Monthly Archives: August 2021

The Church of Facebook is set to capture the human soul in silicon. On July 25, the New York Times reported that since 2017 the social media giant has quietly cultivated exclusive partnerships with select religious communities. As always, money is involved.

While Facebooks ultimate goals remain sealed behind non-disclosure agreements, the Times article does hint at things to come: The company aims to become the virtual home for religious community, and wants churches, mosques, synagogues and others to embed their religious life into its platform, from hosting worship services and socializing more casually to soliciting money.

The partnerships reveal how Big Tech and religion are converging, the Times continues. Facebook is shaping the future of religious experience itself, as it has done for political and social life.

In other words, ultra-mod spiritual centers will be blessed by mass data extraction, algorithmic polarization, and censorship of theological misinformation.

If Facebooks history is any guide, every digital prayer will be scooped up and turned into a data point. Livestreamed preachers who deny the sanctity of LGBT lifestyles will be flagged and punished as extremists. Best of all, smartphone-addicted congregants can donate their last widows mite with the touch of a virtual button. Sounds like a little slice of heaven, doesnt it?

The Church of Facebook is just one part of a much broader vision. Three days before the Times article appeared, The Verge published an in-depth interview with founder Mark Zuckerberg about his ambition to bring the metaverse to life. The term refers to the evolution of 24/7 screentime into a warped synthesis of physical reality, mixed reality, augmented reality, and virtual reality.

The Metaverse was first coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 dystopian novel Snow Crash. The author imagined the decadent virtual realm as an escape from a dismal society run by mega-corporations. Now that the Metaverse is being funded by Silicon Valley oligarchs and Wall Street traders, were supposed to believe itll be a fine place to live.

In his Verge interview, Zuckerberg describes the Metaverse as an embodied internet the holy grail of social interactions where we can work, play, and enjoy a sense of presence alongside teleporting holograms. He predicts that within the next five years around the same time Elon Musk hopes to achieve digital telepathy through brain chips Facebook will transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company.

According to Facebooks chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, it will also be a spiritual endeavor. Faith organizations and social media are a natural fit because fundamentally both are about connection, she told the Times. Our hope is that one day people will host religious services in virtual reality spaces as well, or use augmented reality as an educational tool to teach their children the story of their faith.

Imagine a synagogue where a holographic burning bush recites the Decalogue, or a cathedral where saint icons speak to you directly, or maybe animated deities waving their many arms in Hindu temples. Immersive idolatry is the future of false religion. With 3 billion users worldwide and zero sense of sacred boundaries Facebook is poised to lead this spiritual revolution.

Its true that with enough hyperbole, anything can be described as a religion. People often say things like Art is my religion or Nature is my religion. Critics also use this to scold their opponents, perhaps accurately, saying Science is their religion or even Video gaming is their religion. But this is not hyperbole: Technology has become a religion.

If you look at the personalities behind techno-fetishism, they frequently describe digital culture in spiritual terms. Smart devices produce all the miracles promised by religion, and for an affordable price. Its a dream world with a long history.

In Francis Bacons unfinished 1626 novel The New Atlantis, he describes a technocratic utopia with perspective-houses, where we make demonstrations of all lights and radiations. We procure means [to] represent things near as afar off; and things afar off as near. The pioneering scientist warns of vivid mechanical illusions that could be presented as miracles. As far back as the 17th century, Bacon was imagining holograms. In a sense, his New Atlantis has already arrived on your laptop display.

Striking a dissonant note, in 1976 the first Apple computer went on sale for $666.66. Despite the cuddly Steve Wozniaks insistence that it was just a fluke, the numeric symbolism has dark resonance in the Christian imagination. You dont have to be superstitious to appreciate the mythical implications. When I visited the famous Apple Museum in Prague, Czech Republic, a large decal on the front window read: Three apples changed the world. The first tempted Eve, the second inspired Newton, and the third was offered to the world half-eaten by Steve Jobs.

Many observers are thrilled by these infernal archetypes. In 1988, Timothy Leary published his classic essay Digital Polytheism: Load and Run High-tech Paganism. The High Priest of LSD explicitly describes the personal computer in terms of ritual magic: Today, digital alchemists have at their command tools of a precision and power unimagined by their predecessors.

Computer screens ARE magical mirrors, presenting alternate realities at varying degrees of abstraction on command (invocation). Aleister Crowley defined magick as the art and science of causing change to occur in conformity with our will, Leary wrote.

Its a curious fact that, like many techno-fetishists, Leary was as obsessed with Crowleyan magick as he was with psychedelics and cybernetics. In fact, his essay opens with Crowleys catchy little ditty:

We place no reliance

On virgin or pigeon;

Our Method is Science,

Our Aim is Religion.

In the smartphone age, even a midwit wizard can summon transportation, Sichuan noodles, or casual sex with a few swipes of the touchscreen. But thats just a cheap parlor trick. Big Tech titans can observe our inner worlds in the aggregate, or each of us one by one. They can use that information to sell targeted ads, manipulate public consciousness, or sway national elections. Its just like magic, except it works (almost) every time.

This mystical connection is not some secret conspiracy. For instance, on Good Friday of 2020 while religious communities were forbidden to gather in-person and forced to worship online Microsoft launched a controversial ad for their HoloLens 2 mixed-reality glasses. The advertisement featured an art exhibit called The Life by Marina Abramovi. In it, we see goggled hipsters standing around a bougie gallery, looking pleased with themselves. Suddenly, the Spirit Cooking sorceress materializes in a red dress.

I believe the art of the future is art without objects, Abramovi narrates. There is always this great ideal of immortality. Once you die, the work of art will never die. Here, I am kept forever.

The ad may be as tacky as it is sinister, but you dont have to be a crazed dot-connector to see the profound symbolism. Its merely one expression of an increasingly influential worldview.

Incidentally, both Microsoft and Facebook are among the many partners at the XR Association whove joined forces to manifest the Metaverse in our daily lives from basic infrastructure to spirituality. Google, Sony, and HTC are also leaders in the effort. Immersive technology will play a vital role in Americas drive to Build Back Better, the XRA website promises. Over the course of the next decade, the physical and digital worlds will merge at an unprecedented scale.

While citizens bicker over vaccine mandates and debt ceilings, Big Tech is crafting a parallel universe for a new breed of humans to inhabit. Right now, the magic mirrors used to enter that world are touchscreens in our palms. In the coming years, well be wearing them on our foreheads. Each of us will be free to spiral off into our own inconsequential reality, playing make-believe in the shadow of a homogenizing corporate umbrella. It will be heaven on earth.

Maybe you dont buy that story, and thats fine. Dont worry about it! If Zuckerbergs proposed universal basic income is sufficiently generous, the powers that be will just buy it for you.

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Mark Zuckerberg Is Planting The First Church Of The Metaverse - The Federalist

President Joe Biden is reportedly considering naming Ezekiel Emanuel, who clearly stated that he doesnt believe older people contribute to society and that he wants to die by 75, to head the Food and Drug Administration as its permanent commissioner, Politico reports.

Emanuel, 63, served as an adviser on Bidens campaign before joining the new administrations COVID-19 advisory board. During his time there, he called for prolonged lockdowns to fight COVID-19.

Politico notes that Emanuel has little experience in drug policymaking and has never worked at FDA, but claims that he is in the running for the top position after years of appealing to Democrats and their agenda.

Hes won allies within the administration due to his background aiding the Obama administration, health policy vision and broader knowledge of the government, the article stated.

Emanuel built his reputation with Democrats and Biden after previously leading the Obama administration in their efforts to create the Affordable Care Act. Emanuel appears to have found long-lasting favor with Biden and his team such as the scandal-plagued Dr. Anthony Fauci who Politico claims is one of the oncologists biggest backers.

The White House denied that Emanuel is being considered for the position, but Politico said that Emanuel did not rule out being interested in the job if approached.

The article also noted how other potential candidates will face confirmation battles in the Senate that they probably cant win.

Bidens push to choose an FDA commissioner comes as the agency is evaluating whether to offer full approval for the COVID-19 shot. Emanuel previously urged institutions such as universities and healthcare facilities to mandate the virus vaccine.

Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.

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Guy Who Thinks You Should Die At 75 Wants To Take Over FDA - The Federalist

A summer Learning Guide published by Fairfax County Public Schools in Northern Virginia is teaching anti-police rhetoric to second graders. According to a whistleblowers copy published by Parents Defending Education, this years guide promotes a video from Woke Kindergarten that claims, I feel safe when there are no police.

Under a list of suggested texts, the six-page document recommends YouTube videos by Ki, the creator of Woke Kindergarten. The first suggested video is entitled Safe by Ki (Woke Kindergarten 60 second text). It starts by saying, We all deserve to feel safe. However, the video quickly becomes political.

I feel safe when Im with my dogs. I feel safe when Im with my partner. I feel safe when Im with my friends. I feel safe when people listen to my feelings. I feel safe when there are no police, the video says. It attempts to normalize anti-police rhetoric, by telling impressionable young children that its just as reasonable to feel safe around dogs as it is to feel unsafe around police.

Its no ones job to tell me how I feel, the video concludes. But its everyones job to make sure that people who are being treated unfairly feel safe too.

As the narrator speaks, the video shows young protesters holding signs that say, Racism Isnt Born, Its Taught and Black Lives Matter, a reference to the leftist organization connected to rioters who attacked and destroyed businesses across America last summer.

Fairfax County Public Schools summer learning guide also suggests a second video, called Good Trouble by Ki (Woke Kindergarten 60 second text). This video tells young children, Sometimes its good to get into trouble. Its good when you are protecting your friends. Its good when you are showing that you care about peoples lives.

It also displays an image of anti-gun rights March For Our Lives protestors, implying that its okay for kids to break the law if theyre supporting left-wing movements. The video invokes the legacy of civil rights leader John Lewis, in an attempt to suggest that the civil rights movement of the 1960s is analogous to todays left-wing politicking.

Necessary change has to happen, in order for Black and Indigenous people to be free. Which is why [John Lewis] kept getting into good trouble, until he couldnt anymore, the video claims. Now its our turn. We can get into good trouble.

Parents Defending Education points out, Some critics have noted that the concept of good trouble is confusing for second graders as they are also being taught, I feel safe when there are no police. Not only are second graders being taught that law enforcement is evil, but theyre also being implicitly encouraged to break the law.

According to Woke Kindergartens own website, pushing leftism is exactly the point of these videos. Woke Kindergarten creator Ki self-describes as an ardent radical. Ki (they/them) is an abolitionist early educator, coach, consultant and creative entrepreneur currently innovating ways to unlearn, heal, liberate and create with their pedagogy, Woke Kindergarten, Kis bio says. The website alsotouts a commitment to abolitionist early education and pro-Black liberation.

The language of abolitionist suggests Woke Kindergarten is dedicated to eradicating Americas law enforcement. The sites Woke Wonderings page displays a series of infographics, which gear anti-police rhetoric toward children.

If we abolished the police, what else could we do to keep people in the world safe? one image asks, unintentionally acknowledging that police do, indeed, keep people safe. Abolish means to get rid of for good, another image says. When we abolish something, we stop it from existing.

Woke Kindergarten also publishes Woke Read Alouds for small children, as well as woke words of the day like protest and abolish.

This is the organization whose materials are being recommended to Virginia children. Parents are sending their tax dollars and more importantly, their children to Fairfax County Public Schools, whose summer reading materials encourage students to defy the law and fear those who serve in blue. And this is just the latest, as critical race theory persists in American schools.

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Video From Fairfax Public Schools: 'I Feel Safe When There Are No Police' - The Federalist

Spoilers are included in this podcast.

On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, Federalist Publisher Ben Domenech joins Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to share his thoughts on movies such as The Father, Old, and Pig and explain how they capture the current cultural angst.

One thing thats in common with all of these movies that were gonna be talking about is that you can either buy them or rent them on early access on Amazon or through a few other different streaming places so you can see all of these if youre in a space where the theaters are still restricted and not showing that many non-big-budget movies, Domenech said.

Unfortunately, the big-budget movies of the moment, particularly, I would say Black Widow, have really disappointed people who were looking forward to them. They have not lived up to in any way, I think, what folks were hoping to be able to get back to when it came to the theater experience, he added.

These three films were not necessarily made on big budgets, Jashisnky points out, but portray a larger trend of mid-budget movies that will outperform their budgets and are going to be sort of that sweet spot for streamers and even for box office films.

A lot of these big tentpole movies are gonna have to seek out new IP orrejigger things. Were gonna get newapproaches to the X-Men. Therell be reboots and things like that, but that also leaves an opening in this time ofkind of the streaming uptick to have a lot of these mid-budgetand low-budget films that just have a couple of recognizable actors and lean more on the writing, potentially have more success, Domenech said.

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Podcast: Three New Movies That Capture Cultural Angst - The Federalist

Margot Clevelands recent article here in The Federalist asserted Texas Gov. Greg Abbotts recent executive order barring the transportation of foreign nationals by non-official actors to limit the spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19 was not authorized under constitutional principles or federal law.

Cleveland asserts Abbotts order is illegal because it interfered with federal immigration authority and that its foundation in state public health law was irrelevant. Cleveland also contends that there is nothing [Gov.] Abbott or state and local officials can do about the Biden administrations complete disregard for the security of our southern border.

Respectfully, Clevelands statements are constitutionally inaccurate, reflect common misunderstandings of the basic principles that anchor our republic, and are arguably negligent from a public safety perspective.

The foundational flaw in this argument is rejecting the dual and mutually supportive concepts of state sovereignty and federalism. Bluntly stated, the American states are sovereign entities, not provinces. Our system is structurally and fundamentally different than virtually almost every other national governmental structure in the world.

Because our states are sovereigns with their own constitutions, laws, and obligations to their citizens and not mere appendages of our federal government, they are authorized to wield substantial, non-symbolic power within their own territories. An assertion that states function in a realm of permission-based or symbolic authority is just flat wrong.

State sovereignty, and the voter-based power that grants that sovereignty, is in turn an essential component of federalism, which provides the checks and balances that guard our freedoms. Remember, there are two crucial types of federalism at work in our system: horizontal federalism and vertical federalism. When most Americans talk of federalism, they are likely talking about horizontal federalism, the three branches of the federal government, the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. These coequal branches ostensibly keep each other in check and prevent overreach.

But vertical federalism is just as important as horizontal federalism, if not more so. The same checks-and-balances philosophy behind the three-branch design of our federal government is no less a part of the interaction between state governments and the federal government.

The Founders, who created the federal government to benefit the states, did not think states would just behave like pieces of a centralized government. They fully banked on states jealously guarding their power and pushing back against federal overreach as needed. Indeed, the odds are pretty good that the U.S. Constitution would never have been ratified at all if the states had been told they were voluntarily ceding their states powers to a centralized government.

Applied to the situation at hand, state sovereignty and vertical federalism absolutely authorize Abbott and any other governor Republican, Democrat, or other to serve their citizens within the boundaries of their state constitutions, laws, and obligations. Here, we have what is state government leadership issuing an instruction to state-funded officials to protect the public health of state citizens in a situation where the federal government has opted out of its obligations to do so.

An assertion that the constitutional doctrine of preemption, which prohibits states from functioning in areas exclusively reserved for federal action, prohibits Abbotts order is not only inaccurate, but also raises important questions about what happens when the federal government asserts preemptive authority but then abdicates that authority. Call it dormant overreach.

In her article, Cleveland notes the Biden administrations Department of Justice argued in federal court that Abbotts order violates the Supremacy Clause because it disrupts federal immigration operations in Texas. Most Texans would find that argument somewhat comical in that, by most accounts, there is virtually no immigration enforcement taking place in Texas, or anywhere else along the United States-Mexico border, for that matter. The Biden administrations argument is the intellectual equivalent of a pilot steering a plane into the ground while preventing someone from trying to rescue the flight by claiming that only the pilot is authorized to fly the plane.

Cleveland also implies that Texass most meaningful or even only role here is to highlight the hypocrisy of the Biden administration and eventually win some sort of national conversation. She is correct to say that the Biden administration is engaging in rank hypocrisy by unleashing hundreds of thousands of potentially COVID-19-positive foreign nationals on American soil while pushing for new rights-inhibiting restrictions of American citizens.

Nevertheless, it is inaccurate to say that a states job in the face of federal abuse is to win a messaging fight but otherwise stand down and wait for federal rescue. This perspective approaches negligent disregard because it is essentially arguing state and local governments have no role in public safety when our federal government is failing to ensure the publics safety.

The Biden administrations damaging conduct is obvious to most Americans, but Texas and other states are not bystanders in this war for Americans safety, security, and primacy. The Constitution is not a suicide pact. The solutions that lay ahead will require more aggressive assertion of state sovereignty, more aggressive state action to protect their citizens, and a more thorough understanding and appreciation of what our Constitution not only allows, but requires.

John A. Zadrozny serves as the director of America First Policy Institute's Center for Homeland Security and Immigration. Prior to joining AFPI, Zadrozny served in several roles in the Trump administration, including most recently as deputy assistant to the president in the Office of the Senior Advisor for Policy.

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Texas Has An Obligation To Protect Its Citizens With Border Enforcement - The Federalist

A judge in Texas granted full custody of a nine-year-old boy to his mother, who for the past several years has sought to force the child to be transgender despite protests by the boys father.

Anne Georgulas, a pediatrician in Coppell, Texas, was granted full custody on Tuesday to James Younger, her son, by Democrat Judge Mary Brown. Georgulas will assume full responsibility for the boys medications, extracurricular activities, education, primary residence, and counseling. The ruling also permits the mother to withhold information regarding Youngers extracurricular activities, school functions, school enrollment, counseling, and medical care from the father, Jeff Younger.

Georgulas and her ex-husband have sparred in the public eye over their sons sex. Georgulas refers to James as Luna, and believes the biological boy to be a female. Younger disagrees, saying James chooses to present himself as a boy at his house, even though he keeps feminine clothes in his sons closet as an option.

The Facebook page Save James, which has eclipsed a following of close to 39,000 people since launching years back, denounced the memorandum last Wednesday.

Judge Mary Brown ruled against the safety and protection of James and Jude, the page wrote. Supervised visitation with their own dad at Jeffs expense. As of today, no communication with their beloved daddy! Dr. Fletchers dishonest report has prompted Anne to file an Ex Parte Temporary Restraining order to prevent Jeff from seeing or even speaking with his sons. The child abusers say James and Jude are afraid of Jeff! PRAY!

While Georgulas was given custody, there are limitations in place. Although she is granted the ability to consent to medical procedures, hormone-suppression therapy, puberty blockers, and reassignment surgery, or gender mutilation, are not included in this umbrella. The mother argues that her son expressed a desire to be called Luna but Jeff claims to have footage disproving this claim.

The prior orders that Ms. Georgulas must notify Mr. Younger of doctors, counseling, or mental health appointments, or extracurricular activities for the children are lifted, the court document states. In an effort to ensure the emotional well-being and physical safety of the children, the court orders that all of Mr. Youngers possession periods shall be continuously supervised by Forensic Counseling Services. at Mr. Youngers sole cost and expense.

In a hearing a month ago, Georgulas claimed her sons sex was not the primary force behind the custody case. She accused Jeff of bad parenting abilities, which evidently succeeded given that the court found Jeff failed to timely make the payments of child support, medical support and interest as ordered and only paid his past due support after the motion for enforcement was filed.

Jeffs attorney, however, argued that Georgulas team seeks to downplay the significance of the trans-issue.

To downplay that this is but for the gender issue is absolutely misleading and wrong, attorney David Hanschen said. This is all about the gender issue in this case. And its about the parents ability to cope with and deal with this situation.

A jury in Dallas ruled 11 to 1 in October 2019 to not grant Jeff sole conservatorship of James and his brother. Georgulas then filed a petition in court to try and mandate her ex-husband refer to their son as a female. Republicans in Texas introduced a measure in May to prohibit child sex mutilation, but it failed and was not scheduled in the House.

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Judge Awards Full Custody Of James Younger To Mother Who Wants To Transition Him - The Federalist

Selena Gomez doesnt want to be mocked. Nobody really does. But Gomez and her fans are mobilizing to scold a show that made a one-second quip about her kidney transplant.

The line wasnt even really about Gomez. In a discussion on cancel culture, characters on The Good Fight were listing off topics that cant be joked about, like necrophilia, autism, and Selena Gomezs kidney transplant.

The writing was meta, and Gomez is proving it right. As Buzzfeed notes, The joke was likely a reference to a 2020episode of the Saved By The Bell reboot that included a joke about the singers 2017 transplant, which she received as part of her treatment for lupus, recalling that Gomezs fans called the show cruel and disgusting after the joke aired.

On Tuesday, the former Disney star tweeted, I am not sure how writing jokes about organ transplants for television shows has become a thing but sadly it has apparently. I hope in the next writers room when one of these tasteless jokes are presented its called out immediately and doesnt make it on air.

Ashley Tisdale added to the pile-on, instructing the writers togo back to school to come up with something clever and actually funny.

With their misdirected opprobrium, Gomez and her not-so-merry band of keyboard warriors are proving the joke right. It was about cancel culture, not Gomez. Whats hilarious is that one of the Good Fight characters actually asks in the same scene, Do you think we could get canceled for even joking about being canceled?

The answer, of course, is yes, and for two key reasons illustrated by this exceptionally silly controversy. Social media conditions us to publish and then amplify our emotional reflexes, which boosts hot takes over cooler ones tempered by, say, a 10-second pause. Worse, entertainment medias overcorrection from the frenzied tabloid days of the aughts means celebrities increasingly feel entitled to friendly treatment.

They weaponize mental health awareness and stan culture, a trend itself fueled by alienation and dystopian tech, to police the media into compliance. Its a repulsive display of elite entitlement, but the entertainment media rolls right along with it.

Next month, well have been without Joan Rivers for seven long years. While Rivers may have regretted an Elizabeth Taylor joke or two, she justified her constant mockery of celebrities by pointing out that their vast wealth and privilege made them fair game. Yoko Ono? The woman has $250 million, and right now shes screeching somewhere and making a record, Rivers said nearly 40 years ago when pressed by ABC over her cruel comments. Liz Taylor? I dont think its cruel when the woman is the most beautiful woman in the world, one of the wealthiest women, and is still a star of great magnitude, she said.

Im cruel to big guys, but Ill make sure Im nice to room service who cant answer me back, Rivers added. I dont care if Elizabeth Taylor is unhappy. I do care if a little lady thats driving an elevator is upset by something I said to her.

A climate in which comedy writers and tabloids are hesitant to mock and criticizecelebrities is a climate that allows celebrities to shield themselves from the unwashed masses, growing their fortunes and their power more easily thanks to disproportionately kind treatment. (Chrissy Teigen is Exhibit A.)

Of course its okay to mock Selena Gomezs kidney transplant. Im sure there are legitimately inappropriate ways to mock her kidney transplant, but mocking about whether or not its okay to mock certainly isnt one of them. Nor is the lukewarm exchange from Saved By The Bell where characters speculate about who Gomezs donor was. Not only is it okay to make those jokes, its healthy. The notion that mild jokes at the expense of a celebritys medical condition are off-limits does the bidding of elites who are manipulating the public into protecting them.

Elizabeth Taylor was reportedly hurt by Rivers many jokes at her expense. Gomez may, indeed, have been legitimately hurt by these gentle sitcom barbs. If thats the case, it wasnt the fault of The Good Fight writers.

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How Selena Gomez Is Manipulating People Into Protecting Her Privilege - The Federalist

Federalist Publisher Ben Domenech explained that children and the families who raise them are the bedrock of our communities and make our country great during Fox News Primetime on Wednesday.

Domenech began by pointing out that todays woke leftist hate many, many things: the Constitution, Donald Trump, Fox News, comedy, and, of course, you. Domenech continued, There was really one thing that woke socialist progressives seem to hate more than anything else, before answering: Thats babies.

Domenech decried the industrialized murder of 60 million unborn infants and said the left just doesnt take their problems out on Americas kids. Their problem seems to be that there are American kids at all.

Radical environmentalists regard children as enemies of the climate. Corporate elites see babies as expensive competitors for the time, attention, and creativity of professional women, which they apparently feel should belong exclusively to them. Critical race theory con men suggest that babies become racist as early as three months old, Domenech said. Radical feminists have built their entire brand around de-prioritizing family life and shaming happy moms as sellouts to the patriarchy.

Progressives hate babies because theyre crying, drooling, pooping refutations of everything woke leftists believe, Domenech continued. Boys and girls are the answer to the lefts every argument, and the antidote to their poisonous lie. For instance, he said, parents learn the hard way that sex is not a social construct. Social constructs dont pee on you while you are giving them a bath.

Children possess many virtues and are much more than the helpless timid victims the leftist people say they are, and so are we, Domenech said. Thats the lefts real problem with children.

Children make families. Boys turn into men. Couples turn into parents, and women become the archangels we call moms. Just as the founders envisioned, America is a place where every child, no matter where they started, has limitless potential and spark of divine.

Children are also crucial for building communities. The more attention we pay to our families, the more time we spend with other families at playdates, little league games, church picnics, school plays children dont just turn individuals into families, they also pull families into communities.

Leftism is an ideology of fear, grievance, and affected helplessness, Domenech continued, explaining why leftism is so hostile to families.Every year on Mothers Day the media is filled with one article after another by childless writers defending their childlessness. On Fathers Day, dads have long been similarly held up as objects of correction and ridicule. These sad people protest too much, and they are not convincing anyone.

Kids love America, and they inspire us to make her ever more worthy of their love. Parents teach their children how to be good. The children teach their parents how to be great. Together they make America both, Domenech concluded. This is not something you have to do. This is something you get to do.

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Domenech: Here's Why Babies Are Great And Why The Left Hates Them - The Federalist

This article contains disturbing information about medical experimentation on humans.

Another week, another discovery that the U.S. government attempted to cover up scientific experiments on viable babieswith by far the most condemning evidence yet and increasing calls for federal investigation. On Monday, Judicial Watch and David Daleidens Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released the details of a $3 million grant the National Institutes of Health (NIH) gave the University of Pittsburgh to create a fetal Tissue Hub to dismember and distribute the organs of full-term aborted babies, selected by race, for inhumane experiments.

As if that wasnt appalling enough, new evidence points to the University of Pittsburgh harvesting organs from born-alive babies as a real possibilitymeaning the babies would have died while researchers dissected their bodies for kidneys and other organs.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently handed over the documents thanks to a lawsuit Judicial Watch filed last year on behalf of CMP when the agency failed to deliver records CMP requested through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Last month, Daleidens group exposed the University of Pittsburghs work to graft the full-thickness scalps of unborn babies onto the backs of rodents in a study funded by Anthony Faucis NIAID office. The records released this week reveal this wasnt a one-off incident, unearthing an agreement between NIH and the university to fully operationalize a grotesque baby organ bank funded by federal taxpayers.

As just discovered this week, the specific terms of the grant were to develop a pipeline to the acquisition, quality control and distribution of human babies from all levels of development right up to the age of birth.The University of Pittsburghs grant application to the NIH requests funding to generate an ongoing resource to fetal tissue from babies 6 to 42 weeks old by establishing itself as the Tissue Hub and Collection Site for the GUDMAP project. The project supplies researchers across the country with aborted kidneys, bladders, and other organs for experimentation.

The series of grants, running from 2015 into May 2021, propose that fetal collections can be significantly ramped up from previous yearseffectively making the university a base for harvesting and distributing baby tissue.

Pittsburgh claims it has been collecting fetal tissue in enormous volumes for more than a decade, including liver, heart, gonads, legs, brain and kidneys, ureters and bladders. In 2015 alone, it distributed over 300 fresh samples collected from 77 cases and as many as 725 cases the year prior. Its reasonable to assume that this number exponentially increased, since their stated target goal is to have a minimum of five cases of tissue per week for ages 6 to 42 weeks. Thats at least one baby per day.

On Wednesday, the University of Pittsburghs spokesman dodged multiple accusations that the organs of born-alive babies were being harvested, possibly indicating that federally funded researchers at the university harvested babies kidneys from their bodies while their hearts were still beating.

The spokesman told Fox News the researchers aimed to minimize what scientists call the warm ischemia time, or in the words of the NIH, the time [an] organremains at body temperature after its blood supply has been reduced or cut off. The Pitt spokesman confirmed Wednesday this was in fact the time after tissue was collected and distributed: Ischemia time, he said refers to the time after the tissue collection procedure and before cooling for storage and transport.

The Center for Medical Progress explained this could mean the organs are still receiving blood supply from the fetal heartbeat during tissue collection. This means the spokesmans quotes affirm the possibility these babies are being delivered alive and killed by the process of organ harvesting.

The university divulged in the grant application that their method of organ-harvesting, evidenced by record[ing] the warm ischemic time, ensures high-quality specimens, but did not go into further detail and in fact redacted several portions of the document.

The NIH project admitted it used inducing labor as a procedure, almost surely meaning babies who could survive outside the womb were harvested by a barbaricand illegallate-term abortion method. Pittsburgh outlines what abortion procedures are used to obtain specimens, including dilation and curettage, dilation and evacuation, and labor induction.

Physicians attending to mothers who donate the tissue of their aborted child retain the responsibility for determining the procedure to be used for termination of the pregnancy. Given that Pitts emphasis is on high quality tissue samples, the likelihood labor induction and partial-birth abortion win out as the procedures of choice is high, as organs are usually mutilated through D&C or D&E abortions but more likely to be preserved intact if the baby is delivered whole.

Pittsburgh also specified they select aborted babies by race in order to fill diversity quotas to ensure researchers had plentiful African American and Hispanic specimens to experiment on. Pittsburgh informed the NIH their proposal sets a racial target for harvesting organs from African American, Hispanic, and Asian babies, setting a goal that 50 percent of their tissue supply come from minority fetuses; 25 percent of which would be harvested from African-American women.

The proposal reasons that harvesting tissue from an appropriate racial mix of babies is necessary because Pittsburgh is a racially mixed metropolis, but the numbers say otherwise. Allegheny County, Pittsburghs chief metropolitan zone, reflects this disparity with a population close to 80 percent white and a nationally representative 13 percent black.

The university defended itself on Wednesday by insisting it wanted to reflect the inclusion of women and minorities.

The known facts in this case should be enough to get the attention of the federal authorities and elected officials responsible for ending this nightmare. In a press statement this week, Daleiden called for the Senate Judiciary Committee to bring any involved, including NIH Director Francis Collins, Fauci, and representatives of the University of Pittsburgh and Planned Parenthood, to faceimperative scrutiny for the enabling of partial-birth abortions and infanticide in the government-sponsored human trafficking of aborted infants.

On Friday, Pennsylvania state Rep. Kathy Rapp heightened calls to investigate the University of Pittsburgh with a request that the states auditor general conduct a thorough investigation of all state and federal funds. U.S. Republican Senate candidate Sean Parnell joined in, noting that If these allegations are true that scientists at the University of Pittsburgh were harvesting kidneys of unborn babies while their hearts were still beating, they should not only have their taxpayer funding immediately suspended, everyone involved should face criminal charges.

Our government has not been simply complicit in this atrocity, it has helped instigate it. The University of Pittsburgh and NIH owe American taxpayers complete transparency, including the unredacted release of all related documents to account for these revelations. Its beyond time these atrocities are publicly answered for, and to the fullest extent possible.

Edie Heipel works at the Center for Renewing America. She previously worked at the White House Office of Management and Budget under President Trump.

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Federal Grants Sponsored Baby Harvesting At University Of Pittsburgh - The Federalist

Rihanna began trending on Twitter yesterday afterForbes revealed that the 33-year-old singer,fashion designer, and beauty mogul is now worth 1.7 billion dollars and isthe richest female musician on earth.

The news has sparked a fiery debate on eat the rich Twitter, revealing that the white privilege and systemic racism narrative is a lie and that authentic leftists dont really care about black female success.

The debate over whether its okay for Rihanna to be a billionaire highlights the tension between the white privilege lie and the reality of the American Dream. Narratives of systemic, racial, and gender inequality are the lefts path to socialism. If inequity is based on immutable qualities, then our entire American system needs to go.

Now RIHdistribute it ? https://t.co/E0FoK1QXjA

— Lakyn Thee Stylist (@OgLakyn) August 4, 2021

The path from white privilege to socialism is summed up nicely by Federalist senior contributor Georgi Boorman:

White privilege theory seeks equality of outcome, not merely the equal dispensation of individual justice. That goal can only be reached by redistribution policies that violate the principle of local governance, treat people as ethnic units, limit individuals opportunities based on race, suppress freedom of speech, and restrict the freedom to keep and control ones own money.

To the ideological leaders of the left, the Bernie Sanderses and the AOCs, Rihannas success is one of the greatest threats to their movement because she is everything an accomplished American person cant be: a black woman with a rocky start to life.

Interestingly, some leftists are giving the popular R&B star a pass.

These socialists are struggling to join their comrades in hating Rihanna. Since so many people have bought into the systemic racism narrative, they see Rihanna as someone subverting the system, and naturally, they want to cheer her on. This inability to eat Rihanna, as they would like to eat the rest of the billionaire class, is a result of the white privilege lie: They want to celebrate her success because of her race and sex.

Rihanna’s billionaire announcement happening the day after Black Women’s Equal Pay Day is a different kind of satisfaction? (although i’m sure she would have hit billionionairism -with the amount of success she’s had- sooner if she wasn’t a Black woman.)

— freddie ransome (@Ransome_Note) August 4, 2021

The people who refuse to be happy for her know the systemic racism narrative is simply a means to their desired end. Everything about Rihanna, from her sex to her skin color, and especially her upbringing, troubles the left.

Rihanna has one of the most incredible modern rags-to-riches stories. She grew up poor in a three-bedroom bungalow in Bridgetown, Barbados, where she sold clothes with her father in a stall on the street. Her father was an alcoholic and crack cocaine addict, and he physically abused her mother.

Rihanna struggled with excruciatingly painful headaches for several years during her childhood. She even had multiple CT scans for her headaches, recalling, The doctors even thought it was a tumor because it was that intense. After her parents divorced when she was 14, her health improved.

Growing up, she listened to reggae, American hip-hop, and R&B. When she was as young as 7, Rihanna began idolizing American singers like Madonna and Janet Jackson and dreamed of becoming a star herself.

As a young teen, Rihanna formed a girl group with two of her friends and was discovered by Evan Rogers, an American record producer. Rogers helped Rihanna record a demo that led to an audition with Jay-Z, who was the head of Def Jam Recordings.

Jay-Z signed Rihanna in 2005, and her music career skyrocketed. She has won nine Grammys, 13 American Music Awards, and eight Billboard Music Awards. Rihannas music, however, only accounts for a small percent of her wealth. Her money was made via her business ventures in beauty and fashion.

In the early 2010s, Rihanna began collaborating on several cosmetics collections until she launched her own line, Fenty Beauty, in 2017. Fenty Beauty, known for offering 40 different shades of foundation at its launch (now grown to 50), was an instant success.

In 2018, Rihanna launched Savage X Fenty, a lingerie brand with designs that include a wide variety of sizes and shades to match all skin tones. In 2019, she partnered with LVMH Mot Hennessy Louis Vuitton to create the Fenty fashion line.

Shes also begun dipping her toes into acting, with major roles in Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017), Oceans 8 (2018), and Guava Island (2019).

From her humble beginning to her rise to fame and fortune, Rihanna is truly the embodiment of the American Dream, a bona fide self-made woman who capitalized on her remarkable talents. She deserves praise not because she is black and female, but because of her smarts, talent, and resiliency despite her rocky childhood.

No one should be anything but happy for Rihanna. If youre not, youre either jealous or a radical leftist watching your entire carefully constructed narrative of the gender pay gap, white guilt, and systemic racism fall apart at the seams.

Evita Duffy is an intern at The Federalist, co-founder of the Chicago Thinker, and a senior at the University of Chicago. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1

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Rihanna Is Now A Billionaire And Leftists Don't Know What To Do - The Federalist