The Marijuana Emergency

From Breakpoint.org (Aug. 2, 2022):

In early March 2021, the U.S. Senate’s Caucus on International Narcotics Control released a report on the increasing potency of marijuana products available on the market. At the time, America was just a year into the pandemic and related lockdowns, so marijuana policy was not front and center on everyone’s mind. It should have been. In fact, the findings contained in the report can be described as shocking. A more creative, but just as accurate, title for this 58-page report would be “This Isn’t Your Grandpa’s Weed.”

Included in the findings, the THC levels in marijuana products are soaring. THC is the psychoactive chemical that gives pot users a high, and reportedly provides relief from pain and nausea. In recent years, high-potency products have become more common. In 1990, the average concentration of THC in a marijuana plant was 4%. By 2012, it had tripled to 12%. Today, some products on the market have THC levels as high as 90%.

These increasing levels come even though a 2020 NIH study found that pain relief benefits of marijuana require THC levels no higher than 5% and that marijuana with higher THC levels might even be less effective in fighting pain. Setting aside the consistent political reality that legalizing medical marijuana is always intended to lead to the legalizing of recreational marijuana—even if legitimate pain patients need medical marijuana, they do not need THC levels of 90%.

And yet, marijuana policies are clearly headed in a direction that does not align with what we now know. Most U.S. states allow marijuana use in some capacity. The only two states in the country with a cap on THC levels and high-potency products are Vermont and California, where the cap is 60%. Right now, Ohio’s legislature is considering a bill to cap THC levels at 90%. At that level, what is the point?

While the political posturing continues, a dystopian reality born of the marijuana revolution is unfolding outside statehouses. Doctors and emergency rooms across the country have sounded the alarm on the spike in psychosis, suicidal ideation, actual suicide, schizophrenia, and addiction-like behavior they have seen among young people using high-potency marijuana.

In June, The New York Times reported the story of a teenage girl who could not stop fainting and throwing up after becoming functionally addicted to vaping high-potency pot. A doctor at the Adolescent Substance Use and Addiction Program at Boston Children’s hospital has reported an explosion in the number of young cannabis users experiencing “hallucinations and trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality.” And increased marijuana use also poses secondary dangers such as more deadly traffic accidents, more poisonings of young people who mistake edibles for candy, and a worsening opioid crisis, which many doctors believe is directly correlated with marijuana legalization.

Lawmakers in Colorado, the first state to legalize recreational marijuana 10 years ago, are now trying to apply brakes to this runaway train. Last year, the state legislature passed a bill mandating that coroners test THC levels when someone under 25 suffers a “non-natural death.” According to one state senator, “Since legalization in Colorado, the regulatory framework has failed to keep up with the evolution of the new products….  The industry has changed, and we need to catch up with those changes.” Unfortunately, “catching up with changes” is not generally a “strength” of government.

The Church, however, can play a redemptive role. American Christians have a responsibility to advocate for policies that benefit our neighbors’ welfare and against policies that hurt them. Marijuana should be no different. The 30-billion dollar marijuana industry has been incredibly deft in crafting messaging that makes anyone opposed to legalizing weed seem “uncool” or “behind the times.”

So, it is essential to understand that today’s weed is far ahead of the times. We are far removed from the Cheech and Chong days. This stuff is dangerous, particularly for young people. Christians should be highly motivated to not let this cat out of the bag wherever it has not yet been loosed and to minister to people where it has, including in addiction recovery centers and other healthcare settings.

Christians have a legacy of running into the plague when everyone else is running away. Marijuana legalization has reached plague status. It is time to head in. [source]

Blade falls off 400-foot wind turbine in Gloucester; no injuries reported

From Mass Live.com (July 31, 2022):

A 400-foot-tall wind turbine in Gloucester suffered a mechanical failure Sunday morning causing one of the turbine’s blades to fall to the ground.

The wind turbine is at Applied Materials on Dory Road in Blackburn Industrial Park. Gloucester Fire Department received a report of the incident at approximately 7 a.m. Sunday, according to a news release.

The fire department and the city are working with Applied Materials to establish an appropriate isolation area around the turbine to ensure the safety of the structure and people around it.

Despite the size of the turbine, no injuries and no damage outside of the turbine itself were reported.

Great Republic Drive is closed in the area of the turbine and will remain closed indefinitely, the fire department said. Access to businesses on that road will be via a gated access driveway on Pond Road. [source]

Look out below! Glad no one and animals were harmed.

Another wind turbine story: University experiments with turning wind turbines into candy

Our Christian Witness

From John Stonestreet & Maria Baer on Breakpoint.org (Feb. 10, 2022):

Since the contentious 2016 election, many have publicly questioned whether evangelical support for Donald Trump “hurts the Church’s witness.” Others assert that to vote for anyone but Donald Trump warrants excommunication. Over the last two years of the pandemic and all its associated controversies, some have confidently proclaimed that if Christians choose to not wear a mask or not be fully vaccinated they’ve harmed the cause of Christ. Others announced that to wear a mask or be vaccinated is to compromise the cause of Christ.

Whenever cultural flashpoints are used to judge the faith of others, the same script tends to be followed. An appeal is made to the Church’s witness and reputation in the wider world.

Of course, the Bible is clear that Christians bear responsibility for how our faith is both perceived and received by those inside and outside the Church. After He washed His disciples’ feet, Jesus told them that by loving each other in that way, “all people will know you are my disciples.” When He prayed in the garden on the night before His crucifixion, Jesus asked God to unify His followers so that “the world may believe that you have sent me.” When people see our good works, Jesus said, they may “glorify your Father which is in heaven.” In other words, Jesus clearly tied together the love among fellow Christians with the plausibility of the Gospel message to the wider world.

What’s clear from these verses, and throughout the Bible, is that we bear responsibility for our reputation both inside and outside the Church, and that stewarding the Gospel message means protecting both the integrity of the message and demonstrating its impact on our lives and the world around us. The Gospel is both plausible and compelling, and we ought never do anything to make it seem less so.

However, what the Church is not (and cannot be) responsible for, is the reaction a world will have, particularly a world that is unbelieving and even hostile to either Christian morality or Christian truth claims.

“Loving our neighbor,” for example, will mean very different things to someone depending on their definition of love. According to our constantly shifting, culturally dependent definition, an act of love can seem like intolerance or even hate. In the same way, we are not responsible if someone perceives the good news of the Gospel message as bad news. We are not necessarily at fault when it is rejected or hated, or when it offends as Jesus predicted it would offend. The good news, though, is that when the Gospel is believed, embraced, or heeded, the success belongs to God, not our clever methodology or presentation.

According to Scripture, what “hurts our witness” the most is disunity. And this doesn’t mean that unity comes at the expense of church. But what we’re told “hurts our witness” the most in this cultural moment is violating the new moral consensus about sex, politics, or controversial public figures. So, in an effort to “protect the witness,” we spend an inordinate about of time policing each other’s behavior, often publicly, about matters prioritized within a wrong set of values.

I’ve no doubt that much of the concern over the Church’s witness is genuine and well-intentioned. We are responsible to live as if what we say we believe is real. At the same time, Jesus didn’t rebuke the Pharisees for being “mean,” but for being hypocrites. Whenever our well-intentioned concern for the Church’s witness becomes a dressed-up purity test, what we’re really saying is “You can’t be a Christian and do that thing.” And that misunderstands the Christian faith altogether.

True belief always leads to regeneration, and sanctification takes time. Salvation is not forfeited every time a mistake is made or a theological error is committed. The patience and grace we extend to each other, even when a fellow believer makes a decision we disagree with, is a way of loving one another and advancing the witness of Christ to a watching world.

In fact, imagine how compelling the Church’s witness would be today if we prioritized forgiveness. Our wider culture has absolutely no time for it, and many of those most vocally concerned for the Church’s witness have little time for it either. To forgive, is considered complicity in evil. To accept any apology as sincere, or to extend grace for even the benefit of the doubt is completely unacceptable.

Christians should be different. We shouldn’t just take different sides of an issue: We should take our sides differently. We might find out that forgiving easily and assuming the best of one another will compel a watching world to ask us for the reason for that kind of hope. We might find that forgiveness, not a purity test, is the best thing for the Church’s witness these days. [source]

Joe Biden Tried to Sunset Social Security, All Other Federal Programs as a Senator

From Breitbart.com (Feb. 10):

On Tuesday night at the State of the Union, Biden stated that “some Republicans” wish to “sunset” social security and Medicare, leading to significant pushback from GOP lawmakers on the House floor while millions watched.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has said on several occasions that Republicans in the House – where the framework to a debt ceiling resolution will be formed – are not seeking to slash the programs as part of their desired cuts to offset the $31.7 trillion debt ceiling reached last month. He shook his head in disagreement when Biden made the claims from the rostrum.

On Thursday, Biden spoke at the University of Tampa in Florida and noted that Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) “Rescue America” policy plan included a proposal to sunset all federal legislation every five years.

“If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again,” the plan adds.

Biden said that maybe Scott had “changed his mind, maybe he’s seen the Lord – but he wanted to… sunset social security and Medicare every five years.”

But Biden made an even more aggressive proposal when he represented Delaware in the United States Senate, seeking “to sunset all federal programs, including social security and Medicare,” every four years, Fox News reported, when he introduced S. 2067 on July 19, 1975. Biden’s central argument for reviewing all programs was the rapid increase of the federal budget.

“It is not just the size of our budget that is staggering, but even more the rate at which it is increasing,” Biden said at the time. “We cannot long continue such growth rates in expenditures.”

“In brief, this bill limits to 4 years the length of any spending authorization for a program,” he added. “Furthermore, it requires that each committee make a detailed study of the program before renewing it for another 4-year period.”

He then echoed a very similar sentiment to Scott’s.

“The examination is not just of the increased cost of the program, but of the worthiness of the entire program,” said then-Sen. Biden.

Scott issued a statement after the president spoke in Florida Thursday and challenged him to a debate on the matter.

“Joe Biden spent 20 years trying to slash Social Security and Medicare. Does he really think Americans are stupid enough to believe anything he said today?” the senator wondered. “The President should accept my invitation to debate him on this issue. Floridians deserve to know the truth about Biden’s war on Social Security and Medicare.”

While Republicans desire cuts to federal spending outside of social security and Medicare, according to McCarthy, Biden has floated tax hikes as a way to offset the debt ceiling. However, his posturing that he would not negotiate with the GOP over cuts seems to have changed following the State of the Union standoff.

Biden said Thursday that McCarthy “has been reasonable in terms of discussion with me so far,” before expressing his openness to negotiating the upcoming budget proposals.

“I said, ‘Look, why don’t we just – I think it’s the first week of March – why don’t we just lay out our budgets, you put yours down, I put mine down, and our people sit and compare them. Decide where we can make a compromise if we can make a compromise,” the president recalled. [source]

Well, well, well.

Dry run: Balloons called top ‘delivery platform’ for nuclear EMP attack

From Washington Examiner.com (Feb. 3):

High-altitude balloons, such as the one China has floated over mountain state military bases this week, are considered a key “delivery platform” for secret nuclear strikes on America’s electric grid, according to intelligence officials.

Spy balloons, used by Japan to drop bombs during World War II, are now far more sophisticated, can fly at up to 200,000 feet, evade detection, and can carry a small nuclear bomb that, if exploded in the atmosphere, would shut down the grid and wipe out electronics in a many-state-wide area.

The threat of balloon-launched electromagnetic pulse attacks was warned about by a congressional EMP commission and inside the military several years ago.

In a 2015 report for the American Leadership & Policy Foundation, Air Force Maj. David Stuckenberg, one of the nation’s leading EMP experts, wrote extensively about the threat balloons carrying bombs pose to national security.

“Using a balloon as a WMD/WME platform could provide adversaries with a pallet of altitudes and payload options with which to maximize offensive effects against the U.S.,” he wrote in the report.

“A high altitude balloon could be designed, created, and launched in a matter of months. There is nothing to prevent several hundred pounds of weapons material from being delivered to altitude,” he added.

On Friday, he told Secrets, "China’s recent balloon flyover of the United States is clearly a provocative and aggressive act. It was most likely a type of dry run meant to send a strategic message to the USA. We must not take this for granted.”

Now in the private sector, Stuckenberg, a national security expert and scientist who led the Defense Department’s EMP Task Force and chairman of the American Leadership & Policy Foundation, pointed to Japan’s World War II “Project Fugo” that targeted the U.S. with balloon bombs as an example of the threat. “Not since WWII has North America faced a threat of this nature. Project FuGo in Japan used balloons to float bombs on the trade-winds across the Pacific to the U.S. and Canada,” he told Secrets.

EMP experts have warned that China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran have programs to hit the U.S. grid with electromagnetic pulse weapons that would cut the cord for a year or longer. A congressional report has warned that a blackout that long could result in millions of deaths.

Stuckenberg cited the research of the late Peter Pry, who headed a congressional commission on EMP and reported on the potential of a balloon-launched attack.

He wrote in the report, “Peter Pry, a former CIA analyst and member of the Congressional Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from EMP Attack, stated, ‘Imagine the consequences of a balloon EMP attack that damages and destroys electronic systems at the speed of light within an EMP field with a radius of hundreds of kilometers. The Eastern Grid generates 75% of U.S. electricity and supports most of the population.” Pry also notes, “Virtually any nuke detonated anywhere over the Eastern Grid will collapse the entire Eastern Grid, not just the area within the EMP field, because of cascading failures that will ripple outward.”

Stuckenberg concluded in his paper, “In the case of EMP, the consequences of a failure to anticipate ALL delivery modes within the reach of an imaginative enemy could be immediate and widespread. As guardians of our nation’s future, planners must leave no stone unturned in the effort to deprive America’s enemies of low cost, low-tech, high-consequence military options.”

China has said that its balloon flying over Montana is safe and not a threat. The Pentagon has rebuffed calls to shoot it down because it could be a safety issue to those below it. [read more]

This was literally a trial balloon test from the Chi-Coms and Biden failed. He could have shot down the balloon way before it entered land or even when it was over Alaska. What was Biden waiting for? To have it crash into a wind turbine or skyscraper or even worse an airplane? Like the Babyon Bee jokes he waited until the balloon completed its spy mission before taking it out.

Other articles and satires on the balloon:

• Balloon saga shows Trudeau, Biden willing to keep China's secrets
• US Says Chinese Military Behind Vast Aerial Spy Program
• Chinese officials demand spy balloon debris be returned
• 4 things to know in the aftermath of the Chinese spy balloon
• There’s a Lot More to the Chinese Spy-Balloon Story
• 'Why, Hello There Beautiful!' Says Eric Swalwell Suavely Approaching Sexy Chinese Spy Balloon
• U.S. Retaliates For Chinese Spy Balloon By Releasing Spy Inflatable Flailing Arm Tube Man

Biden’s Surgeon General Launches Latest Crusade to Purge Dissent – Orders Big Tech to Provide Info to Federal Government on Those Spreading COVID “Misinformation”

From The Gateway Pundit.com (Mar. 4, 2022):

Ever since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s become clear that the Democrats are now completely done with free speech as an American institution.

Last July, Biden’s Surgeon General (USSG) Vivek Murthy stood in front of his liberal peers in the White House press room and labeled free speech a severe national “health risk” as he called for a “whole-of-society” effort to combat the “urgent threat to public health” posed by “health misinformation.”

And, of course, the misinformation, disinformation nonsense is curated by the liberal regime and can be altered or updated at any time – always along the lines of political expedience.

In other words, the Surgeon General is on a dedicated crusade to kill free speech in America, and now, the Biden Regime has sent him to kick off the latest initiative to purge dissent.

On Thursday, USSG Murthy illegally demanded that all major US tech companies must provide the federal government with data on Americans who are engaged in peddling what has been deemed ‘misinformation,’ especially surrounding Covid-19 or the stolen 2020 election, according to a new report by the New York Times.

In a formal request sent by the USSG office, Murthy called on US Big Tech platforms to gather data from social networks, search engines, crowdsourced platforms, e-commerce platforms, and instant messaging systems about the prevalence and scale of COVID-19 “misinformation” and turn it over to Biden’s administration no later than May 2nd.

Murthy’s request, which was once again billed as “protecting our nation’s health,” encompasses a wide range of data that includes user info, as well as how many – and which – users were exposed to specific ‘misinformation posts.’ He also asked the tech companies to identify and provide specifics on “major sources of misinformation.”

From the New York Times:

“The notice asks the companies to submit “exactly how many users saw or may have been exposed to instances of Covid-19 misinformation,” as well as aggregate data on demographics that may have been disproportionately exposed to or affected by the misinformation.

The surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, also demanded information from the platforms about the major sources of Covid-19 misinformation, including those that engaged in the sale of unproven Covid-19 products, services, and treatments.

“Technology companies now have the opportunity to be open and transparent with the American people about the misinformation on their platforms,” Dr. Murthy said in an emailed statement. He added: “This is about protecting the nation’s health.”

Companies have until May 2 to submit the data. Denying requests for information does not carry a penalty, but the notice is the first formal request from the Biden administration of the tech companies to submit Covid-19 misinformation data, according to the surgeon general’s office.

Although there is no official penalty for tech companies denying the USSG request, they have every incentive to cooperate and provide the information, despite the questionable legality. The Biden administration can easily penalize them indirectly through lawsuits, regulations, or new legislation.

However, the point may be moot anyway, considering the overwhelming ideological bent among Big Tech companies, which will likely happily provide the data with few, if any, questions asked. [source]

Google’s former head says AI is as dangerous as nuclear weapons

From Finance.yahoo.com (July 26, 2022):

Google’s former chief executive Eric Schmidt has called artificial intelligence as dangerous as nuclear weapons.

Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum earlier this week, Eric Schmidt said that he was “naive about the impact of what we were doing”, but that information is “incredibly powerful” and “government and other institutions should put more pressure on tech to put these things consistent with our values.”

“The leverage that tech has is very, very real. If you think about, how will we negotiate an AI agreement? First you have to have technologists that understand what’s going to happen, and then you have awareness on the other side.

“Let’s say we want to have a chat with China on some kind of treaty around AI surprises. Very reasonable. How would we do it? Who in the US government would work with us? And it’s even worse on the Chinese side? Who do we call? … we’re not ready for the negotiations we need.

"We are not ready for the negotiations that we need." - @ericschmidt #AspenSecurity pic.twitter.com/As749t6ZyU

— Aspen Security Forum (@AspenSecurity) July 22, 2022

“In the 50s and 60s, we eventually worked out a world where there was a ‘no surprise’ rule about nuclear tests and eventually they were banned It’s an example of a balance of trust, or lack of trust, it’s a ‘no surprises’ rule.

“I’m very concerned that the U.S. view of China as corrupt or Communist or whatever, and the Chinese view of America as failing…will allow people to say ‘Oh my god, they’re up to something,’ and then begin some kind of conundrum … because you’re arming or getting ready, you then trigger the other side.”

The capabilities of artificial intelligence have been stated – and overstated – numerous times over the years. Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has often said that AI is highly likely to be a threat to humans, and recently Google fired a software engineer who claimed its artificial intelligence had become self-aware and sentient.

However, experts have often reminded people that the issue of AI is what it is trained for and how it is used by humans. If the algorithms that train these systems are based on flawed, racist, or sexist data, then the results will reflect that. [source]

On Tech and Dignity: The Posthuman Technology That Threatens Us All (Part I)

From The Public Discourse.com (Jan. 25, 2022):

Humanity and technology are on a collision course.

Technology’s exponential advancement poses an existential threat to humanity itself and, therefore, to human dignity. When we discuss human dignity, we tend to focus nearly exclusively on the dignity half of the concept. But we can no longer afford to ignore the human half. Without humans, there’s no human dignity, and to continue to sit on our hands in the face of the technological revolution swirling around us is to acquiesce in the “abolition of man”—to borrow the title of C. S. Lewis’s 1943 book—which is right around the corner.

Runaway technology poses a threat to human beings and their dignity by a certain mindset that it creates in us—what I’ve elsewhere called “the technological gaze.” The technological gaze legitimizes the development and use of anti-human technology that accelerates according to its own inner logic and momentum. The distinguishing factor is not necessarily the technology itself, but rather the intention behind its creation. Technology that strikes at our humanity, our creatureliness before God, rather than aim at repairing and strengthening it, has its roots in the technological gaze.

The technological gaze is an expression of our alienation from nature and is, at its limit, contrary to humanity itself. It spurs humanity to overcome its various material deficiencies and limitations through ruthless, rational control of nature, and it trains us to view nature with fear because it’s often hostile to our (physical) well-being. The threat posed by modern technology is directed by an elite with transhuman aspirations. But at present it threatens non-elites more obviously and immediately.

Machiavelli and Technology’s Threat

To understand the technological gaze, we’ll need to engage in some intellectual history. To comprehend the present moment and where we’re going, we’ll consider Niccolò Machiavelli—whom Harvey Mansfield of Harvard dubs the “founder of modernity”—and his most famous work, The Prince.

The Prince is a “how-to” guide for would-be rulers. But it’s not just about the nuts and bolts of ruling; it’s also a deeply philosophical work. According to The Prince, the world’s source of order emerges from those who confront and overcome life’s various challenges—especially from those who subdue the greatest challenge of all: chance. For Machiavelli, necessity is the driving force behind people’s actions: seeing the verità effettuale, the “effectual truth” of things. The effectual truth is, in plain English, the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be. To focus on effectual truth above all else means rejecting both Platonic idealism (Machiavellianism is an attempt to drag us back down into Plato’s Cave, which is a lowering of our moral gaze) and orthodox Christian anthropology, ethics, and metaphysics.

In seeing things as they are, we’re free to act in ways that align with our self-interest. In this way, objective morality is cast aside and emptied of its force, and the “standard” of right and wrong becomes synonymous with the most dominant human will. In this way, Machiavellianism is the fulfillment of two famous ancient Greek aphorisms: “Man is the measure of all things” (Protagoras—and former Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy) and “Justice is the interest of the stronger” (Thrasymachus—and antebellum Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas).

In this way, Machiavelli founded “new modes and orders.” That is, he effected a paradigm shift, which Michael Hanby defines as “the passing away of one world and the coming-to-be of another.” What has been brought forth is an alternative understanding of reality that has comprehensively supplanted what came before it, rendering the features and logic of the old paradigm—that old world—anachronistic.  As a rough analogy, consider payphones in a world dominated by iPhones. What’s the point?

There is no point because that world is gone. That is what Machiavellianism has accomplished, by severing means from ends. In familiar terms, the ends come to justify the means, but, critically, the ends themselves are no longer connected to justice: a permanent and objective standard of right and wrong, good and bad, independent of human desire and power—natural law and natural right, reason and revelation, “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”

According to the technological gaze, people come to conceptualize “nature”—including human beings—as mere raw material. Nature comes to be viewed as inert matter devoid of any inner purpose and structure, to be manipulated according to the whims of the powerful, in particular technocrats—those with scientific know-how—and especially when those technocrats are politically well connected.

While elites are the architects of modern technology, non-elites face the brunt of our technological paradigm’s corrosive effects in the immediate term. First I will investigate the ways modern technology impacts non-elites, then I will examine the specific ways elites harness technology for their own posthuman ends, which threaten us all. Non-elites face threats from modern technology in two ways: liquidation and degradation. [read more]

Part II of the essay: On Tech and Dignity: How We Can Stay Human (Part II)

Scientists claim Covid virus contains tiny chunk of DNA that 'matches sequence patented by Moderna THREE YEARS before pandemic began'

From Daily Mail.co.uk (Feb. 23, 2022):

Fresh suspicion that Covid may have been tinkered with in a lab emerged today after scientists found genetic material owned by Moderna in the virus's spike protein.

They identified a tiny snippet of code that is identical to part of a gene patented by the vaccine maker three years before the pandemic.  

It was discovered in SARS-CoV-2's unique furin cleavage site, the part that makes it so good at infecting people and separates it from other coronaviruses.

The structure has been one of the focal points of debate about the virus's origin, with some scientists claiming it could not have been acquired naturally. 

The international team of researchers suggest the virus may have mutated to have a furin cleavage site during experiments on human cells in a lab.

They claim there is a one-in-three-trillion chance Moderna's sequence randomly appeared through natural evolution.

But there is some debate about whether the match is as rare as the study claims, with other experts describing it as a 'quirky' coincidence rather than a 'smoking gun'.

……………

In the latest study, published in Frontiers in Virology, researchers compared Covid's makeup to millions of sequenced proteins on an online database.

The virus is made up of 30,000 letters of genetic code that carry the information it needs to spread, known as nucleotides.

It is the only coronavirus of its type to carry 12 unique letters that allow its spike protein to be activated by a common enzyme called furin, allowing it to spread between human cells with ease.

Analysis of the original Covid genome found the virus shares a sequence of 19 specific letters with a genetic section owned by Moderna, which has a total of 3,300 nucleotides.

The US-based pharmaceutical firm filed the patent in February 2016 as part of its cancer research division, records show.

The patented sequence is part of a gene called MSH3 that is known to affect how damaged cells repair themselves in the body.

Scientists have highlighted this pathway as a potential target for new cancer treatments.

Twelve of the shared letters make up the structure of Covid's furin cleavage site, with the rest being a match with nucleotides on a nearby part of the genome.

Writing in the paper, led by Dr Balamurali Ambati, from the University of Oregon, the researchers said the matching code may have originally been introduced to the Covid genome through infected human cells expressing the MSH3 gene.  

Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University, admitted the latest finding was interesting but claimed it was not significant enough to suggest lab manipulation.

He told MailOnline: 'We're talking about a very, very, very small piece made up of 19 nucleotides.

'So it doesn't mean very much to be frank, if you do these types of searches you can always find matches.

'Sometimes these things happen fortuitously, sometimes it's the result of convergent evolution (when organisms evolve independently to have similar traits to adapt to their environment).

'It's a quirky observation but I wouldn't call it a smoking gun because it's too small.

He added: 'It doesn't get us any further with the debate about whether Covid was engineered.'

Dr Simon Clarke, a microbiologist at Reading University, questioned whether the find was as rare as the study claims.

He told MailOnline: 'There can only be a certain number of [genetic combinations within] furin cleavage sites.

'They function like a lock and key in the cell, and the two only fit together in a limited number of combinations.

'So it's an interesting coincidence but this is surely entirely coincidental.'

MailOnline has approached Moderna for comment.

Circumstantial evidence has long raised questions about the origin of Covid and its link to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The facility was known to be conducting experiments on bat coronavirus strains similar to the one responsible for the pandemic.

China insisted early and often that the virus did not leak from the lab, claiming that crossover to humans must have occurred at a 'wet market' in Wuhan that sold live animals.

Perhaps driven by animosity for then-US President Donald Trump, who embraced the lab leak theory early on, mainstream media and academics in the West heaped scorn on the possibility, calling it an unhinged conspiracy theory.

But leaked emails showed that top scientists advising the UK and US Governments expressed concerns about the official narrative privately. [read more]

Election report finds Facebook mogul’s ‘Zuck Bucks’ broke law, swayed election outcome in Wisconsin

From Washington Times.com (Mar. 1, 2022):

A 2020 election integrity probe in Wisconsin reported findings Tuesday that a nonprofit group funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg committed election bribery when it targeted $8.8 million in get-out-the-vote funds to five heavily Democratic jurisdictions.

The conclusion is part of a 136-page interim report issued by the Wisconsin Office of the Special Counsel, which was tasked with examining 2020 state election integrity issues.

Testifying before the Wisconsin legislature Tuesday about the report, OSC lead investigator Michael Gableman told lawmakers they should “take a very hard look” at decertifying the results that showed President Biden the winner in Wisconsin, although Republicans in Madison have repeatedly rejected revisiting the results.

Mr. Gableman a former state Supreme Court justice who was appointed to run the probe last year by Wisconsin’s Republican House speaker, outlined numerous problems discovered in the aftermath of the election, including “security gaps that tend to enable bad actors to operate in the shadows,” and a catalog of “the numerous questionable and unlawful actions of various actors in the 2020 election.”

The report details a “bribery scheme” implemented by the Chicago-based Center for Tech and Civic Life, a liberal voter advocacy group heavily funded by Mr. Zuckerberg.

In the run-up to the 2020 election, the CTCL allocated Zuckerberg-funded grants, which became known as “Zuck Bucks,” to government officials in Wisconsin to help increase absentee and in-person voting. But the money was only funneled to five heavily Democratic areas: Milwaukee, Madison, Racine, Kenosha and Green Bay.

The scheme began with $10,000 grants given to each of the five jurisdictions to facilitate “safe and secure election administration,” but it quickly evolved into “a joint operation,” between the CTCL and five cities with a focus on increased voting in “communities of color.”

The grant money increased dramatically: Milwaukee received nearly $2.2 million, Green Bay officials accepted $1.09 million, Madison took $1.3 million, Kenosha received $863,000 and Racine was awarded $942,000 from CTCL.

As part of the agreement with CTCL, the cities were provided an additional $216,000 to set up ballot drop boxes in “targeted neighborhoods,” which was in violation of Wisconsin law, according to the report.

The report concluded, “The motive for these grants was impermissible and partisan get out the vote efforts.”

Election officials in the five jurisdictions, the report found, may have broken the law “by not treating all voters the same in the same election … a bedrock of principle of election law.”

The report said the targeting of certain groups for increased voting impacted the outcome of the election and hindered the public’s right to vote.

Election officials in the five jurisdictions, the report found, “crossed the line between election administration and campaigning, and that never should have happened.”

The report is likely to raise more questions about the 2020 presidential election, particularly among those who have remained skeptical about the integrity of the results. Former President Donald Trump continues to claim that election irregularities and fraud gave Mr. Biden an unfair advantage.

Republican legislatures across the country are now moving to ban local governments from accepting private money for election expenses.

In Minnesota, a Senate elections committee on Tuesday began considering legislation that would prohibit counties, municipalities and school districts from using funds from nonprofits and for-profit businesses to conduct elections.

Democrats, who long ago denounced claims of 2020 election fraud, rejected the findings in Mr. Gableman’s report.

“Gableman’s incompetent investigation was an amateur clown show from the beginning.” Rep. Mark Pocan, a Wisconsin Democrat, tweeted. “This enormous waste of tax dollars was a national embarrassment yielding nothing but attacks on our democracy. It’s time for the GOP to end this charade and start working for the American people.”

Mr. Trump, who believes the election results should be re-examined in several states that he lost, including Wisconsin, said in a statement Tuesday, “Everyone who loves America should be closely following” the election integrity hearing in Wisconsin.

Mr. Trump also warned that “the fake news” is shielding the findings from Americans. [source]

Cultural Marxism: A Warning from the Wisdom of the Ages

From Liberty Nation.com (July 31, 2022):

Most of our past is lost to time, but some stories are told and retold for thousands of years because they transmit timeless wisdom. One of these stories is from Norse mythology and plays out before our eyes in the form of cultural Marxism.

Balder’s Death

In one of the Norse myths, Balder, the son of Odin and Frigg, had horrible dreams and premonitions of his death. Frigg wanted to protect him and asked every object in the world to swear that they would not harm Balder. It meant that he became invulnerable, and the gods amused themselves by shooting with bows and arrows at him, knowing he would never be hurt.

The mischievous demi-god Loki was so envious of Balder that he disguised as a woman and lured Frigg into revealing that there was a young mistletoe growing west of Valhalla that she had not asked to swear an oath to spare Balder. Upon learning this, Loki sought out the mistletoe and carved it into an arrow. He asked Balder’s blind brother Hod to shoot at Balder with it, instantly killing him.

Loki blamed Frigg for fooling people into believing Balder was invulnerable when it was untrue. Therefore, Odin spared his life, and Frigg was humiliated for causing Balder’s death.

Although the story of Balder’s death parallels many other known myths, such as the death of Achilles, it is unique in how it concisely describes the underlying causes. Three psychological ingredients were necessary: envy, hubris, and sloth. Envy drives the antagonist Loki, but he would never have succeeded if the gods had not arrogantly played the dangerous game of shooting at Balder because they assumed he was invulnerable. Frigg is also to blame for her carelessness for not being properly vigilant in her role as the protector of Balder.

This story spells out how so many civilizations are killed. When they are at their strongest, they seem invulnerable. Therefore, many people start arrogantly doing a sport out of criticizing it for all its faults, be they systemic racism, misogyny, transphobia, or some other great sin. Those who are supposed to be the protectors of the civilization fall asleep and let the maliciously envious use the sport to try to kill society. Sometimes they succeed.

Cultural Marxism

The antagonist that plays the role of Loki in the West is cultural Marxism expressed through postmodernism and the Frankfurt school. The primary theory of the Frankfurt School is named after the strategy of relentlessly attacking the West to kill it. It is called critical theory, and one famous strain is critical race theory. It is so named because its purpose is only to attack and criticize to demoralize and kill the spirit of the West, draining it of its will to live and courage to defend itself.

Those elected to defend America and the Constitution didn’t see it fit to prevent the venom of cultural Marxism from making its way into the education system. American culture is strong, but its mistletoe is education. Americans who believe in liberty are leaving their precious children in the hands of Marxists who hate America and attempt to fill their hearts and minds with ideas that will kill this great civilization if allowed to fester.

Heed the Warning

Due to overconfidence and carelessness, America has allowed public education to be captured by the cultural Marxists. However, there are options for parents, such as homeschooling. Ancient wisdom tells us that America is in mortal danger due to relentless attacks on the core values upon which the nation is built. History often repeats, but such wisdom allows us sometimes to break those cycles of civilization death – if we heed the warning. [source]

Jordan Peterson announces World Economic Forum alternative

From Just the News.com (Jan. 29):

Dr. Jordan Peterson announced that he has set up an international consortium with the goal of creating an alternative to the "apocalyptic narrative" espoused at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

About 2,000 people will be invited to the consortium meeting in London in late October through early November, Peterson told podcaster Joe Rogan in an interview aired Saturday.

He said the meeting will present an "alternative to that kind of apocalyptic narrative that's being put forward at least implicitly by organizations like the WEF."

The consortium will focus on how to "get energy and resources at the lowest possible cost as rapidly as possible to the largest number of people around the world" and how to encourage "long-term monogamous couples who are child-centered and to make increasing the birth rate part of that policy," among other things. [source]

Not a bad idea. Then again just about any consortium would be better than the WEC new world order joke.

WAYNE ROOT: We are in a Civil War. It’s a War of Good vs Evil. And Democrats are the Confederate South

From The Gateway Pundit.com (Jan. 23, 2022):

I have good news and bad news.

The bad news is, this is evil. Look around. What Democrats believe in is not “politics as usual,” it’s not “liberalism,” it’s not “progressive,” it’s not even “socialist-lite.” It’s pure evil. It’s the kind of evil we used to fight wars over. It’s a combination of communism, fascism, Nazism and the slavery of the Confederate South.

Yes, Democrats are the new Confederates.

First, before I define the evil that Democrats represent, let me start with an explanation. Understand I’m not talking about today’s American South. I love the South. If it wasn’t for the patriots and conservatives of Southern states today we wouldn’t have a Republican Party. We wouldn’t have lower taxes, prosperity, plentiful jobs, economic freedom, or capitalism. We wouldn’t be America. God bless the Southern states. You are my heroes.

But the Confederate South of the Civil War period is a different story. The Confederate South was built upon slavery. The Confederate South believed one group of Americans was sub-human and had no rights. Slavery of any group, for any reason, is pure evil. Slavery is the biggest stain on America’s history.

I repeat, today’s Democrats are the new Confederates.

It’s happening again today. It’s time to admit demonizing one group of Americans, taking their rights away, enslaving them, is evil. It’s un- American. These views don’t belong in American politics. They don’t belong in America.

It’s time to tell the raw truth- no matter how ugly. Democrats hate us- Republicans, conservatives, capitalists, and most intensely- the unvaccinated. Democrats want no dissent. No freedom of speech. They want to destroy our lives. It’s all out in the open now. They want to imprison us, censor us, ban us, take our jobs & businesses away. They even want to take our children away.

In short, they want to make us serfs and slaves. Over a mild flu, or common cold bug, with a 99.9% chance of recovery. The excuse for slavery in the 1800s was cotton. Today it’s Covid.

You can’t fight FACTS. Here they are. Read them and weep.

The latest Rasmussen poll is out.

https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/partner_surveys/jan_2022/covid_19_democratic_voters_support_harsh_measures_against_unvaccinated

59% of Democrats (nearly two thirds) would support the government confining unvaccinated people to their homes indefinitely. Think about that for a moment. This is madness. This is unlawful imprisonment. This is a violation of the 4th Amendment of the US Constitution. We fought and died in the American Revolution over this one. This is slavery. We fought a Civil War over slavery.

But wait, it gets worse.

Just about half of Democrats (48%) believe you or I should face prison, or at best, fines that drive us out of business, for daring to discuss, debate, or question the need for, effectiveness, or safety of Covid vaccines. Free speech is out the window. If Democrats say “the world is flat” and you disagree, you must go along with it, or go to prison, or re-education camp.

47% of Democrats support the government tracking an unvaccinated person’s movements at all times. How would they do that? Would they install chips under our skin? Would they assign Gestapo agents to follow us 24/7/365?

45% of Democrats support government putting unvaccinated people in “designated facilities or locations” (i.e., internment camps for the unvaccinated).

Almost one third of Democrats (29 percent) support government taking children away from unvaccinated parents. It’s no longer “my body, my choice.” It’s “government’s way, or lose your children.”

And never forget Democrats in deep blue cities call themselves “Sanctuary cities.” They allow illegal aliens to live, work and vote, without ID. Asking for ID would be “racist” they say. But they demand American citizens show ID to walk into any store, restaurant, bar, movie, sporting event, or workplace 24/7.

Illegal aliens can actually board airplanes now with “arrest warrants” or “deportation orders” as their form of ID. While American citizens who are unvaccinated in blue states have lost all civil and human rights.

This is no longer politics. This is a war of good vs evil. But there is a bright lining. It’s good to know exactly how the enemy thinks. And make no mistake- Democrats with these sickening views are the enemy of good, the enemy of freedom, the enemy of civil and human rights, the enemy of democracy and the U.S. Constitution, the enemy of American exceptionalism. People with these kind of abhorrent views don’t belong in America.

It’s clear we’re in a Civil War. A war of good versus evil.

And Democrats are the new Confederates. [source]

Not too mention the Marxist diversity, inclusion, and equity crap they are trying to sell (or should I say brainwash?) to our vulnerable school kids.

Iceland Wants ‘As Many People as Possible’ to Catch Covid-19 After Ending All Restrictions – Suggests Vaccine is Not Enough

From The Gateway Pundit.com (Feb. 26, 2022):

Iceland’s Ministry of Health has lifted all remaining public COVID-19 restrictions on Friday, February 25th both domestically and at the border. It also includes lifting the 200-person indoor gathering limit and restricted opening hours for bars.

“Minister of Health, Willum Þór Þórsson has decided that as of Friday 25 February all public restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic will be lifted, both domestically and at the border. Thereby all rules regarding limitations on social gatherings and school operations as well as the quarantine requirement for those infected by COVID-19 are removed. Additionally, no disease prevention measures will be in place at the border, regardless of whether individuals are vaccinated or unvaccinated,” the news release stated on Wednesday.

The Ministry of Health encourages as many people to get infected with Covid-19 in order to achieve “widespread societal resistance” or “herd immunity.” They said the vaccines were not enough.

Independent reported:

Iceland ’s health ministry has said it wants “as many people as possible” to be infected with the coronavirus to achieve “widespread societal resistance”.

“Widespread societal resistance to Covid-19 is the main route out of the epidemic,” the health ministry said in a statement, citing infectious disease authorities.

It added that to achieve widespread societal resistance, which is also referred to as “herd immunity”, “as many people as possible needed to be infected with the virus as the vaccines are not enough, even though they provide good protection against serious illness”.

Iceland, with a population of approximately 368,000 people, has registered between 2,100 and 2,800 daily infections recently. More than 115,000 infections have been logged throughout the epidemic and 60 have died as a result of Covid.

As of February 25, Iceland reported the highest daily average reported and Covid infections are at their peak with 78.9% double vaccinated and 67.7% received a booster shot. So what Science has changed? [read more]

Natural immunity is always the best immunity.

12 Point Plan to Rescue America

From Rescue America.com:

1. Education

Our kids will say the pledge of allegiance, salute the Flag, learn that America is a great country, and choose the school that best fits them.

We will inspire patriotism and stop teaching the revisionist history of the radical left; our kids will learn about the wisdom of the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the founding fathers. Public schools will focus on the 3 R’s, not indoctrinate children with critical race theory or any other political ideology.

2. Color Blind Equality

Government will never again ask American citizens to disclose their race, ethnicity, or skin color on any government form.

We are going to eliminate racial politics in America. No government policy will be based on race. People “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” We are all made in the image of God; to judge a person on the color of their epidermis is immoral.

3. Safety and Crime

The soft-on-crime days of coddling criminal behavior will end. We will re-fund and respect the police because, they, not the criminals, are the good guys.

We will enforce our laws, all of them, and increase penalties for theft and violent crime. We will clean up our cities and stop pretending that crime is OK. We have zero tolerance for “mostly peaceful protests” that attack police officers, loot businesses, and burn down our cities.

4. Immigration

We will secure our border, finish building the wall, and name it after President Donald Trump.

Nations have borders. We should give that a try. President Trump’s plan to build a wall was right. We welcome those who want to join us in building the American dream, immigrants who want to be Americans, not change America. We are a stronger nation because we are a nation of immigrants, but immigration without assimilation makes us weaker. Politicians from both parties talk big about border security and do nothing. We are done with that.

5. Growth / Economy

We will grow America’s economy, starve Washington’s economy, and stop Socialism.

Socialism is un-American and always leads to poverty and oppression. We will stop it. We will shrink the federal government, reduce the government workforce by 25% in 5 years, sell government buildings and assets, and get rid of the old, slow, closed, top-down, government-run-everything system we have today. [read more]

The other points are:

1. Government Reform and Debt
2. Fair Fraud-Free Elections
3. Family
4. Gender, Life, Science
5. Religious Liberty and Big Tech
6. America First
7. Cutting Taxes

Great plan! It started out as a 11 point plan then later on cutting taxes was added.

How an AI managed to confuse humans in an imitation game

From Pop Sci.com (July 28, 2022):

Researchers from the Italian Institute of Technology have trained an artificially intelligent computer program to pass a nonverbal Turing test. By behaving like humans would, such as changing up its reaction times while participating in an interactive shape and color-matching game, the AI was able to hide its true identity from people. The related study was published this week in the journal Science Robotics.

A Turing test is a standard used by computer scientists to determine whether a machine can display a convincing enough level of human-like intelligence to fool another human into believing that it too, could be human. This is done usually through a version of “the imitation game.” The game works like this: There are three players in total. One player is unable to see the other two players but can communicate with them by asking questions or interacting with them to determine which of the two players is human and which is machine. A computer passes the Turing test when the human spectator can’t distinguish between the answers of the human versus the computer. 

“Given how our brains are tuned to detect very subtle and implicit signals of human-like behavior, it is worth asking whether a humanoid robot can ever pass the nonverbal version of the Turing test by embodying human characteristics in its physical actions,” the researchers wrote in the study.

In their experiment, they put a human and a robot together in a room. Both the human and the robot had to observe colored shapes on a screen. Each participant was in charge of responding to one color only. For example, one participant could be tasked with pressing their button only when a red square appears on the screen, and the other participant could be tasked with pressing their button only when a green square appears on the screen. But here’s the twist: The robotic teammate was remotely controlled, sometimes by a human and sometimes by AI. The AI took into account the time its human teammate responded and randomly varied its reaction time between seeing the shape and pressing the button to appear more human.

After running through the game together, the human participants were asked to guess whether their robot teammate was run by another human or by the AI-powered computer program. While people could usually tell when another human was behind the robot, they had trouble when it came to the AI, and guessed wrong more than 50 percent of the time. “Our results suggest that hints of humanness, such as the range of behavioral variability, might be used by observers to ascribe humanness to a humanoid robot,” the researchers wrote. “This provides indications for robot design, which aims at endowing robots with behavior that can be perceived by users as human-like.”

This is not the first time a machine has passed the Turing test. In a 2014 event organized by the University of Reading, a computer program convinced one-third of the human judges at the Royal Society in London that it was a 13-year-old boy. And just last month, one of Google’s AI also passed a version of this test, igniting controversies over the ethics of these types of programs. Many scientists, though, have noted that while passing the Turing test is a meaningful milestone, due to inherent flaws in the test’s design, it cannot be used to measure whether machines are actually thinking, and therefore cannot be used to prove true general intelligence. [source]

GODLESS PARTY: Joe Biden and Democrats Spend Millions in Unconstitutional Program to Push Atheism in Foreign Countries

From The Gateway Pundit.com (July 24, 2022):

The Joe Biden regime is spending millions in taxpayer dollars to spread atheism overseas.

This program that favors atheism over Christianity or other belief systems is unconstitutional.

The United States was built on Judeo-Christian principles. Democrats are moving at warp speed to erase that important piece of our American history.

……….

FOX News reported:

Several House Republicans are demanding answers from the Biden administration regarding a grant program the Republicans say will “promote atheism worldwide.”

Republican Study Committee (RSC) chairman Jim Banks of Indiana led the letter with 14 of his GOP colleagues to President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken regarding the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor’s (DRL) grant program promoting atheism and “humanism.”

“The Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) was officially titled ‘DRL FY20 IRF Promoting and Defending Religious Freedom Inclusive of Atheist, Humanist, Non-Practicing and Non-Affiliated Individuals,’” Banks and the Republicans wrote.

“It announced a ‘competitive’ process that would award grants of up to $500,000 to organizations committed to the practice and spread of atheism and humanism, namely in South/Central Asia and in the Middle East/North Africa,” they continued.

The Republicans pointed out that atheism and “humanism” are both “official belief systems” protected under the First Amendment’s right to religious freedom and said they would “like to know what other United States government programs supported with appropriated funds are being used either to encourage, inculcate, or to disparage any official belief system – atheist, humanist, Christian, Muslim, or otherwise.”

[read more]

So, stupid.

In Defense of Stigma

From Break Point.org (Jan. 28, 2022):

A new ad playing on Ohio radio stations is part of what’s being called the “Stop the Stigma” campaign. In the ad, game show contestants are asked about the biggest risk factor for substance addiction. One guesses “making bad choices,” but gets the buzzer. Another guesses “hanging out with the wrong people,” and is also wrong. The right answer, we’re told, is family history. According to Ohio officials, the ads are meant to encourage people to “practice empathy, not judgment” for those suffering from addiction.

Research shows a strong genetic component to addiction, but research also shows that making unwise choices and spending time with others making unwise choices contributes to addiction. Why downplay these factors?

In a similar vein, The USA Today recently reported on new research on the roots of pedophilia. The sexual disorder is, according to researchers quoted in the article, “determined in the womb” and is therefore “misunderstood” by our culture. If the evil is “inherent,” the article implies, it must be afforded a very different, or perhaps no, moral weight.

The suggestion that people who do something wrong only deserve our empathy or compassion when they “can’t help it” misunderstands the human condition. None of us are immune from wrong impulses, and all of us do things that are wrong. At the same time, none of us have to indulge our inclinations, either. To act on a desire is still to act, no matter our genetic composition or elevated risk factors. And, Christ offers redemption to those sinners, too.

The Bible fully acknowledges the internal inclinations and impulses humans have. It tells us to “flee” from them. Paul tells the Galatians how the desires of the flesh are in conflict with the Spirit, but he doesn’t say “therefore you are helpless,” or “now do good things to cancel out the bad.” Instead, he says, we must “crucify the flesh.”

When we lose that battle, because we lose the battle, God offers grace and forgiveness in Christ. People who do wrong things are to be given compassion and help, but not because any of us “can’t help it.” Their value is rooted in the fact that they, too, are human beings, made in the image of God.

At least part of recognizing that dignity is treating people like the moral agents they are. This requires, to some degree, not eliminating—whether in word or practice—the consequences of our actions. Our culture-wide efforts to “stop the stigma” suggests that the very real consequences of our real moral decisions cannot play a significant role in our moral formation. The Bible testifies that it does.

No progress can be made unless we confront reality. As the cliché goes, the first step to recovery is admitting the problem. To preclude that important step on a cultural scale is to preclude many from moving forward.

Dr. Matthew Sleeth is a friend and emergency room physician who wrote a book about the Christian response to suicide. Speaking about his research at the Wilberforce Weekend last year, Dr. Sleeth said that an unexpected but very real common denominator that he has found in testimonies from those who survived a suicide attempt or ultimately chose not to go through with it was that they believed, it would be wrong. We want to be loving and compassionate, he said, but people need to know their decisions have moral weight.

Of course, the very assertion that something we do could be wrong requires a consistent moral standard against which to measure our inclinations and behavior. Christianity is the only worldview that not only offers a fully formed and consistent moral standard, but locates it in a Creator who, out of love and compassion and the ultimate expression of identifying with us, became one of us.

In no way does this downplay the very real way that biochemical components, genetic predispositions, and outside factors like predatory advertising contribute to things like suicide, addiction, or sexual inclinations. But we need not suggest that people aren’t responsible for their moral choices because of these factors.  God created us as moral creatures. Thus, we have an internal motivating sense that we don’t want to do something wrong.

Biblical compassion requires Christians to be ready to help when and where we can. That kind of love, rooted in God’s love for us, includes healthy stigma and never pretends there are no consequences for our choices. [source]

An article on the topic:

Weirdos Who Want To Sexualize Your Children Should Absolutely Be Stigmatized As Groomers

Democratic ‘dark money’ network flexes muscles as Biden weighs Supreme Court pick

From Washington Times.com (Feb. 18, 2022):

President Biden’s imminent announcement of his first Supreme Court nominee will cap off a White House decision-making process that has been supported — and pressured — by a secretive network of liberal “dark money” advocacy groups and anonymous donors who seek appointments of far-left judges.

Demand Justice, the liberal group that pressed Mr. Biden to add seats to the Supreme Court in a failed bid to change its ideological balance, is a well-funded powerhouse in Washington, advocating for judicial nominees whom conservatives view as extremists.

Dark money in campaign finance parlance refers to political spending by nonprofits, unions and trade associations that are not legally required to disclose their individual donors.

Demand Justice is tied to the shadowy Sixteen Thirty Fund, the leader in Democratic dark money that spent about $410 million in 2020 to defeat President Trump and help Democrats win control of the Senate. Its donors include billionaires George Soros and French-born eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. One anonymous donor alone contributed more than $51.7 million in 2018, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Conservatives are targeting a liberal consulting firm, Arabella Advisors, as the billion-dollar force behind the Democratic dark money network, which overtook the Republican Party in the amount of undisclosed political spending in 2020.

The conservative Judicial Crisis Network is airing a $2.5 million ad campaign about Mr. Biden’s upcoming nomination. It says the Supreme Court’s legacy of political independence “is being tarnished by secret money from liberals.”

“The president and the Senate were bankrolled by Arabella Advisors network,” the ad states. “A record amount of dark money, over $1 billion, put them in office. So they’ll put up an Arabella judge, a liberal activist, a Biden rubber-stamp. A huge sum, a huge payback.”

Critics say Demand Justice essentially has a seat at the table as Mr. Biden weighs his choices for the high court. Paige Herwig, the president’s point person on judicial nominations, worked for the group, and White House press secretary Jen Psaki was a consultant for Demand Justice before the 2020 election.

“Demand Justice, which began as a project of the dark money behemoth Sixteen Thirty Fund, has already shown its power by bullying Justice [Stephen G.] Breyer into retirement,” said Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of the conservative-leaning Americans for Public Trust. “Now, with nearly unlimited resources at their disposal and insiders in the White House leading the selection process, they have a seat at the table to push their hand-picked candidates that they deem sufficiently radical.”

Neither the White House nor Demand Justice responded to questions about the group’s influence in the president’s decision-making on judges. Justice Breyer announced plans to retire last month, and Mr. Biden said he would honor a campaign pledge to appoint the first Black woman in history to the high court.

Among Mr. Biden’s top three candidates is Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Demand Justice said she has “stood up for the rule of law by holding the Trump administration accountable for its rule-breaking.” The Senate has confirmed her on a bipartisan basis twice for federal judgeships.

Demand Justice is led by Brian Fallon, an aide to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Responding to a recent comment by Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois that Senate Democrats’ goal is to “get bipartisan support for the nominee,” Mr. Fallon said in a post on Twitter, “No, our goal is to nominate a highly qualified Black woman and confirm her, whether Republicans join or not.”

Mr. Fallon has defended the group’s failed effort to expand the Supreme Court. He said Mr. Biden’s nominee won’t change the balance of power on the high court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority. The president’s nomination will replace Justice Breyer, 83, with another liberal jurist, albeit one much younger.

“This nominee, however strong she is, will not have the capacity to ‘reset’ this Court,” Mr. Fallon tweeted. “Only Court expansion can do that.”

Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, said Americans should be concerned about the influence of these liberal groups on the president.

“What’s so concerning is that these kinds of extreme ideas, which are so far out of step with where the American people are, are being given imprimatur by the Biden administration,” she said. “The person [in the White House] who has the closest connection with helping to choose judicial nominations is actually a former Demand Justice member, so they have embraced this judicial extremism. I think it has everything to do with what the dark money funders want to see.”

Mr. Trump waged an effective four-year campaign to appoint conservative judges with the help of Leonard Leo, a longtime leader of the Federalist Society, and backing from the Judicial Crisis Network.

His appointments included three Supreme Court Justices — Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — who swung the balance on the court firmly in favor of the right.

Ms. Severino said she expects the president to nominate a far-left judge and then try to convince the public that the candidate is mainstream.

“Whoever it is, it’s always going to be someone who they pitch to us as a nice, down-the-middle moderate,” she said. “But what Biden has said about what he’s looking for is very different.” [source]

FBI to form new digital currency unit as Justice Dept taps new crypto czar

From Dev Discourse.com (Feb. 17, 2022):

The U.S. Justice Department has tapped a seasoned computer crimes prosecutor to lead its new national cryptocurrency enforcement team and announced on Thursday that the FBI is launching a unit for blockchain analysis and virtual asset seizure. The creation of the "virtual asset exploitation" unit at the FBI comes on the heels of the Justice Department's largest-ever financial seizure. One always has to be careful about scams and also, trying to keep your budget tight, get some help from Albertsons Weekly Ad if you are from ABQ. Earlier this month, it charged a married New York couple with allegedly laundering bitcoins now valued at over $4.5 billion that were stolen in the 2016 hack of the digital currency exchange Bitfinex.

U.S. regulators under President Joe Biden have been ratcheting up their scrutiny of the crypto industry in the wake of a series of high-profile cyberattacks last year on the largest U.S. fuel pipeline network and the world's largest beef supplier. Ransomware groups often demand their fees in bitcoin. In a speech at the Munich Cyber Security Conference in Germany, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced that Eun Young Choi, a prosecutor who led the case against a Russian hacker who helped steal information about more than 80 million JPMorgan & Chase Co customers, will lead the department's cryptocurrency enforcement team. [source]