“One thing about freedom is, freedom doesn’t have to be practical or have a study to say why you should have to have freedom,” Paul said.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) joined “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Friday to describe his tense exchange with Dr. Anthony Fauci during a congressional hearing earlier in the week.
During the Senate hearing, Paul had asked Fauci what the scientific justification was to wear two masks when one has already been vaccinated, even as new variants are supposedly appearing.
“There was no scientific evidence presented. There was Dr. Fauci’s opinion, his conjecture, that someday there might be a variant that escapes the control of the vaccine and becomes a pandemic and hospitalizes and kills people, but there’s no evidence that it has happened,” Paul told host Tucker Carlson. “He thinks it might happen, so you need to wear the mask until he is sure that things that might happen are not going to happen.”
“But see, the thing is Dr. Fauci is very blasé and unconcerned about liberty, but I think the burden should be on the government to prove it. If they want to dictate mine and your behavior, the burden is on them to present the evidence,” Paul said.
“So I said, is there evidence that some new variant, some new strain of COVID is now hospitalizing and killing hundreds or even thousands of people in the United States?” Paul continued. “And the evidence is zero. So I think the government when they tell you something like you should be six feet apart, or three feet apart — if they’re going to mandate this behavior that you can’t have anybody in the booth next to you in the restaurant when they mandate these behaviors, it’s incumbent upon them, the burden should be they have to show us the proof.”
Paul, a practicing physician, explained how nonsensical Fauci’s mask-wearing “theater” was when he was already vaccinated.
“There is no proof that when you’ve been vaccinated, or when you’ve gotten the disease naturally, that you are spreading it. If there were, it would be all over the news,” he said. “There are no news reports and no scientific studies saying that after vaccination, that there’s some sort of widespread contagion that people vaccinated are spreading the disease. It’s just not true.”
“What Fauci won’t tell you is that he is telling you a noble lie,” Paul added. “He’s lying to you because he doesn’t think we’re smart enough to make decisions.”
“One thing about freedom is, freedom doesn’t have to be practical or have a study to say why you should have to have freedom,” he said. “They need to study and scientific proof to show us why we shouldn’t have freedom. I shouldn’t have to prove that I want to be free and I want to be left alone in order to breathe the air.”
‘This new platform is going to be big, drawing tens of millions of people’
Former President Donald Trump will return to social media in a few months, but it won’t be on an existing platform. Trump will instead create “his own platform” that will “completely redefine the game,” according to one of his top aides.
In Trump’s final month as president, Twitter permanently banned him for tweets that were deemed as “incitement of violence” in relation to the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol building by Trump supporters. Trump was then suspended from Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, and Shopify.
Trump has been relatively quiet since he was banished from the largest social media platforms. What few communications Trump has delivered since Jan. 20 have been statements released through his “Office of the Former President” in Palm Beach County, Florida.
Jason Miller, a former spokesman and senior adviser for Trump’s campaign, teased how and when the 45th president would return to social media. Speaking to Fox News’ “Media Buzz,” Miller proclaimed that Trump will return to social media on his own platform.
“I do think we’re going to see President Trump returning to social media in probably about two or three months here with his own platform,” Miller teased. “This is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media.”
“It’s going to completely redefine the game, and everybody is going to be waiting and watching to see what exactly President Trump does, but it will be his own platform,” Miller told host Howard Kurtz.
Miller did not provide specifics as to the new social media platform or even the name of the project, but he said that Trump has been holding “a lot of high-powered meetings” at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Miller added that “numerous companies” have approached Trump regarding the potential venture.
“This new platform is going to be big,” Miller proclaimed. “Everyone wants him and he’s going to bring millions and millions — tens of millions — to this platform.”
Based on social media comments, the early favorite for the name of Trump’s social media platform is “Trumpet.”
BREAKING: Trump Senior Adviser @JasonMillerinDC says President Trump will likely return to social media in 2-3 months on his own social media platform that will “completely redefine the game” pic.twitter.com/IZCT6ryqFw
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — The Jesuit priest who presided over an inaugural Mass for President Joe Biden is under investigation for unspecified allegations and is on leave from his position as president of Santa Clara University in Northern California, according to a statement from the college’s board of trustees.
Rev. Kevin O’Brien allegedly “exhibited behaviors in adult settings, consisting primarily of conversations, which may be inconsistent with established Jesuit protocols and boundaries,” according to the statement by John M. Sobrato, the board chairman.
O’Brien gave the service at Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, one of the most prominent Catholic churches in Washington, in January for Biden, who is the nation’s second Catholic president, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris, their families and elected officials before the inauguration ceremony at the U.S. Capitol.
O’Brien also presided over services for Biden’s inaugurations as vice president.
The priest has known Biden’s family for about 15 years, according to the university. O’Brien was then serving at Georgetown University, another Jesuit college. O’Brien has been president of Santa Clara University since July 2019.
Sobrato’s statement, posted Monday to the university’s website, did not specify the allegations against O’Brien but said the trustees “support those who came forward to share their accounts.”
Sobrato said that while O’Brien is on leave, the priest will be cooperating with the independent investigation, with conclusions to be shared with the Santa Clara University Board of Trustees. O’Brien didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tracey Primrose, spokeswoman for the Jesuits West Province, which is overseeing the investigation, did not elaborate on the investigations to The Mercury News.
“Jesuits are held to a professional code of conduct, and the Province investigates allegations that may violate or compromise established boundaries,” Primrose told the newspaper.
Primrose did not immediately respond to The Associated Press’ request for comment Thursday night.
O’Brien joined the Society of Jesus in 1996, according to the university, and was ordained to the priesthood in 2006.
Located in Silicon Valley, the Jesuit institution has an annual undergraduate enrollment of roughly 5,500 students. Ranked as one of the top 25 schools for undergraduate teaching nationwide, the private university has a million-dollar endowment and counts California Govs. Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown among its alumni.
Former President Donald Trump mocked President Joe Biden on Friday for having fallen while climbing the stairs to Air Force One.
“I watched as Joe Biden went up the stairs today … and I said, ‘I didn’t lose to him,’ which we didn’t lose to him,” Trump said in video depicting him at a podium at his Mar-a-Lago resort. “Almost 75 million votes and probably a lot more than that.”
WATCH:
Former President Trump responds to President #BidenFall
“I watch as Joe Biden went up the stairs today and I said ‘I didn’t lose to him,’ which we didn’t lose to him. Almost 75 million votes and probably a lot more than that”
(Crux) ROME – In attempting to solve any problem, one might face two very different challenges. The first is when almost no one else even recognizes there is a problem, and, when they’re told, they remain skeptical. The other is when people know there’s a problem, but don’t quite understand its scope and details.
The former challenge, naturally, is by far the more daunting.
According to the most recent survey by Aid to the Church in Need, when it comes to American Catholic attitudes about anti-persecution around the world, the landscape has shifted – Catholics in the U.S. now appreciate there’s a severe persecution of Christians around the world, even if they still come up a little short in terms of mastery of the fine points.
Let’s begin with the key background.
Anti-Christian persecution is one of the most dramatic human rights scourges of our time. Though statistics vary widely, the low-end estimate for the number of new Christian martyrs every year in the early 21st century is around 6,000 to 7,000, while the highest-end accounting puts it at 100,000. That works out to somewhere between one Christian killed for the faith every hour, to one every five minutes. Whatever the actual number, it’s a death toll of staggering proportions.
Beyond fatalities, watchdog groups estimate that 200 million Christians around the world are at risk, facing daily threats of harassment, physical assault, arrest, imprisonment and torture.
Of course, Christians must be concerned about the violation of anyone’s human rights, not just their own, and it’s not as if Christian blood is somehow more valuable than that of Jews, or Buddhists, or anyone else. The point is rather that Christians are suffering on a larger scale, in part because they’re simply more numerous and more exposed than other vulnerable constituencies.
Yet for years, Christians in the West, including Catholics, seemed largely unaware of that carnage. In part, that may be because most Christians in the affluent West have never personally experienced persecution; in part, it may be because claims of “anti-Christian persecution” in the West sometimes seem political and therefore largely unthreatening, like when a judge rules that a public facility such as a county courthouse can’t have a nativity set – annoying, sure, but hardly life or death.
In such a context, it can be challenging for Westerners to grasp that other Christians literally take their lives in their hands every time they go to church, or, for that matter, just walk the street. Whatever the explanation, I can report that when I published my book The Global War on Christians in 2013, the most common question I got from interviewers and people in the pews was, “What war?”
Wednesdays release of the Aid to the Church in Need survey would seem to suggest that’s finally changing.
ACN is a papally-sponsored foundation supporting persecuted Christians around the world, and this is the fourth year it’s conducted a national survey of American Catholics. The poll was carried out by McLaughlin and Associates, a well-connected Republican polling company that did a fair bit of work for the Trump campaign, but this isn’t really a case in which political bias matters much.
Over the first three years, the survey found a consistent but gradual, meaning small, increase in the percentage of American Catholics saying anti-Christian persecution is either “somewhat severe” or “very severe,” but this past year marked a dramatic spike in awareness. In the early 2020 poll, 41 percent of American Catholics described the persecution as “very severe,” but that number jumped to 57 percent in the new survey conducted Feb. 19-26. Combined with the 38 percent who said “somewhat severe,” that leaves only 5 percent of American Catholics in denial.
Granted, the poll also found that most American Catholics aren’t aware that 1,000 primarily Christian under-age girls were abducted and threatened with forcible conversion to Islam in Pakistan last year; that in China, Mass-goers are subject to digital surveillance; that in Nigeria, nearly 3,500 Christians were killed for their faith in 2020; and that in North Korea, being a Christian can carry the death penalty.
Still, the striking increase in American Catholics recognizing the global lay of the land is something to celebrate.
In terms of how to explain it, it’s worth noting that the poll was conducted in the run-up to Pope Francis’s March 5-8 trip to Iraq, which shone a spotlight on the horrors suffered by Iraqi Christians during the period of ISIS occupation of the northern part of the country between 2014 and 2017.
Beyond that, an ACN spokesman suggested a series of factors behind the increase awareness.
More coverage of anti-Christian persecution in the Catholic and Christian media.
Wider coverage of dramatic developments in countries such as Nigeria, where Boko Haram and ISIS West Africa Province remain active, and India, with growing and even deadly hostility toward Christians on the part of extremist Hindus.
Jihadists roaming the Sahel, and awareness of developments in Mozambique.
The Pope speaking out more.
The U.S. bishops’ stepped-up attention to international religious freedom issues.
Whatever the explanation, the fact that U.S. Catholics now seem to clearly perceive the nature of the threat is a significant achievement. No small share of credit must go to organizations such as ACN, which have gone to great lengths to spread the word.
The $64,000 question, of course, is: Now that we know, what are we willing to do?
That’s a question to which one hopes the best minds in American Catholicism will devote some share of their energy and attention, because not only is there a clear humanitarian case for doing do, but it would also seem a basic entry requirement for membership in a global family faith with more than two-thirds of its members today living outside the West, facing circumstances and challenges that most of us can scarcely imagine.
Whatever the case, one thing is clear from the most recent ACN: If American Catholicism fails to mobilize its considerable resources on behalf of suffering Christians around the world, ignorance is no longer an acceptable excuse.
Republican lawmakers are raising concerns that provisions in the sweeping climate bill from top House Democrats would stifle the plastics industry.
One late addition to the nearly 1,000-page piece of legislation, known as the CLEAN Future Act, is meant to curb greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution emitted from the petrochemical facilities that produce plastics or the raw materials used to make plastics.
Most significantly, the bill would impose a temporary pause on air pollution permits needed for approval of new plastics production facilities.
The legislation also directs the Environmental Protection Agency to issue new greenhouse gas and air pollution controls for these facilities within three years, including requiring plastics production plants to use zero-emissions power and improve emissions monitoring.
The EPA regulations must also require any permit for a plastics production facility to be accompanied by an “environmental justice assessment,” which would include consulting with the people who live in the region where the facility would be located, according to the bill.
Several Republicans, during a legislative hearing on the bill Thursday, argued it would dampen the plastics industry at a time when the pandemic exposed a need for more plastic materials for personal protective equipment such as masks and gloves.
Rep. David McKinley, a West Virginia Republican, asked whether the Democrats’ bill would preclude the opening of new facilities such as an under-construction ethane cracker plant being built by Shell near Pittsburgh or a similar plant planned for eastern Ohio.
“Yes, I believe that language would jeopardize future investment into those types of facilities,” said Kevin Sunday, director of government affairs for the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, in response to McKinley’s question.
A new study from a Los Angeles hospital pushes for injecting men with the female sex hormone progesterone to treat COVID-19.
The trial, carried out by pulmonologist Sara Ghandehari of the Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles, recruited 40 male patients hospitalized with COVID-19.
“As an ICU doctor, I was struck by the gender disparity among COVID-19 patients who were very sick, remained in the hospital, and needed ventilators,” she emphasized.
“One group acted as a control sample, for comparison, and received only the standard medical care given at that time for the disease. The experimental group, meanwhile, also received 100-milligram injections of progesterone twice daily for five days during the time they were hospitalized. All the patients were assessed by the team daily for either 15 days or until they were discharged from hospital,” a summary notes.
“While our findings are encouraging for the potential of using progesterone to treat men with COVID-19, our study had significant limitations,” noted Dr. Ghandehari.
She explained how the sample size was relatively small and composed primarily of “White, Hispanic and obese individuals with a moderate burden of other conditions, which serve to increase the risk of worse outcomes.”
“Furthermore, while the trial was randomized and featured a control group, it was also unblinded — meaning that the research team, physicians, and patients all knew who had received the experimental treatment,” The Daily Mail added.
Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska, recorded a temperature as low as -18 degrees Celsius (nearly zero degrees Fahrenheit) in the early morning. A two-day high-level talk between the United States and China has just ended in this frigid place. The high pitch of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “wolf warriors” howl and the weak U.S. response, in contrast, are really worrying.
In short, the U.S. side fell into four traps set ingeniously by the CCP during the talks.
First, the holding of high-level talks between the United States and China is itself a CCP trap.
After Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, Anthony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state spoke with Yang Jiechi, member of the CCP’s Politburo, and President Joe Biden spoke with CCP leader Xi Jinping. Judging from their public statements, each side took a different tone. In fact, as far as the current state of U.S.-China relations is concerned, it is the CCP that has begged the United States to stop the decoupling and sanction. Without substantial proposals (or concessions) from the communist regime, there would be no need for the United States to hold the meeting at all. Before the U.S. administration had any clear policy toward the CCP, it actually “invited” the CCP to come to the talks, falling into the “dialogue trap” set up by the CCP.
In a press conference afterwards, senior Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi said the China-U.S. talks were candid, constructive, and beneficial. “But, of course, there are still differences between the two sides,” he said.
“We came to the meeting with the hope that the two sides could enhance communication and dialogue on different fronts. The two sides should follow the policy of ‘no conflict’ to guide our path toward a healthy and stable trajectory moving forward,” he said.
Secondly, Yang Jiechi broke diplomatic protocol by speaking for 16 minutes, which was eight times longer than usual, and his speech was obviously scripted. In particular, Yang said in his speech, “I don’t think the overwhelming majority of countries in the world would recognize the universal values advocated by the United States or that the viewpoint of the United States could represent international public opinion.” This is a clear indication that in the future the CCP will no longer abide by the rules set by the United States.
This is a very serious provocation. U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn told The Epoch Times in an email: “Just as the Chinese delegation refused to comply with the agreed-upon rules of the meeting, Beijing refuses to comply with the rules-based international order.”
The U.S. side, however, sat there obediently and listened to the end. American conservative commentator Jack Posobiec tweeted: “The obvious move would be for Blinken and Sullivan to stand up for the U.S. and kick out the CCP delegation after being disrespected. But they aren’t. They’re going back tomorrow to lose even more face. Hard to say how they could be any worse at this.”
Thirdly, Yang Jiechi drew a “red line” for the U.S. side, not the other way around.
According to a report from Nikkei Asia, Yang said, first of all, that “the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength.”
Yang added that the CCP’s “leadership and China’s political system are supported wholeheartedly by the Chinese people, and any attempt to change China’s social system will be futile,” according to a March 19 press release on the website of the CCP’s embassy in the United States.
Another point Yang made in his long speech was a series of security and human rights issues the U.S. had raised with the Chinese side, including the CCP’s persecution of Uyghurs, its crackdown on Hong Kong, its economic coercion of allies, its cyberattacks on the United States, and its acts of aggression against Taiwan. Yang declared these are all China’s internal affairs and that the communist regime “firmly opposes U.S. interference.” According to Yang, “What the United States should do is to … mind its own business … rather than making irresponsible remarks about China’s human rights and democracy.”
To sum up Yang Jiechi’s meaning in a sentence, it is what he said in his opening remarks that “there is no way to strangle China.” This implies that the CCP is not afraid to confront the United States and uses the confrontation as a means to deter the U.S. side from retreating without a fight.
The fourth trap lies in the U.S. side’s intention to seek cooperation with the CCP, even when facing such fierce confrontation. After the talks, Blinken spoke at a press conference about very specific areas where the United States and China could cooperate.
“But we were also able to have a very candid conversation over these many hours on an expansive agenda. On Iran, on North Korea, on Afghanistan, on climate, our interests intersect,” he said.
This is due to the fact that many on the left believe white supremacy to be a powerful, influential force in the American society of today.
These leftists don’t require, or even look for, proof to support this theory, however. Instead, they often immediately cry “racism” whenever a tragedy occurs, often before all of the facts are out.
This most recent case is a perfect example of this, especially considering recent reports indicate the shooter wasn’t even motivated by race.
While authorities have asserted they cannot yet make an official determination of motive, the suspect — Robert Aaron Long, 21 — who confessed to the shooting, cited his sex addiction as his motivation.
Jordan Peterson occupies a unique place in the cultural sphere. Grounded in the small Alberta town of his upbringing, the University of Toronto professor of clinical psychology has been elevated to the status of Canada’s foremost public intellectual.
An almost mythic figure to some, Peterson is a pariah to others. For those who worship at the altar of woke ideology, he represents an existential threat. In one example, after Random House announced it would publish Peterson’s latest book “Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life,” it had to contend with the outrage of multiple staff members.
This is nothing new to Peterson. Since he arrived on the scene through a series of YouTube videos exposing the problems with Bill C-16, the Liberal government’s gender identity rights legislation, he has been a lightning rod for criticism.
But Peterson has proven himself a force to be reckoned with, selling out lecture halls across the world and calmly dismantling the arguments of conceited journalists along the way. He has engaged in robust debate with the likes of American liberal podcast host Sam Harris and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, while sounding the alarm about the influence of Marxist thought on campuses and in corporations.
Last year, his meteoric rise was derailed by a devastating descent into prescription drug addiction, illness, and depression. Just as quickly as he rose to prominence he disappeared from the public eye, leaving a noticeable void in the conservative sphere. And now he is back, or at least on the upswing, having published his new book this month and once again engaging publicly through interviews and podcasts.
Philosophy of Action
Peterson’s ideas are at once straightforward and complex. Underscoring deep philosophical and psychological thoughts are practical, actionable ideas like his exhortation to “clean up your room,” a saying that earned him meme status. It’s a simple proposal that is hard to actualize, as anyone who has seriously attempted to set their lives in order can attest. Peterson prescribes nobility and humility in this elementary endeavour, contrasting it with those who agitate to change the fundamental institutions of Western society while unable to sort out their own lives.
“Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life” contains chapters of similar practical wisdom, with titles such as “Imagine who you could be and then aim single-mindedly at that,” “Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated,” and “Try to make one room in your home as beautiful as possible.”
Far from being trite, these principles require a high degree of self-awareness. They take grit, persistence, and sacrifice scarcely exercised in our modern age of creature comfort. But adopting them out of choice and not necessity can set one apart from those looking to shirk personal and social responsibility.
Instead of promoting unconditional optimism, Peterson recommends embracing the full brunt of reality, even as it swings toward your head. In typical self-help books, one would be hard-pressed to find a similar suggestion to this one from his 2018 book “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos”:
“It is necessary to be strong in the face of death, because death is intrinsic to life. It is for this reason that I tell my students: aim to be the person at your father’s funeral that everyone, in their grief and misery, can rely on. There’s a worthy and noble ambition: strength in the face of adversity.”
Implied in that ambition is the prerequisite that you must have your life sufficiently together to be a pillar of strength to buttress the hardships that will inevitably come along.
Affirming Masculinity
Peterson’s audience is largely male, judging by attendance at his lectures and the demographic of his YouTube audience. This has been a point of criticism for some, who equate it as evidence that he is somehow fortifying patriarchy. But this is the wrong lens in which to view the Peterson phenomenon.
Anyone who has taken the time to actually read his work or listen to his lectures would have difficulty finding anything explicitly misogynistic.
The crux of his message could be summed up in the sentiment that meaning is more fulfilling and less fleeting than happiness, and adopting maximum responsibility is the greatest means to actualizing one’s spiritual and psychological potential.
The reason this seemingly obvious message has resonated so profoundly is because it is sorely needed in the modern age, but rarely articulated. It flies in the face of our current obsession with identity politics and moral relativism, which are at odds with the virtues of self-reliance and moral responsibility.
The current value-neutral and “follow your bliss” approach to life is not leading to fulfillment for young men who have been educated to believe their essential masculine traits are inherently toxic. By promoting masculinity as a virtue instead of a vice, Peterson has found an audience hungry for encouragement and reassurance so that they can ennoble themselves through refining those same characteristics into a force for good in the world.
