Nearly 4K Car Enthusiasts to Join Funeral Procession for Teen Who Died of Cancer

Sports car enthusiasts lined up Sunday to honor a young boy who died of cancer recently in Washington, Missouri.

In May of 2015, Alec Ingram was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma bone cancer. Sadly, he passed away a few weeks ago at the age of 14, according to NBC 5.

The teenager, who had a huge love for sports cars, told his family that his final wish was to have them lining his funeral procession.

Sunday morning, nearly 4,500 drivers from all over the country were expected to take part in honoring the young man.

“Beginning around noon; the funeral is around 1 p.m. But we’ll begin shutting down streets around 11,” said Sgt. Steve Sitzes of the Washington Police Department.

“We have anywhere from 3,200 to 4,500 cars expected. This child loved classic cars and muscle cars. I know it’s going to be an inconvenience for some but this is what this child wanted and we’re trying to make that happen,” he said.

Police departments in Eureka and Union are expected to help with the procession, along with the Missouri State Highway Patrol, according to Fox 2 Now.

Dana Manley, who created a Facebook group called Sports Cars for Alec that has over 8,000 members, said the event is going to be massive.

“I have people from California, Washington State, Michigan, from all over the country to fulfill this boy’s last wish. It’s going to be enormous.”

Tracey Anderson, a member of the group Rides for Hope KC, said nothing could stop her from making the day special for Alec and his family.

“It’s not every day that we get a chance to help somebody fulfill their last wish, and it’s not every day that a 14-year-old boy, who has cancer, asks you to do it. But when he does, you show up,” she concluded.

Sunday morning, the Facebook group Eureka, Missouri Community stated that drivers were already lining up to make their way over to the funeral procession.

“The turnout so far is unreal! Sports Cars For Alec will be making their trip shortly towards Washington MO,” the post read, along with an aerial photo of the cars.

Manley said Alec’s family is grateful for all the support they have received from the community and from people all over the country.

“They say as hard as it is to have lost a son, just seeing the support they’re getting is giving them so much joy,” she stated.

via Breitbart News

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Pew Research: 6-in-11 Americans Want More Deportations of Illegal Aliens

A majority of Americans say they want to see more deportations of illegal aliens and increased security along the United States-Mexico border, a new survey finds.

The latest Pew Research Center survey reveals that nearly 70 percent of all Americans believe increased security at the porous U.S.-Mexico border is very or somewhat important — including more than 90 percent of Republican voters.

Another 54 percent of Americans said more deportations of the nation’s 11 million to 22 million illegal alien population is very or somewhat important. Republican voters by a majority of 83 percent said increasing deportations of illegal aliens is important ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

The findings come as President Trump’s administration has constructed less than 80 miles thus far of border wall along the southern border, though officials have repeatedly said hundreds of miles of construction is on its way.

For almost a year, the Trump administration has promised that 500 miles of border wall will have been completed before next year’s election in November.

Over the last few months, Trump has surged the total number of deportations of illegal aliens by more than 450 percent, as Breitbart News reported.

For example, between August and October, federal immigration officials deported more than 2,500 illegal aliens who arrived as a family unit at the southern border and have final orders for removal. Compare these numbers to that of Fiscal Year 2018, when ICE deported 2,711 illegal aliens who arrived as family units at the border for the entire year.

As Breitbart News has reported, research finds that deporting the 11 million to 22 million illegal aliens saves American taxpayers billions of dollars, compared to the costs they are forced to pay when illegal aliens are allowed to stay.

Deporting every illegal alien in the country would amount to a cost savings of about $622 billion over the course of a lifetime. This indicates that deporting illegal aliens is six times less costly than what it costs American taxpayers to currently subsidize the millions of illegal aliens living in the U.S.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder

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Anti-Trump CIA “Whistleblower” Eric Ciaramella Spoke with Lt. Col. Vindman and Is Still Attending White House Meetings

The liberal mainstream media if reporting that whistleblower Eric Ciaramella was working with Schiff witness in plotting this latest attempted coup of President Trump.

According to the Washington Post Eric Ciaramella worked late in his cubible at the CIA headquarters for two weeks before submitting his complaint against President Trump.

During that same time period Ciaramella, who was not on the Trump-Zelensky call, was meeting with Adam Schiff’s office in planning their attack on the US president.

And now what was once rumored appears to be true — that Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was speaking with Ciaramella and may be his source for this latest attack on President Trump.

This information was leaked by the CIA plotters to their comrades at the Washington Post.

The Washington Examiner reported:

The whistleblower whose complaint about President Trump’s communications with Ukraine launched House impeachment proceedings was still attending White House meetings recently and may have spoken to Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman prior to filing the complaint, according to the Washington Post.

On Saturday, the outlet published details about the steps a CIA analyst took to blow the whistle after the president urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a July 25 phone call to start an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, who is also leading the pack of 2020 Democrats. Notably, the Post was clear that the whistleblower is male.

“The analyst had served on the National Security Council during the Trump administration and had been in the presence of the president. After returning to the CIA, his job required him to continue to participate in National Security Council meetings,” the publication reported, indicating that the whistleblower was still attending meetings at the White House recently.

The Post claimed the whistleblower never told any of his White House contacts about his plans to file a complaint, which he worked on “after hours” in his cubicle at the CIA headquarters for two weeks before submitting it on Aug. 12.

Before filing the complaint, the anonymous person spoke with a White House official who also expressed concern over Trump’s conversation with Zelensky. The “shaken” official said the call was “frightening,” “crazy,” and “completely lacking in substance related to national security.”

While unconfirmed, it is possible that the official was Vindman, who still works with the whistleblower on U.S.-Ukraine policy.

The post Anti-Trump CIA “Whistleblower” Eric Ciaramella Spoke with Lt. Col. Vindman and Is Still Attending White House Meetings appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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1 Year After Sex Change, This Teen Regrets His ‘Frankenstein Hack Job’

Less than a year after having gender surgery, Nathaniel now says, “This whole thing was a bad idea. I am 19 years old, and I feel as though I have ruined my life.”

It’s heartbreaking each time I get a letter from someone
who underwent gender-change surgery and regrets it, especially someone as young
as Nathaniel.

With his permission, I’m telling a bit of his story to
raise awareness of the young lives being ruined by the rush to surgery, and hoping
that hearing the testimony of this young man will influence others on this path
to slow down and consider the consequences before consenting to surgery.

In Nathaniel’s case, he says he was bullied by the boys in
elementary school because he was sensitive and preferred playing girl games. When
he was a bit older, he discovered internet pornography, heard about
transgenderism, and as he says, “convinced myself that’s what I was.”

When he finally worked up the nerve to tell his mother in the summer after eighth grade, she made an appointment with, in his words, “a doctor at an informed-consent clinic.”

He started seeing the doctor a week after his 15th birthday, and from how he describes the next years of his teens, I’d say going to the clinic didn’t improve his life.

“From then on,” he says, “I slowly detached from everything until I was just staying home, playing video games, and going on the internet all day. I stopped reading, drawing, riding my bicycle. I surrounded myself in an echo chamber that supported and validated my poor decisions, because the others were also, unfortunately, stuck in that pit, too.”

A month after his 18th birthday, Nathaniel had what’s euphemistically
called “bottom surgery.” For a male like Nathaniel, that means refashioning the
male genitalia into a pseudo-vagina. He suffered some complications that
required a second surgery a few months later, and he had facial surgery to
further feminize his appearance.

Nine months later, he says:

Now that I’m all healed from the surgeries, I regret them. The result of the bottom surgery looks like a Frankenstein hack job at best, and that got me thinking critically about myself. I had turned myself into a plastic-surgery facsimile of a woman, but I knew I still wasn’t one. I became (and to an extent, still feel) deeply depressed.

The unpopular truth, which Nathaniel unfortunately
learned the hard way at a young age, is a man is not a woman and can’t ever become
a woman, even with surgically refashioned genitals and feminizing facial
surgery.

Nathaniel is a bright young man who never had the
benefit of sound, effective counseling, which would have prevented this
horrible mistake from happening. He will deal with it for the rest of his life.

No one will help this young man to detransition. The
so-called “informed-consent clinic” (as if a teenager can give informed
consent) washed their hands of him. The reckless ideology claims another life.

Nathaniel’s story is not unique. Specifics may vary, but
I’ve found that everyone who regrets can point to something that happened that
caused them to not want to be who they are and attempt to become someone else.

For Nathaniel, “what happened” was bullying about not
being male and viewing pornography on the internet. When he sought help in his
distress, the transgender ideology and the gender clinic and surgeons affirmed his
false thinking and enticed him down the primrose path.

Another young person with a story of medical malpractice I’ve come to know is Sydney Wright. Born female, Sydney “transitioned,” also at age 18. Now 21, she recently told her story: “I Spent a Year as a Trans Man. Doctors Failed Me at Every Turn.”

She clearly articulates the absence of counseling prior
to being prescribed the powerful male hormone testosterone and the horrible
effects taking it for even a short time had on her female body.

As more and more people seek help from gender clinics, we’re seeing a tidal wave of those who regret sex change. So many contact me that I wrote a book with 30 of their stories, “Trans Life Survivors.”

In an article, “Observations in a Gender Diversity Clinic,” published in Ethics and Medics, Dr. Monique Robles, a board-certified pediatric critical care physician, observed that children and adolescents are put on the path to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and “sex reassignment surgery” at gender clinics, but receive no psychological counseling.

She says that this practice is widespread and growing among gender clinics, even though a review of the medical literature shows that none of this treatment regimen is supported by strong scientific evidence.  

The reckless gender medical practitioners have blood on
their hands. Both Sydney’s and Nathaniel’s young bodies bear the penalties.

It isn’t society’s fault that these teenagers suffered harm. The blame lies with the gender clinics and the medical staff who practice there.

By turning a blind eye to the scientific and ethical aspects of their chosen profession, they are directly responsible for poor outcomes, regret, detransitioning, suicides, and families torn to shreds by unnecessary surgeries.

We should be outraged at doctors and surgeons who carve up distraught people, especially teens, and leave them looking like, as Nathaniel says, “Frankenstein hack jobs.”

National public outcry is a powerful force, as we saw in the custody case of Jeff Younger in Texas. We need to support all who are battling the destructive practice of transitioning children.

Nathaniel will need proper medical care to get his life
back and funds to pursue legal action, if indicated. If you’d like to help,
visit sexchangeregret.com and
contact me.

The good news for both Nathaniel and Sydney is that they
are revitalizing their faith in Jesus and, as I know well from my lifetime of
transgender experience, faith in God leads to restoration, if we allow it.

The post 1 Year After Sex Change, This Teen Regrets His ‘Frankenstein Hack Job’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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ESPN’s Stephen Smith Blasts Colin Kaepernick: ‘He Don’t Want To Play; He Wants To Be A Martyr’

On Saturday, ESPN’s Stephen Smith blasted former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick over his behavior on Saturday.

So, let me get this straight. Colin Kaepernick has been working out all of this time. Him, people in this camp, his … loved ones – everybody talking about, “He wants to play football! He wants to play football! He’s ready to play! Just give him the chance!”

So, what does the NFL do, recognizing that teams need a shield because they need something to hide behind because they know that, guess what, “If we bring this brother in for a workout and we don’t like him or we don’t want him, who knows what we’re going to get accused of? We need cover.” So the NFL provides that.

After noting that he’s sure Jay-Z “is involved,” as well as Roger Goodell, et al., Smith stated:

Forget all of that! This man wanted the chance. 25 teams show up in Georgia at the Atlanta Falcons’ practice facility – state of the art facility, NFL personnel, equipment, video, everything – and what does Colin Kaepernick do? Not Tuesday, when he found out about it. Not Wednesday. Not Thursday. Not Friday. Saturday, three hours before the workout because of some issue with a liability waiver.

Colin Kaepernick wants to change the venue; Colin Kaepernick wants his own receivers; Colin Kaepernick wants to video things himself; Colin Kaepernick wants the media. This Colin Kaepernick, media can’t find him! He ain’t done no interviews; he ain’t talked to nobody; media can’t find him – but he wants the media available now.

You see? You see? He don’t want to play; he wants to be a martyr. But guess what? It ain’t working this time.

Smith added that if Kaepernick had simply “showed out,” he would have gotten signed within weeks.

He wanted to show up to a high school in Georgia, not an NFL facility, a high school, and then YouTube it live – like the average Joe out there gets to decide if he’s on an NFL roster. You don’t want to work; you just want to make noise, and you want to control the narrative. It’s over. Colin Kaepernick’s aspiration in the NFL for an NFL career, it’s over.

ESPN reported that on Tuesday, NFL clubs were made aware of a “private workout” featuring former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. According to a memo from the league, teams could attend the event, which would include video recorded “on-the-field work and an interview.”

The memo stated in part: “We have … arranged this opportunity for him to work out, and for all clubs to have the opportunity to evaluate his current readiness and level of interest in resuming his NFL career.”

Kaepernick himself was also made aware of the opportunity on Tuesday.

“The workout was set up to provide teams anonymity, so if they watched Kaepernick and didn’t want him, they wouldn’t catch flack. This was done to encourage more teams to attend the event, thus helping the quarterback secure a position,” reports The Daily Wire’s Amanda Prestigiacomo.

Things took a turn when Kaepernick cancelled the scheduled event approximately half an hour before showtime.

The workout, which was set to take place at the Atlanta Falcons’ training facility, was suddenly moved to Charles Drew High School, in Riverdale, Georgia.

In a series of tweets, Howard Bryant of ESPN said that Kaepernick was initially told by the NFL that “there would be no media access to the workout, which the team agreed to.” Then on Friday, “the NFL suggested that Kaepernick’s own team would be prohibited from filming the workout, thus leaving the NFL as the only entity with access to the video being sent to the 32 teams.”

This allegedly made Kaepernick and his team leery as they believed the NFL might unfairly edit the footage to make the quarterback appear less than capable, according to Bryant.

Additionally, the NFL allegedly wanted Kaepernick to sign a waiver that would prohibit him from suing the NFL if he wasn’t picked up by a team following his display. Sports Illustrated writes that “Kaepernick’s team reportedly responded with a standard injury form.”

The NFL issued a lengthy statement in response to what occurred on Saturday, a portion of which pertains to the waiver:

On Wednesday, we sent Colin’s representatives a standard liability waiver based on the waiver used by National Invitational Camp at all NFL Combines and by NFL clubs when trying out free agent players. At noon today, Colin’s representatives sent a completely rewritten and insufficient waiver.

Prior to the workout at Charles Drew High School, where just six reps looked on, Kaepernick wore a “Kunta Kinte” shirt (Kunta Kinte is a slave character from the novel and miniseries “Roots”).

Kaepernick also offered a statement following the workout:

Our biggest thing with everything today was making sure we had transparency with what went on.

…Y’all have been attacked for the last three years. Y’all continue to be attacked. We appreciate what y’all do. We appreciate you being here today, [and] we appreciate the work that you do for the people in telling the truth. That’s what we want in everything.

I’ve been ready for three years. I’ve been denied for three years. We all know why I came out here [and] showed it today in front of everybody. We have nothing to hide. So, we’re waiting for the 32 owners, the 32 teams, Roger Goodell, all of them to stop running. Stop running from the truth. Stop running from the people. We’re out here. We’re ready to play. We’re ready to go anywhere…

I’ll interview with any team at any time. I’ve been ready. I’m staying ready, and I’ll continue to be ready…

via The Daily Wire

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Democrats Omit Exculpatory Information from Summary of Tim Morrison Transcript

Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee released the long-awaited transcript from senior National Security Council official Tim Morrison on Saturday, and immediately distorted it for the benefit of the anti-Trump media.

It was a typical example of how Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and his staff have tried to skew the fact-finding process in an effort to inflate public support for impeachment, believing few will read the lengthy transcripts for themselves.

First, the committee withheld the transcript for nearly two weeks, before the first public hearings began last week, on November 12. Morrison’s testimony was rumored to be very good for President Donald Trump’s defense — Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) had described Democrats in the room during the closed-door hearing as “sucking lemons” — and Republicans would have made good use of it, had they had the transcript available. But it was not provided.

In the interim, Democrats had sole possession of the document. Schiff does not allow copies of the transcripts to be released to Republicans, either in paper or electronic form. If they want to read transcripts, they must do so one by one, in the presence of a Democrat committee staffer. Not only is that rule humiliating, but it also allows Democrats to control the flow of information and to prepare their public arguments with no fear of timely Republican rebuttal.

In the Morrison case, Democrats released “key excerpts” that highlighted the few facts in his testimony that, they believe, help push the case for impeachment. Chief among these is that Morrison confirmed that he heard U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland claim that he told a Ukrainian official, in a private “sidebar” meeting, that aid would be released if the Ukrainian prosecutor general would publicly announce an investigation into Burisma.

But that is just hearsay evidence, as is Morisson’s confirmation of Charge d’affairs William Taylor’s testimony (repeated in public last week) that Sondland, after speaking to President Trump, “there was no quid pro quo, but President Zelensky must announce the opening of the investigations and he should want to do it.”

Sure enough, CNN and other networks highlighted these and other supposedly damaging sections of Morrison’s testimony.

These are the top news results on Google for the search “Tim Morrison,” as of Sunday morning, November 17:

But these reports downplay or omit the most important parts of Morrison’s testimony for Trump’s defense:

  • Morrison testified “I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed” on the July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to which he himself listened. That statement does not appear anywhere in the Democrats’ “key excerpts” document. He also testified that he “did not have a view” on whether President Trump’s comments to Zelensky on the phone call were “improper.”
  • Morrison testified that he was afraid that the conversation would leak — not because he thought the president had done anything wrong, as Democrats’ “key excerpts” document implies, but because he knew about what would happen, given “Washington’s polarized environment.” The Democrats’ summary of the document omits this telling exchange between Morrison and chairman Adam Schiff — no doubt, because it damages their case:

THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. I just wanted to follow up a bit on this.

One of the concerns, and there may be an overlap between the first two concerns you mentioned about the caII, and if the call became public. First, you said you wene concerned how it would play out in Washington’s polarized environment and, second, how a leak would affect bipartisan suppont for our Ukrainian partners.

Were those concerns nelated to the fact that the President asked his Ukrainian countenpant to look into on investigate the Bidens?

MR. MORRISON: No, not specifically.

THE CHAIRMAN: So you didn’t think that the President of the United States asking his counterpart to conduct an investigation into a potential opponent in the 2020 election might influence bipartisan support in Congress?

MR. MORRISON: No.

THE CHAIRMAN: And you weren’t concerned that the President bringing up one of his political opponents in the Presidential election and asking a favor with respect to the DNC server or 2016 theory, you weren’t concerned that those things would cause people to believe that the President was asking his counterpart to conduct an investigation that might influence his reelection campaign?

MR. MORRISON: No.

THE CHAIRMAN: That never occurred to you?

MR. MORRISON: No.

THE CHAIRMAN: Did you recognize during the — as you listened to the call that if Ukraine were to conduct these investigations, that it would inure to the President’s political interests?

MR. MORRISON: No.

  • Morrison contradicted Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the Democrats’ star witness in the closed-door hearings, who reported to Morrison directly. Morrison testified that while he admired his subordinate’s patriotism, he was irritated that Vindman failed to report concerns about the call directly to him. He said Vindman never raised concerns that something illegal had happened. He also said he accepted all of Vindman’s proposed edits to the call record, contrary to Vindman’s testimony. And while he did not think that Vindman was a leaker, he testified: “I had concerns that he did not exercise appropriate judgment as to whom he would say what.” He said that Vindman’s sloppy practices were partly the result of his own predecessor at the NSC, Dr. Fiona Hill — another one of the Democrats’ star witnesses, who, like Morrison, is due to testify publicly this week.
  • Morrison testified that other foreign aid being offered by the U.S. at the time was reportedly under review — not just to Ukraine. And he confirmed earlier testimony that the aid being held up did not include the essential Javelin anti-tank missiles, which were being delivered to Ukraine through a separate procurement process.
  • Morrison testified that he had no concerns that President Trump asked President Zelensky, during the July 25 phone call, to meet with his personal attorney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
  • Morrison kept NSC lawyers informed about what was going on — not because he was concerned Trump had done anything wrong, but because he wanted “to protect the president” from whatever Sondland was doing.

All of these facts are missing in the Democrats’ “key excerpts.” The Democrats do acknowledge a few exculpatory moments, but downplay them.

For example, the “key excerpts” document includes Morrison’s testimony that the transcript of the July 25 call was placed on a more secure server by “mistake” — but focuses on the fact that it was not removed from the more secure server after that.

Morrison also confirmed that the Ukrainians did not know that the aid was being held up until a Politico article appeared on August 28, and he said that Sondland’s side conversation with a Ukrainian official in September was “the first time something like this [investigations] had been injected as a condition on the release of the assistance.” Democrats include that latter quote, but downplay it.

Similarly, Democrats distorted the testimony of Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, whose testimony was also released on Saturday. Democrats highlighted the fact that Williams testified that she was told by another aide that Trump told Pence to skip Zelensky’s inauguration in May — though she did not hear that first-hand.

They quote her as saying the July 25 call “for me shed some light on possible other motivations behind a secunity assistance hold.” But they leave out her saying she “didn’t have any firsthand knowledge as to the reasoning.”

Both Morrison and Williams are scheduled to testify in public hearings before the committee on Tuesday.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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WALSH: Growing “Anti-Natalist” Movement Calls For The Extinction Of Humanity. This Is The Logical Conclusion Of Leftism.

The Guardian has a lengthy article about a movement that, it says, is “gaining mainstream popularity.” Anti-natalism is the belief that human life is objectively worthless and pointless. As The Guardian explains, anti-natalists contend that human reproduction causes unjustified harm to human society (which shouldn’t exist to begin with, by this way of thinking) and the planet. Furthermore, parents are guilty of a moral crime by imposing existence on children who have not consented to their existence.

One man has even tried to exact revenge on his parents for forcing life upon him:

In February, a 27-year-old Indian man named Raphael Samuel announced plans for an unusual lawsuit. He was going to sue his parents for begetting him. “It was not our decision to be born,” he told the BBC. “Human existence is totally pointless.”

… Samuel subscribes to a philosophy called anti-natalism. The basic tenet of anti-natalism is simple but, for most of us, profoundly counterintuitive: that life, even under the best of circumstances, is not a gift or a miracle, but rather a harm and an imposition. According to this logic, the question of whether to have a child is not just a personal choice but an ethical one  and the correct answer is always no.

Paradoxically, anti-natalists often claim that their belief in the worthlessness of human life is motivated by compassion for human life:

While [South African philosopher David Benatar] also sought to discourage reproduction, his ideas grew out of different premises. The objective of anti-natalism, as Benatar sees it, is to reduce human suffering. Since life inevitably involves some amount of suffering, bringing another person into the world introduces the guarantee of some harm. He argued that “the quality of even the best lives is very bad — and considerably worse than most people recognize it to be. Although it is obviously too late to prevent our own existence, it is not too late to prevent the existence of future possible people.”

In another paradox, anti-natalists wish to protect humanity from harm by ensuring its obliteration:

Dana Wells, the Dallas-based YouTuber, felt validated by Benatar’s work. About five years ago, she reunited with her biological brother (she was adopted), and he grilled her about why she didn’t have children. Feeling annoyed after their meeting, she searched online for books — “I’m a reader. I’m a nerd,” she says — in hopes of finding out about others who didn’t want kids.

For the first time, she encountered the terms “childfree” and “anti-natalism.” She began “to see that this life game is an imposition.” For her, it was simple: “Living things can be harmed. Non-living things cannot be harmed.”

On one level, this all seems like depression and self-loathing dressed up as a philosophical system. But it can’t be a valid philosophical system because it contradicts itself at every turn. For one thing, anti-natalists undermine their own position simply by sticking around to articulate it. If you really think that life is not only pointless but also harmful, and that existence is preferable to non-existence, then the obvious question is why you yourself have chosen to continue existing. A skeptic might suspect that even you recognize, deep down, that life is worth living. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be living it anymore.

Also, terms like “better” or “preferable” or “harmful” or “bad” are all meaningless in a vacuum. David Benatar wrote a book called “Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence.” But better to whom? For whom? It couldn’t be better for me if I don’t exist because if I don’t exist, then there is no me to reap the benefit. The term “for me” does not apply if I do not exist. And it can’t be better for society if humans don’t exist because without humans there is no society to enjoy their absence. Even the fate of the planet itself is arguably meaningless without conscious beings around to care about it. Does it matter if a planet 15 trillion miles away from the nearest intelligent civilization explodes? Why? An entire galaxy could cease to exist and I’m not sure why it would really matter if no conscious beings are affected by it. You cannot argue that Situation B would be “better” than Situation A if there isn’t anyone around in Situation B to profit from the improvement. If there is no one, then it is literally better for no one. Which is just another way of saying that it’s not better.

Third point: The idea of “existence without consent” is incoherent. In fact, you do have a say in whether you exist or not. The only way to fully remove consent from someone is to never bring him or her into existence to begin with.

The anti-natalists clearly have some bugs to work out. But the incoherence of their position does not mean that their position should be ignored. It should concern, though not surprise us, that modern culture has given rise to such a movement. Concern us because it indicates that our culture is losing its will to live; not surprise us because the rejection of inherent human worth has been the cornerstone of mainstream leftism for decades now.

Indeed, the pro-abortion position rests squarely on the premise that life has no inherent value. “Clump of cells,” they call it in the womb. But if I am inherently a valueless chunk of matter at conception and for nine months thereafter, I must logically continue to be a valueless chunk of matter for the rest of my life. I might be able to make myself useful for a time, but I am only useful to other chunks of useless matter. There is nothing about my innate nature, nothing at the core of my being, that gives me value. If there was, I would have had that value from the moment I was a being, from the moment of conception. By rejecting my value then, we reject it in principle. I am just a parasite and my birth is merely the spread of an infestation. The anti-natalists see this implication and embrace it. At least they’re honest.

via The Daily Wire

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Mark Meadows: Democrats Withholding Key Impeachment Inquiry Transcripts

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) observed Friday that Democrats are withholding transcripts from closed-door hearings in the impeachment inquiry that ought to be used to question witnesses in the public hearings.

Meadows was responding to efforts by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) to raise a point of order at the start of the second public hearing, featuring former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

Jordan tried to point out that there were still four transcripts that had not been released. (One of them in particular, the transcript of the deposition of former National Security Council staffer Tim Morrison, is thought to be quite exculpatory.) But Schiff refused to entertain his point of order, having just shut down Rep. Elaine Stefanik for raising one as well.

Meadows responded:

The other transcripts are important because they are useful in questioning witnesses in public. Witnesses can be asked to corroborate their own past statements, for example, or they can be asked to respond to statements by other witnesses that might contradict (or confirm) their own.

But none of that information is available to the public, creating the impression that Schiff is withholding possibly exculpatory evidence for as long as he can while trying to turn public opinion against the president.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

via Breitbart News

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Paralyzed Army Veteran Receives Home Transformation

A wounded Army veteran’s backyard in Colorado Springs, Colorado, got a huge makeover Wednesday thanks to volunteers with big hearts and willing hands.

Army Staff Sgt. Audrey Bocock, who suffered permanent injuries to her left side and a traumatic brain injury during her time in Afghanistan, said her world has been limited for quite a while.

“So I’m homebound, my world is pretty small,” she commented. “Resulting things from the war, not just from being in a wheelchair, I have issues from a head injury, I’ve had a few strokes, deal with seizures, been diagnosed with lupus because of the agent orange on the equipment that we were issued.”

However, some of that changed recently when the Home Depot Foundation partnered with Purple Heart Homes to make Bocock’s house and yard more wheelchair accessible.

“We work with a powerful network of nonprofit organizations to deliver relief to those who need it most,” the Home Depot’s website stated.

More than 40 volunteers from the company and the foundation joined forces to make sure Bocock could enjoy her home and start doing the things she loves again, such as gardening.

“I love nature, I’m a nature bug, I’m a country bug and it’s hard for me to be in town,” the veteran said.

The Purple Heart Homes website stated that it is a 501(c)3 public charity “dedicated to providing housing solutions for Service Connected Disabled and Aging Veterans that is substantial in function, design, and quality fit to welcome home the fighting men and women of America.”

Mike Nicholls, who works for the Home Depot, said he was excited to be part of such a project.

“To help somebody that’s a 14-year Army vet, a medic that helped save people’s lives in the field, and now we get a chance to help improve her life a little bit,” he commented.

Nicholls said in the spring, the team will plant trees and put down sod behind Bocock’s new retaining wall. Volunteers will also build a wheelchair ramp so she can easily access her outdoor shed.

The veteran expressed her gratefulness for the work the volunteers put in to make her home an even better place to live.

“Very big heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you that have come out here and volunteered your time and your smiles and your hugs and handshakes, this is great,” she said.

via Breitbart News

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KNOWLES: Democrats Have Nothing On Trump, So The Media Swoop In To Save Them

On Thursday’s episode of “The Michael Knowles Show,” Knowles talks about a study finding that 96% of evening impeachment coverage at ABC, CBS, and NBC is anti-Trump. Video and partial transcript below: 

So Trump says this is all total B.S., cuts to the heart of the matter. How is the mainstream media covering it? Well, here’s how CBS News is covering it … [plays clip].

And there we have it. Day one of the first public hearings, in terms of the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, are now in the history books. Some devastating testimony today from two of America’s most respected diplomats who have served both Republican and Democratic presidents.

Yeah, it was devastating testimony for the Democrats. It was devastating testimony for them. But this is what they do I told you at the top of the show. What they’re going to do is, regardless of how bad the impeachment inquiry goes and the proceedings go for Democrats and you heard it, you heard it with your own two ears, it’s going very badly for them. But it doesn’t matter because the fancy people in suits and ties will go on television and tell you it’s all really, really bad for the president. They’ll use it to overturn the election. At the very least, because they’re not going to be able to throw him out of office, they’re going to use it to hamper him in 2020. 

There is this NewsBusters analysis — Media Research Center … did a study of the network news story about ABC, CBS, and NBC evening newscasts since 2017. What they found is that the news shows cover Trump with negative spin 96% of the time. How did they calculate that? The way they do it is they take all explicitly evaluative statements about Trump or his administration from reporters, or anchors, or non-partisan sources — so we’re not talking about when the talking heads come on, the pundits, and the commentators, and they have their own perspective, we’re talking about the people who are supposed to be objective. They then take out the partisan sources, they take out all the neutral statements and they just look at evaluative statements: 96% of them are negative, and it’s all about impeachment. 

They’re dedicating more than three-fifths of all administration news coverage on the networks to this impeachment nonsense. They are also using secret sources, because if they use real sources, they would be shown to be liars. So out of 172 news reports, the strong majority of them, 59%, relied on unnamed sources for their so-called facts about impeachment. It’s B.S., it’s totally bogus and they are counting on this vagueness — on people’s eyes glossing over to put it past the American people.

Impeachment is a terrible idea. We’ve used it now four times — threatened it. Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump. Nobody has ever been removed from office as president through impeachment. Johnson was acquitted, Nixon resigned before he could be impeached, Bill Clinton was acquitted. Now we get to Donald Trump.

I think it’s a very good thing in this country that no president has ever been removed explicitly through the process of impeachment. What that does, what the impeachment process does, is reduces the role of the executive, which is a co-equal branch of government, and it makes it subservient to the legislature — kind of like what we have in the United Kingdom, a parliamentary style government. The Founding Fathers of this country, in their wisdom, did not give us that sort of government because that sort of government is chaotic and less representative of the American people and far more radical and far less conservative. 

We need those checks and balances, and you should not be able to throw out a president just because you dislike him politically. Even if there’s evidence of some sort of crime, there is a very high threshold. You’re not going to ever impeach the president over a parking ticket or for jaywalking. It’s got to really be a political crime, it’s got to be a high crime or misdemeanor. 

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via The Daily Wire

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