone! It’s practically a scene out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Maybe we could call it “Grandpappy Teaches Billy the Dark Arts.”

It’s funny because it’s true! Well, it’s not funny because it’s true.

Direct from the “I-Couldn’t-Make-This Crap-Up-if-I-Tried” Department comes the news that the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis (where else but Minneapolis? Okay, maybe Denver, Chicago, or L.A. Possibly somewhere on the Eastern Seaboard) recently hosted a family night to help people learn how to summon and trap demons. Who needs Monopoly or Uno when you have the entire Realm of Darkness to play in? “No, kids, we’re not playing ‘Sorry’ tonight! Andy, you put the dishes away. Cindy, get your crayons and draw us a pentagram on the basement floor. Honey? Do you have dessert ready?”

Sheesh.

This past Saturday, the center hosted Tamar Ettun, an artist who specializes in creating demon traps. Yep, that’s a thing. According to a report in Alpha News, this was the event description:

Demons have a bad reputation, but maybe we’re just not very good at getting to know them. Families are invited to create a vessel to trap the demon that knows them best — perhaps the ‘demon of overthinking’ — and then participate in a playful ceremony to summon and befriend their demon. After designing your trap, Lilit the Empathic Demon will come from the dark side of the moon to lead you in locating your feelings using ancient Babylonian techniques. This collective and playful demon summoning session will conclude with a somatic movement meditation, designed to help you befriend your shadows. (sic)

Forget “Candy Land,” let’s make a demon trap! Didn’t anybody see the original “Ghostbusters”? Summoning demons using ancient Babylonian techniques never ends well.

And here’s the best part! The Walker Center receives money from the taxpayers!

Here is Alpha News on Etten's last exhibit in NYC:

The exhibition parts with the historical gender binarism that associates Lilith’s archetype with unchecked violence and manipulation; here, Lilit mediates the inner demons and renegade instincts that are deliberately silenced,” the exhibition details read. One image shows Ettun washing what appears to be a placenta with a watering can.

There is an old saying: “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.” Well, I do happen to know a few things about art, and this isn’t art. This is someone working out some serious issues. With a watering can. If we’re really being honest, I don’t know what the hell it is. (Pun intended. Yell at me in the comments section.)

Related: Fighting Woke

Not everyone thought this would make a good family activity:

Via “Summit News”:

As C.S. Lewis observed it is dangerous to become too fascinated with demons. But it is equally dangerous to ignore them, and one does so at one’s peril. After all, demons operate by deception. Demons know that if people truly understood what they really were, no one would get within ten city blocks of them. So they pretend to be innocuous. Demons portray themselves as helpful, playful, misunderstood creatures that just got a bad rap for being freethinkers. They only want to expand your mind and let you express yourself. Worse yet, they may be able to convince you that they are metaphorical. And you may believe that until you become a slave to all that free thought and self-expression and can’t even recognize yourself in a mirror. It may be a game to Ettun and the misguided families who showed up for this event. But to the demons, it’s deadly serious.

Gavin Newsom’s Latest Attack on California Parents Is Pure, Unalloyed Evil

Gavin Newsom's Latest Attack on California Parents Is Pure, Unalloyed Evil
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
What’s happening right now to California parents is no fairy tale; it’s a damned nightmare. The story goes something like this. Once upon a time, parents possessed natural parental rights due to the legal and biological bond with their offspring. Then the big, bad state wolf came for their parental rights, and by the end of this story, in true “Grimm’s Fairy Tale” fashion, the state plans to throw the parents into the oven and then eat the kids. It is little wonder that California Sen. Scott Wilk (R-21st district) warned during a public hearing, “If you love your children, you need to flee California.”

Nowhere is this evil more clear than in the way the state has gone after the Chino Valley Unified School District’s school board for having the audacity to support parents’ right to know if their children are being thunderstruck by the left’s latest social contagion: transgenderism.

California’s governor and Attorney General Rob Bonta are wielding their legal hammer and sickle to cleave children from their parents in the name of “civil rights.” Bonta sent a letter to the Chino Valley Unified School District on Friday to threaten that district’s school board with a “civil rights investigation” if it doesn’t walk back its recent policy to tell parents if their child is having weird ideations like if they think they were born in the wrong body.

If you want to see a discussion by a real psychiatrist who treats children and their families, watch my interview on my Adult in the Room Podcast with Dr. Miriam Grossman below. Grossman, the author of “Lost in Trans Nation: A Child Psychiatrist’s Guide Out of the Madness,” tells me that there are generally two groups of people who make up the overwhelming number of transgenders. Older men, who derive sexual pleasure from dressing as a female, and people who have known they were gender confused from their earliest memories.

But all of a sudden young teenagers, mostly girls, who are egged on by peer groups and Dr. TikTok are the fastest-growing group of people who claim they were born in the wrong body. Strange timing, isn’t it, when the left’s political cause of the moment and a civil rights issue of our time cross streams? This 2024 election-year wedge issue will garner votes to be sure, but guess what’s getting disappeared? Parents.

It’s imperative to note that this all-out attempt to big foot local school board relies on a child’s self-diagnosisIt’s no coincidence that this self-diagnosis is helped along by their peer groups and the aforementioned and esteemed Dr. TikTok. You’d think these people who call themselves educators would recognize this sick fad for what it is, but apparently, they can’t get enough of monetizable dumb ideas.

Related: West Coast, Messed Coast™ — Portland Invests in Crack Pipe Futures and SF Loses an ‘Anchor’

Both Newson and Bonta are tossing bean balls at the heads of school board members who don’t adhere to the church of the left’s tenets of beliefs. Those beliefs have been rearranged recently with transgenderism now eclipsing global warming “we’re all gonna die” predictions from these “educators” and that scowling foreign teenage girl. Speaking of which, kids on the autism spectrum are far more likely to be coaxed into believing they’re transgender for a variety of reasons.

Bonta’s letter is surreal for the way it presumes to subsume parents with the state as if they have no business knowing if their kid is so mentally ill that he or she thinks they’re now a she or a he.

Bonta proudly announces that he is “opening a civil rights investigation into potential legal violations by the Chino Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) [emphasis added].” Bonta is the attorney general, so you’d think a guy with that title would know if there’s a civil rights violation going on here, but that’s not his real message. Instead, he wants to conduct a rectal exam on the board and hopes members capitulate now.

The AG goes on to say that the policy of informing parents if their children want different pronouns, use the opposite sex bathroom, or have considered self-harm or suicide is “outing” the child and should be protected by state law. Because the unwritten part of his letter hints that the state cares more about your child and his/her mental problems than you do, Mom and Dad.

Doubt me? The next line states, “…even if such disclosure is against the student’s wishes or could expose a student to parental abuse or increase their risk of self-harm or suicide” [emphasis added]. Imagine that, Mom and Dad; you might do something against your “student’s wishes” like take them to a psychiatrist to find out why they hate themselves. The state, however, will stand with the child, based on the child’s self-diagnosis, against the parents who have known the child for his or her entire life.

It might be helpful to point out here that most teenagers who are part of this fad of the moment already have preexisting mental issues, such as eating disorders, and many, sadly, have suicidal ideations before they’ve glommed onto transgenderism. Yet the state uses this psychological blackmail against parents to shut them up.

The Chino Unified School District board isn’t shutting up.

Newsom even green-lighted his Education Secretary, Tony Thurmond, to go to Chino and pound on the podium in hopes of intimidating the board into icing parents out of crucial information about their own children.

Related: West Coast, Messed Coast™ — Even Lefties Say Gavin Newsom’s ‘Make America California’ Not a ‘Winning Message’

He was cut off when his time to speak came to an end.

When he refused to leave the podium, he was escorted out of the building.

Board president Sonja Shaw was elected after she grew angry over Newsom and the schools’ mask mandate and other COVID-19 regulations. Now, she says that she, her kids, and even her animals are receiving death threats.

Death threats have come from crazy Berkeley lefties who don’t live in the district. Other death wishers are from out of state. They’re all leftists. This full-court press of intimidation from Newsom, his AG, and his schools chief has also popped up in another school district as I reported in a West Coast, Messed Coast™ report.

Watch them. This is the Gavin Newsom plan of intimidation he would take to the White House if Joe Biden is ousted.

Did you hear? Joe Buy-den and his minions pressured Facebook to censor conservative websites because they didn’t like the way they reported the news. Seriously. Facebook censored true information about COVID to pacify the Biden Administration.

The social media companies, at the behest of Democrats, have been preventing you from seeing our brand of opinion journalism for years now. They’re trying to starve us into compliance — or non-existence. PJ Media has been censored, disappeared, thrashed, and throttled by social media companies at the behest of political Leftists. It’s wrong and un-American. That’s where you come in. Are you sick of this yet?  

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Chicago Public Schools Employee Fired for Objecting to Student Drag Show

Chicago Public Schools Employee Fired for Objecting to Student Drag Show

An assistant principal accused her of not supporting “equal opportunity.”

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/chicago-public-schools-employee-fired-for-objecting-to-student-drag-show/;

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

The Disney II Magnet Elementary and High School is a public school located in Chicago, Illinois. Its website proudly boasts the motto “A place to learn, discover, and do.” But not, apparently, to dissent.

An engineer who worked for the Chicago Public Schools reports that she was summarily fired from her position at the school after she raised concerns about a student-produced Drag show that was sponsored by the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) club.

According to the engineer, who spoke anonymously with Libs of TikTok, a flurry of posters had gone up around the school’s campus urging students in grades 7-12 to join a “Drag & Talent Show.” Concerned that such a performance might be inappropriate for underage students, the engineer voiced her concerns to a school security guard, stating “I can’t get on board with that,” referring to the poster.

Assistant school principal Matt Fasana overheard this private conversation and immediately asked her to explain. When the engineer expressed her reservations about a drag show being an appropriate event for middle and high school students to take part in, the assistant principal accused her of not supporting “equal opportunity.”  The engineer responded, “I am for equal opportunity. I just don’t think that drag is equal opportunity.”

Despite her legitimate concerns about the drag show, the engineer was eager to maintain a positive relationship with the assistant principal and so later apologized for her tone, again explaining that she was just concerned about the safety of the students. But apparently, the die had already been cast. Just a few hours later, the engineer was informed that she was being placed on paid leave. One week later, after a brief meeting with Eco-Alpha, the company that manages her and contracts her to the Chicago Public Schools, the engineer was told she was officially being terminated, allegedly for “disciplinary actions.”

Unwilling to stand for such blatant discrimination for her views on safeguarding children, the engineer hired a lawyer and pressed for further answers, filing a grievance complaint.

“In the Chicago Public Schools training videos, it says ‘If you see something, say something,’” the employee explained in her grievance letter. “I felt with the training I received from CPS, I was supposed to say something. How was I going to work somewhere where the safety of myself, students, and staff wasn’t taken into consideration?”

The engineer explained to Libs of TikTok that this wasn’t her first experience being exposed to transgender ideology or inappropriate material while working at the school. During her training period, she was required to watch a video featuring a 13-year-old transgender student who is dressed in fishnet stockings and lingerie.

After filing her grievance complaint, the engineer received a second letter from her employer, changing the alleged reason for her termination. This second letter claimed that she “knowingly and repeatedly made discriminatory statements” in violation of her employer’s Code of Conduct—an obvious reference to her privately-voiced concerns about a student-led drag show.

Ironically, the engineer notes that after her termination, she “found out the posters were taken down and at a later date the show was cancelled.”

“If there weren’t safety and security issues that I acknowledged, why would the posters be taken down and the talent show cancelled?” she asked. Chicago Public Schools has not so far deigned to give her an answer.

Welcome to Trans Kindergarten School districts across California; they are on a recruitment spree.

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/welcome-to-trans-kindergarten/?mc_cid=64917bfa25;

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

School districts across California are on a recruitment spree, doing what they can to enroll the state’s 4-year-olds into their year-old pre-K or “transitional kindergarten” (TK) program. Districts are trying to sell parents on TK by using school banners, bus bench ads, billboards, and texting and robocall campaigns. The $2.7 billion plan aims to have 400,000 4-year-olds enrolled by 2025, but it has been off to a sluggish start. Estimates from the Legislative Analyst’s Office put average daily attendance for the 2022-2023 school year at about 91,000, well short of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s estimates.

The idea of having the government in charge of educating 4-year-olds has been promoted for years. Most recently, in his State of the Union speech in February, Joe Biden asserted that “children who go to preschool are nearly 50% more likely to finish high school and go on to earn a two- or four-year degree.”

Right before he became governor in 2019, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom told supporters in San Francisco, “Our role begins when babies are still in the womb, and it doesn’t end until we’ve done all we can to prepare them for a quality job and successful career.”

President Obama touted the preschool idea in his 2014 State of the Union address, claiming research has shown that one of the best investments we can make in a child’s life is “high-quality early education.”

The National Education Association extols the virtues of TK on its website, claiming that children in early childhood education programs are less likely to repeat a grade, less likely to be identified as having special needs, more prepared academically for later grades, more likely to graduate from high school and be higher earners in the workforce.

But all the rah-rah talk falls apart when the data are examined.

The U.S. has a nearly 60-year history of funding early childhood programs in the form of Head Start. The federal government released the last of a three-part longitudinal study of the $8 billion-a-year program in 2012, and the results offered scant cause for jubilation. According to the report’s executive summary: “…there was little evidence of systematic differences in children’s elementary school experiences through 3rd grade, between children provided access to Head Start and their counterparts in the control group.”

The 2012 report reinforced some disappointing findings from the study’s second phase, which showed that any gains “had faded considerably by the end of 1st grade, with Head Start children showing an edge only in learning vocabulary over their peers in the control group who had not participated in Head Start.”

Other studies purporting to show preschool’s benefits also have failed to prove that spending billions on pre-k is money well spent. Two often cited studies, the Abecedarian and Perry Preschool projects, for example, are now over 50 years old and involved no more than 60 children. As American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray wrote in 2013, both studies “were overseen by the same committed, well-intentioned people who conducted the demonstration projects. Evaluations of social programs are built around lots of judgment calls—from deciding how the research is designed to figure out how to analyze the data. People with a vested interest in the results shouldn’t be put in the position of making those judgments.”

Also in 2013, Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Grover J. Whitehurst wrote that the group that went through the Tennessee Voluntary State Pre-K Program, a full-day program for 4‐year‐olds from low-income families, “performed somewhat less well on cognitive tasks at the end of first grade than the control group, even though of the children in the control group had no experience as 4-year-olds in a center-based early childhood program.” Whitehurst concluded, “Until the field of early education becomes evidence-based, it will be doomed to cycles of fad and fancy.”

Also, regarding the Tennessee Voluntary State Pre-K Program, Vanderbilt University research professors Dale Farran and Mark Lipsey found that by second and third grade, “the academic performance of children in the Tennessee Pre-K program lagged the control group of children who did not participate in the program.”

And now, there is most definitely a risk in allowing the government to help raise young children. A 4-year-old these days may be getting an education about gender identity. The Kaplan Early Learning Center, a widely used international educational services company that provides education and training services to schools at all levels, has lessons on “Gender Identity in Preschool Children,” “Confronting My -isms,” etc., ad nauseam. Along those lines, the Evanston-Skokie school district in Illinois has adopted a curriculum that teaches pre-K through third-grade students to “break the binary” of gender. And they are hardly a one-off.

In Los Angeles, the school district hosted a 10-week online Rainbow Club for children as young as four in 2021. Still in existence, the club “is an online meeting for parents and their elementary school-aged children to meet, connect, and talk about topics related to their identities. The goal of the club is to support families of elementary-aged children. The meeting is led by clinicians. Participants talk and do art projects.”

The same office that created the Rainbow Club also created several presentations that push extreme gender theories onto young children. Some even encourage the exploration of the “two-spirit” Native American sexuality and criticize European settlers who, they claim, “imposed homophobia, rigid binary gender roles, and misogyny” due to their Christian faith.

TK is a bad idea. Parents should not succumb to the temptation to dump their 4-year-olds into a government-run school. It may or may not do damage, but the touted educational benefits of doing so are non-existent. And should a parent run the risk that their little Johnny might come home one day and insist that he be called “Joannie?”

With the program’s slow enrollment, perhaps parents in California are beginning to see through TK.

*   *   *Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.

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