Each semester, I am reminded of the constitutional illiteracy of American college students. I cannot help but be reminded because I teach courses in criminal procedure and evidence, which often focus on various constitutional limitations on police conduct. Naturally, I have to test the students to see how well they understand the cases and the rules I teach and assign for outside reading. Sometimes their answers floor me.
A liberal feminist mother of a gender-dysphoric teen warns parents that transgender activists are ensuring it will soon be “nearly impossible” to find a mental health professional who is willing to help these children evaluate their self-perceptions.
“I quickly discovered that it is nearly impossible to find therapists who do this kind of work,” wrote the anonymous mother in a piece that appeared at the Federalist Tuesday. “If a girl presents as transgender today, the vast majority of therapists will immediately affirm the girl’s declared gender identity and ask her what steps she would like to take toward transition.”
Currently, transgender activists are celebrating their success in pressing lawmakers in 16 states and the District of Columbia to ban what they call “conversion therapy.” These political supporters of gender ideology claim therapists who do not immediately affirm the perception of young people claiming to be a gender that is incompatible with their biological sex are “harmful” and “abusive” and must be outlawed.
As the anonymous Federalist writer discovered, most mental health professionals from the states in which “conversion therapy” is now banned will not be willing to help a child explore his or her feelings or perceptions about sexual identity.
The mother wrote:
I interviewed at least a dozen therapists in search of one who could help my daughter examine her feelings and motivations. I finally resorted to paying out-of-pocket for my daughter to talk online to a therapist who lives in another state. I know I am not alone. I belong to an online support group of nearly 1,500 parents of gender dysphoric youth. Finding therapists who provide standard mental health therapy rather than automatic affirmation is a frustration for most of us.
Mental health professionals who work with children in states in which the transgender activists have successfully banned traditional therapy with children would be risking their licenses and their livelihood if they took on such cases.
“The goal of anti-conversion therapy bills is to ban mental health therapists from using conversion therapy with minors,” the mother wrote. “I am afraid these bills will have a chilling effect on therapists’ ability to help girls who say they are transgender.”
After a long comment period, @WHO ICD-11 renames gender dysphoria to gender incongruence. Activists won. GI is no longer in mental health section, but in “sexual health.” Bottom line: GI normalized, but billable insurance codes remain for med transition.https://t.co/owexl8Novm
At a recent Heritage Foundation panel, Walt Heyer, founder of Sex Change Regret, said his organization receives many letters from parents, and those who have begun transitioning to the opposite sex themselves, seeking help.
Heyer, as the Christian Post reported, lived as a transgender woman for eight years and underwent surgery in 1983. In his discussion, he labeled what transgender activists are doing to young people today – controlling mental health therapy and pushing hormonal treatments and surgical interventions – as “abuse.”
“That is child abuse,” Heyer said. “We need to be calling it what it is. It’s not affirming a child. It’s causing them to be depressed and anxious about who they are.”
“The only reason I am able to speak to you today is because after 46 years dealing with this issue, I was able to de-transition in 1990 after I had psychotherapy, the very same psychotherapy [transgender activists] are trying to prevent people from having,” he explained. “Why? Because they don’t want them to de-transition.”
For the next time you hear an activist or gender therapist claiming detransition is very, very rare… https://t.co/QRJYVgPoBG
Why are transactivists so determined to prevent youth from receiving therapy that in any other context would be considered good and ethical practice? I think it is because transactivists believe they should be exempt from the rules the rest of us follow when we seek medical care.
“What the general public does not understand is that standard mental health therapy is now considered conversion therapy when practiced with gender-dysphoric youth,” the mother asserted.
Heyer said the current situation amounts to: “We are manufacturing transgender kids.”
“We are manufacturing their depression, their anxiety, and it has turned into a huge industry that people are profiting from after kids’ lives are completely torn apart,” he asserted.
A major exposé by technology magazine Wired has shed light on Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s deteriorating relationship with the platform he bought, Instagram, and its co-founders.
The 10-000 word article, entitled15 Months of Fresh Hell inside Facebook, drew on testimony from 65 current and former employees to tell the story of the company’s challenging 2018, which involved rising tensions between Zuckerberg and Instagram’s c0founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger that eventually led to their departure in September last year.
Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion back in 2012, and it now has an estimated one billion active users per month. Yet according to sources who spoke with the magazine, Zuckerberg started “souring” on the two men after he began excessively interfering in the platform’s decisions, many of which they did not agree with.
Zuckerberg was also reportedly left frustrated by Facebook’s declining user growth compared with Instagram’s aggressive expansion, leading some executives to believe that he was deliberately torpedoing its success over fears it was “cannibalizing” Facebook itself.
Amid repeated success stories for Instagram and difficulties for Facebook, including the Cambridge Analytica data harvesting scandal that emerged in early 2018, Zuckerberg allegedly became upset. In response, Zuckerberg forced efforts to artificially boost Facebook by scrapping publicity for Instagram and providing linkbacks to Instagram when users cross-posted their content onto their Facebook feeds.
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg also faced many internal challenges based on what insiders told Wired. They mentioned pressure put on Sandberg by Breitbart News, amongst other outlets:
But resentment had been building for years, and after the Definers mess the dam collapsed. She was pummeled in the Times, in The Washington Post, on Breitbart, and in WIRED. Former employees who had refrained from criticizing her in interviews conducted with WIRED in 2017 relayed anecdotes about her intimidation tactics and penchant for retribution in 2018. She was slammed after a speech in Munich. She even got dinged by Michelle Obama, who told a sold-out crowd at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on December 1, “It’s not always enough to lean in, because that shit doesn’t work all the time.”
The report merely provides the latest headache for the social media giant, with the leaks indicating a sense of disunity within the Silicon Valley firm. Facebook has so far refused to comment on the report.
Follow Ben Kew on Facebook, Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart.com.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Tuesday admitted that she does not know the content of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) recent remarks about 9/11 — despite offering a full-throated defense of the freshman congresswoman in the wake of criticism from President Donald Trump.
In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Pelosi rejected charges of antisemitism against Omar and pushed back against criticism that the Democrat Party is doing enough to combat it.
“I don’t think the congresswoman is anti-Semitic. I wouldn’t even put those in the same category,” Pelosi told interviewer Christiane Amanpour in Ireland. “We have no taint of that [anti-Semitism],” she added. “And just because they want to accuse somebody of that doesn’t mean that we take that bait.”
Pelosi also dismissed criticisms that she hasn’t done enough to defend Omar, conceding, “Until I talk to somebody, I don’t even know what was said.”
“I do know that what the president did was not right,” she added.
Omar is facing blowback for downplaying the September 11, 2001, terror attack, describing it last month private fundraiser for Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a day on which “some people did something,” before adding “and that all of us were starting to lose our civil liberties.”
In reaction to the Minnesota Democrat’s remarks, President Trump shared a video to social media of Omar’s remarks and scenes of the World Trade Center engulfed in flakes shortly after it was attacked by radical Islamic terrorists. The video’s caption reads: “WE WILL NEVER FORGET!”
“She’s got a way about her that’s very, very bad, I think, for our country. I think she’s extremely unpatriotic and extremely disrespectful to our country,” the president said at an event in Minnesota on Monday.
Several Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and 2020 Democrat candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, said President Trump was inciting violence against Omar by tweeting the clip. In a statement Saturday, Pelosi demanded the president remove the video and said Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Omar amid a growing number of death threats.
“Following the President’s tweet, I spoke with the Sergeant-at-Arms to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff. They will continue to monitor and address the threats she faces,” Pelosi said.
“The President’s words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger. President Trump must take down his disrespectful and dangerous video,” she added.
Regrettably, this week Fox News exhibited two blatant examples of “Islamophobia Political Correctness” when Chris Wallace asked President Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, why the president doesn’t become a politically correct wimp like Wallace himself and publicly state that he (and by extension the US Government) accepts dhiminitude status. The widespread overt hostility Wallace is referring to actually emanates from Islamic scripture — Quran, Hadiths, and Sira (many examples below). The crux of worldwide violence is succinctly contained in this Islamic Hadith —
Sahih Muslim (19:4294) – “Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war… When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them… If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them.”
Wallace’s question should have been: “How is the US going to deal with a political philosophy that masquerades as a religion and whose main purpose is to conquer and subjugate every other human belief system (secular and spiritual) to Islamic rule?”
Another example of “Islamophobia Political Correctness” occurred when Fox suspended Jeanine Pirrofor stating that a female Muslimmember of Congress’s outward display of Sharia-allegiance by wearing a hijab is troubling and merits publicly questioning of motive because the Sharia declares that human-conceived governing documents like the US Constitution are invalidated by the Sharia as specified in the Quran (below).
33:36“When Allah’ and His Messenger have decreed a matter [Sharia Law], it is not for any believing man or believing woman to have a choice in their affair. And whosoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger has gone astray into clear error.”
9:29 Fight against those who (1) believe not in Allah, (2) nor in the Last Day, (3) nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger [Sharia Law] (4) and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (i.e. Islam) among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians), until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.
The beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya by ISIS militants
When the foundational documents of Islam command followers to conquer, subdue, or kill all non-believers in Islam, isn’t that a more pressing issue for Wallace to be questioning?
Fox News anchor Chris Wallace on Sunday pressed acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on why President Trump has not considered giving a speech condemning “anti-Muslim bigotry.”
“I understand, and I very much agree that the president is not responsible for this action,” Wallace said on “Fox News Sunday” while talking with Mulvaney about the shootings at two New Zealand mosques on Friday that left dozens dead.
“But has he considered, given the fact that some people seem to feel that he has given them cover, has he considered giving a major speech condemning anti-Muslim, white supremacist bigotry?”
Fox News denounced remarks made by host Jeanine Pirro over the weekend that suggested Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., opposes the United States Constitution because she wears a hijab.
“We strongly condemn Jeanine Pirro’s comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar,” Fox News said in a statement Sunday night. “They do not reflect those of the network and we have addressed the matter with her directly.”
“ … On Saturday night, during the opening segment of her Fox News television show “Justice with Judge Jeanine,”
She accused Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, of pushing “hate-filled, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel tropes” about “dual loyalty” to Israel and the power of Jewish money.
“She’s not getting this anti-Israel sentiment doctrine from the Democrat party. So if it’s not rooted in the party, where is she getting it from? Think about it,” Pirro said.
“Omar wears a hijab, which, according to the Quran 33:59, tells women to cover so they won’t get molested. Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution?”
3:56: “As to those who disbelieve, I will punish them with a severe torment in this world and in the Hereafter, and they will have no helpers.”
3:85: “And whoever seeks a religion other than Islâm, it will never be accepted of him, and in the Hereafter, he will be one of the losers.”
3:118: “O you who believe! Take not as your helpers or friends those outside your religion since they will not fail to do their best to corrupt you. They desire to harm you severely. Hatred has already appeared from their mouths, but what their breasts conceal is far worse. Indeed We have made plain to you the verses if you understand.”
5:51: “O you who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians as friends, they are but friends to one another. And if any amongst you takes them as friends, then surely he is one of them. Verily, Allâh guides not those people who are the wrongdoers.”
9:5: “And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists [“polytheists” specifically refers to Christian believers in the Trinity] wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they should repent, establish prayer, and give zakah, let them [go] on their way. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.“
9:23: “O you who believe! Take not for supporters your fathers and your brothers if they prefer disbelief to Belief. And whoever of you does so, then he is one of the wrong-doers.”
9:29: “Fight against those who (1) believe not in Allâh, (2) nor in the Last Day, (3) nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allâh and His Messenger (4) and those who acknowledge not Islam as the religion of truth among the people of the Scripture, until they pay the Jizyah [religious tax] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”
9:34: “O you who believe! Verily, there are many of the Jewish rabbis and the Christian monks who devour the wealth of mankind in falsehood, and hinder men from the Way of Allâh. And those who hoard up gold and silver, and spend it not in the Way of Allâh — announce unto them a painful torment.”
9:123: “O you who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are close to you, and let them find harshness in you, and know that Allâh is with those who are the pious.” See Also: The Time for Appeasement of Islam is Over
Sahih Bukhari (52:177) – Allah’s Apostle said, “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. “O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.”
Sahih Bukhari (52:65) – The Prophet said, ‘He who fights that Allah’s Word (Islam) should be superior, fights in Allah’s Cause. [Muhammad’s words are the basis for offensive Jihad – spreading Islam by force. This is how it was understood by his companions, and by the terrorists of today.]
Sahih Bukhari (52:220) – Allah’s Apostle said… ‘I have been made victorious with terror’
Sahih Bukhari (52:44) – A man came to Allah’s Apostle and said, “Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward).” He replied, “I do not find such a deed.”
Abu Dawud (14:2527) – The Prophet said: Striving in the path of Allah (jihad) is incumbent on you along with every ruler, whether he is pious or impious
Sahih Muslim (1:33) – the Messenger of Allah said: I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah
Sahih Bukhari (8:387) – Allah’s Apostle said, “I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: ‘None has the right to be worshipped but Allah’. And if they say so, pray like our prayers, face our Qibla and slaughter as we slaughter, then their blood and property will be sacred to us and we will not interfere with them except legally.”Sahih Muslim (1:30) – “The Messenger of Allah said: I have been commanded to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is no god but Allah.”
Sahih Bukhari (52:73) – “Allah’s Apostle said, ‘Know that Paradise is under the shades of swords’.”
Sahih Muslim (19:4294) – “Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war… When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them… If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them.”
Tabari 9:69“Killing Unbelievers is a small matter to us” [The words of Muhammad, prophet of Islam.]
Violence is so ingrained in Islam that it has never really stopped being at war, either with other religions or with itself.
Caleb Parke, in a column on the Fox News website entitled “Students, alumni outraged, ‘shaking’ after Vice President Pence invited to give commencement,” tells of campus unrest at Taylor, a Christian university in Indiana. Parke writes that “Vice President Mike Pence is getting pushback from Taylor University students and alumni after the small evangelical Christian school tapped the former Indiana governor to be this year’s commencement speaker.”
“Over 3,300 people,” Parke continues, “have signed a change.org petition to get Pence’s invitation to the mid-May commencement ceremony rescinded,” claiming that the Trump-Pence administration’s policies “are not consistent with the Christian ethic of love we hold dear.” Is it reasonable to wonder, I ask myself, if an invitation to former President Barack Obama, who from the Oval Office apparently selected enemies to be killed in drone strikes, would raise such a furor?
Some years ago, when my daughter graduated from the University of Maryland, those in attendance had the opportunity to hear a commencement address given by James Carville and his wife, Mary Matalin. On the list of speakers whose views I care to hear, the name James Carville does not appear. That notwithstanding, those in attendance listened with respect to each member of America’s oddest couple.
Times have obviously changed over recent decades as our distinctly American culture is being progressively destroyed by so called institutions of higher education. What recourse does America have to reverse this trend?
The president has taken a good first step by denying federal funding to universities that refuse to support freedom of thought and ideas, but more should be done. Perhaps it is time for the federal government to completely eliminate the funding of higher education. Why do our taxes continue to fund the anti-American sentiments expressed and taught at the university level? Why do universities, many having millions or billions of dollars in endowments while charging outrageous tuition and fees, receive continued government funding?
Perhaps it is also time to reduce and restrict student loans. It is almost criminal to allow university graduates to leave school with debt that can take decades to repay, especially for those graduating with degrees for which there is little demand in the work force. In looking at bachelor’s and master’s programs in several local state universities, I found myself again wondering how many jobs are really available for graduates of degrees in applied ethnomusicology; women’s studies; ethnic, minority, gender, and group studies; African-American studies; or trans-cultural German studies, to name a few. While knowledge for knowledge’s sake may be good, it does not necessarily lead to a successful career, financial well-being, or the ability to repay large student debt.
It is federal funding plus the student loan program that has allowed universities to unreasonably duplicate offerings (how many universities in a single city need departments of gender studies, etc.?) and to continue to raise tuition and fees.
It is time to force upon American universities some of the same economic realities that other business and normal Americans experience in daily living. A university need not be all things to all students. While each university should offer a selection of studies appropriate to being a university, should they all not at the same time specialize in certain self-determined fields of study? Must one size fit all? Should any single university be expected to offer degrees in every known and obscure field of study? Wouldn’t financially required specialization, by reducing unnecessary redundancy, have a profound effect on staff size, facility requirements, and overall costs of higher education?
Addressing redundancy of departments and academic offerings in areas of study unheard of in previous decades might, in addition to making higher education more affordable, have the added benefit of reducing positions that seem to attract faculty intent on indoctrination as opposed to education. Perhaps students and faculty, in this process, can be re-introduced to concepts of courtesy, openness, and simple decency with regard to those having opposing (otherwise known as normal) belief systems. While such results may be unlikely, Americans could at least take satisfaction that educational intolerance seeming rampant on university campuses is no longer funded by federal tax dollars.
Caleb Parke, in a column on the Fox News website entitled “Students, alumni outraged, ‘shaking’ after Vice President Pence invited to give commencement,” tells of campus unrest at Taylor, a Christian university in Indiana. Parke writes that “Vice President Mike Pence is getting pushback from Taylor University students and alumni after the small evangelical Christian school tapped the former Indiana governor to be this year’s commencement speaker.”
“Over 3,300 people,” Parke continues, “have signed a change.org petition to get Pence’s invitation to the mid-May commencement ceremony rescinded,” claiming that the Trump-Pence administration’s policies “are not consistent with the Christian ethic of love we hold dear.” Is it reasonable to wonder, I ask myself, if an invitation to former President Barack Obama, who from the Oval Office apparently selected enemies to be killed in drone strikes, would raise such a furor?
Some years ago, when my daughter graduated from the University of Maryland, those in attendance had the opportunity to hear a commencement address given by James Carville and his wife, Mary Matalin. On the list of speakers whose views I care to hear, the name James Carville does not appear. That notwithstanding, those in attendance listened with respect to each member of America’s oddest couple.
Times have obviously changed over recent decades as our distinctly American culture is being progressively destroyed by so called institutions of higher education. What recourse does America have to reverse this trend?
The president has taken a good first step by denying federal funding to universities that refuse to support freedom of thought and ideas, but more should be done. Perhaps it is time for the federal government to completely eliminate the funding of higher education. Why do our taxes continue to fund the anti-American sentiments expressed and taught at the university level? Why do universities, many having millions or billions of dollars in endowments while charging outrageous tuition and fees, receive continued government funding?
Perhaps it is also time to reduce and restrict student loans. It is almost criminal to allow university graduates to leave school with debt that can take decades to repay, especially for those graduating with degrees for which there is little demand in the work force. In looking at bachelor’s and master’s programs in several local state universities, I found myself again wondering how many jobs are really available for graduates of degrees in applied ethnomusicology; women’s studies; ethnic, minority, gender, and group studies; African-American studies; or trans-cultural German studies, to name a few. While knowledge for knowledge’s sake may be good, it does not necessarily lead to a successful career, financial well-being, or the ability to repay large student debt.
It is federal funding plus the student loan program that has allowed universities to unreasonably duplicate offerings (how many universities in a single city need departments of gender studies, etc.?) and to continue to raise tuition and fees.
It is time to force upon American universities some of the same economic realities that other business and normal Americans experience in daily living. A university need not be all things to all students. While each university should offer a selection of studies appropriate to being a university, should they all not at the same time specialize in certain self-determined fields of study? Must one size fit all? Should any single university be expected to offer degrees in every known and obscure field of study? Wouldn’t financially required specialization, by reducing unnecessary redundancy, have a profound effect on staff size, facility requirements, and overall costs of higher education?
Addressing redundancy of departments and academic offerings in areas of study unheard of in previous decades might, in addition to making higher education more affordable, have the added benefit of reducing positions that seem to attract faculty intent on indoctrination as opposed to education. Perhaps students and faculty, in this process, can be re-introduced to concepts of courtesy, openness, and simple decency with regard to those having opposing (otherwise known as normal) belief systems. While such results may be unlikely, Americans could at least take satisfaction that educational intolerance seeming rampant on university campuses is no longer funded by federal tax dollars.
Michelle Obama once accidentally called herself a single mother.
"Believe me, as a busy single mother — or, I shouldn’t say single, as a busy mother," she said in an April 2013 TV interview. "Sometimes, you know, when you’ve got a husband who is president, it can feel a little single. But he’s there."
The Miami Herald reports that a new Jeffrey Epstein accuser has come forward by filing an affidavit in a federal court in New York.
Maria Farmer, then 26, claims she was employed by Epstein, a multimillionaire financier who lived in a vast mansion on New York’s Upper East Side, and that she frequently saw “school-age girls’’ wearing uniforms come into the mansion and go upstairs. She was told that the girls were auditioning for modeling work, according to her affidavit.
Then an art student in New York, Farmer said she reported her assault to New York police and the FBI in 1996. FBI documents released April 1 make a reference to Farmer having been interviewed in 2006 or 2007. However, Farmer, now 49, said the FBI did not take any action against Epstein and Maxwell.
“To my knowledge, I was the first person to report Maxwell and Epstein to the FBI. It took a significant amount of bravery for me to make that call because I knew how incredibly powerful and influential both Epstein and Maxwell were, particularly in the art community,’’ she wrote.
We’ve heard lots of stories about teen girls visiting his mansion in Florida but this suggests much the same thing was happening in New York. Farmer also claims she became a victim in 1996.
In her affidavit, Farmer claims that during the time she worked for Epstein, the financier arranged for her to work on an art project at Wexner’s Ohio mansion in the summer of 1996. She stayed at the Wexner $47 million 30-room mansion for a time, working on the project, while babysitting her two younger brothers, who were also staying with her at Wexner’s mansion, she said.
One day, Epstein and Maxwell visited, and escorted her into a bedroom, and then proceeded to sexually assault her, she wrote. She said she fled the room and called the local sheriff’s office, but did not get a response. When she tried to leave the property, she said Wexner’s security staff refused to let her leave.
As for why she’s finally coming forward now, Farmer says she hopes Epstein will face some kind of justice:
“I have struggled throughout my entire life as a direct result of Epstein and Maxwell’s actions against me and my hope is that they will be held accountable for their crimes. While I am still afraid, I am coming forward because I think it is so important to do so,’’ she said.
Farmer’s affidavit is part of a lawsuit by Virginia Roberts Giuffre aimed at attorney Alan Dershowitz. Giuffre is one of two women who claim they were “lent out” by Epstein to various men, including Dershowitz. Dershowitz has strenuously denied those claims and even invited the two women to sue him. The current lawsuit by Giuffre takes issue with various statements Dershowitz has made to clear himself. The other woman who has accused Dershowitz, Sarah Ransome, also submitted an affidavit in support of Giuffre’s lawsuit.
Ransome says that she was introduced to Epstein when she was 22 years old and living in New York. She claims that she spent time at Epstein’s mansion and was “lent out’’ by him to his friends for sex. Among those friends was Dershowitz, she said in the affidavit. She alleges she had a three-way sexual encounter with Dershowitz and Nadia Marcinkova, who also worked for Epstein.
“I recall specific, key details of his person and the sex acts and can describe them in the event it becomes necessary to do so,’’ Ransome said in the affidavit.
That’s quite a threat. I don’t want to weigh in on the accusations against Dershowitz, but I will say that Giuffre’s claims about Epstein seem to be true based on what we know about him.
President Donald Trump revealed on April 5 that he would be skipping the upcoming annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner for the third year in a row since taking office and would hold a rally with supporters instead.
That decision wasn’t particularly surprising, given the overtly hostile environment the annual dinner — which is little more than a self-congratulatory celebration of the establishment media by the media — has become with regard to him and his administration in recent years.
In dismissing the idea of attending this year’s Correspondents’ Dinner, Trump called the event “boring” and negative,” and told reporters that he’d rather be in a “positive” setting, such as a rally with his supporters.
The White House Correspondents’ dinner was so boring this year- I guess that’s because I didn’t attend(even… http://t.co/8jD8GuFluU
Trump finally revealed in a tweet on Tuesday where that rally would be and wrote, “I will be in Green Bay, Wisconsin on Saturday, April 27th at the Resch Center — 7:00 pm (CDT). Big crowd expected! #MAGA”
The rally in Wisconsin was scheduled to be held at the same time on the same date as the annual Correspondents’ Dinner, Fox News reported.
Michael Glassner, chief operating officer of Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., said in a statement, “President Trump looks forward to sharing the successes of his administration with the great people of Wisconsin.”
“Under President Trump’s leadership, paychecks are now growing twice as fast for those in the bottom half of the income spectrum. Unemployment has hit generational lows, and the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement will open Canadian dairy markets to farmers all across Wisconsin,” Glassner added.
Will you watch Trump’s rally instead of the Correspondents’ Dinner?
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Fox News pointed out that presidents usually attend the annual event — Trump had even attended in the past prior to his presidency — but Trump has bucked that tradition since being in office, in large part because of the exceptional vitriol and biased hatefulness so many in the liberal media have aimed his direction.
Ironically, in light of assertions that the president is a billionaire elitist who is out of touch with the American people, Trump will be spending the evening of April 27 surrounded by regular working-class Americans while the elitist media and their billionaire enablers gather together in Washington D.C. to pat themselves on the back and grant each other awards for their fake news.
As for those attending the once-prestigious, now-pretentious dinner, they’ll be fine without the attendance of the president, and will no doubt take plenty of shots at him in absentia.
This time, however, the event will be hosted by an author and historian of journalism — rather than a crass comedian — so hopefully, the current denizens of the biased liberal media can learn something about the glory days of journalism with integrity … though we won’t be holding our breath in that regard.
Highlighting the expected self-righteous sanctimony of the media that will be on display at the event, White House Correspondents’ Association president Olivier Knox said in a tweet that his organization was “looking forward to an enjoyable evening of celebrating the First Amendment and great journalists past, present, and future.”
#WHCA President Olivier Knox on President Trump’s decision not to attend the association’s annual dinner April 27. “We’re looking forward to an enjoyable evening of celebrating the First Amendment and great journalists past, present, and future.” @OKnox
As an aside, the choice of Wisconsin as the location for Trump’s rally is something of a subtle dig at his failed 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, and her defenders in the media, as the defeated candidate lost in part because she failed to visit and rally sufficient support in many Midwestern states, Wisconsin in particular.
It is unlikely that Democrats will make that same mistake again, so President Trump has gotten a jump-start in staking out that state as one he fully intends to win.
Fox News noted that Trump has already visited Wisconsin no less than 18 times — Green Bay specifically three times — since June of 2018, and there will surely be plenty more visits to that state and others in the year and months leading up to the 2020 election.
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Nancy Pelosi may well lament that no good deed goes unpunished. After going far out of her way to protect Ilhan Omar from her own anti-Semitic statements a month ago, Pelosi now finds herself accused by progressives of failing to support House Democratic women such as Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Anything short of a full-throated endorsement of whatever they have to say makes a mockery of Pelosi’s claim of “diversity,” progressives complain to the Washington Post:
The far left’s frustration with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is on the rise, as liberal advocates and lawmakers fume that she hasn’t done enough to defend freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar from attacks by President Trump and other Republicans and has undermined their policies and leaders, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Omar’s allies over the weekend were upset by what they viewed as Pelosi’s delayed response in standing up for one of the two Muslim women in Congress after Trump accused Omar of playing down the tragedy of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Pelosi, whose initial statement criticizing Trump made no mention of Omar, said Monday that it was “beneath the dignity of the Oval Office” for Trump to have shared a video on Twitter of Omar spliced with footage of the burning twin towers.
But liberals seethed that Pelosi (Calif.) and Democratic leaders did too little, too late. They were equally baffled by Pelosi’s quip seeming to dismiss Ocasio-Cortez during a CBS “60 Minutes” interview Sunday, suggesting her “wing” of the party included “like five people.”
Another controversial first-termer, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), came to the defense of her fellow frosh representatives and accused Pelosi of a false sense of diversity. It’s time for the old guard to listen to the new vanguard, Tlaib argued:
On Sunday, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the other Muslim congresswoman, went so far as to accuse the Democratic leadership of using people of color to highlight diversity but ignoring them when it mattered — though she did not name Pelosi in the missive.
“They put us in photos when they want to show our party is diverse,” Tlaib wrote, retweeting messages claiming Democrats used women of color as “props.” “However, when we ask to be at the table, or speak up about issues that impact who we are, what we fight for & why we ran in the first place, we are ignored. To truly honor our diversity is to never silence us.”
Silenced? Pelosi only wishes that were the case. They’re not being silenced — they’re being criticized, and rightfully so. Omar has only been in Congress for a little over three months and has repeatedly embarrassed other Democrats with her anti-Semitic statements. Ocasio-Cortez continues to spread nonsensical policies and ignorant screeds on social media, along with championing primary challenges against her fellow caucus members. Tlaib is the least troublesome of the trio, but has on occasion let her mouth run away from her good sense.
What they demand isn’t the right to speak, which they exercise on a constant basis. They’re demanding the right to speak without criticism, which is a silencing tactic explored in full by Guy Benson and Mary Katharine Ham in End of Discussion. Omar and her allies insist that any kind of criticism — nay, even accurately quoting them — puts their lives in danger and must stop immediately. This imposition on everyone else’s free speech bothers them not one whit.
It bothers a lot of other people, though, which is why Pelosi isn’t climbing onto the Simpleton Sorority’s bandwagon. She’s trying to protect her narrow majority that got built on inroads into the suburbs in the previous cycle, where voters have very little patience for socialism and anti-Semitism, let alone dismissals of 9/11 as “some people did something” in order to paint herself and fellow Muslims as the bigger victims. If Pelosi allows AOC, Omar, and Tlaib to seize control of the party’s messaging, the next time Democrats will have a majority in the House will be roughly when her great-grandchildren get their first chance to vote — if then.
Of course, that’s something party leaders learn because they’ve been around longer than 100 days in office. Instead of demanding that Pelosi keep her mouth shut, perhaps they’d be better off taking their own advice.
