Former Blizzard Producer Endorses Boycott over Video Game Giant Bowing to China

Veteran software developer Mark Kern, who served as a Team Lead for Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, published a long, sad thread to Twitter on Tuesday, calling out the company’s decisions — and their Chinese owner, Tencent.

“This hurts,” Kern began the 14-tweet message to his over 71,000 followers. “But until Blizzard reverses their decision on @blitzchungHS I am giving up playing Classic [World of Warcraft], which I helped make and helped convince Blizzard to relaunch.”

In the messages that followed, the ethnically Chinese original World of Warcraft developer laid out his reason for joining the Blizzard boycott. He said that he “watched China slowly take over as the dominant investing force in gaming and movies over the years,” citing U.S. reluctance to invest in the gaming industry as the reason why China has gained “unprecedented influence” over entertainment media.

Kern also spoke publicly for the first time regarding a “2 million dollar kickback bribe to take an investment from China” he claimed to have refused just before “removed from a company I founded (after Blizzard).” He further said that he has witnessed other “American company reps in China [offered] similar bribes to get licenses for large AAA titles.”
His conclusion was bleak:

…We are in a situation where unlimited Communist money dictates our American values. We censor our games for China, we censor our movies for China. Now, game companies are silencing voices for freedom and democracy. China is dictating that the world be authoritarian.

“But enough is enough,” Kern said. “I stand with Hong Kong, and I oppose Blizzard’s obvious and laughably transparent fear of China,” calling for the entertainment behemoth to “grow the spine it used to have.” Unfortunately, that possibility seems remote for the communist-owned video game corporation.

Kern is not alone. In fact, even a few brave current employees of the company, which is partially owned by Chinese entertainment company Tencent, have decided to take a stand. Less than 24 hours after unidentified personnel reportedly covered the “Think Globally” and “Every Voice Matters” from a corporate display at the company’s offices, a small group of employees held an “umbrella protest” in support of the Hong Kong protesters.

A picture of the protest, uploaded to image site “imgur” was posted to the r/Hearthstone fan subreddit, after Blizzard shut down their own official community on popular content aggregation platform Reddit. While Blizzard later brought r/Blizzard back online, moderators restricted all discussion of the “Blitzchung” controversy to a single thread.

Support for the protesters among commenters on the r/Hearthstone thread was immediate and vociferous. “I fully respect this,” user “isthisdutch” proclaimed on the top-voted comment. “Standing up against the company which pays your bills takes some serious courage. It’s important you do this. Thank you for stepping up.”

Among those comments were words from those even closer to the situation. “I would like to express a heart-felt thank you from Hong Kong,” said one commenter. “I wish everyone who believes in freedom and democracy can live without fear and exercise their freedom of speech.”

via Breitbart News

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Atlanta Braves Stop Passing Out Foam Tomahawks After Player Rips as ‘Disrespectful’

The Atlanta Braves did not pass out foam tomahawks to fans for Game 5 of the National League Division series against the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday evening after one player called them “disrespectful.”

The Braves gave out the tomahawks during Game 1 and 2 of the series at SunTrust Park. Ahead of Game 2, Cardinals pitcher Ryan Helsley, 25, spoke out against the tomahawks, claiming they were “disrespectful” and possessed a “kind of caveman-type” imagery.

Helsley said in an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

I think it’s a misrepresentation of the Cherokee people or Native Americans in general. Just depicts them in this kind of caveman-type people way who aren’t intellectual. They are a lot of more than that. It’s not me being offended by the whole mascot thing. It’s not. It’s about the misconception of us, the Native Americans, and it devalues us and how we’re perceived in that way, or used as mascots. The Redskins and stuff like that.

“That’s the disappointing part,” he added. “That stuff like this still goes on. It’s just disrespectful, I think.”

The tomahawk arm motion has been a mainstay for Braves fans since the team played at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium back in 1991.

Helsley’s grandfather was a full-blooded Cherokee and his family has ties to the Cherokee Nation, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

In response to Helsley’s comments, the Braves affirmed it would crack down on the tomahawks and its associated chant.

“Out of respect for the concerns expressed by Mr. Helsley, we will take several efforts to reduce the Tomahawk Chop during our in-ballpark presentation today. Among other things, these steps include not distributing foam tomahawks to each seat and not playing the accompanying music or using Chop-related graphics when Mr. Helsley is in the game,” the team said in a statement. “As stated earlier, we will continue to evaluate how we activate elements of our brand, as well as the overall in-game experience. We look forward to a continued dialogue with those in the Native American community after the postseason concludes.”

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Nine Democrat Presidential Candidates Taking Part in LGBT Town Hall Marathon

CNN and the gay rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign (HRC) are hosting a marathon town hall with nine Democrat presidential candidates on Thursday in Los Angeles from 7:30 p.m. until midnight.

“The town hall, which will take place on the eve of National Coming Out Day, will mark the first time in history that a major cable news network will air a presidential event devoted to LGBTQ issues,” the HRC website states of the event.

HRC has dubbed the town hall “Power of our Pride.”

CNN reported that Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) won’t attend the town hall after suffering a heart attack last week. His campaign staff told CNN that he will be on stage for the Oct. 15 primary debate in Ohio.

CNN announced the names of the nine candidates who will be at the town hall, and the times they will be interviewed by CNN staff:

  • New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker will be interviewed by CNN’s Dana Bash at 7:30 p.m.
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden will be interviewed by CNN’s Anderson Cooper at 8 p.m.
  • South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg will be interviewed by Cooper at 8:30 p.m.
  • Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren will be interviewed by CNN’s Chris Cuomo at 9 p.m.
  • California Sen. Kamala Harris will be interviewed by Cuomo at 9:30 p.m.
  • Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke will be interviewed by CNN’s Don Lemon at 10 p.m.
  • Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar will be interviewed by Lemon at 10:30 p.m.
  • Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro will be interviewed by CNN’s Nia-Malika Henderson at 11 p.m.
  • Businessman Tom Steyer will be interviewed by Henderson at 11:30 p.m.

CNN reported on the details of its town hall: 

Invitations to participate in the LGBTQ-focused town hall were extended to Democratic presidential hopefuls who met the DNC’s qualifications for the October 2019 primary debate. Candidates must have reached 2% in at least four national polls identified by the DNC to determine eligibility. The polls for this town hall must have been released between June 28, 2019 and September 25, 2019. In addition, candidates also needed to meet the donor threshold outlined by the DNC for the October debate, in which the candidates had to receive the financial support of 130,000 unique donors, including 400 donors each from at least 20 states.

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and businessman Andrew Yang both declined HRCF’s invitation, each citing scheduling conflicts.

A HRCF (Human Rights Campaign Foundation) spokesperson said the audience will be comprised of invited guests, LGBTQ stakeholders, and members of civic organizations. No public tickets will be available for the event.

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Doctor Speaks Out at SCOTUS Protest: ‘We Need to Understand’ Causes of Gender Dysphoria

Dr. Allan Josephson faced yet another hostile environment on Tuesday on the steps of the United States Supreme Court, where protestors held court to push for justices to insert gender identity and sexual orientation into the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to protect homosexuals from workplace and other types of discrimination. 

Josephson, a psychiatrist and professor who led the child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Louisville School, lost his job after speaking at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC, in 2017 about treating children and teens for gender dysphoria.

“I found my university turning against me for asking that question,” Josephson said. “And some of my colleagues turned against me.”

“Within weeks my university demoted me despite numerous evaluations from administrators praising my skills and what I had done in my career and my professionalism,” Josephson said. “For the next year I endured a hostile environment and then finally I was effectively fired all for simply asking a question — why is this happening?”

As Josephson spoke, a woman with a megaphone tried to drown him out by shouting repeatedly, “Go home homophobe.”

“Tolerance is very popular these days especially among people who don’t show much of it,” Josephson said.

During his remarks, Josephson said gender dysphoria is real and damaging.

“Many of these children have serious distress, anxiety, depression, and they asked me what’s the best way to treat them,” Josephson said. “As a physician who cares about their patients my answer was straightforward.”

“The best treatment is always based on the understanding of what is causing the child’s distress,” Josephson said. “What does the confusion stem from?” 

“Is it a physical problem or is it an emotional problem?” Josephson said. “As a behavioral scientist I could not bring myself to say this is just something that happens.”

“We do not approach any other medical condition that way, and we didn’t need to approach this one that way,” Josephson said. “We need to understand a condition before we plan treatment for it.”

“But I soon found out that ‘why’ is not a question a doctor can asked these days at least when it comes to gender dysphoria,” Josephson said.

The Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal reported that Josephson said academia is failing in its purpose of educating students.

Josephson said in the Daily Signal report:

Universities are supposed to be places where you can exchange ideas and vigorous discussion, go back and forth. This marketplace of ideas as a metaphor is great, and that’s how science proceeds. That’s how we make progress. Unfortunately, many academic settings, including my own, are becoming more of an activist setting—meaning you’re not testing ideas, promoting the results of research; you’re asking for someone to agree with you, essentially.

“Josephson cautioned that universities need to stop being about groupthink and instead embrace debate and differences of opinion,” the Daily Signal reported.

“Today’s social activism is overriding academic inquiry and the search for truth and worst of all its overriding the well being of many patients,” Josephson said on the steps of the High Court, where several women held signs to support him that read “Protect Fairness for Women” and “#SexNotGender.”

Josephson warned Supreme Court justices of the gravity of their decision in three cases, one by a man who was fired from his job at a funeral home when he told his boss he was going to change his name and dress as a woman and two others by homosexual men who said they were fired because of their sexual orientation.

“If the Supreme Court reads gender identity into federal law, a lot of people will be silenced or punished for their views,” Josephson said. “I’m living proof of that.”

These cases are Bostock v. Clayton County Georgia, No. 17-1618; Altitude Express, Inc. v. Zarda, No. 17-1623; and R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc. v. EEOC, No. 18-107 in the Supreme Court of the United States.

Follow Penny Starr on Twitter.

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Trump: ISIS Terrorists Are ‘Going to Be Escaping to Europe,’ Not America

President Trump said that should Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists flee to other regions of the world, they will be headed to Europe, not the United States.

During a press conference on Wednesday, Trump said that “the worst mistake” the U.S. “ever made … was going into the Middle East” via the Iraq War, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the overthrow of Muammar al-Gaddafi in Libya.

ISIS terrorists, Trump said, would flee from capture to Europe rather than the U.S., saying, “That’s where they want to go,” as European Union bureaucrats have made mass migration readily available to migrants from across the Middle East and North Africa.

“Well, [ISIS terrorists] are going to be escaping to Europe; that’s where they want to go,” Trump said. “They want to go back to their homes.”

“But Europe didn’t want them for months. They could have had trials; they could have done whatever they wanted, but as usual, it’s not reciprocal,” Trump continued. “You know my favorite word, reciprocal. I don’t want an edge; I just want reciprocal. And it’s not reciprocal.”

“It’s not a fair deal for the United States,” Trump said.

For national security purposes, Trump has fought against a Republican and Democrat political establishment and reduced refugee resettlement to the U.S. to its lowest levels since 1980.

For Fiscal Year 2020, Trump will cut former President Obama’s refugee inflow by at least 80 percent by reducing the annual refugee resettlement ceiling to 18,000 admissions. This is merely a numerical limit and not a goal federal officials are supposed to reach.

The U.S. has permanently resettled more than 1.7 million foreign nationals and refugees through a variety of humanitarian programs — a foreign population larger than the size of Philadelphia, which has 1.5 million residents. This mass resettlement of refugees costs American taxpayers nearly $9 billion every five years.

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

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BOOM! RUDY DROPS BOMB ON JOE BIDEN – Reveals Today’s Ukrainain Parliament News — Burisma Holdings Paid Joe Biden $900,000 For Lobbying Activities

Cristina Laila reported on this development earlier today…

Burisma Holdings Paid Joe Biden $900,000 For Lobbying Activities

Former Vice President Joe Biden was personally paid $900,000 for lobbying activities from Burisma Holdings, according to Ukrainian MP Andriy Derkach.

Derkach publicized the documents at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency Wednesday as he said the records, “describe the mechanism of getting money by Biden Sr.”

“This was the transfer of Burisma Group’s funds for lobbying activities, as investigators believe, personally to Joe Biden through a lobbying company. Funds in the amount of $900,000 were transferred to the U.S.-based company Rosemont Seneca Partners, which according to open sources, in particular, the New York Times, is affiliated with Biden. The payment reference was payment for consultative services,” Derkach said.

Via Interfax:

At a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Wednesday, he made public the documents received from investigative journalists, including correspondence between NABU officers and representatives of diplomatic missions of foreign states in the framework of criminal proceedings opened under Article 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (High Treason). In particular, the documents that the deputy possesses indicate that Uglava, through his assistant Polina Chyzh, gave information to the U.S. Embassy, which, he said, is an important part of the “puzzle” of interference in U.S. elections and international corruption.

Joe Biden’s drug addict son Hunter was sitting on the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company and being paid by some accounts over $200,000 a month even though he had zero experience in the field.

Then-Vice President Joe Biden, who was tasked to oversee US dealings with Ukraine, threatened to withhold over $1 billion in loan guarantees to Ukraine unless they fired Viktor Shokin, the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma and Hunter.

Biden bragged about shaking down Ukraine and getting Mr. Shokin fired during a 2018 speech to the Council on Foreign Relations.

On Wednesday night Trump Attorney Rudy Giuliani revealed this news on Hannity!
Rudy broke the story telling Sean Hannity that this Joe Biden news was all over the Ukrainian press today but that the US liberal media has COMPLETELY IGNORED THIS BOMBSHELL!

The liberal media will likely ignore this unbelievable scandal!

The post BOOM! RUDY DROPS BOMB ON JOE BIDEN – Reveals Today’s Ukrainain Parliament News — Burisma Holdings Paid Joe Biden $900,000 For Lobbying Activities appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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ESPN Bows To Communist China, Posts Illegitimate Propaganda Map Of China

ESPN’s “SportsCenter” aired an illegitimate map of China on Wednesday morning that featured Chinese propaganda claiming that the communist nation owns the disputed South China Sea, Taiwan, part of the Philippines, and Arunachal Pradesh.

The map is known as China’s “10-dash line” map which “features 10 dash lines instead of nine dash lines to mark a huge swath of the South China Sea in a tongue-shaped encirclement as Chinese territory,” GMA Network, a major national commercial broadcast television and radio network in the Philippines, reported in 2013. “Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have been contesting China’s massive claim of the territory. Nine dashes in the new Chinese map are in the South China Sea and a tenth dash has been placed near Taiwan, purportedly to signify that territory’s status as a Chinese province.”

Ankit Panda, Senior Editor of The Diplomat, noticed that the map also purportedly included Arunachal Pradesh — which is a state of India — in the map of China.

Attorney Andrew Kloster called the map “literal Chinese state propaganda” that no one “outside mainland China” recognizes as being legitimate.

“Just so people know— this is literal Chinese state propaganda and the map is instantly recognizable to anyone half schooled in this,” Kloster wrote. “Any Taiwanese or Viet citizen would see the problem. This is not a map anyone uses outside mainland China.”

ESPN’s decision to bow to the Communist Party of China (CPC) comes as the NBA has had to deal with intense fallout from their decision to cower to the communist nation after the general manager for the Houston Rockets tweeted out a pro-Hong Kong tweet.

“The Houston Rockets suddenly find themselves in the middle of a geopolitical controversy that could put their chief front-office executive’s job in jeopardy,” The Ringer reported. “After general manager Daryl Morey expressed support in a since-deleted tweet for pro-democracy efforts in Hong Kong, the Chinese government, the Chinese Basketball Association, and various Chinese businesses quickly denounced Morey and moved to sever ties with the Rockets. As a consequence, league sources told The Ringer that Rockets ownership has debated Morey’s employment status and whether to replace him.”

On Sunday, NBA chief communications officer Mike Bass released the following statement:

We recognize that the views expressed by Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey have deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China, which is regrettable. While Daryl has made it clear that his tweet does not represent the Rockets or the NBA, the values of the league support individuals’ educating themselves and sharing their views on matters important to them. We have great respect for the history and culture of China and hope that sports and the NBA can be used as a unifying force to bridge cultural divides and bring people together.

Daryl Morey also apologized for standing up for freedom, tweeting: “I did not intend my tweet to cause any offense to Rockets fans and friends of mine in China. I was merely voicing one thought, based on one interpretation, of one complicated event. I have had a lot of opportunity since that tweet to hear and consider other perspectives. I have always appreciated the significant support our Chinese fans and sponsors have provided and I would hope that those who are upset will know that offending or misunderstanding them was not my intention. My tweets are my own and in no way represent the Rockets or the NBA.”

All week players, team owners, managers, and ESPN have completely avoided talking about the situation and the politics involved.

Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr refused to talk about the issue when he was asked this week.

Player Stephen Curry smirked as he cowered to communist China and refused to talk about communist China as he then deflected by pushing Democrat talking points.

via The Daily Wire

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Giuliani on Schiff’s Secret Meetings: Even the Salem Witch Trials Didn’t Use Anonymous Testimony

News

Giuliani on Schiff’s Secret Meetings: Even the Salem Witch Trials Didn’t Use Anonymous Testimony

Former New York City Mayor and attorney to President Donald Trump Rudy Giuliani visits "Mornings With Maria" with anchor Maria Bartiromo at Fox Business Network Studios on Sept. 23, 2019, in New York City.Roy Rochlin / Getty ImagesFormer New York City Mayor and attorney to President Donald Trump Rudy Giuliani visits “Mornings With Maria” with anchor Maria Bartiromo at Fox Business Network Studios on Sept. 23, 2019, in New York City. (Roy Rochlin / Getty Images)

Rudy Giuliani argued on Tuesday that the Salem witch trials afforded more rights to the accused than the House Democratic impeachment inquiry is giving to his client, President Donald Trump.

“Even Salem witch trials didn’t use anonymous testimony. The accused had to be confronted by a witness willing to put their name and reputation behind the charges and then had to be available for cross examination,” Giuliani tweeted.

The former New York City mayor elaborated on the point during a Tuesday appearance on Fox News.

TRENDING: Resolution To Expel Nancy Pelosi from Congress Introduced Pursuant to Article 1, Section 5 of the US Constitution

“When I was a young person … liberals believed that you have to defend civil rights even for your enemies,” Giuliani told host Laura Ingraham. “You have to defend civil rights for the Nazis and for the communists because it they’re denied civil rights, everyone will be.”

“All of a sudden this Congress has run roughshod over the right to call witnesses, the right to confront the witnesses against you, the right of counsel. I mean, they’re threatening to imprison Attorney General [William] Barr.”

Giuliani said that Democratic House committees issued a broad subpoena against him, seeking all his “attorney-client documents.”

The former federal prosecutor pointed to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler’s own words during the impeachment proceedings against then-President Bill Clinton in 1998 to argue that Trump is being treated unfairly.

Do you think the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry is being conducted fairly?

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“The power of impeachment … demands a rigorous level of due process,” and that in this context “due process mean[s] … the right to be informed of the law, of the charges against you, the right to confront the witnesses against you, to call your own witnesses, and to have the assistance of counsel,” Nadler said, according to a letter sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by White House Counsel Pat Cipollone on Tuesday.

“Of course due process is necessary. Let’s call it basic fairness,” Giuliani said.

“The American people, when they think about this, are going to be totally outraged,” he continued. “They actually want to impeach him on the testimony of hidden witnesses who will be behind a curtain. We don’t know who they are.”

Giuliani said he’d recently done some reading on the Salem witch trials after visiting the Massachusetts town.

RELATED: Giuliani Says He Won’t Testify for House Intel Committee As Long As Schiff Is Around: ‘Let Them Hold Me in Contempt’

“They required witnesses to face the witch,” he said. “And some witches were acquitted.”

Giuliani argued that the Democrats are throwing basic structures of fairness out the window.

“The only place I can think of where we had trials like this is in the Soviet Union,” he said. “And that’s what the Democrats are trying to do?”

“Remember the president used to call this a witch hunt?” Giuliani asked. “This is now worse than a witch hunt.”

“The witches had it better in other words,” Ingraham responded.

“They had more rights,” Giuliani said.

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Progressing toward Extinction

I was born at the tail end of the baby boom. I remember going to schools from which children poured out like an enthusiastic tide. It was an oddity for a couple not to have children then – and even a minor source of embarrassment. It was also an oddity for people not to marry at a fairly young age. Of course, by this time a kind of stigma was already creeping in at the other end of the spectrum. Families of six or seven, not uncommon in my grandparents’ day, were more and more being seen as socially irresponsible – a throwback to a now distant time in which many babies and children didn’t survive.

Now we now live in a better world where people have been freed from the cultural burden of having big families – or families of any kind. Many young people live in random little groups – making a semi-permanent lifestyle of the arrangements one finds in college dorms. In our particular brave new world, people are free to lavish their attention either on themselves or, if they have some nagging concerns about posterity, on the latest attempt to save the planet. Banning of plastic straws is both easier and apparently more noble than nurturing new human beings. Though still shackled to some semblance of their animal desires through myriad and faddish varieties of sex, today’s young people are, at least, unshackled from the animal consequences. This is what is now called progress. People can hope to binge-watch some anesthetic pablum to the end of their days, uninterrupted by the squeal of their progenies’ voices or the irritating patter of their tiny unshod feet. Children are an inconvenience, and grandchildren are worse.

The West is dying. Our culture has become enchanted with its own self-satisfied and self-sterilizing disease. You cannot argue with the numbers. Any fertility rate below the replacement rate just factually means a dwindling of our kind. The replacement rate is 2.1. The fertility rate in the US is 1.9. In Europe and parts of Asia the rates are even lower. If some individual were responsible for such a decline, we would call it genocide. It would be a war crime.

There can only be one rational objection to the argument that we are marching steadily toward our own extinction. That argument is that the numbers will change. Maybe once we have saved the planet and gotten our population down to some conveniently sustainable level, the fertility rate will naturally rebound on its own. Unfortunately, we’ve become quite accustomed to having our way with nature, then discarding her as soon as we are done with her. Unless our culture fundamentally changes, a rebound of the fertility rate is out of the question. We didn’t decide on a low birth rate because we were running out of resources. Most of the world’s people are materially better off than their grandparents were in the 1950’s – and yet in every continent but Africa fertility rates continue to decline. People didn’t stop procreating as the result of a well-informed collective decision – some national, or international “conversation” we had in the 1960’s. People have stopped having children chiefly for two reasons. First, more and more effective contraception has become available. Second, the family as an institution has lost much, and in some cases all, of its cultural value. People can howl about personal choice, sexual freedom, and female empowerment all they want to – but we can see plainly both the cultural disruption and the hard statistical consequences of the road we’ve chosen. Facts, no matter how inconvenient – are facts.

Most Americans have become accustomed to their laissez-faire morality, their self-interested use of money, and their illusion of personal freedom. They love these things much more than they love posterity. In every generation from the beginning of the world, many people have loved themselves more than anyone else at heart. In the past, however, few whole cultures have wedded themselves so fervently to the god of the insatiable “me”. None that have done so have survived. Societies survive only because the people who constitute them are willing to believe in, and sacrifice for, things greater than their own passing interests. Real things. Things that patter around on tiny unshod feet. They’ve been willing to sacrifice. To make commitments. They’ve been able, somehow, to believe in something grander than veganism, and to look for wisdom from more plausible sources than Greta Thunberg. If our parents or grandparents fell short of our ideals – at least they had them. If they gave birth to less than perfect families, at least they had some solid notion of what a family was.

Everything about contemporary culture seems contrived to make us dwindle. If the left had deliberately planned to destroy humanity, they could hardly have done better. The encouragement of single motherhood creates children who, themselves, have no idea what a family is. They in turn, bring forth the next generation erratically and irresponsibly. What will happen to these pseudo orphans when the last of the grandparents die? Who will raise them? I do not think an army of daycare providers making minimum wage and barely speaking English will create anything but another generation of the confused and unloved. I do not think the morally neutral government schools they will later be warehoused in will help much either. It does not take a village to raise a child. It simply takes parents. We are running sadly short of adults really worthy of the name.

And what has our oh-so-sensitive and tolerant culture put on the pedestal the family used to occupy? Homosexuality, deviancy, and abortion on demand. Each of these chips away at the fertility rate. Homosexuals, obviously, do not breed – and adopting and corrupting other peoples’ children really doesn’t count. The weird transgenderism that has arisen from the “gay and lesbian community” is not a formula for stability or sanity either. What will become of a boy or girl whose gender-confused “parents” have decided to raise the luckless little creature as the opposite gender from what its reproductive organs indicate? Will it grow up to be a robust, psychologically healthy mother or father, or will it be more likely to commit suicide on the altar of its “parents” virtue signaling?

Abortion, of course, is the most direct assault on life of all. Since Roe v. Wade was judicially conjured into law in 1973, the total death toll has been at least 46 million according to CDC statistics. That’s more than 14% of the current US population. Even this number leaves out states like California, who refuse to keep statistics. Abortion has gone from what even liberals saw as an unhappy practice, to the left’s loudest and most militant rallying cry. What can one say about a culture whose most sacred institution is the right to murder its own children?

It would be a mistake to believe that conservatives can somehow coexist with what our enemies have become. We shouldn’t be complacent about out-breeding them. While traditional Christian families do have more children than demographically similar progressives, they still have fewer than they used to. Moreover, as the left propagates by conversion rather than by procreation, it effectively sterilizes a substantial fraction of conservative children sooner or later. I know many older Christians who lament the loss of an adult child to the general pathology of leftwing self-loathing and navel-gazing malaise. Children would interfere with their yoga, their social life, and their competitive consumption. Progressives not only murder their own children, they functionally sterilize as many other peoples’ children as they can. The culture war is, in the end, a fight to the death.

I was born at the tail end of the baby boom. I remember going to schools from which children poured out like an enthusiastic tide. It was an oddity for a couple not to have children then – and even a minor source of embarrassment. It was also an oddity for people not to marry at a fairly young age. Of course, by this time a kind of stigma was already creeping in at the other end of the spectrum. Families of six or seven, not uncommon in my grandparents’ day, were more and more being seen as socially irresponsible – a throwback to a now distant time in which many babies and children didn’t survive.

Now we now live in a better world where people have been freed from the cultural burden of having big families – or families of any kind. Many young people live in random little groups – making a semi-permanent lifestyle of the arrangements one finds in college dorms. In our particular brave new world, people are free to lavish their attention either on themselves or, if they have some nagging concerns about posterity, on the latest attempt to save the planet. Banning of plastic straws is both easier and apparently more noble than nurturing new human beings. Though still shackled to some semblance of their animal desires through myriad and faddish varieties of sex, today’s young people are, at least, unshackled from the animal consequences. This is what is now called progress. People can hope to binge-watch some anesthetic pablum to the end of their days, uninterrupted by the squeal of their progenies’ voices or the irritating patter of their tiny unshod feet. Children are an inconvenience, and grandchildren are worse.

The West is dying. Our culture has become enchanted with its own self-satisfied and self-sterilizing disease. You cannot argue with the numbers. Any fertility rate below the replacement rate just factually means a dwindling of our kind. The replacement rate is 2.1. The fertility rate in the US is 1.9. In Europe and parts of Asia the rates are even lower. If some individual were responsible for such a decline, we would call it genocide. It would be a war crime.

There can only be one rational objection to the argument that we are marching steadily toward our own extinction. That argument is that the numbers will change. Maybe once we have saved the planet and gotten our population down to some conveniently sustainable level, the fertility rate will naturally rebound on its own. Unfortunately, we’ve become quite accustomed to having our way with nature, then discarding her as soon as we are done with her. Unless our culture fundamentally changes, a rebound of the fertility rate is out of the question. We didn’t decide on a low birth rate because we were running out of resources. Most of the world’s people are materially better off than their grandparents were in the 1950’s – and yet in every continent but Africa fertility rates continue to decline. People didn’t stop procreating as the result of a well-informed collective decision – some national, or international “conversation” we had in the 1960’s. People have stopped having children chiefly for two reasons. First, more and more effective contraception has become available. Second, the family as an institution has lost much, and in some cases all, of its cultural value. People can howl about personal choice, sexual freedom, and female empowerment all they want to – but we can see plainly both the cultural disruption and the hard statistical consequences of the road we’ve chosen. Facts, no matter how inconvenient – are facts.

Most Americans have become accustomed to their laissez-faire morality, their self-interested use of money, and their illusion of personal freedom. They love these things much more than they love posterity. In every generation from the beginning of the world, many people have loved themselves more than anyone else at heart. In the past, however, few whole cultures have wedded themselves so fervently to the god of the insatiable “me”. None that have done so have survived. Societies survive only because the people who constitute them are willing to believe in, and sacrifice for, things greater than their own passing interests. Real things. Things that patter around on tiny unshod feet. They’ve been willing to sacrifice. To make commitments. They’ve been able, somehow, to believe in something grander than veganism, and to look for wisdom from more plausible sources than Greta Thunberg. If our parents or grandparents fell short of our ideals – at least they had them. If they gave birth to less than perfect families, at least they had some solid notion of what a family was.

Everything about contemporary culture seems contrived to make us dwindle. If the left had deliberately planned to destroy humanity, they could hardly have done better. The encouragement of single motherhood creates children who, themselves, have no idea what a family is. They in turn, bring forth the next generation erratically and irresponsibly. What will happen to these pseudo orphans when the last of the grandparents die? Who will raise them? I do not think an army of daycare providers making minimum wage and barely speaking English will create anything but another generation of the confused and unloved. I do not think the morally neutral government schools they will later be warehoused in will help much either. It does not take a village to raise a child. It simply takes parents. We are running sadly short of adults really worthy of the name.

And what has our oh-so-sensitive and tolerant culture put on the pedestal the family used to occupy? Homosexuality, deviancy, and abortion on demand. Each of these chips away at the fertility rate. Homosexuals, obviously, do not breed – and adopting and corrupting other peoples’ children really doesn’t count. The weird transgenderism that has arisen from the “gay and lesbian community” is not a formula for stability or sanity either. What will become of a boy or girl whose gender-confused “parents” have decided to raise the luckless little creature as the opposite gender from what its reproductive organs indicate? Will it grow up to be a robust, psychologically healthy mother or father, or will it be more likely to commit suicide on the altar of its “parents” virtue signaling?

Abortion, of course, is the most direct assault on life of all. Since Roe v. Wade was judicially conjured into law in 1973, the total death toll has been at least 46 million according to CDC statistics. That’s more than 14% of the current US population. Even this number leaves out states like California, who refuse to keep statistics. Abortion has gone from what even liberals saw as an unhappy practice, to the left’s loudest and most militant rallying cry. What can one say about a culture whose most sacred institution is the right to murder its own children?

It would be a mistake to believe that conservatives can somehow coexist with what our enemies have become. We shouldn’t be complacent about out-breeding them. While traditional Christian families do have more children than demographically similar progressives, they still have fewer than they used to. Moreover, as the left propagates by conversion rather than by procreation, it effectively sterilizes a substantial fraction of conservative children sooner or later. I know many older Christians who lament the loss of an adult child to the general pathology of leftwing self-loathing and navel-gazing malaise. Children would interfere with their yoga, their social life, and their competitive consumption. Progressives not only murder their own children, they functionally sterilize as many other peoples’ children as they can. The culture war is, in the end, a fight to the death.

via American Thinker

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.americanthinker.com/

If Anyone Should Be Impeached, It’s the Liberal Media

In order to remove the U.S. president, the vice president, federal judges, and other federal officials from office, Article I, Section II of the U.S. Constitution gives the U.S. House of Representatives “the sole Power of Impeachment.”  Article I, Section III gives the U.S. Senate “the sole Power to try all Impeachments.”  In the history of the United States, the U.S. House has initiated impeachment proceedings dozens of times; however, only 19 individuals have faced actual Articles of Impeachment.

Most of these 19 were judges, and most were acquitted or resigned from office before facing trial in the Senate.  All, save two, were impeached for “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”  In addition to the charges of bribery and treason, George Mason, a Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention who is known as the “Father of the Bill of Rights,” proposed adding the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” as cause for removing executive and judicial officials from federal office.

For a better understanding of how our founders viewed high crimes and misdemeanors, the Federalist Papers provide insight.  In Federalist 65, to explain impeachable offenses, Alexander Hamilton wrote of “those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust.  They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.”

In other words — as just about any sentient adult who was alive in the late 1990s well knows — impeachment is a political, not a criminal, process.  A person or persons can be impeached, whether or not their actions are technically criminal.  And though the word “impeachment” almost always implies the removal of a public official from office, to “impeach” simply means “to challenge the credibility of; to bring an accusation against; to call into question; or to cast an imputation upon.”  (This is exactly what happens to an “impeached” individual at his “trial.”)

As Hamilton makes clear, those “public men” who have abused or violated the public trust, and whose actions are injurious to society itself, must be impeached.  I submit to you that no one in our society today is more worthy of impeachment than the liberal members of the mainstream media, whose offensive “misconduct” — almost always resulting in political injury — has grievously poisoned our culture.

For decades now, in violation of the public trust, liberals in the American mainstream media — including the news, information, and entertainment media — have willfully corrupted the values and institutions that made the United States of America into the greatest nation in the history of humanity.  Their lies and immorality have wrought havoc on families, churches, schools, businesses, corporations, governments, and so on.

Contrary to their sacred duty to provide what is truthful, they have willfully presented false and misleading information to the public at large concerning, but not limited to, the following:

1. The election of Democrats over Republicans.  This is especially disconcerting when it comes to the news media.  Violating the Journalist’s Creed where it declares that “a single standard of helpful truth and cleanness should prevail for all,” for over a half-century now, the liberal news media — which constitute the vast majority of the news media — have deliberately deceived the voting public in order to see Democrats elected.  This has never been more true and clear than with the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States.  Even after the historic Democrat losses in the 2016 election, for over two years now, in their lust to undo the 2016 election, the liberal news media have regularly engaged in malpractice and corruption and have well earned the title “merchants of propaganda.”  Barely 100 days into his term as president, the liberal American media were clamoring for the impeachment of President Trump, while for months and years they ignored or played down the corruption of his election opponent, Hillary Clinton.

2. The role of good government — especially in most every fiscal matter.  With the United States government over $20 trillion in debt, liberals in the media continue to promote an ever growing welfare state.  With regard to health care, housing, food, retirement income, education, cell phones, and so on, media liberals continue to misinform the electorate that such things are a “right” and thus we must demand them from our government.  In doing so, media liberals have trampled the Constitution and ignored the warning and instruction of men like President Grover Cleveland — a Democrat — in the late 19th century when he declared, “Once the coffers of the federal government are opened to the public, there will be no shutting them again[.] … It is the responsibility of citizens to support their government.  It is not the responsibility of government to support its citizens.”

3. The nature and details concerning radical Islam and Islam in general.  In spite of the continued carnage (Nigeria provides a tragic constant reminder), liberals in the media continue to paint Islam as a “peaceful religion” and radical Islam as nothing much of a going concern.  As I’ve noted multiple times, with significant detail: Islam is an enforced religion with a violent founder, a violent founding, and a very violent past and present. Islam is generally repressive to women and to those of other faiths.  Islam is typically financially devastating and technologically backward.  Any politician, pundit, or journalist who attempts to paint Islam or Islamic nations in a positive light is at the least not giving the whole picture and is at the worst a political and moral coward.

4. The nature and details of the burning of fossil fuels as it relates to global climate change — specifically what is often referred to as “global warming.”  In addition to hyping the fake science of climate change, media liberals have aided and abetted what has been frequently deemed “the greatest scientific fraud of all time.”  This has led to what has been called “the greatest scandal in science” — where so-called “champions of science” have falsely declared that “the debate is over” and that a left-wing big-government agenda must be pursued in order to achieve what is humanly impossible: halting climate change.

5. The nature and role of sound immigration policy.  In order to elect more liberals to political office, the liberal American media have pushed an open-borders policy that threatens the safety, security, and economy of the United States of America.  Historically, the United States is the friendliest nation in the world toward immigrants.  However, far from simply promoting assimilation and the accurate idea that America is the “land of opportunity,” the liberal media have promoted the false notion that it is the responsibility of American citizens to provide immigrants and illegal aliens with “free” food, housing, education, and the like.

6. Whether through pornography or the promotion of fornication, adultery, promiscuity, homosexuality, and the like, media liberals have grossly misled the public when it comes to right and proper behavior in all things sexual.  The perverse lie that any sexual activity is permissible as long as it occurs between “consenting adults,” has resulted in widespread tragic consequences, including the rampant spread of sexually transmitted diseases, rampant divorce, over 40% of all U.S. births out of wedlock, and the deaths of tens of millions of helpless children in what should be one of safest places in the universe: the mother’s womb.

7. The nature and details of life in the womb.  In order to justify abortion (and, as logic dictates, the “right” to have sex without consequences), media liberals have aided and abetted the many lies of the abortion industry.  To justify the slaughter of tens of millions of children in the womb, abortion apologists in the American media have long used the de-humanizing language employed by no less than the Nazis.

8. The nature and details of what marriage is.  In defiance of the vast majority of the American electorate — in addition to sound science and clear, longstanding morality — and in support of the perverse homosexual (LGBT) agenda, the liberal American media helped bring about the legal redefinition of the oldest institution in the history of humanity.

9. The nature and details of what is a male and what is a female.  In further support of the madness and perversion that is the LGBT agenda, the liberal American media are engaged in perhaps their strangest effort yet.  In defiance of what is plain to most, they — including even the sports media (who, perhaps more than most, should know better), and aided by no less than the former president of the United States, Barack Obama — have promoted the insanely foolish notion that one’s sex (gender) is mutable.

The liberal American media, by such conduct, warrant impeachment; removal from their offices; and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office or position of information, entertainment, honor, trust, or profit under the United States.  Though there is no formal process for this to occur, each of us can certainly choose to personally impeach them in his own life.

Trevor Grant Thomas: At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of
The Miracle and Magnificence of America.
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

In order to remove the U.S. president, the vice president, federal judges, and other federal officials from office, Article I, Section II of the U.S. Constitution gives the U.S. House of Representatives “the sole Power of Impeachment.”  Article I, Section III gives the U.S. Senate “the sole Power to try all Impeachments.”  In the history of the United States, the U.S. House has initiated impeachment proceedings dozens of times; however, only 19 individuals have faced actual Articles of Impeachment.

Most of these 19 were judges, and most were acquitted or resigned from office before facing trial in the Senate.  All, save two, were impeached for “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”  In addition to the charges of bribery and treason, George Mason, a Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention who is known as the “Father of the Bill of Rights,” proposed adding the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” as cause for removing executive and judicial officials from federal office.

For a better understanding of how our founders viewed high crimes and misdemeanors, the Federalist Papers provide insight.  In Federalist 65, to explain impeachable offenses, Alexander Hamilton wrote of “those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust.  They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.”

In other words — as just about any sentient adult who was alive in the late 1990s well knows — impeachment is a political, not a criminal, process.  A person or persons can be impeached, whether or not their actions are technically criminal.  And though the word “impeachment” almost always implies the removal of a public official from office, to “impeach” simply means “to challenge the credibility of; to bring an accusation against; to call into question; or to cast an imputation upon.”  (This is exactly what happens to an “impeached” individual at his “trial.”)

As Hamilton makes clear, those “public men” who have abused or violated the public trust, and whose actions are injurious to society itself, must be impeached.  I submit to you that no one in our society today is more worthy of impeachment than the liberal members of the mainstream media, whose offensive “misconduct” — almost always resulting in political injury — has grievously poisoned our culture.

For decades now, in violation of the public trust, liberals in the American mainstream media — including the news, information, and entertainment media — have willfully corrupted the values and institutions that made the United States of America into the greatest nation in the history of humanity.  Their lies and immorality have wrought havoc on families, churches, schools, businesses, corporations, governments, and so on.

Contrary to their sacred duty to provide what is truthful, they have willfully presented false and misleading information to the public at large concerning, but not limited to, the following:

1. The election of Democrats over Republicans.  This is especially disconcerting when it comes to the news media.  Violating the Journalist’s Creed where it declares that “a single standard of helpful truth and cleanness should prevail for all,” for over a half-century now, the liberal news media — which constitute the vast majority of the news media — have deliberately deceived the voting public in order to see Democrats elected.  This has never been more true and clear than with the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States.  Even after the historic Democrat losses in the 2016 election, for over two years now, in their lust to undo the 2016 election, the liberal news media have regularly engaged in malpractice and corruption and have well earned the title “merchants of propaganda.”  Barely 100 days into his term as president, the liberal American media were clamoring for the impeachment of President Trump, while for months and years they ignored or played down the corruption of his election opponent, Hillary Clinton.

2. The role of good government — especially in most every fiscal matter.  With the United States government over $20 trillion in debt, liberals in the media continue to promote an ever growing welfare state.  With regard to health care, housing, food, retirement income, education, cell phones, and so on, media liberals continue to misinform the electorate that such things are a “right” and thus we must demand them from our government.  In doing so, media liberals have trampled the Constitution and ignored the warning and instruction of men like President Grover Cleveland — a Democrat — in the late 19th century when he declared, “Once the coffers of the federal government are opened to the public, there will be no shutting them again[.] … It is the responsibility of citizens to support their government.  It is not the responsibility of government to support its citizens.”

3. The nature and details concerning radical Islam and Islam in general.  In spite of the continued carnage (Nigeria provides a tragic constant reminder), liberals in the media continue to paint Islam as a “peaceful religion” and radical Islam as nothing much of a going concern.  As I’ve noted multiple times, with significant detail: Islam is an enforced religion with a violent founder, a violent founding, and a very violent past and present. Islam is generally repressive to women and to those of other faiths.  Islam is typically financially devastating and technologically backward.  Any politician, pundit, or journalist who attempts to paint Islam or Islamic nations in a positive light is at the least not giving the whole picture and is at the worst a political and moral coward.

4. The nature and details of the burning of fossil fuels as it relates to global climate change — specifically what is often referred to as “global warming.”  In addition to hyping the fake science of climate change, media liberals have aided and abetted what has been frequently deemed “the greatest scientific fraud of all time.”  This has led to what has been called “the greatest scandal in science” — where so-called “champions of science” have falsely declared that “the debate is over” and that a left-wing big-government agenda must be pursued in order to achieve what is humanly impossible: halting climate change.

5. The nature and role of sound immigration policy.  In order to elect more liberals to political office, the liberal American media have pushed an open-borders policy that threatens the safety, security, and economy of the United States of America.  Historically, the United States is the friendliest nation in the world toward immigrants.  However, far from simply promoting assimilation and the accurate idea that America is the “land of opportunity,” the liberal media have promoted the false notion that it is the responsibility of American citizens to provide immigrants and illegal aliens with “free” food, housing, education, and the like.

6. Whether through pornography or the promotion of fornication, adultery, promiscuity, homosexuality, and the like, media liberals have grossly misled the public when it comes to right and proper behavior in all things sexual.  The perverse lie that any sexual activity is permissible as long as it occurs between “consenting adults,” has resulted in widespread tragic consequences, including the rampant spread of sexually transmitted diseases, rampant divorce, over 40% of all U.S. births out of wedlock, and the deaths of tens of millions of helpless children in what should be one of safest places in the universe: the mother’s womb.

7. The nature and details of life in the womb.  In order to justify abortion (and, as logic dictates, the “right” to have sex without consequences), media liberals have aided and abetted the many lies of the abortion industry.  To justify the slaughter of tens of millions of children in the womb, abortion apologists in the American media have long used the de-humanizing language employed by no less than the Nazis.

8. The nature and details of what marriage is.  In defiance of the vast majority of the American electorate — in addition to sound science and clear, longstanding morality — and in support of the perverse homosexual (LGBT) agenda, the liberal American media helped bring about the legal redefinition of the oldest institution in the history of humanity.

9. The nature and details of what is a male and what is a female.  In further support of the madness and perversion that is the LGBT agenda, the liberal American media are engaged in perhaps their strangest effort yet.  In defiance of what is plain to most, they — including even the sports media (who, perhaps more than most, should know better), and aided by no less than the former president of the United States, Barack Obama — have promoted the insanely foolish notion that one’s sex (gender) is mutable.

The liberal American media, by such conduct, warrant impeachment; removal from their offices; and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office or position of information, entertainment, honor, trust, or profit under the United States.  Though there is no formal process for this to occur, each of us can certainly choose to personally impeach them in his own life.

Trevor Grant Thomas: At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of
The Miracle and Magnificence of America.
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

via American Thinker

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.americanthinker.com/