Trump Withdraws US From Global Climate Agreement

From Newsmax.com (Jan. 7):

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the United States will withdraw from the international agreement that has served as the foundation for global efforts to rein in climate change for 34 years.

The pact includes every other nation in the world, making it one of the most widely adopted international frameworks still in force.

In a social media post, the White House said Trump signed a memorandum directing the U.S. to exit 66 international organizations and treaties that "no longer serve American interests."

The White House did not immediately release a full list of the organizations and agreements covered by the order, but highlighted the climate agreement as a major component.

Trump and his advisers framed the withdrawal as part of a broader push to reclaim control of U.S. energy and economic policy and reduce what they view as outside constraints on domestic industry.

The decision is expected to draw swift backlash from U.S. allies and climate advocates who argue the agreement is central to coordinating emissions cuts and financing climate adaptation.

Environmental groups warned the withdrawal could weaken global momentum as countries face increasing climate-related disasters, including extreme heat, flooding, and wildfires.

Supporters of the move praised it as a rejection of international bureaucracy and what they call an unfair system that imposes disproportionate costs on the United States.

The withdrawal is likely to trigger diplomatic and legal questions over how quickly the U.S. can exit and what happens to prior commitments made under the agreement's framework.

White House officials said further actions related to U.S. participation in international organizations would follow. [source]

Good. The agreement is just another way to punish America.

No Civilization Without Restraint: Wise Words From 1939

From Breakpoint.org (Aug. 1, 2022):

It is not normal or healthy for a culture to talk about sex this much. From Pride month to education to companies telegraphing their commitments to inclusion and diversity, to just about every commercial, movie, or TV show produced today, sexual identity is treated as if it is central to human identity, human purpose, and human happiness. And this vision of life and the world is especially force-fed to children, who are essentially subjects of our social experimentations.

“If the energy spent talking about sex is disproportionate, it’s important to know there were some who saw this coming. The best example is Oxford sociologist J.D. Unwin. In 1939, Unwin published a landmark book summarizing his research. Sex and Culture was a look at 80 tribes and six historical civilizations over the course of five millennia, through the lens of a single question: Does a culture’s ideas of sexual liberation predict its success or collapse? ”

Unwin’s findings were overwhelming:

“Just as societies have advanced [and] then faded away into a state of general decrepitude, so in each of them has marriage first previously changed from a temporary affair based on mutual consent to a lifelong association of one man with one woman, and then turned back to a loose union or to polygamy. ”

What’s more, Unwin concluded,

The whole of human history does not contain a single instance of a group becoming civilized unless it has been absolutely monogamous, nor is there any example of a group retaining its culture after it has adopted less rigorous customs.

Unwin saw a pattern behind societies that unraveled. If three consecutive generations abandoned sexual restraint built around the protections of marriage and fidelity, they collapsed.

Simply put, sexuality is essential for survival. However, sexuality is such a powerful force, it must be controlled or else it can destroy a future rather than secure it. Wrongly ordered sexuality is devastating for both individuals and entire societies.

Unwin’s conclusions can be boiled down to a single issue. Are people living for the future, with the ability to delay gratification, or are they focusing only on the here and now? When a culture fails to restrain its sexual instincts, people think less about securing the future and instead compromise the stability, productivity, and the well-being of the next generation in the pursuit of sexual pleasure.

Unwin claims that he had no moral or ideological axe to grind in this research. “I make no opinion about rightness or wrongness,” he wrote. But his work is nevertheless profound, as are his conclusions, which we seem to be living out in real time.

According to Pew Research, almost 90% of children lived with two married parents in 1960. By 2008 that number had dropped to just 64%. Over the same period, the percentage of kids born to unmarried women rose from 5% to 41%. There is really no question of how this impacts children. Studies show that teens from single-parent or blended families are 300% more likely to need psychological assistance, twice as likely to drop out of high school, and more likely to commit suicide. They end up with less college education and lower–paying jobs than their parents and are more likely to get divorced themselves.

This is not because children from non-traditional homes have less potential or less value. Nor do stable two-parent families guarantee outcomes for children. Statistics do not determine the future of an individual, but they can identify the future of a society. On a civilizational level, the future is a matter of math.

The early days of the sexual revolution reframed the morality of sexual behavior, but today it’s gone further, undermining the already fragile identity in the rising generation, fraying it in the various directions of the ever-growing acronym of sexual identities. Anywhere from 1 in 5 to nearly 40% of young people identify as LGBTQ today. Or, in the case of one junior high class in the Northeast I heard of recently, “all of them do.”

Christian faithfulness in this cultural moment must involve the protection of children and a commitment to the future of society. At the very least, that means speaking up, especially when it is unpopular to do so. Along the way, we will have to reject the “inevitability thesis,” the notion that all is lost and that things will only get worse so nothing we do matters. With courage and unconditional love for our neighbor, we continue to speak the truth.

And we will need to remind ourselves and each other of something that should be obvious but is not: The ideas and behavior of the late sexual revolution are not normal. Nor is our fascination and focus on sexuality as the central defining factor in human existence and value.

Human sexuality is not some arbitrary construct like a speed limit. It is as much a part of the fabric of life as gravity. We may deny that, but we will not avoid the pain of hitting the ground if we do. [source]

Amen.

Along the same lines..: The Epstein Files, Pagan History, and Christian Morality

What Patriotic Americans Can Do to Resist the Destruction of Our Constitutional Republic

From The Gateway Pundit.com (June 22, 2022):

First, recognize that the United States is not a functioning constitutional republic, but a government being deliberately transformed into a one-party totalitarian state.

The federal government, as an institution, is hopelessly corrupt and, although we have elections, we do not have a representative government. It cannot be reformed. It can only be ripped out and replaced.

Do not expect any top-down solutions for America’s problems to miraculously emerge from Washington D.C. The U.S. government has seceded from the people. Most members of Congress act more like foreign occupiers than executors of the views and needs of their constituents.

Angelo Codevilla noted that the United States already has a bona fide ruling class, which transcends government, a political aristocracy that sees itself as distinct from the rest of society and as the only element that may act on its behalf. The ruling class considers those who resist it as having no moral or intellectual right, and, now, any civil right as well.

Republican Party leaders neither contest that view nor vilify their Democrat counterparts because they do not want to challenge the ruling class, they want to be part of it.

The Republican leadership has solidified its choice to no longer represent what had been its constituency, but to adopt the identity of junior partners in the ruling class. By repeatedly passing bills that contradict the views of its voters, the Republican Party has made political orphans of tens of millions of Americans.

The only remaining course of action for patriotic American, who want to restore our constitutional republic, is a bottom-up political insurgency based on the Constitution and the Founding documents.

Foremost among them are the Second and Tenth Amendments.

The Second Amendment, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” is now the only obstacle standing between freedom and the absolute tyranny the federal government now wishes to impose.

Buy firearms and lots of ammunition. [read more]

Sound advice.

Chinese students with CCP membership, military links ‘infiltrate’ U.S. universities, watchdog says

From Just the News.com (Feb. 3):

Chinese students and scientists who are members of the Chinese Communist Party, attended schools tied to the Chinese military or worked with companies connected to Beijing's theft of U.S. technology have “infiltrated” several top American universities, according to a watchdog group report that raises fresh concerns about America's vulnerabilities to its most fierce adversary.

A conservative non-profit oversight group, the American Accountability Foundation, reported that it found nearly two dozen Chinese academics working at elite U.S. schools and labs “who because of the dual-use threat of their research, close ties to the military research sector in China, and/or clear ties to the Chinese Communist Party should be expelled from the United States or never be re-admitted."

The research document — titled "Chinese Scientist Infiltration Threat Assessments " — says that Chinese students working at some of America’s top colleges, often receiving U.S. federal funding (some of it from the Pentagon) to conduct research into advanced technologies have troubling backgrounds which could pose a risk to U.S. national security.

Many Chinese scientists at U.S. institutions have CCP connections

The concerns raised by AAF’s new report include the fact that some of the Chinese scientists ensconced inside American academia and at cutting-edge U.S. labs appear to be members of the CCP and are affiliated with the CCP’s projects aimed at stealing U.S. technological know-how or military secrets, and worked with or for companies which serve the Chinese defense industry.

Some of these Chinese academics have clear links to problematic Chinese firms like Huawei or to China’s notorious Thousand Talents program, of which the FBI said "American businesses, universities, and laboratories should understand the potential risks and illegal conduct incentivized by Chinese talent plans and take steps to safeguard their trade secrets and intellectual property." At least one of the Chinese scientists appeared to have been employed by the Chinese government while in the U.S.

The schools employing the Chinese scientists named in the AAF report include Harvard University, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell University, Brown University, Purdue University, the University of Wisconsin, Georgia Tech, the University of Florida, the University of Michigan, University of Florida, Penn State University, the Stevens Institute of Technology, Michigan State University, Indiana University, and the University of Southern California, as well as Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The research areas focused on by these Chinese students — many of whom are receiving U.S. government funding for the lab research they are doing in the U.S. — include unmanned aerial drones, robotics, exoskeletons, artificial intelligence, large language models, viral research into highly-infectious pathogens, advanced materials research, next-gen semiconductors, advanced laser welding, quantum sensing, nuclear materials research, thermal-resilient electronics, electrical grid technologies, pharmaceuticals, applied mathematics, condensed matter physics, and other key areas which could have dual-use military applications. [read more]

They are both students and spies. The Chi-Coms require by law any Chinese national student to report any info they learn to the Chinese Embassy. I believe this is a general law for any country a Chinese national is in.

Another article on the matter

Report: These Chinese Researchers At U.S. Universities Have CCP Ties

‘This Is About As Big as It Gets’: Trump Formally Guts Obama-Era Climate Finding That Allowed Feds To Regulate Emissions

From Free Beacon.com (Feb. 12):

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Flanked by EPA administrator Lee Zeldin in the Roosevelt Room, President Donald Trump announced that his administration has formally rescinded a 2009 Obama-era finding that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide endanger public health. That finding led to a slate of federal climate regulations targeting gas-powered vehicles, including former president Joe Biden’s top-down effort to force Americans to buy more electric cars.

Trump’s action will have a domino effect, toppling years of federal regulations targeting emissions produced by vehicles, power plants, and oil facilities. Zeldin said it is the "largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States" and would save Americans more than $1 trillion, a point Trump emphasized.

"This is about as big as it gets," Trump remarked as he entered a news conference announcing the action. "This action will eliminate over $1.3 trillion of regulatory cost and help bring car prices tumbling down dramatically. You can get a better car, you can get a car that starts easier, a car that works better, for a lot less money."

Surrounding Trump were signs emblazoned with the $1.3 trillion figure and stating that the action would decrease the cost of the average vehicle by $2,400. "Largest deregulation in U.S. history," read another sign.

"Under President Trump's leadership, vehicle manufacturers will once again build what Americans want, not what politicians and bureaucrats in Washington demand," Zeldin said.

The action makes good on Trump’s 2024 campaign promise to achieve the "most aggressive regulatory reduction" in the nation’s history and represents the president’s single greatest achievement to date in his pursuit to unwind previous administrations’ climate policies. The president has labeled efforts to fight global warming as a "scam" and, like many critics of the climate movement, blamed it for rising affordability issues in the United States.

Still, the action tees up an expected deluge of lawsuits from Democrat-led states and far-left activist organizations that have argued that preserving the endangerment finding and regulating greenhouse gases is essential for combating climate change. Many of those states and groups have vowed to challenge any move to rescind the finding.

"California will not stand by," Governor Gavin Newsom (D., Calif.) wrote to Zeldin in September. "You still have a choice: honor the law, follow the credible and established science, and fulfill your duty to the American people. Or go down in history as the administration that abandoned its mission, betrayed its mandate, and failed its country."

Every Senate Democrat signed a separate letter to Zeldin, warning that rescinding the finding would be a "dereliction of duty" and take "breathtaking hubris." And Loren Blackford, the Sierra Club’s acting executive director, wrote this week that "removing EPA’s authority to limit deadly greenhouse gas emissions is as shortsighted as it is stupid."

The expected litigation could ultimately force the Supreme Court to weigh in on the issue. According to former DOJ counsel Michael Buschbacher, that means Trump’s action on Thursday risks having the opposite of its intended effect and could solidify the endangerment finding.

"Unless this is done really, really well, this has the potential of being a kind of regulatory Vietnam, which is surely what administration opponents will be trying to accomplish," Buschbacher told the Washington Free Beacon in July.

The issue dates back to the 1970s, when Congress passed the Clean Air Act. The act requires the EPA to regulate any air pollutant emitted by mobile sources, like cars, and stationary sources, like power plants, that the agency determines to cause or contribute to pollution endangering public health or welfare. For decades, the EPA did not interpret that provision to include greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide and methane.

A coalition of states led by Massachusetts eventually sued the EPA after the agency formally determined in 2003 that the Clean Air Act did not authorize it to consider greenhouse gas emissions. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the states and directed the EPA to consider whether greenhouse gas emissions do, in fact, endanger public health, leading to the 2009 endangerment finding. [source]

The wins keep coming! 

Trump WH Pulls $1.5B in DOT, CDC Grants From Dem States

From Newsmax.com (Feb. 12):

The Trump administration is rescinding more than $1.5 billion from a handful of Democrat-run states on the grounds that the funds were being mishandled.

The White House Office of Management and Budget directed the Transportation Department to scrap more than $943 million in grants and ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to roll back at least $602 million more from California, Colorado, Illinois, and Minnesota, the New York Post reported.

An OMB spokesperson told the Post the states were being targeted for "waste and mismanagement" of taxpayer funds.

The targeted DOT programs included $100 million for the deployment of electric vehicle charging stations in Illinois near underserved communities; $15 million for Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, to deploy EV chargers in low-income and high-pollution areas; $15 million for a "robust, accessible, and equitable" EV charging network for "disadvantaged communities" in nine counties across San Francisco; $2 million for California's "climate change adaptation" plans; and $4.9 million for Colorado to install charging stations in low- and middle-income neighborhoods.

"At this time, Colorado has not received any official cancellation notices from the federal administration related to these grants," a spokesperson for Gov. Jared Polis told the Post.

"There is nothing 'woke' about making sure American roads are safer for everyone."

A Transportation Department spokesman confirmed the cuts were being carried out, the Post reported.

None of the rescinded CDC grants involved disease-specific research funding.

Instead, the money came from a pool of taxpayer funds distributed to the states, according to the Post.

Chicago was in line to receive $7 million for research involving "adolescents, racial and ethnic minorities, and men who have sex with men" being "disproportionately affected with sexually transmitted diseases," according to the Post.

Another $7.2 million was rescinded for the Illinois branch of the American Medical Association, which officials said supported gender reassignment surgery for children.

"Time and time again, the Trump administration has attempted to politicize and punish certain states President [Donald] Trump does not like," a spokesperson for Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker's office told the Post.

"It's wrong and often illegal, so Illinois will always fight for the resources and services our taxpayers are owed."

At least $3 million had been outlined for Colorado to "Address COVID-19 Health Disparities Among Populations at High-Risk and Underserved, Including Racial and Ethnic Minority Populations and Rural Communities," according to the Post.

Another $1.2 million grant was cut that would have allowed the state to "partner with local public health departments, local health agencies, community-based organizations, STD clinics, family planning clinics, [and] Title X clinics."

Los Angeles County is set to lose $1.1 million in remaining funding for an HIV behavioral survey after an initial $4.3 million grant was approved in January 2022, the Post reported.

California universities were also awaiting hundreds of thousands of federal dollars for research projects "reducing social isolation among older LGBTQ adults," "Creating Medical Trust with Latinx Communities," and a National Transgender Health Summit.

San Francisco had $337,000 remaining from a larger grant for "intersectoral climate adaptation," while Minneapolis was set to receive about $754,000 for "Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health," according to the Post.

The OMB spokesperson said additional grant cancellations were expected.

Officials with the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, did not immediately confirm the cuts, the Post reported. [source]

Good.  If a state wastes gov't grants, it shouldn't receive anymore money. It's called accountability.

Democrats Hate The SAVE Act Because They Want Illegals To Vote

From The Federalist.com (Feb. 6):

Democrats’ recent hysteria over the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act has unsurprisingly manifested in claims that it’s “Jim Crow 2.0” and a threat to democracy itself. But cut through the hysterics and you’ll find that Democrats’ opposition to the SAVE Act is based on something far simpler: They hate anything that interferes with their long-running effort to control elections and consolidate power.

The SAVE Act would amend the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) to require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.

It’s not a literacy test or a poll tax. It’s just asking would-be voters to prove that they’re citizens of the country of the election they are participating in because currently, the only thing standing between a noncitizen and our “free and fair” elections is a small square box on the federal registration form asking applicants to attest under penalty of perjury that they are a citizens. In other words, the honor system.

Our “democracy” is so important to Democrats that they hinge it entirely on the honor system. But Democrats’ fight against the SAVE Act is part of a bigger effort to remake American elections in ways that permanently advantage Democrats.

Take H.R. 1, also known as the For the People Act. This was one of Democrats’ top priorities during the Biden administration. The legislation would, in part, mandate mail-in voting, require states to accept late ballots, and override state voter ID laws, as reported by The Federalist’s Joy Pullman. In other words, H.R. 1 would normalize the problems of the 2020 election and codify them into law.

Democrats wanted to grant the federal government veto power over state election laws, particularly laws that ensure the integrity and security of elections.

Similarly, Democrats tried to pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. This legislation would strip states and local jurisdictions of their control over elections. For example, the Department of Justice would be allowed to seize control of elections where voter ID laws were in place, according to The Heritage Foundation.

When states have acted on their own to protect the integrity of their elections, Democrats turned to the courts. Democrats have been particularly opposed to voter ID laws, with the Biden administration going so far as to sue Georgia in 2021 over its election integrity law that mandated voter ID. The DOJ alleged the legislation was discriminatory. Georgia later saw record turnout after the implementation of the bill.

The Biden administration sued Arizona in 2022 over the state’s requirement that prospective voters show documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in statewide elections. Notably, Arizona came up with its dual registration system after the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that the state could not require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. The state permits individuals who can provide documentary proof to register for both statewide and federal elections, while those unable to provide documentation may be registered as “federal only” voters.

The administration also sued Virginia for trying to remove noncitizens from its voter rolls in 2024. The suit alleged that the removal of noncitizens from the voter rolls violated the “Quiet Period Provision” of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which requires states to complete voter list maintenance “not later than 90 days prior to the date of a primary or general election for Federal office. …”

The pattern is clear: Anytime a red state tries to enforce basic election integrity (whether cleaning voter rolls or implementing secure election practices), Democrats respond with lawsuits, threats of racism, or attempts at federal overreach.

In this context, Democrats’ hatred of the SAVE Act makes sense. Proof of citizenship to register to vote limits Democrats’ ability to exploit insecure election infrastructure, which could lead to noncitizens voting. The SAVE Act also reinforces the idea that voting is a right only of citizens — not just anyone within our borders.

And at this point, the only explanation there could be for opposing requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote is a desire to have noncitizens voting. There is no alternative rationale that survives even minimal scrutiny.

The same party that falsely claimed it was the end of democracy and “Jim Crow 2.0” when Georgia passed voter ID requirements in 2021 is the same party now selling the same shtick about the SAVE Act. Of course it’s just Democrats’ go-to defense line, but the rationale has been proven false time and time again.

When Democrats try this hard to kill a measure so reasonable and broadly supported, the facts speak for themselves about their motives. [source]

So, true. That and the SAVE act makes it hard for the Left to cheat. If the Dems are so against ID (they aren't really) why do Democrat conventions require ID to enter? It seems they like the Jim Crow laws of yesteryear that Chucky Schumer likes to invoke all the time.

The act only requires a person to show their ID when they register to vote not when they actually vote. Nonetheless, a good start. Hopefully, legislation later on will make it mandatory that a person will have to show their ID to vote.

Along the same lines...

• Mitch McConnell Might Try To Smother The SAVE Act To Spite Trump
• Democratic senator requires photo ID to enter campaign event while opposing voter ID for elections
• Sen. John Fetterman: Voter ID Is Not Radical, "Absolutely Not Jim Crow"
• Top Dems Scramble To Explain Why They’re On The Wrong Side Of Voter ID
• House Passes Bill to Require Proof of US Citizenship for Midterm Voters