One woman's tough and tender approach to grassroots conservative principles in an era of unreasonable logic from those who claim progressive strategies but fail to heed how those same strategies have failed miserably throughout history.
"Be wise as serpents ... harmless as doves."
In an unguarded moment in 2009, Michael Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute admitted that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is running U.S. public education: “It’s not unfair to say that the Gates Foundation’s agenda has become the country’s agenda in education.” A new book reveals how right he was.
Policy Patrons: Philanthropy, Education Reform, and the Politics of Influence was written by Megan Tompkins-Stange from the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. To examine the influence of private foundations on U.S. education policy, Tompkins-Stange spent several years interviewing officials from four philanthropies that are deeply involved in education issues – Gates, and the Eli and Edythe Broad, Ford, and W.K. Kellogg foundations. She notes that “[a]rguably, no social sector in the United States is more heavily impacted by foundations than K-12 education,” and no foundation is more influential than Gates.
The problem she examines was brought into stark relief early in the Obama administration, with its Gates-financed Common Core national standards and other “reforms”: that powerful, wealthy private groups are using their influence to bypass democratic processes and impose their preferred policies on public schools. Not only are parents and other citizens shut out of education policy, they don’t realize the strings are being pulled by organizations they never heard of.
As former U.S. Department of Education (USED) official – and trenchant Common Core critic – Ze’ev Wurman once asked about how parents could register a complaint, “Will Bill Gates have an 800 number?”
Bill doesn’t have an 800 number, but he probably has every top USED official on his speed dial. One reason, as Tompkins-Stange reports, is that former Education Secretary Arne Duncan awarded top USED staff appointments to officials of either the Gates Foundation (such as Jim Shelton, formerly program director for education at Gates) or grantees of the Gates Foundation (such as Joanne Weiss, formerly of the Gates-funded NewSchools Venture Fund). So when USED was – unconstitutionally — crafting federal education mandates, Gates policy preferences had the inside track from the beginning.
Valerie Strauss at the Washington Post recently published an interview with Tompkins-Stange conducted by Jennifer Berkshire of the EduShyster website. In that interview Tompkins-Stange drew two inferences from an Obama administration staffer’s verbal slip in referring to “the Gates administration.” “The source is acknowledging,” Tompkins-Stange said, “that the close coupling between Gates and [USED] under Arne Duncan was great because it pushed their agenda forward. But on the other hand, they’re acknowledging that it’s somewhat problematic in terms of democratic legitimacy.”
Not that the Gates/USED mandarins were particularly concerned about usurping democracy:
It was my sense [Tompkins-Stange said] that most of the people I talked to hadn’t engaged – at an organizational level – with thelarger question of “What’s our role in a liberal democracy?” or “Is this the right thing for us to do as a foundation?” . . . The democracy part of it was not really a part of the equation in terms of their day-to-day discussions. It was more about, “Howdo we get the elites who can really move this policy on board?”
But her contacts slid past the philosophical and constitutional problems by emphasizing the supposed benefits of the technical approach advocated by Gates and the other foundations (remember Bill’s famous comparison of education to electrical outlets). The predominant mindset was that evidence-based policy is more important than democratic structures and citizen participation. Trains must run on time, you know.
But Tompkins-Stange pointed out practical problems with this worldview. One is that schemes created and imposed by elites historically don’t work when their development excludes the people expected to live under them. Human beings are not machines, and they stubbornly refuse to operate according to the Gates manual.
Another drawback – as admitted by some of the officials she interviewed – is that the cited “evidence” is often weak or non-existent:
There was a real cognitive dissonance that people reflected on in interviews. In one breath they’d say that what the foundations were doing was evidence-based. But in the next breath they’d note that the evidence isn’t all that great, or acknowledge the fragility of the evidence’s underlying assumptions. Another Gates source said, “I don’t know anyone in philanthropy who can chart a logic model. All these people just put arrows between boxes and think it meanssomething.”
Think of that the next time you hear an educrat or foundation official touting “evidence-based” education solutions.
This is what happens when unaccountable elites evade the Constitution to impose centralized control. Tompkins-Stange’s book confirms the wisdom of the Founders and spotlights a problem that must be fixed if we are to remain a self-governing republic.
Further evidence that the Common Core is special-interest driven and led, not state-led. Joy Pullman writing for the Heartland Institute’s School Reform News pointed out how the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is driving education policy through its funding. Some excerpts: A recent example was a January legislative hearing on…
Home Depot Co-Founder Makes Stunning Announcement About Trump
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In an op-ed piece for RealClearPolitics, The Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus said he was supporting Donald Trump, arguing that another four years of liberal policies could ruin the country.
“As a backer of former Republican presidential candidates, I now stand in support of Donald J. Trump because the fate of this nation depends upon sending him, and not Hillary Clinton, to the White House,” Marcus wrote in the Wednesday piece.
“I know Donald Trump, but we’re not close friends,” he explained. “However, I believe he will begin on Day One undoing the damage done by President Barack Obama. I stand ready to help him at every turn.”
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Marcus’ first priority is making sure that the Supreme Court does not veer dangerously leftward.
“Like many, I am deeply concerned about the U.S. Supreme Court. When Trump recently released his list of potential appointees, I grew confident in his resolve to keep our court balanced,” Marcus wrote. “Even more important: Clinton will push the court leftward for generations. She must be stopped.”
He also said that the left’s anti-business policies would wreak further havoc on our economy.
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“I genuinely believe that if we to started The Home Depot today, we would fail because of the hurdles government, especially the current administration, places in front of small business owners. I never forget The Home Depot’s small business roots — we started as a small business with four stores in Atlanta, Georgia,” he wrote.
“I think of the banker who nearly lost his job by taking a risk and giving us a line of credit when we started. He didn’t just look at our balance sheet; he believed in our character and determination. Government regulators don’t allow this under Dodd-Frank — a law Hillary Clinton wants to make far worse.
“Yet the risks we took in the 1970s have resulted in millions of jobs — not just at The Home Depot, but at our suppliers, our vendors, and even our customers’ businesses. Investors believed in us, and the government did not stop us.
“We could not do this today, for the same reason why so many Americans have dropped out of the workforce, why their wages have been stagnant, why their health care is a mess, and why our economy has stalled. It’s Obama/Clinton-style government that’s getting in the way.”
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Marcus also included a message to anti-Trump elements within the Republican Party.
“One of the greatest lessons we took away from The Home Depot is to always listen to your customers. Without their input, we surely would have failed. Republican leaders must listen to their customers, too — their voters — and they have spoken clearly,” Marcus wrote.
“Make no mistake, Republicans who refuse to stand behind their party’s nominee are electing Clinton, whether they cast their ballots for her or not. I have a message for the #NeverTrump crowd: Enough already. Donald Trump is our presumptive nominee and it is time to get over wishing it were not so. If you don’t, change your social media hashtag to #HillaryGOP,” he continued.
“As a GOP donor who stood steadfastly behind Jeb Bush — and who has contributed to candidates for a generation — I urge all Republicans to stand up and be counted in support for Donald Trump.”
This is absolutely unthinkable that nobody especially the CIA would have noticed this...
Trump is starting to look better all the time.
This information has all been checked, then double checked... it is 100% Correct.
That's why there is such an alarm within US government, since Trump's statement about temporary suspension of migration of Muslims to US till US authorities make sure there is a proper concept of safe penetration of US territory.
People are stunned to learn that the head of the U.S. CIA is a Muslim! Do hope this wakes up some!
Until it hits you like a ton of bricks read it again, until you understand!
We now have a Muslim government!
John Brennan, current head of the CIA converted to Islam while stationed in Saudi Arabia.
Obama's top adviser, Valerie Jarrett, is a Muslim who was born in Iran where her parents still live.
Hillary Clinton's top adviser, Huma Abedin is a Muslim, whose mother and brother are still involved in the now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt!
Assistant Secretary for Policy Development for Homeland Security, Arif Aikhan, is a Muslim .
Homeland Security Adviser, Mohammed Elibiary, is a Muslim .
Obama adviser and founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Salam al-Marayati, is a Muslim.
Obama's Sharia Czar, Imam Mohamed Magid, of the Islamic Society of North America is a Muslim .
Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighbourhood Partnerships, Eboo Patel, is a Muslim .
Nancy Pelosi announced she will appoint Rep Andre Carson, D-Ind, a Muslim , as the first Muslim lawmaker on the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, of all things! It would make Carson the first Muslim to serve on the committee that receives intelligence on the threat of Islamic militants in the Middle East! He has suggested that U.S. schools should be modelled after Islamic madrassas, where education is based on the Quran!!!
Last but not least, our closet Muslim himself, Barack Hussein Obama.
It's questionable if Obama ever officially took the oath of office when he was sworn in. He did not repeat the oath properly to defend our nation and our Constitution. Later the Democrats claimed he was given the oath again, in private. Yeah, right.
CIA director John Brennan took his oath on a copy of the Constitution, not a Bible??
Valarie Jarret wrote her college thesis on how she wanted to change America into a Muslim friendly nation and she is a Obama top advisor!
Congressman, Keith Ellison took his oath on a copy of the Qur'an, NOT the Bible!
Conservative Congresswoman Michele Bachman, R-MN, was vilified and verbally tarred and feathered by Democrats when she voiced her concern about Muslims taking over our government!
Considering all these appointments, it would explain why Obama and his minions are systematically destroying our nation, supporting radical Muslim groups worldwide, opening our southern border, and turning a blind eye to the genocide being perpetrated on Christians all over Africa and the Middle East!
The more damage Obama does, the more arrogant he's become!
Our nation and our government has been infiltrated by people who want to destroy us! It can only get worse!
In his book Obama said, "if it comes down to it, I will side with the Muslims".
If you fail to pass this one on, there's something wrong……somewhere!
In new book, scholar peels back layers of deception on global warming
Michael O’Brien
August 18, 2o16 (LifeSiteNews) — Michael Hart is a former official in Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and now emeritus professor of international affairs at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, where he has taught courses on the laws and institutions of international trade, Canadian foreign policy, and the politics of climate change. He held the Fulbright-Woodrow Wilson Center Visiting Research Chair in Canada-U.S. Relations and was Scholar-in-Residence in the School of International Service, Senior Fellow at American University in Washington, and is the founder and director emeritus of Carleton University’s Centre for Trade Policy and Law. In addition, he has taught courses in several other countries. He is the author, editor, or co-editor of more than a dozen books and several hundred articles.
LifeSiteNews interviewed him during a conference on Catholic Perspectives on the Environment, sponsored by the Wojtyla Institute for Teachers, held at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom in Barry’s Bay, Ontario, August 4-6, 2016.
1) Professor Hart, your book Hubris: The Troubling Science, Economics, and Politics of Climate Change, has recently been published. In it, you challenge a worldwide project that has become something of a sacred cow. Can you tell our readers what motivated you to begin your research into the subject?
I was initially motivated by questions from my students – and my wife – about the policy implications of climate change. The more I looked into it, however, the more I learned the extent to which it fit with one of my research interests: the extent to which modern health, safety, and environmental regulatory activity relies on poor science advanced by activists to push an agenda. I learned that both domestic and international actors had succeeded in using the poorly understood science of climate change to advance an ambitious environmental agenda focused on increasing centralized control over people’s daily lives.
2) How long did the research and writing stages take?
I started researching the issue 10 years ago, and found myself engaged in a project that was both challenging and critical to understanding a movement determined to use the climate issue to advance a utopian agenda.
3) Your critique of the problems involved in climate change theory is wide ranging. Your approach is lucid and fastidiously documented, an eminently reasonable assessment of the scientific data that have been used and misused to support the theory. How is the “science” being misused?
The global climate is one of the most complex, chaotic, non-linear natural systems we know. It is in a constant state of flux due to such factors as changes in the output of the sun, changes in Earth’s orbit around the sun, and oscillations in ocean heat uptake. The alarm movement has taken one such factor – growth in the minor atmospheric greenhouse gas carbon dioxide – to claim that human activity is changing the atmosphere to an alarming degree, leading inexorably to a much warmer climate. While increased atmospheric carbon dioxide – from .03 to .04 percent of the atmosphere – should lead to some warming, the extent of that warming within the context of a complex system that is in a constant state of flux due to numerous forcings and feedbacks is highly exaggerated. As UK science journalist Matt Ridley points out, “Environmental researchers are increasingly looking for evidence that fits their ideology rather than seeking the truth.” The best evidence indicates that the mild warming at the end of the 20th century was well within historical and geologic experience. Over the first decade and a half of the 21st century, there has been no net warming. The alarmist movement relies extensively on flawed computer models to make its case.
4) Equally important is your in-depth analysis of the sociological pressures, and one might say, the psychological pressures and manipulation brought to bear upon scientists. In the chapter titled “Science and its Pathologies,” we read about how this is done on numerous levels in the academic and scientific communities. Why is a theory that is supported by so little empirical data being promoted as fact?
More than one motivation drives the abuse of science. Among scientists, the primary reasons are money, career advancement, and prestige. In order to pursue their research programs, scientists need money from governments and foundations. They have learned that satisfying the agenda of both helps funds to flow. As a result, they have learned to adapt their research to the desired outcomes. Related to money and careers is the need to publish in so-called prestige journals on the basis of peer review of their work. As I explain in my book, over the years, much of peer review has degenerated into pal review that maintains the dominant perspective. Views that challenge that perspective are ruthlessly weeded out. Additionally, a significant amount of published research fails numerous tests of reliability due to sloppy methods, misuse and abuse of statistics, ignored negative findings, and other failings in scientific integrity. Climate change science has been particularly prone to these failings. Nobel Prize winners such as Robert Jastrow and Freeman Dyson have become increasingly critical of the course of modern science. Many indicate that the insights that led to their Nobel Prize would never have passed current peer review.
5) In addition, there are very disturbing propaganda techniques being used to promote the theory to the general public. Who is behind this?
The leaders driving the climate change movement come from a variety of persuasions. The environmental movement found in the alarm about global warming – now climate change – a potent new way in which to raise funds and increase awareness of its broader concerns about the state of the environment. UN officials learned that concern about climate change could be harnessed to bolster support for UN social and economic programs and to advance the UN’s goal of world governance by experts. Left-wing politicians discovered in climate change renewed ways to press their agenda of social and economic justice through coercive government programs. As John Sununu, the former governor of New Hampshire, sees it, “The alarmists have learned well from the past. They saw what motivates policy makers is not necessarily just hard science, but a well-orchestrated symphony of effort … announce a disaster; cherry pick some results; back it up with computer modeling; proclaim a consensus; stifle the opposition; take over the process and control the funding; and roll the policy makers.” In their more candid moments, movement leaders agree, as did Timothy Wirth, former U.S. Senator and chief climate envoy during the Clinton administration: “We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing.”
6) Obviously, throughout history climate has always been in a state of change. Is the current obsession with it symptomatic of something deeper in contemporary human consciousness?
Alarm over a changing climate leading to malign results is in many ways the product of the hunger for stability and direction in a post-Christian world. Humans have a deep, innate need for a transcendent authority. Having rejected the precepts of Christianity, people in the advanced economies of the West are turning to other forms of authority. Putting aside those who cynically exploit the issue for their own gain – from scientists and politicians to UN leaders and green businesses – most activists are deeply committed to a secular, statist, anti-human, earth-centric set of beliefs which drives their claims of a planet in imminent danger from human activity. To them, a planet with fewer people is the ultimate goal, achievable only through centralized direction and control. As philosopher of science Jeffrey Foss points out, “Environmental science conceives and expresses humankind’s relationship to nature in a manner that is – as a matter of observable fact – religious.” It “prophesies an environmental apocalypse. It tells us that the reason we confront apocalypse is our own environmental sinfulness. Our sin is one of impurity. We have fouled a pure, ‘pristine’ nature with our dirty household and industrial wastes. The apocalypse will take the form of an environmental backlash, a payback for our sins. … environmental scientists tell people what they must do to be blameless before nature.”
7) Is it a case of over-focus on one aspect of life on this planet to the detriment of other aspects? Or is it purely a device being used for political purposes?
I think it is both. For some, such as movement leaders, UN officials, and many politicians, the issue is being cynically exploited to advance their agenda of greater control over human lives. For others, particularly rank and file environmental activists, climate change serves to reinforce and validate their broader concerns to the exclusion of many other dimensions of human life.
8) Those of us who are older recall the “urban legend” (or global myth), one might say, created by books such as Future Shock and The Population Bomb, which swept the world in the late 1960s and 70s, fostering a sense of panic regarding the future of mankind. At the very least, they spread an atmosphere of alarmism, forcing people to look for radical solutions to the human condition. They were based on questionable science and yet were promoted as authentic. Is our current favorite cause the same kind of passing phenomenon, or is something more serious happening?
I believe it is a similar phenomenon, but one that has captured the imagination and concerns of more people and has more support among elites. In my view, it is potentially more troubling and damaging than these earlier alarms.
9) You state that “official science,” the alliance of governments and bogus science, is a form of immorality pretending to be virtue. You conclude the book with a warning: The apparently idealistic combat against climate change, you assert, may well prove to be the mechanism for ushering in a Utopia. You maintain that utopian dreams may appear in the beginning to be about freedom and quality of life and yet will degenerate into what you and other thinkers have called “totalitarian democracy” — which means the destruction of authentic liberal democracy. Is this inevitable?
I am optimistic. I do not think its long-term success is inevitable, but it will take a determined effort by people of faith and conscience to point to its darker motives and its sinister exploitation of populist fears. We know from history that such movements have a predictable life cycle: They emerge with much enthusiasm among intellectual elites, they gain a broad following by focusing on alarmist predictions before becoming part of the political mainstream, and then decline into a minor movement among fringe intellectuals as a new alarm movement takes its place. The problem is that such movements can do a lot of damage and remain embedded within the intellectual community with the ability to rise, phoenix-like, as a new alarm. Former adherents of the eugenics movement and its successor, population control, for example, are now an integral part of the climate change alarm movement.
10) Numerous thinkers, as diverse as the atheist Aldous Huxley and the Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper, have warned that this kind of totalitarianism is the most dangerous of all, because it can always argue that it is not what, in fact, it is. Are we there yet? Or is the process still reversible?
I remain cautiously optimistic. Popular support for climate change action peaked a few years ago. In Europe, which has gone furthest in implementing climate change policies, politicians are beginning to look for ways to moderate earlier initiatives. In North America, rhetoric has far outstripped actions while the Obama administration has relied on stealth to implement its climate change agenda. At the same time, climate change has added to the momentum of the broader secularization of society and the pursuit of anti-human policies and programs. We are, sadly, farther down that road than we have ever been before.
11) In his lead-up commentary to the 2015 Paris Conference, and in his encyclical Laudato Si’, it would appear that Pope Francis has accepted the theory to some degree. At the same time, he emphatically maintains the primacy of the value of all human life, none excepted. Interpretations of his approach vary. In your opinion, is he unwittingly being used by advocates of the globalist agenda? Or is he deliberately bringing the voice of the Church into the forum, ensuring that it can still play a crucial role in the defense of life?
I think Pope Francis may have been motivated by the Church’s concern for human life and other moral issues, but in commenting favorably on the climate change movement, he has opened himself up to charges of being naïve and unwise. I prefer the insight of Australia’s George Cardinal Pell: “Theologians do not have too much to contribute on AGW except, perhaps, to note the ubiquity of the ‘religious gene’ and point out regressions into pseudo-religion or rudimentary semi-religious enthusiasms.”
12) In summation, do you believe that climate change is not the real issue?
No, the real issue is the hunger for power to change economic and political systems in order to achieve a wide-ranging agenda. In the words of former UNFCCC Secretary Christiana Figueres, the goal of “the whole climate change process is the complete transformation of the economic structure of the world.”
13) Any final words for our readers?
Again, it will take a determined effort by people of faith and conscience to convince our political leaders that they have been gulled by a political movement exploiting fear of climate change to push a utopian, humanist agenda that most people would find abhorrent. As it now stands, politicians are throwing money that they do not have at a problem that does not exist in order to finance solutions that make no difference. The time has come to call a halt to this nonsense and focus on real issues that pose real dangers. In a world beset by war, terrorism, and continuing third-world poverty, there are far more important things on which political leaders need to focus.
Criminal Justice Reform and Civil Asset Forfeiture: The Hottest Discussion at #RSG16
I was recently privileged to be on a panel at the RedState Gathering in Denver with Freedomworks’ Jason Pye and the Franklin Center’s Kevin Glass to discuss civil asset forfeiture reform as part of one of the many criminal justice reform panels during the program. I was encouraged by the response of the audience who expressed appropriate outrage at what they were hearing.
If you watch through to about the 18 minute mark, you can see an audience comprised entirely of RedState applauding a stripper for successfully suing the Federal Government. You win, libertarians.
Last week the American Bar Association (ABA) changed its model ethics rules for lawyers, prohibiting attorneys from engaging in speech or being a member of any organization — even churches — that holds traditional views on marriage, sexuality and other issues. It now goes to each state’s courts for consideration, which must emphatically reject Model Rule 8.4 as an unprecedented threat to religious liberty, both for attorneys and their clients.
The ABA adopted Model Rule 8.4, which makes it unethical — and thus something for which a lawyer could lose his or her license to practice law — to “discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or socioeconomic status in conduct related to the practice of law.”
The rule’s official comments sweepingly interpret discrimination “related” to practicing law to include “verbal conduct” and “business or social activities.” Anything a lawyer says to another person — whether speaking in church or over dinner — sharing his viewpoints on same-sex marriage, transgenderism, Black Lives Matter or illegal immigration, would enable any hearer to file a complaint with the state bar authority.
Indeed, a lawyer’s church membership and worship activities are “social activities.” Churches that are evangelical, Roman Catholic or numerous other faiths (such as Orthodox Jews), have official doctrinal positions that marriage is between one man with one woman and that God purposefully creates each person with a fixed biological sex. Many churches also have certain views about socioeconomic issues. A liberal activist could file a complaint based solely upon such membership or participation, or even casual discussions over coffee.
The speaker could then be punished by the state’s bar, possibly losing his or her law license. Even if the complaint ultimately fails, the effects are devastating. Any person can file an ethics complaint against a lawyer. Any plausible complaint can precipitate a formal investigation by a state supreme court, requiring the lawyer to spend thousands of dollars on legal representation, attend hearings, and create a permanent public record that the lawyer was officially investigated for potentially unethical conduct. Bar complaints are toxic to any lawyer’s business and career.
The ABA is a private organization with 400,000 members; most of America’s 1.3 million lawyers are not part of the ABA. But while licenses to practice law are granted by each state’s judiciary, most state bars fashion their ethics rules after the ABA’s model rules, or adopt ABA rules outright.
A lawyer who loses a license can no longer earn a living, either in private practice or working for a law firm or company performing legal work. This fuses economic and social issues. Nobody should want to ban any productive adult from being economically self-sufficient; everyone needs the ability to work at a job to support his or her family.
Nor do we want to destroy any citizen’s constitutionally protected freedoms of speech and religion, or for people of faith to go unprotected when religious or moral values are threatened because lawyers fear to represent them.
Frighteningly, the ABA leaders’ statements verify that they understand — and intend — the ramifications of Model Rule 8.4. President Paulette Brown advocates that the ABA must prevent “bias” in ways that go far beyond current law. Committee member Drucilla Ramey insists bar authorities go “to the top of the legal profession” to “incentivize” attorneys to change their views and speech on these issues, views and speech often informed by attorneys’ religion. All this, despite committee testimony that such a rule has “little relation to concerns” arising in most lawyers’ offices, could be “used tactically against someone inappropriately,” and will “have a chilling effect on something that has always been in the best traditions of the bar: representing minority views and unpopular positions or clients.”
The purpose of our legal system is to ensure freedom. Popular speech rarely needs legal protection. The law protects dissenters’ right to disagree with governmental orthodoxy. It must not become a weapon to oppress those dissenters.
We must launch a nationwide campaign encouraging each state’s judiciary to reject such a requirement, and litigate in federal court if necessary. State supreme courts and state bars are government actors, bound by the First Amendment rights of free speech, freedom of association, and free exercise of religion. This rule grossly violates all of those fundamental rights.
The ABA’s un-American censorship regime is beyond draconian; it coerces conformity regarding religious and political beliefs on a level unprecedented in American history. It borders on fascism, and must be explicitly repudiated.
• Edwin Meese III was the 75th attorney general of the United States. Kelly J. Shackelford is president and CEO of First Liberty Institute.
Garrison Keillor’s long-running public radio program “A Prairie Home Companion” regaled audiences with life in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, where “all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.”
What if that scenario, through the amazing accomplishments of today’s scientific and medical communities, actually was possible?
A society where everyone could be healthy and without physical limitations.
That very “pursuit of biological ‘perfection'” will be the topic of an event at the Family Research Council in Washington.
Speaking at noon on Aug. 31 at FRC headquarters will be Arina O. Grossu, M.A., the director of FRC’s Center for Human Dignity.
Her work focuses on issues such as abortion, women’s health, bioethics, pornography, sex trafficking, assisted suicide and euthanasia.
The upcoming seminar will look at the possibility that the failings of the human body can be reduced or eliminated through “transhumanism.”
Grossu told WND there are reasons to watch over such developments carefully.
“Science and technology that advances medicine in ethical ways and that is respectful of all human life is a great service to humanity,” she said. “However, when science and technology is used in unethical ways or to destroy human life in the name of ‘advancement,’ this is a great tragedy. We must never harm or kill vulnerable people to achieve a perceived or actual ‘good.’ The ends don’t justify the means.”
She said society’s changing values cannot always provide protection.
“Medicine must operate from the age-old Hippocratic principle of not doing any harm to a patient. It goes against the principle of medicine to harm or kill vulnerable human embryos in order to prevent the birth of a less-than-‘perfect’ child or to destroy embryos to ‘treat’ any other disease,” she explained. “A number of our current technologies operate from an underlying eugenic mindset. This includes sex-selective abortions, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), aborting extra embryos via ‘selective reduction’ for various reasons, three-parent embryo technologies, and gene editing that is harmful.”
She warned: “Technologies give doctors, scientists, and patients the power over someone else’s life and death. We must only apply these technologies in ways that are respectful of human life. Only God must have the power over someone’s life and death.”
Investigate the growing trend of blending human and machine, called “transhumanism,” at the WND Superstore.
“Transhumanism claims to have as its goal the transformation of the human condition, but at what cost given its commonalities with eugenics?” FRC asked.
Eugenics is the simple aim of “improving” humankind by promoting desired traits and discouraging unwanted traits.
Two of the more prominent historic examples are Adolf Hitler’s promotion of the “Aryan” race by killing Jews and others, and Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s birth-control stratagies.
Grossu earned a degree from Notre Dame, then got her master’s in technology from the Dominican House of Studies. She’s on the board of the National Pro-Life Religion Council, is past president of Notre Dame Right to Life and an alumna of the Vita Institute there.
She’s been interviewed on CNN, ABC, Fox News, EWTN and CBN, and has written in USA Today, National Review, Townhall, The Federalist, the Washington Times, Washington Examiner, National Catholic Register, Christian Post and more.
“One issue is that scientists might inadvertently create animals that have partly human brains, endowing them with some semblance of human consciousness or human thinking abilities. Another is that they could develop into animals with human sperm and eggs and breed, producing human embryos or fetuses inside animals or hybrid creatures,” the report said.
But NPR said scientists argue they could prevent those outcomes.
WND has previously reported on such goals. In one case, a U.S. biotech company was given permission to recruit 20 brain-dead patients to test if parts of their central nervous systems could be regenerated.
The company, Bioquark Inc., plans to use a soup of stem cells and peptides on the brains of the patients over a six-week period to see if it can jump-start their functions.
Philadelphia-based Bioquark asks on its website: “What if your body came with a restart button?”
WND also reported last winter on the growing promise of anti-aging or “gene therapy” science, a technology known as CRISPR/Cas9. It purports to deliver immortality to human beings and has attracted support from some of the world’s richest men, including Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal; Ray Kurzwell of Google; Oracle founder Larry Ellison; venture capitalist Paul Glenn; and Russian multi-millionaire Omitry Itskov.
Besides injecting the brain with stem cells and peptides, scientists at Bioquark say they will use lasers and nerve stimulation therapies that have been shown to bring people out of comas.
Christian author and filmmaker Tom Horn has warned scientists are redefining what it means to be human, with the goal of “transcending” humanity.
“Right here in North Carolina at your university, they have what is called a transgenic lab, which means they have mice that have human genetic material, for testing to see if the human parts in that animal are responding,” he told TV host Sid Roth in an interview.
Using the CRISPR gene-editing technique, one university lab cured cancer in a group of rats, but the rats started aging quickly and died at half-life, “and nobody knows why that happened,” Horn said. “There is a danger in playing God because you’re not God and you don’t know.”
Horn has been researching and writing about transhumanism for years, resulting in his documentary, “Inhuman,” which won a Silver Telly Award.
“These are the questions philosophers and theologians have debated since the dawn of time, but in the Bible only mankind is described as having God’s breath breathed into them at the moment of their creation,” Horn said. “For conservative Christians, this should be a major point of debate regarding the ‘ethics’ of bringing people back from the dead.”
Watch trailer for the documentary “Inhuman”:
Carl Gallups, a Christian pastor, radio host and author of several books, including “Be Thou Prepared” and “Final Warning,” said there are moral and ethical dilemmas.
“What entity or governmental power will make the decisions concerning who gets their death ‘reversed’ and who must die?” Gallups asked at the time.
“It is common practice to evaluate the potency of pluripotent human cells – which can become any tissue in the body – through introducing them into rodents,” the agency said.
Now, the agency said, “an increasing number of researchers are interested in growing human tissues and organs in animals by introducing pluripotent human cells into early animal embryos. Formation of these types of human-animal organism, referred to as ‘chimeras,’ holds tremendous potential for disease modeling, drug testing, and perhaps eventual organ transplant.”
But the opposition has been fierce, including from Theresa Pham, who identifies herself as a physician “in the field of research.”
“I feel strongly that this use of chimera crosses an ethical line,” she wrote. “Advancing our knowledge in some areas of science can’t and should not be approached with … presumptuous naivete. Some adverse consequences are much more profound than others.
“If the predictions are wrong and the safeguards are not enough, then the price will be the cost of our humanity as well as these new lifeforms that did not ask to participate in this frightening enterprise.”
NIH officials didn’t have those concerns.
“I am confident that these proposed changes will enable the NIH research community to move this promising area of science forward in a responsible manner,” said Carrie Wolinetz, the NIH’s associate director for science policy.
But LifeNews commented: “The Obama administration today announced it has flung the door wide open to scientists making grisly human-animal hybrids. After overturning the Bush administration limits on forcing taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research, this is the latest move by President Barack Obama to manipulate and destroy human life in unethical experiments.”
Why Couldn't What Happened In Venezuela Happen Here?
"In the beginning it was some penalties here, a few confiscations there," Brimen recalled. "When the cronies were no longer willing to play ball, he just turned around and used another group of unscrupulous business leaders. By the time it was obvious to many, it was already too late."
Chavez actually took to the streets, leading crowds and ordering blanket confiscations "as if he was God," Brimen explained. The video shows footage of the president asking about building after building, and as he hears that each is privately owned, he declares, "Expropriate it! Expropriate it!"
The Venezuelan government even proceeded to censor the media. "Initially it was very subtle, just a fine here and a fine there, but once you accept that, then it's just a matter of degree," Brimen said. Opposition voices found themselves silenced by government force. Eventually, Chavez's orders "just flat out closed newspapers and TV channels." There is no voice of opposition in Venezuela today, he lamented.
"Government could never become this powerful and this tyrannical, had it not first been crony," Brimen said. Crony capitalism enables political movements to increase government on both sides — first for one group, and then for their opposition. At each step, government grows, and power becomes more firmly entrenched. Eventually, it can destroy an entire country.
So could it happen here? Absolutely.
"The piece of paper that we hold so dearly here, the U.S. Constitution, is just that, it's a piece of paper," Brimen warned. "The only thing keeping tyranny away in the U.S., the only thing keeping liberty alive, is that people understand it and that they themselves defend it."
The native Venezuelan said he was thankful for the opportunity to move to the United States, and will dedicate himself to defending its vision of liberty. "But if this country disintegrates in the same way, where are we going to go? What's the next beacon of hope?" Great question.
Former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)
“Has the Republican Party made a mistake by nominating Donald Trump?” I asked Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee. “No, no. I don’t think so because this is all part of the plan,” he said. A plan that isn’t talked about much. But Steele didn’t hold back in the debut episode of my new podcast “Cape UP.”
Since we taped our conversation, Trump’s unconventional presidential campaign has careened into uncharted territory. He blasted a Gold Star Family. He accused President Obama of being “the founder” of the Islamic State and calls Hillary Clinton, his Democratic Party challenger, the terrorist group’s “MVP.” And his poll numbers have plummeted nationally and in states he needs to win, including Georgia and South Carolina. Still, Steele’s analysis of what has befallen his party and why it is necessary holds true.
“This is all part of the process,” he said. “This has to happen. This confrontation with ourselves.” That confrontation involves the GOP realizing that it has itself to blame for the destructive rise of Trump. “[I]n large measure, we laid down the metrics and pathway for Donald Trump to emerge and to arise the way he did,” Steele said. “He understood the GOP better than the GOP understood itself.” Steele contends that because trust between the party and its base is gone, “[T]his confrontation within the party is something that is long overdue.”
What’s also long overdue is the Republican Party grappling with race. Polls showing Trump with 0 percent support from African Americans in some states served to highlight the problem. The campaign has hired three black outreach strategists, but as Steele told me, the hurdle is higher than that move suggests.
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“[The Republican Party] doesn’t have a problem with race. It has a problem with how to address race,” he said. “The underside of that issue is how uncomfortable still, largely because folks don’t know what to do, how to speak, what to say, about black America today. And so it comes off awkward.
“Case in point,” he continued, “when I got elected chairman. I had a member come up to me almost immediately and say after my election as chairman and say….’This so exciting…Now black folks will join the party.’ And my response was, ‘Really?! You think I’m a Pied Piper? Just because you elected a black man chairman black folks are going to wake up and tomorrow morning and go, ‘Oh my God! They elected a black man!’? Let’s join the GOP.’ That sort of thin understanding of what it takes to actually engage the black vote has been probably the Achilles heel of the modern-day Republican Party.”
How did musical theater and studying for the priesthood help Steele with his turbulent tenure as GOP chairman? Listen to the podcast to find out, and subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.
The phrase “The Big Lie” is a propaganda technique that was schemed by Adolf Hitler. In his 1925 book, entitled, Mien Kampf, Hitler talks about the technique of telling a lie that is so extreme and outrageous that people will assume that it cannot be a lie, and as a result, they accept it as truth. This mind control tactic was performed and perfected by the Nazi Party, in the years leading up to, and during Adolf Hitler’s leadership of Germany. Their persistent use of negative propaganda and deliberate lies were a vital instrument for obtaining and keeping power, including the killing of millions of Jews in the Holocaust.
Additionally, Adolf Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Paul Joseph Goebbels said this about Hitler’s “Big Lie” propaganda strategy:
The Democrat Party has modernized “The Big Lie” technique of Hitler. Like the Nazi Party, the Democrat Party is the “Master of Deceit” and the “Wizard of Propaganda”. They have successfully spread falsehoods about how Republicans and Conservatives view minorities. They have masterfully hidden their own sordid past and attitudes. Through “Big Lies” and deceit of Leftist intellectual academic elites and their controlled puppets in the mainstream media, the Democrat Party has concealed its cruel and oppressive treatment toward Black Americans.
Malcolm X simply explained:
The most damning and blatant example of the Democrat Party’s deliberate effort to purposefully alter history and deceive Americans is on their website. “The Big Lie” reads, “For more than 200 years, our party has led the fight for civil rights,” appearing for the last three years at: https://www.democrats.org/about/our-history.
Screenshot taken Sunday, August 14, 2016
The current leadership of the Democrat Party, including Hillary Clinton, are hypocrites and liars―their consciences are dead! Moreover, this “Big Lie” is being kept alive by a certain group of elected and unelected Black leaders—Judas goats!
Thank God for giving us the literary legacy of Frederick Douglass to refute “The Big Lies” and false rhetoric of the Democrat Party. In his May 1853 speech in New York entitled, The Slavery Party, Frederick Douglass commented:
This speech of Frederick Douglass, the Father of the Civil Rights Movement, is undeniable proof the Democrat Party has taken a page out of the Nazi Party’s propaganda playbook. Two-hundred years ago in 1816, the Democrat Party supported the enslavement of African-Americans. Their documented anti civil rights history is quite lengthy. In particular, in 1854, the Democrat Party authored the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This legislation crippled and hindered the liberation of Black Americans, by emboldening the expansion of slavery into the new territories—Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, North Dakota and South Dakota.
In fact, when it comes to the civil rights of Black Americans, the Democrat Party stood on the side of injustice rather than justice. This is why Frederick Douglass referred to the Democrat Party as the “slavery party” and NOT the “civil rights party”—because their political policies and social actions favored Black American enslavement.
Since the Democrat Party can lie so easily and brazenly about its deficient civil rights record, the question must be asked: What else are they lying to us about—i.e., voter fraud, school choice, voter IDs, immigration, racism, Common Core Curriculum, the U.S. Constitution, or 30,000 deleted emails?
There is no perfect political party because racism has no political face. Both parties have a history of treating Black Americans with little regard. What gets overlooked is that the Democratic Party has a more lengthy and violent history of oppressing Blacks.
