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Fox Business Network reported some news last week that may surprise business strategists as well as kids and parents alike: Toymaker Mattel has announced a new line of gender-neutral dolls.

The company cites new “research” finding that kids “don’t want their toys dictated by gender norms.”

So, for $30, children will now
be able to outfit dolls with long or short hair, clothing that includes pants,
skirts, or both—whatever the kids decide. The dolls are also available in six
skin tones.

“Toys are a reflection of
culture and as the world continues to celebrate the positive impact of
inclusivity, we felt it was time to create a doll line free of labels,”
explained the company’s senior vice president, Kim Culmone.

“This line allows all kids to express themselves freely, which is why it
resonates so strongly with them. We’re hopeful Creatable World will encourage
people to think more broadly about how all kids can benefit from doll
play.”

It’s hard to know what to find more shocking: that Mattel
has created a “gender-neutral doll,” or that the market—primarily made up of
kids—is supposedly demanding one.

Somehow, it’s difficult to believe that young kids who don’t yet know the meaning of “gender neutral” would be demanding a gender-neutral doll.

A much more likely
possibility is that Mattel is caving to progressive political forces that want
“gender-neutral dolls.” In that respect, the new line of dolls tells us more
about the politics of the present moment than the desires of kids.

Some might
push back and say, “Calm down, they’re just dolls. Dolls aren’t meant to
imitate real life.” And that’s true, to an extent.

Many toys are unrealistic—consider Batman, Spider-Man, Paw Patrol figures, and others. But the companies that manufacture those toys don’t pretend they are mimicking reality. They aren’t. They’re based on fiction and intended to ignite imaginative play, an important part of a healthy childhood.

But dress-up dolls are much more realistic than action figures, and they have often been used to promote gender stereotypes—for better or for worse.

With these gender-neutral dolls, Mattel is deconstructing
the notion of sex in the minds of young children and teaching them an ideology
that says there is no relationship between biological sex and reality.

This same radical gender ideology has proved
disastrous when taken to its ultimate conclusion: pushing young people down
the path of sex-reassignment with life-altering drugs and harmful surgeries

This ideology claims that since gender is simply a social construct with no basis in biological reality, it can therefore be fluid—hence the term “gender fluid.” However, a study published in 2017 in the Infant and Child Development journal suggests there is a biological basis for human behavior.

The study
observed 1,600 boys and girls at play and found that when offered a variety of
toys to choose from, under various conditions, boys and girls consistently
preferred toys typed to their own sex, indicating biology’s persistent role in
behavior. 

Of course, kids shouldn’t be forced to conform to rigid sex stereotypes that dictate, for instance, that girls can’t play with trucks and boys shouldn’t play with dolls.

But it is a huge mistake to treat our sexed bodies as secondary to a subjective self-perception of gender. That is misleading at best, and damaging at worst.

The truth
is that there are only two sexes, and toy companies should not mislead children
to believe otherwise.

Gender dysphoria is a real condition, but the transgender
community’s recommendations for medical treatment have been shown to be not
only ineffective at resolving a person’s underlying distress, but actually
harmful—especially to children.

Studies show this isn’t a safe process. Brand new data from the Food and Drug Administration shows that over 6,000 adults have died from the effects of a drug that is being used to block puberty in children who struggle to feel comfortable with their sexed bodies.

Progressive
gender ideology isn’t helping Americans; it’s hurting them. It is not only
nonsensical, but irresponsible for Mattel to create a line of gender-neutral
dolls aimed at indoctrinating kids with this harmful ideology.

The post No, Mattel: Kids Don’t Want Your Gender-Neutral Dolls appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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Actor Antonio Sabato, Jr.

(Getty Images/Adele Loconte/Contributor)

Actor Antonio Sabato, Jr. condemned the Antifa movement Tuesday after he viewed video of the violent activist group’s members harassing an elderly couple, one using a walker, to enter a conservative event.

“We’re dealing with people disrespecting – this disgusting behavior that is going on,” said in a video posted on Twitter by Fox & Friends First, adding that the abuse of people who hold different beliefs must stop:

“We can’t treat people like that because you follow this president or you believe in a different belief all together. We cannot allow that to happen any longer.”

Actor Antonio Sabato Jr. says Hollywood needs to do more to stop Antifa after a disturbing video shows members harassing an elderly woman as she crossed the street. pic.twitter.com/Z8ZKhNThp5

— Fox & Friends First (@FoxFriendsFirst) October 1, 2019

 

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(Photo by Armend NIMANI / AFP/Getty Images)

A high school French teacher in Virginia is suing the school board after they fired him for refusing to refer to a female student who identifies as a male as “he.”

Peter Vlaming was placed on administrative leave last October and then fired from West Point High School in Williamsburg, Va., in December because he refused to use male pronouns for the transgender student.

According to the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing Vlaming, who filed a lawsuit in the case, the teacher used the student’s preferred male name, but avoided using male pronouns altogether.

He was fired after he refused to comply with the school’s order to use male pronouns.

 

 

“Peter went out of his way to accommodate this student as he does all his students; his school fired him because he wouldn’t contradict his core beliefs,” ADF Legal Counsel Caleb Dalton said in a statement on ADF’s website. “The school board didn’t care how well Peter treated this student. It was on a crusade to compel conformity.

“He works hard to make his students feel welcomed. In his French class, he always calls his students by the name they choose. He even used the student’s preferred masculine name and was willing to avoid using pronouns in the student’s presence. He just didn’t want to be forced to use a pronoun that offends his conscience. That’s entirely reasonable, and it’s his constitutionally protected right. Tolerance, after all, is a two-way street,” Dalton said.

“This isn’t just about a pronoun, it’s about what that pronoun means,” explained ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer, director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom. “This was never about anything Peter said or did; only about what the school was demanding he say. Nobody should be forced to contradict his core beliefs just to keep a job.”

“Peter is a devout Christian. He believes that God created us male and female and that God does not make mistakes. What the school was asking him to do was to lie about his own beliefs—to say things contrary to his conscience,” ADF’s blog reported.

“This was never an option for Peter, who had come to know Jesus Christ through a Bible study in high school. He wasn’t going to use language—something he loves—to betray his own beliefs,” it added.

Vlaming is suing West Point School Board for breach of contract and for violating his rights under the Virginia Constitution and commonwealth law.

 

 

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Rep. Steve Scalise

(Getty Images/Mark Wilson)

“These reckless Democrat schemes are beyond madness at this point,” House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Tuesday.

Democrats have been leveling “baseless accusations” – which all turned out to be false – against President Donald Trump since before his election, but now, their claims have gone “beyond madness,” Rep. Scalise tweeted:

“Democrats have been throwing out baseless accusations against @realDonaldTrump since before he was even elected—and they’ve all turned out to be wrong. There has to be a level of responsibility. These reckless Democrat schemes are beyond madness at this point.”

Scalise included video of his appearance on Fox News, in which he reminded viewers of the false promises of evidence made in the past by Democrats like Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) – and how they’ve even resorted to fabricating Trump quotes in order to accuse the president:

“Whatever it is, it’s still not high crimes and misdemeanors. You know they’ve been throwing this innuendo out there. And, Adam Schiff was on T.V. yesterday, throwing even more baseless accusations.

“And, keep in mind, he’s the one who, during the Mueller investigation for two years, promised that he had more than circumstantial evidence that a crime was committed. And, there was no crime committed. He never, by the way, brought forward that mysterious that he had – because it never existed.

“And, then, today, at the committee hearing the other day, he started making up a story that, later, even he admitted wasn’t even fact to try to accuse the president of something.

“At some point, there’s got to be a level of responsibility.”

Democrats have been throwing out baseless accusations against @realDonaldTrump since before he was even elected—and they’ve all turned out to be wrong.

There has to be a level of responsibility. These reckless Democrat schemes are beyond madness at this point. pic.twitter.com/4xYyLucCbz

— Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) October 1, 2019

In a tweet on Monday, Rep. Scalise attributed the Democrats’ “baseless impeachment inquiry” to “left-wing rage”:

“Radicals & socialists have taken over the Democrat Party. They’re calling all the shots now. Just last week, they pressured Pelosi into launching a baseless impeachment inquiry based on false rumors & left-wing rage.

“This is a witch hunt of @realDonaldTrump, plain & simple.”

 

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation released its Uniform Crime Report for 2018 on Monday, and the numbers indicate that more people were killed by knives than rifles.

The annual report touts an overall drop in violent crime for the second consecutive year, according to the Bureau’s news release on the numbers. However, the numbers specifically on homicides in the United States offer some insight into America’s ongoing gun control debate.

Due to multiple shooting massacres that took place in August, gun control proponents have once again turned their animus toward semi-automatic rifles such as the AR-15. Perhaps the most salient example of this is 2020 Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke’s pledge, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”

However, as has been the case in previous years, the numbers show that rifles in general — including semi-automatics as well as others — only account for a fraction of a percent of the total homicide rate in the United States.

Here’s what the FBI’s 2018 homicide numbers show us:

• Overall, the number of homicides dropped from 15,195 in 2017 to 14,123 in 2018. The overall number of people murdered with guns dropped as well.
• 10,265 were committed with firearms, out of which handguns accounted for 6,603.
• Rifles were used in 297 homicides, shotguns in 235, and “other guns” in 167.
• 2,963 homicides were listed as “firearms, type not stated.”

What does this show us? According to the available information, rifles accounted for just 2.1 percent of total homicides last year — and 2.9 percent of gun homicides.

Once again, deaths from knives and “personal weapons” like hands, fists, and feet were higher than the number of homicides committed with rifles. More than five times as many murders were committed with knives (1,515) as with rifles, and more than twice as many people were killed with “personal weapons” (672). Other years included in the FBI report’s table — which spans 2014-2018 — show similar disparities between the same weapon types.

Again, these numbers are just for rifles as a whole. There’s no further breakdown for what kind of action or cosmetic features the rifles had.

But despite the facts, the question of what to do about the AR-15 and other widely used semi-automatic rifles — sometimes referred to as “assault weapons” — will likely remain as one of the main focus points in America’s ongoing debate about guns and the Second Amendment.

The post The FBIs annual crime report is out, and the anti-gun crowd won’t like it appeared first on Conservative Review.

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Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren endorsed a Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) policy proposal that includes taxpayer-funded welfare benefits for illegal immigrants.

Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal, dubbed "A Just Society," calls for nationwide rent control and bans the federal government from denying welfare benefits based on an individual’s immigration status and previous criminal convictions. Warren became the first Democratic presidential candidate to endorse the plan, calling it "just the type of bold, comprehensive thinking we’ll need" to make "big, structural change."

Ocasio-Cortez is considered to be "one of the most important endorsements in America," and Warren’s immediate support of her latest policy marks another attempt to win the freshman congressman’s nod of approval. Warren’s quick embrace of Ocasio-Cortez’s plan is the latest sign of the social media superstar’s policy impact on the Democratic presidential field.

Neither Ocasio-Cortez nor Warren returned requests for comment.

Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal, consisting of six separate bills, calls for the expansion of welfare. Bills three and four make it illegal for the federal government to deny welfare benefits to ex-convicts and illegal immigrants. The legislation does not address how to pay for the rising cost of welfare, nor does it explain how it would accomplish its goals.

"It’s been really hard for me to find housing. I have the money to move places and stuff, but they deny me for my felony history. It’s not right," a man with a face tattoo said in the legislative package’s announcement video.

Ocasio-Cortez’s second bill, titled "The Place to Prosper Act," calls for federal rent control by imposing a 3 percent national cap on annual rent increases. Similar legislation has failed at the local level amid concerns that such policies increased housing prices while limiting supply. A recent study by the American Economic Association found that San Francisco rent control policy "drove up market rents in the long run, ultimately undermining the goals of the law." The Council of Economic Advisers found that in 11 metropolitan areas with housing regulations, deregulation would reduce homelessness by an average of 31 percent. More than 80 percent of economists surveyed by the University of Chicago in 2012 found rent control to be bad policy.

Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal also includes an official poverty guideline that accounts for "new necessities," such as internet access, while the fifth bill creates a "worker-friendly score" based on union membership and other factors that would be used to evaluate or award government contracts.

The last bill in Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal establishes health care, housing, and healthy food as government-provided rights.

A Just Society is Ocasio-Cortez’s latest major policy initiative since introducing the Green New Deal, a $94.4 trillion environmental policy proposal that would have no effect on the environment.

All major Democratic presidential candidates quickly supported the Green New Deal, including Warren, Sanders, former vice president Joe Biden, and South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg.

To date, only Warren has endorsed "A Just Society."

The post Warren Backs AOC’s Illegal Immigrant Welfare Plan appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee raised $125 million in the third quarter of the year, a presidential fundraising record.

The pro-Trump effort said Tuesday that it has raised more than $308 million in 2019 and has more than $156 million in the bank. Republicans aim to use the fundraising haul to fight off Democrats’ impeachment effort.

Former President Barack Obama and the DNC raised just over $70 million in the third quarter of 2011.

“President Trump has built a juggernaut of a campaign, raising record amounts of money at a record pace,” said Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale.

RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel credited Democratic attacks on Trump for motivating supporters to donate in record numbers.

“We are investing millions on the airwaves and on the ground to hold House Democrats accountable, highlight their obstruction, and take back the House and reelect President Trump in 2020,” she said.

The fundraising announcement comes as the pro-Trump efforts launched their first major advertising campaign of the cycle. Trump’s team aims to devote $1 billion to his reelection.

Last week, as House Democrats launched their impeachment effort, the Trump campaign announced it would spend $8 million to air an ad attacking Democrats for trying to “steal” the 2020 campaign. The RNC said it would spend $2 million attacking Democrats for their support of impeachment.

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A newly-unearthed photo shows former Vice President Joe Biden and son Hunter sharing a round of golf with Devon Archer, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings alongside Hunter.

The photo, first obtained by the Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson Tonight, is believed to have been taken at the Sebonack Golf Club in Southampton, New York. Both Hunter Biden and Archer both joined Burisma Holdings as board members in April 2014.

BUSTED: Photo shows Joe Biden and son Hunter golfing with Ukraine gas company exec back in 2014https://t.co/0pCHXuZ3oY

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 1, 2019

The photo raises serious questions regarding the extent to which Joe Biden is aware of his beleaguered son’s business deals overseas — something the top-tier 2020 White House hopeful claimed earlier this month he has never discussed with his son.

“I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” Biden told reporters during a campaign stop in Iowa. “I know Trump deserves to be investigated. He is violating every basic norm of a president. You should be asking him why is he on the phone with a foreign leader, trying to intimidate a foreign leader. You should be looking at Trump.”

In a wide-ranging interview with New Yorker magazine, Hunter Biden claimed that he and his father discussed his business activities in Ukraine “just once.”

The photo’s emergences come as House Democrats are moving swiftly with an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump over his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which he raised the issue of Hunter’s business dealings in the eastern European country. A partisan CIA officer, with second-hand knowledge of the call, filed a so-called “whistleblower” complaint with the intelligence community about the call, alleging Trump sought to exchange U.S. military aid for a probe into Hunter.  However, both Trump and Zelensky have denied any pressure to look into the Biden family was applied and the White House, in a nod to transparency, released the transcript of leaders’ July 25th conversation.

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California Democrat Adam Schiff hit the Sunday news shows this weekend to gripe publicly again about President Donald Trump allegedly seeking foreign help against a political opponent.

But a Florida Republican used the same day to remind the country that Schiff was caught not too long ago trying to do exactly the same thing himself.

And Schiff’s target was, naturally, the president he keeps accusing.

In a Twitter post, as Fox News reported, Rep. Dan Gaetz dug up a recording of Schiff being taken in back in 2017 by Russian radio hosts posing as Ukrainian elected officials claiming to have compromising information about the president.

And Schiff was all ears.

TRENDING: Whistleblower’s Attorneys Blow Whistle on ’60 Minutes’ for ‘Literally Making Stuff Up’

“@RepAdamSchiff is a hypocrite,” Gaetz wrote succinctly.

.@RepAdamSchiff is a hypocrite. pic.twitter.com/LFbGFBUG6r

— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) September 29, 2019

The recording Gaetz posted was made in 2017, when Schiff took a call from radio personalities Vladimir “Vovan” Kuznetzov and Alexey “Lexus” Stolyarov. Kuznetzov was posting as Andriy Parubiy, a right-wing politician who was chairman of the Ukraine Parliament at the time.

As first reported by The Atlantic  in January 2018, the fake “Parubiy” told Schiff that the Ukraine government had obtained recordings of conversations showing that Russian agents had compromising information about Trump.

That material included nude photographs of Trump with a female Russian reality television star, which Russian President Vladimir Putin was supposedly using to blackmail Trump, according to a Daily Mail report from February 2018.

“Well obviously we would welcome a chance to get copies of those recordings,” Schiff told his caller.

Schiff’s office later told reporters that the congressman suspected the call was bogus from the beginning. And Schiff did make several references to contacting the FBI about the call and providing the agency with whatever information arose.

Check out the whole recording here:

RELATED: Schiff Accuses Trump of Risking US Security by Delaying Ukraine Aid, but Obama Denied Lethal Weapons Altogether

However, if Schiff’s office did think the call was a fake, it was tough to tell. The Daily Mail reported that Schiff’s office went to considerable lengths to try to get hold of the material that was discussed.

According to the newspaper, Kuznetzov and Stolyarov had emails to show Schiff’s staff trying to make follow-up arrangements after the call.

Do you think Adam Schiff was really taken in by this phone call?

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“I understand Mr. Schiff had a productive call with Mr. Parubiy, and that Mr. Parubiy would like to make some material available to Mr. Schiff through your embassy,” a Schiff aide wrote in an email to what she thought was Parubiy, according to the Daily Mail.

“Please let me know how best to arrange pick-up of those materials from your Embassy in Washington, D.C.”

According to the Daily Mail, the FBI would neither confirm nor deny whether it had received any notice from Schiff’s office about Ukraine officials peddling compromising information about the president.

Now, there’s no way of knowing for sure whether Schiff and his office knew the phone call was fake, but it’s tough to believe that an American congressman would choose to spend eight minutes on the phone with a caller he knew to be bogus.

It’s tougher to believe that his staff would try to follow up to get information discussed in the call if everyone knew it was faked.

But what’s absolutely no problem to believe is that Schiff is on an audio recording doing exactly what he’s accusing Trump of doing – with nowhere near the same evidence.

For all the Sunday talk show blather, the shifty California Democrat is still the same man as the one who assured the media repeatedly that there was ample evidence of Trump “collusion” with Russia – right up until the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller ended up finding nothing of the kind.

And yet he keeps peddling the same wares, hoping the American public, at some point, is going to buy.

Gaetz, now in his second term in Congress, but first in the minority party, has been building a reputation recently for needling the Democratic majority.

This time, his tweet had it right on the money:

Schiff is a hypocrite.

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