Commander, the Bidens' German Shepherd, is a one-dog crime wave. Bit seven people in a four-month period. One required hospital treatment. That was after predecessor Major was sent away for biting. Both seem to target Secret Service. From @stevennelson10: https://t.co/ZlvQNM9f5h
“Attorney General Merrick Garland is a bitter partisan hack, but apparently not a bright one.
His timing for giving Hunter Biden a sweetheart deal marks him as dumb as a rock.
Garland easily could have buried the 5-year-old case during the first two years of Joe Biden’s tenure, before Republicans won the House majority in the 2022 midterms.
Had he done so, The Post and a few other outlets would have barked at the rancid favoritism, but the caravan of corruption would have moved on with the blessing of the Democrats running Congress and their media mouthpieces.
In short order, the case would have been forgotten, in part because so many of the incriminating details we know now were still secret.
Instead, Garland foolishly waited until the GOP, armed with subpoena power, could demand documents from banks, protect whistleblowers and hold hearings.
As a result, GOP-led committees have demonstrated beyond doubt that the Department of Justice cooked the books.
Testimony from IRS whistleblowers showed that department lawyers obstructed investigators and withheld key evidence, including the laptop, from their probe of the president’s crooked son.
Garland’s minions also let the statute of limitations expire on earlier tax crimes despite having clear evidence.
We also know now that the bombshell testimony came despite efforts by Garland and Christopher Wray’s FBI to block it and stonewall Congress, adding further taint to the case and everybody involved who helped the son avoid the same punishment ordinary citizens would face.
Perhaps most important, DOJ lawyers blocked any questions about Joe Biden’s role in the influence-peddling schemes, which netted the family tens of millions of dollars.
“At every stage, decisions were made that benefited the subject of this investigation,” Greg Shapley, the IRS agent formerly in charge of the case, told Congress.
The disclosures led House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to up the ante Monday by saying the Biden family business dealings are “rising to level of impeachment inquiry.”
He made the comment after my colleague Miranda Devine reported that a former partner of Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, is expected to testify that the first son frequently put Joe Biden, then the vice president, on speakerphone during Hunter’s foreign business calls.
Joe’s appearance, even if it was just a long-distance hello, would be a signal to the foreign paymasters that the “Big Guy” was in on the schemes.
Buying a vice president of the United States isn’t cheap or routine, so the rogue buyers from China, Ukraine, Russia, Romania and elsewhere would want solid assurance they would get the influence they were paying for, especially given Hunter’s well-known affection for crack cocaine and prostitutes.
Joe’s appearance on the calls could ease their fears and convince them to open their wallets.
So here we are, with the sensational testimony and impeachment talk serving as a backdrop for the Wednesday hearing where Hunter’s slap-on-the-wrist settlement lands in the lap of a judge in Wilmington, Del.
The process is normally a routine one where the judge, after getting affirmation that both sides agree to the terms, approves it and passes the agreed-upon sentence.
That would mean probation for Hunter Biden and a promise to be a good boy, pay his taxes in the future and not own a gun.
But there is an alternative, and if there is any true justice remaining, federal District Judge Maryellen Noreika will seize it. “
“DeSantis lets go of more than a third of campaign staff as reset continues
The cuts, which were confirmed by advisers, will amount to a total of 38 jobs shed across an array of departments.”
“Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign is expanding the number of staff it’s cutting to include more than a third of his payroll as the Florida governor looks to get his primary bid back on track.
The cuts, which were confirmed by advisers, will amount to a total of 38 jobs shed across an array of departments. They will include the roughly 10 event planning positions that were announced several weeks ago, in addition to the recent departures of two senior DeSantis campaign advisers, Dave Abrams and Tucker Obenshain.
“Following a top-to-bottom review of our organization, we have taken additional, aggressive steps to streamline operations and put Ron DeSantis in the strongest position to win this primary and defeat Joe Biden,” DeSantis campaign manager Generra Peck said in a statement. “Gov. DeSantis is going to lead the Great American Comeback and we’re ready to hit the ground running as we head into an important month of the campaign.”
The expanded cuts are the latest sign that the Florida governor’s team is pivoting to a slim-down operation amid concerns over their finances. The campaign announced it had raised $20 million during the second quarter of this year. But it had spent a good chunk of that money. Much of the sum it raised, moreover, came from donors who had given the maximum amount and could not give again.
According to recent federal filings, the campaign counted 90-plus staffers on its payroll through the end of June.
During a donor retreat in Deer Valley, Utah, last week, Peck acknowledged that the campaign had overspent in some areas and that further adjustments would need to be made. Advisers also outlined plans for DeSantis — who has been criticized for overseeing a bloated operation — to reposition himself as an insurgent underdog. They also said they would aim to reduce costs by doing smaller, more intimate events and cutting down its travel expenditures.”
“I had not heard this. And what I am hearing is pretty disturbing as, unsurprisingly, it completely screws American businesses. It takes the concepts of globalism and equity, then combines them while surrendering our sovereignty over our own tax revenues. Basically giving it away.
Does that sound about right?”
The quiet new way @JoeBiden & @TheDemocrats wants to tax you. @OECD surrenders America’s sovereignty over our tax code and allows foreign countries to take our taxes that were meant for our own essential programs and military. https://t.co/7H2rYl6iB0
“Over the past two years, President Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen have negotiated a global minimum tax through the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). This organization surrenders America’s sovereignty over our tax code and allows foreign countries to take our taxes that were meant for our own essential programs and military.
…Until last year, the United States was the only country in the world with a global minimum tax. Here at home, U.S. corporations already face a 21% tax rate. Congress has a long history of using the tax code to incentivize certain behavior from businesses and individuals.
…All 25 Republicans of the Ways and Means Committee sponsored the Defending American Jobs and Investment Act. This bill requires the Treasury Department to identify taxes enacted by foreign countries that attack U.S. businesses, like the Undertaxed Profits Rule (UTPR).
The UTPR’s goal is to force countries to enact the OECD plan for global socialism and collect more tax dollars from American businesses. The OECD is actively working against American interests, even while the United States funds 20% of its yearly budget. Republicans in Congress have promised to end all funding for the OECD if it continues along this dangerous path.”
—
“Republicans in Congress held a hearing on the 17th (!) exposing the negotiations and the “deal” which the president and Treasury Secretary Yellen had struck and the more you dig into this Undertaxed Profits Rule (UTPR) those two bozos have agreed to, the worse it gets.”
—
“…“Once again, the Biden Administration neglected to consult Congress before cheerleading the OECD’s latest global tax code rewrite. Today’s ‘administrative guidance’ acknowledges what Republicans have warned for more than two years: the UTPR surtax is unworkable and unlawful.
“By exposing the UTPR’s fundamental flaws, congressional Republicans created an opportunity for the OECD to reconsider this illegal extraterritorial tax which violates U.S. sovereignty. Shockingly, the Biden Administration failed to follow through, surrendering to foreign country demands to allow the UTPR to hit U.S. workers and businesses starting in 2026. Moreover, the OECD’s nonsensical treatment of investment incentives remains, which will send U.S. R&D jobs and tax revenues overseas.”
“Everyone gets excited when a top researcher was found to oversee a trainee who photoshopped a western blot.
“Yes! we found an example of fraud”
“OMG, the culture in his laboratory was so horrible.”
“Yay, science is self-correcting!”
Some of these things were said recently, when the Stanford University president resigned to spend more time doing research (which, ironically, was the problem).
Yet, these same people routinely use false studies to push for conclusions they like. In fact, the majority of scientists conduct research that is false, not useful or not helpful. Only a tiny fraction of scientists stick to true and useful.
While fraud is the worst conduct— using false studies to support your views is hardly better. The Figure illustrates the spectrum of bad science from Fraud to Truth. Let me give some examples of people using bad science to further their agenda, and argue for strategies to solve the problem.”
“Just in the last two years, we have seen bad science repeated widely.
Black doctors have half the risk of death when they care for black babies vs white doctors. That is an incredible claim, and the underlying PNAS paper is completely flawed, as I explain in the link. Sadly the flawed study was cited in the dissenting opinion of the Supreme Court.
During the pandemic, public health ‘experts’ amplified flawed mask studies and, those who routinely promoted flawed studies or flawed interpretations were bizarrely promoted to public health dean. Learn why this study was flawed in the link.
Finally, remember that paradigm HF was not an appropriate trial of Entresto. The control arm was half maximal dose enalapril vs. full dose valsartan plus a new drug (not a fair comparison), and worse there is no evidence for actually doses used in American today, which are far below the trial doses.
In all these cases, and many more— cataloged on Sensible Medicine and my Substack— scientists use false, unsupported, misleading studies to advance an agenda— it can be socio-political or it can be to support a for-profit medical product or device. But it is always the same: the study proves nothing, and yet the ‘scientist’ falsely claims it is sufficient evidence to draw a conclusion.
We pat ourselves on the back when we punish one university president, but we do not reward or appreciate good science. We fund people who are good at selling themselves and often making false claims in their grant applications.
Public health experts who promoted the harmful and flawed policies of lockdown, masking toddlers, and boosting young men who already had COVID have been rewarded by the current administration and by public health schools.
Public health has proven itself to be a field, not governed by true and useful science, but one that is nakedly partisan. Finally, careers are made, and billion dollar drugs are supported by bad trials.
Bad science exists on a spectrum and there is little practical difference between photoshopping a Western blot or using a field of ‘physician on record’ in a Florida dataset to make a claim of mortality by race— if you do not fully understand how that data is coded and the limitations of your analysis.
In both cases, other scientists are relying upon a claim that may not be true. Whether the data is forged or the analysis is manipulated— it doesn’t change the central deception: this finding has no actual support.
What is the solution?
If you want to be a real scientist, you cannot be a partisan. No political party has the monopoly on true and useful. Inevitably a good scientist will anger people in both parties. Sadly, the reality is that currently most scientists lean left, and support unscientific and harmful policies of Democrats— such as masking toddlers or closing schools. Better to be a-political.
Second— if you want to be a real scientist, you cannot take money from a company that sells a product in the biomedical space. These payments influence your behavior, and these companies have a uni-directional profit motive. They make money from selling something, but not the converse. Its hard to take seriously an analysis of Entresto from someone paid by Novartis.”
All that is required is chronic government stonewalling of reasonable requests for transparency. Then add in high officials serially lying under oath, along with the blatantly unequal application of the law. Institutionalize arguments from authority of politicians and bureaucrats who refuse to adjudicate arguments empirically.
Include the weaponization of investigatory and intelligence bureaucracies. Finish with the transformation of an obsequious media into a mouthpiece of the state. And presto, you end up with a skeptical, cynical public that learns to believe the very opposite from what it is told by elites.
January 6th
Curiously. some conservative politicians, media and politicos often remark of their surprise that so many of the Trump base insists that the January 6 riot at the Capitol was in part a federally driven conspiracy, or perhaps just a mere “demonstration” gone awry.
But whether true or not, why would some not believe that—given the efforts of the state to hide and warp facts?
Consider what drives rational people to embrace supposed “conspiracy” theories around the so-called “insurrection?”
One reason, of course, is that there was evidence of FBI informants present on January 6. Do not take the word of conservatives for such suppositions.
Instead, remember what award-winning New York Times’s reporter and keen follower of right-wing political activity, Matthew Rosenberg said of January 6, albeit in an ambush interview conducted by Operation Veritas:
The left’s overreaction — the left’s reaction to it in some places was so over the top. They were making it too big a deal … that gave the opening for lunatics in the right to be like, ‘Oh, well, nothing happened here. It was just a peaceful bunch of tourists,’ you know, and it’s like, but nobody wants to hear that.”
Rosenberg then remarked that he spotted numerous FBI informants among the crowd milling around the Capitol. Or as he put it, “There were a ton of FBI informants among the people who attacked the Capitol.” Cannot the FBI refute such allegations?
Apparently not. Given such speculation, one would expect that FBI Director Christopher Wray might at least categorically deny such inflammatory accusations.
Yet in congressional testimony when asked whether the FBI had inserted informants among the protestors, sphinxlike Wray merely shrugged, “So I really need to be careful here talking about where we have or have not used confidential human sources.”
Then there is the mysterious case of Ray Epps, initially sought by FBI “as a person of interest” for allegedly inciting demonstrators to break the law and enter the Capitol.
But then oddly Epps was de facto exempted for some 30 months from arrest—even as hundreds who urged no such action were indicted and convicted of “illegal parading” or unlawfully “demonstrating in front of the Capitol”—misdemeanors that ended up resulting in felony-type sentencing.
In one video clip, as Epps attempts to gin up the stationary crowd to move illegally into the Capitol, he is met with “conspiratorial” accusations from skeptical bystanders calling out: “Fed! Fed! Fed!”
Epps filed suit against Fox News for defamation on grounds that anchor Tucker Carlson had tied him to efforts to incite January 6 violence. Yet then suddenly Epps announced that he believes he will soon be charged, after all, by the government for his role in the January 6 protests.
If true, such an arrest was long anticipated, since Epps is caught on tape, unambiguously, on more than one occasion, urging demonstrators to enter the Capitol unlawfully (e.g., “We need to go to the Capitol”).
If one would like to hatch an Epps conspiracy theory, then one could do no better than quoting another Ray Epps braggadocious claim that he had texted to his nephew: “I orchestrated it.”
It did not help the Left’s construction of a January 6 “insurrection” theory that it serially misled the country about the actual loss of life. At first, Democrats insisted, falsely, that Officer Sicknick’s tragic death was due to protestor violence. Yet an autopsy revealed that he died a day later from a stroke.
Then Democrat leaders pivoted to claim that any law enforcement officer present on January 6, who for any reason subsequently committed suicide, was to be counted a victim of protestor violence.
All the while, the media kept largely quiet about the fact that the only unambiguously violent death that day was that of military veteran Ashli Babbitt. She was unarmed as she was shot unlawfully entering the Capitol through a broken window.
The name and identity of the officer, remember, were suppressed for months—a protective protocol unlike any other accorded law enforcement officers in the country who lethally shoot unarmed suspects.”
“The Department of Defense (DOD) has quietly implemented controversial adolescent health policies throughout the military health system (MHS) that kick in when children turn 12 years old.
Because the official policies are hard to find and are not posted publicly at base clinics, most parents are shocked to find out that doctors prefer to treat their adolescent children in a completely parent-free setting. Parents are outraged to be treated as if they cannot be trusted to guide their own children. Here is my story detailing a quest for answers on why online medical record access is limited and why I was being asked to leave the room.
Two years ago, my family made a military move overseas. At our very first well-child visit to the base medical clinic, my child’s doctor, a complete stranger to us — as are most doctors in this transient lifestyle — said I would be required to leave the exam room at the next year’s exam so she could ask my child more “invasive” questions now that she was an adolescent. The next year, I was surprised to learn via the Tricare online portal (TOL) that I was barred from accessing my child’s online medical record from 12 years of age onward (for the new MHS Genesis system, it’s 13). Additionally, as I came to learn, my child was not allowed to have her own password or create her own account until she turns 18.
When I asked the doctor for the reason why, she said it was “above her paygrade.”
Wanting a more precise answer, I submitted an Interactive Customer Evaluation (ICE) comment to the clinic asking for the DOD policy and underlying law that allow for parents to be barred from online medical records. In the end, it took months for DOD to find the policy, and it also involved submitting a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Defense Health Agency (DHA) as well as my U.S. senator opening up casework into the matter.
Different State Policies on Medical Records
While I waited for the official policy, which appeared to be a well-kept secret, I researched civilian electronic health records (EHR) systems and civilian policies surrounding adolescent confidentiality and consent.
A June 2022 issue of Pediatrics published by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) revealed that it is difficult for doctors to manage EHR systems when it comes to adolescent privacy because of differing state laws on minor consent and confidentiality. As military families make moves across the United States and overseas every two or so years, it’s crucial for parents to understand that their rights are treated very differently depending on the state.
Though the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) gives parents access to their children’s medical records until they turn 18, it cedes this privacy rule to state law, which means parents may lose such access. So, for instance, California law allows minors to obtain an abortion, and no parental involvement or notification is required. Additionally, hospital systems like Scripps restrict parents from online medical records when their children turn 12. On the other hand, Florida law requires minors to notify at least one parent 48 hours before an abortion, and permission must be given — though a judge can bypass this; and parents have the right to access and review their minor children’s medical record, which was clarified by a Parents’ Bill of Rights law.
Another article from adolescent medicine researchers in the same 2022 issue of Pediatrics specifically mentions the complexity around keeping abortion and transgender interventions for young people confidential.
Additionally, researchers in the Journal of Adolescent Health promoted providing different types of access to parents and adolescents. Options included, in part, “permitting full access only to the 13- to 17-year-old adolescents, with parents able to receive only nonconfidential information — an approach that requires actively blocking access to certain information by the parent and requires vigilance and ongoing effort to maintain … or (4) turning off portal access for all patients aged 13-17 years.”
Doctors Want to Be Alone with Kids
In regard to “alone time” with the doctor, the now-highly politicized AAP recommends that practitioners ask parents of adolescents to leave the exam room during well-child checks so they can conduct a psychosocial assessment without parental interference. The implication is clear: Medical personnel can be trusted, but parents cannot.
One tool doctors use for the psychosocial evaluation is the HEEADSSS assessment. “The Psychosocial Interview for Adolescents Updated for a New Century Fueled by Media,” written by U.S. military-associated doctors, is a detailed explanation of HEEADSSS. Some suggested questions from a HEEADSSS survey are: “Tell me about your sexual life. Are you attracted to boys? Girls? Both? Not yet sure?” If the doctor wants specifics, some suggested follow-up questions are: “Are your sexual activities enjoyable?” “How many sexual partners have you had altogether?” “What are you using for birth control? Are you satisfied with your method?”
Parents are rightly outraged to learn these questions could be asked of children as young as 12 while parents are excluded.”
—
“Unelected Bureaucrats Decide
I had reasonably (but incorrectly) assumed that in the absence of state law’s guidance on privacy, the fallback would be federal law, HIPAA, which gives parents access to minor medical records as their minors’ personal representatives until 18. I never thought the fallback would be policy created by unelected bureaucrats at DHA.
I later obtained a policy memo, “Minors and Reproductive Health Care Services (Overseas)” that states that at overseas medical treatment facilities, “where there is no applicable state or federal law, clinicians generally look to the general principles of American law to determine if a minor can self-consent. … Unless modified by host nation law or a SOFA [Status of Forces Agreement], and consistent with the general principles of American law, a mature minor is further defined …as being of sufficient age (age 15 or older) who, in the licensed independent practitioner’s opinion, is also capable of making important decisions on their own behalf.”
In other words, an adolescent health provider can deem a child to be a mature minor based on his or her professional opinion. However, after reading recent research reports by leaders in military adolescent medicine stating that 7-year-old children were mature enough to help direct their transgender medical interventions and claiming that efforts to assist patients in becoming comfortable with their sex are unethical, there is no reason for confidence in the ability of activist-minded doctors to determine maturity levels of minors.”
This is why it matters when the president is compromised. He’s an easy target for extortion.
🚨ZELENSKY ALLEGEDLY HAD KNOWLEDGE OF BIDENS’ WRONGDOINGS | USING THIS INFO AS LEVERAGE?
Zelensky allegedly holds proof in the Biden bribery scandal. The meeting between Hunter Biden and Burisma, outlined in the FBI's FD-1023 form, was attended by a top associate of Zelensky.… pic.twitter.com/VchGmoLPyu
Hunter Biden's lawyer called the judge in his case pretending to be a lawyer for House Republicans to try and get the IRS whistleblower testimony against him taken down from an amicus brief in the case.
This should be Exhibit 1 to the Second Circuit vacating the judgment against Trump, all rulings by this Judge pre-trial, at-trial, and post-trial, ordering the case reassigned to a non-biased judge for retrial if Carroll's lawyers want to continue.
The unsafe and ineffective Covid jab claims another healthy victim.
🚨 BREAKING NEWS: Bronny James, Son of LeBron James, Hospitalized After Cardiac Arrest at USC Basketball Practice. He Was FULLY VACCINATED Against Covid With Many Boosters. PRAYING HE MAKES A FULL RECOVERY!!! Young, Healthy 18-year-olds ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO EXPERIENCE THIS… ⚠️ pic.twitter.com/t6v1SqzTL0
You mean writers for Jeff Goldberg's The Atlantic took liberty with quotes and questionable journalistic ethics? I am shocked. Shocked and appalled. No I'm not.
I am sorry for those in the military for years, who will now have to get out ASAP to protect their own children. I know a family who lived apart during Covid to protect them from having to get the shot. These people are not going to take a chance on their children’s lives. We should end up with a great military. God help us! He is our real protection, at any rate.
Bidenomics is working…..that’s all he has to say. Apparently, the US economy is doing better than predicted. His Shepherd doesn’t like cops – he’ll get along with my Shepherd; she has the same attitude. Strangely she likes everybody else just not men in uniform
I’m amused by the Post – they think Garland blew it by not burying this in the first two years of the admin. In other words, they admit Garland didn’t interfere because if he did, he would have buried it. Perhaps this also betrays a Republican or Conservative thought process – we’d bury so obviously Biden and Garland must have buried something.
DeSantis is spiralling downwards. The anti-LGBQT/Trump ad probably sealed the deal. He’s done. Apparently, he hired Ted Cruz’s team from 8 years ago – it shows. Some analysts now see Ramaswamy passing DeSantis.
Speaking of spiralling – from yesterday – Twitter has lost 50% of its ad revenue and is in the negative. Its hard to attract corporate ads if you allow racist speech. Obviously Musk and Zuckerberg have enough resources to undercut each other until one blinks. The question is who can afford to lose the most money. One will go broke.
From what I understand OECD countries are attempting to cooperate on the issue of corporate taxes . The idea is to prevent companies from hopping to different jurisdiction seeking the lowest rate possible – for example; many US tech companies are taxed in Ireland as opposed to the US. OECD leaders like Biden have been trying to prevent this and force companies to pay in their country of origin or face penalties. Its a complicated scheme as some OECD countries – the Netherlands and Ireland for example, — collect tax revenue as tax havens and don’t want to give it up. I’m not going to research but the hotair article doesn’t make any sense logically given the aims of the OECD.
Victor Hanson might want to analyse Republican based conspiracies. I’m looking forward to the discovery in the FOX libel suit – Dominion was fun.
“she was shot unlawfully entering the Capitol through a broken window.”
Huh; if you are entering through a broken window are you not committing a crime and if you do not stop committing the crime, can you not expect to be shot? Too bad DC wasn’t Florida – stand your ground law.
Europe is in the middle of a two week heat wave with temperatures hitting close to 40 (105 F) throughout southern Europe. Record heat is everywhere. I don’t panic about things I have little control of but climate change is real.
The Atlantic isn’t the only one that takes liberties – most of the sites AJ quotes here take liberties. There’s still good journalism but its harder to find as eyeball popping headlines and opening paragraphs are needed for the clicks.
I have mentioned the medical age of consent here before. There is no fixed age in either the US or Canada or it varies widely from state to state to province. In most cases, it comes down to the doctor’s discretion and the situation. For example, my daughter was 12 when she went to therapy – I was informed as to the process and procedures but I never sat in nor do I know what was discussed. Patients won’t be honest if they know what they say may be repeated elsewhere. On the other hand, parents still have legal authority over a child – I had a student who was committed to the psych ward for a weekend by her mother.
I’m sure the defence policy isn’t actually new but just affected this particular parent for the first time and they were surprised. Medical age of consent is a grey area but allowing your child to have medical privacy is important. I’m sure most 13 year old girls don’t want to discuss their menstrual cycle with dad in the room.
The “sample” questions listed in the article are exactly that – sample or suggested and depending on the age highly unlikely. Of course, having confidence in your family doctor is important. As having trust and confidence in your child – after all as a parent you are their biggest influence.
Thankfully, we can pick our family doctor in Canada and I’m quite certain my Irish Catholic family doctor didn’t ask any invasive questions of my daughter – although he did prescribe her birth control at 17.
In the military medical system you take what you can get–if/when you can get it. Three times I met the doctor delivering my baby on the delivery table. Because you move so regularly and the physicians/PAs/ODs/NPs also move regularly, it’s unlikely you have time to develop any sort of a relationship with any medical personnel–unless you or your child have a rare condition that requires specialist care.
Or, as I used to say, if you can get to the second floor with the specialists, everything changed for the better–other than the physical ailment.
I actually asked one physician to write into my child’s chart: “Mother is an intelligent woman.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I’m always treated as if I was a fool or imbecile.”
He didn’t write anything into my child’s chart, but he respected me more.
I don’t know what I’d do about this current situation. Dividing children and parents, IMHO, is not a good thing unless you have definite proof of a problem.
Planting suspicion about their parent’s love, care, and concern into a young teenager’s mind–especially when the teenager may not understand what is being explained to them and which the parent will live with for the rest of their life as well–is morally wrong IMHO.
My friends are advising their children and grandchildren to avoid the military.
Senior officer spouses, senior enlisted spouses, ombudsmen, and often neighbors are trained to look for problems within their sphere/community. Over a certain seniority level, particularly within a sea-going community–all servicemembers and spouses are given training on anti-alcohol, anti-drug, anti-spousal abuse, and potential child-abuse issues.
The military used to look after its own.
Errant behavior by servicement, spouse, or children, went up the chain of command. Violence in military housing required intervention–families could be moved, servicemembers caught abusing anything could be put into the brig. There were standards of safety–because of the need for military readiness–that had to be maintained.
Years ago, probably 35 years ago now, when women first shipped out on ships, a ship readied for deployment on five days notice–which was in the contract everyone reviewed and signed.
Several women showed up with their children in tow.
They were ordered aboard their ship, and the CO’s wife (a friend) was called to come pick up all the children. The child went into foster care until relatives could be found to pick them up. Their mothers/maybe some fathers I don’t recall now, reclaimed them when the ship returned–months later.
The CO was exasperated when he called his wife. “Come get them. I don’t know what else to do.”
After that, the Navy passed a law. Every sea-going servicemember had to supply a notarized letter and plan authorizing and spelling out what would happen with the dependent children when the ship sailed. It was part of the contract.
I’m sure problems developed at some points, but for the majority of the children of seagoing parents, it meant they had a good chance of being well settled before their parents deployed.
My point is, during our time, the Navy members looked after their own.
The same “press” that refuses to ask one single question about bizarre behavior of the President!!
CNN
—
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters that he’s “fine,” after freezing during a news conference on Wednesday.
McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, stopped speaking in the middle of remarks at his regularly scheduled weekly news conference on Capitol Hill. After a 30-second pause, his colleagues crowded around to see if he was OK and asked him how he felt. GOP Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming was seen gripping McConnell’s arm and whispered to him, “Hey Mitch, anything else you want to say? Or should we just go back to your office? Do you want to say anything else to the press?”
He said nothing, and was led away from the press conference and towards his office by an aide. He returned to the news conference a few minutes later.
Very little about McConnell on the left side of the internet – the memes are not there yet. One comment I saw, wished him well and hoped the excellent health care he was entitled to would help him, to take advantage of the paid time off and of course the generous pension. They only wish this was available to all Americans.
The lack of memes might be explained by the death of Sinead O’Connor. The left is busy posting memorials and songs. I particularly like her version of Silent Night but I think the following is more symbolic of her attitude. She had her mental health struggles but the voice…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbre5Fs9m8I
Heard something by her tonight that reminded me of Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane. Way back in the day, my teen-age self had the album. ‘Go Ask Alice’
Sorry to hear the news even though I didn’t follow O’Connor, but the loss of her 17-year-old son to suicide a few years ago must have been so tragic — and I’m concerned, too, for McConnell. Hoping it was nothing significant, but it was somewhat alarming to watch. Quite sure those around him will make sure he gets checked out.
S. O’Connor was far more than her music – she was the first and still one of the only public figures to so openly criticize the Catholic Church’s pedophilia. In Ireland in the early 90s, no less.
I do remember she was a bit of a social commentary lightning rod. 🙂
And I think Erick Erickson is correct on this point, but time will tell:
At this point, I am convinced that a significant portion of Trump and non-Trump GOP will never reconcile once the primary is over, which helps Biden in 2024.
Wandering Views 
OK kids, now let’s all keep pretending this is totally normal behavior….
And sometimes multiple times in the same day.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yikes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
So today is the day the DoJ lets Hunter off on small charges while ignoring the larger crimes.
If there’s any justice, the judge will nix this nonsense. But there’s not, so…..
“Judge must nix Hunter Biden’s plea deal to show her court won’t approve a blatant miscarriage of justice”
https://nypost.com/2023/07/25/judge-must-nix-hunter-bidens-plea-deal-to-show-her-court-wont-approve-a-blatant-miscarriage-of-justice/
“Attorney General Merrick Garland is a bitter partisan hack, but apparently not a bright one.
His timing for giving Hunter Biden a sweetheart deal marks him as dumb as a rock.
Garland easily could have buried the 5-year-old case during the first two years of Joe Biden’s tenure, before Republicans won the House majority in the 2022 midterms.
Had he done so, The Post and a few other outlets would have barked at the rancid favoritism, but the caravan of corruption would have moved on with the blessing of the Democrats running Congress and their media mouthpieces.
In short order, the case would have been forgotten, in part because so many of the incriminating details we know now were still secret.
Instead, Garland foolishly waited until the GOP, armed with subpoena power, could demand documents from banks, protect whistleblowers and hold hearings.
As a result, GOP-led committees have demonstrated beyond doubt that the Department of Justice cooked the books.
Testimony from IRS whistleblowers showed that department lawyers obstructed investigators and withheld key evidence, including the laptop, from their probe of the president’s crooked son.
Garland’s minions also let the statute of limitations expire on earlier tax crimes despite having clear evidence.
We also know now that the bombshell testimony came despite efforts by Garland and Christopher Wray’s FBI to block it and stonewall Congress, adding further taint to the case and everybody involved who helped the son avoid the same punishment ordinary citizens would face.
Perhaps most important, DOJ lawyers blocked any questions about Joe Biden’s role in the influence-peddling schemes, which netted the family tens of millions of dollars.
“At every stage, decisions were made that benefited the subject of this investigation,” Greg Shapley, the IRS agent formerly in charge of the case, told Congress.
The disclosures led House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to up the ante Monday by saying the Biden family business dealings are “rising to level of impeachment inquiry.”
He made the comment after my colleague Miranda Devine reported that a former partner of Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, is expected to testify that the first son frequently put Joe Biden, then the vice president, on speakerphone during Hunter’s foreign business calls.
Joe’s appearance, even if it was just a long-distance hello, would be a signal to the foreign paymasters that the “Big Guy” was in on the schemes.
Buying a vice president of the United States isn’t cheap or routine, so the rogue buyers from China, Ukraine, Russia, Romania and elsewhere would want solid assurance they would get the influence they were paying for, especially given Hunter’s well-known affection for crack cocaine and prostitutes.
Joe’s appearance on the calls could ease their fears and convince them to open their wallets.
So here we are, with the sensational testimony and impeachment talk serving as a backdrop for the Wednesday hearing where Hunter’s slap-on-the-wrist settlement lands in the lap of a judge in Wilmington, Del.
The process is normally a routine one where the judge, after getting affirmation that both sides agree to the terms, approves it and passes the agreed-upon sentence.
That would mean probation for Hunter Biden and a promise to be a good boy, pay his taxes in the future and not own a gun.
But there is an alternative, and if there is any true justice remaining, federal District Judge Maryellen Noreika will seize it. “
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Ruh-roh.
“DeSantis lets go of more than a third of campaign staff as reset continues
The cuts, which were confirmed by advisers, will amount to a total of 38 jobs shed across an array of departments.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/25/desantis-lets-go-of-more-than-1-3-of-campaign-staff-as-reset-continues-00108046
“Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign is expanding the number of staff it’s cutting to include more than a third of his payroll as the Florida governor looks to get his primary bid back on track.
The cuts, which were confirmed by advisers, will amount to a total of 38 jobs shed across an array of departments. They will include the roughly 10 event planning positions that were announced several weeks ago, in addition to the recent departures of two senior DeSantis campaign advisers, Dave Abrams and Tucker Obenshain.
“Following a top-to-bottom review of our organization, we have taken additional, aggressive steps to streamline operations and put Ron DeSantis in the strongest position to win this primary and defeat Joe Biden,” DeSantis campaign manager Generra Peck said in a statement. “Gov. DeSantis is going to lead the Great American Comeback and we’re ready to hit the ground running as we head into an important month of the campaign.”
The expanded cuts are the latest sign that the Florida governor’s team is pivoting to a slim-down operation amid concerns over their finances. The campaign announced it had raised $20 million during the second quarter of this year. But it had spent a good chunk of that money. Much of the sum it raised, moreover, came from donors who had given the maximum amount and could not give again.
According to recent federal filings, the campaign counted 90-plus staffers on its payroll through the end of June.
During a donor retreat in Deer Valley, Utah, last week, Peck acknowledged that the campaign had overspent in some areas and that further adjustments would need to be made. Advisers also outlined plans for DeSantis — who has been criticized for overseeing a bloated operation — to reposition himself as an insurgent underdog. They also said they would aim to reduce costs by doing smaller, more intimate events and cutting down its travel expenditures.”
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Biden needs a reminder that he cannot enter the US into stuff like this without Congressional approval.
This is a very bad idea, but then selling the country out to the globalists usually is.
“Did you know POTATUS and the treasury gnome have spent 2 years negotiating a Global Minimum Tax?”
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2023/07/25/did-you-know-potatus-and-the-treasury-gnome-have-spent-2-years-negotiating-a-global-minimum-tax-n567101
“I had not heard this. And what I am hearing is pretty disturbing as, unsurprisingly, it completely screws American businesses. It takes the concepts of globalism and equity, then combines them while surrendering our sovereignty over our own tax revenues. Basically giving it away.
Does that sound about right?”
“Horrifically enough, it is.”
—
“Over the past two years, President Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen have negotiated a global minimum tax through the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). This organization surrenders America’s sovereignty over our tax code and allows foreign countries to take our taxes that were meant for our own essential programs and military.
…Until last year, the United States was the only country in the world with a global minimum tax. Here at home, U.S. corporations already face a 21% tax rate. Congress has a long history of using the tax code to incentivize certain behavior from businesses and individuals.
…All 25 Republicans of the Ways and Means Committee sponsored the Defending American Jobs and Investment Act. This bill requires the Treasury Department to identify taxes enacted by foreign countries that attack U.S. businesses, like the Undertaxed Profits Rule (UTPR).
The UTPR’s goal is to force countries to enact the OECD plan for global socialism and collect more tax dollars from American businesses. The OECD is actively working against American interests, even while the United States funds 20% of its yearly budget. Republicans in Congress have promised to end all funding for the OECD if it continues along this dangerous path.”
—
“Republicans in Congress held a hearing on the 17th (!) exposing the negotiations and the “deal” which the president and Treasury Secretary Yellen had struck and the more you dig into this Undertaxed Profits Rule (UTPR) those two bozos have agreed to, the worse it gets.”
—
“…“Once again, the Biden Administration neglected to consult Congress before cheerleading the OECD’s latest global tax code rewrite. Today’s ‘administrative guidance’ acknowledges what Republicans have warned for more than two years: the UTPR surtax is unworkable and unlawful.
“By exposing the UTPR’s fundamental flaws, congressional Republicans created an opportunity for the OECD to reconsider this illegal extraterritorial tax which violates U.S. sovereignty. Shockingly, the Biden Administration failed to follow through, surrendering to foreign country demands to allow the UTPR to hit U.S. workers and businesses starting in 2026. Moreover, the OECD’s nonsensical treatment of investment incentives remains, which will send U.S. R&D jobs and tax revenues overseas.”
—
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Follow the science!
“Stanford’s president is not the only researcher pushing unfounded and incorrect conclusions”
https://sensiblemed.substack.com/p/stanfords-president-is-not-the-only
“Everyone gets excited when a top researcher was found to oversee a trainee who photoshopped a western blot.
“Yes! we found an example of fraud”
“OMG, the culture in his laboratory was so horrible.”
“Yay, science is self-correcting!”
Some of these things were said recently, when the Stanford University president resigned to spend more time doing research (which, ironically, was the problem).
Yet, these same people routinely use false studies to push for conclusions they like. In fact, the majority of scientists conduct research that is false, not useful or not helpful. Only a tiny fraction of scientists stick to true and useful.
While fraud is the worst conduct— using false studies to support your views is hardly better. The Figure illustrates the spectrum of bad science from Fraud to Truth. Let me give some examples of people using bad science to further their agenda, and argue for strategies to solve the problem.”
“Just in the last two years, we have seen bad science repeated widely.
Black doctors have half the risk of death when they care for black babies vs white doctors. That is an incredible claim, and the underlying PNAS paper is completely flawed, as I explain in the link. Sadly the flawed study was cited in the dissenting opinion of the Supreme Court.
During the pandemic, public health ‘experts’ amplified flawed mask studies and, those who routinely promoted flawed studies or flawed interpretations were bizarrely promoted to public health dean. Learn why this study was flawed in the link.
Finally, remember that paradigm HF was not an appropriate trial of Entresto. The control arm was half maximal dose enalapril vs. full dose valsartan plus a new drug (not a fair comparison), and worse there is no evidence for actually doses used in American today, which are far below the trial doses.
In all these cases, and many more— cataloged on Sensible Medicine and my Substack— scientists use false, unsupported, misleading studies to advance an agenda— it can be socio-political or it can be to support a for-profit medical product or device. But it is always the same: the study proves nothing, and yet the ‘scientist’ falsely claims it is sufficient evidence to draw a conclusion.
We pat ourselves on the back when we punish one university president, but we do not reward or appreciate good science. We fund people who are good at selling themselves and often making false claims in their grant applications.
Public health experts who promoted the harmful and flawed policies of lockdown, masking toddlers, and boosting young men who already had COVID have been rewarded by the current administration and by public health schools.
Public health has proven itself to be a field, not governed by true and useful science, but one that is nakedly partisan. Finally, careers are made, and billion dollar drugs are supported by bad trials.
Bad science exists on a spectrum and there is little practical difference between photoshopping a Western blot or using a field of ‘physician on record’ in a Florida dataset to make a claim of mortality by race— if you do not fully understand how that data is coded and the limitations of your analysis.
In both cases, other scientists are relying upon a claim that may not be true. Whether the data is forged or the analysis is manipulated— it doesn’t change the central deception: this finding has no actual support.
What is the solution?
If you want to be a real scientist, you cannot be a partisan. No political party has the monopoly on true and useful. Inevitably a good scientist will anger people in both parties. Sadly, the reality is that currently most scientists lean left, and support unscientific and harmful policies of Democrats— such as masking toddlers or closing schools. Better to be a-political.
Second— if you want to be a real scientist, you cannot take money from a company that sells a product in the biomedical space. These payments influence your behavior, and these companies have a uni-directional profit motive. They make money from selling something, but not the converse. Its hard to take seriously an analysis of Entresto from someone paid by Novartis.”
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Victor Davis Hanson on how to create a conspiracy theory.
“It is easy to birth conspiracy theories.
All that is required is chronic government stonewalling of reasonable requests for transparency. Then add in high officials serially lying under oath, along with the blatantly unequal application of the law. Institutionalize arguments from authority of politicians and bureaucrats who refuse to adjudicate arguments empirically.
Include the weaponization of investigatory and intelligence bureaucracies. Finish with the transformation of an obsequious media into a mouthpiece of the state. And presto, you end up with a skeptical, cynical public that learns to believe the very opposite from what it is told by elites.
January 6th
Curiously. some conservative politicians, media and politicos often remark of their surprise that so many of the Trump base insists that the January 6 riot at the Capitol was in part a federally driven conspiracy, or perhaps just a mere “demonstration” gone awry.
But whether true or not, why would some not believe that—given the efforts of the state to hide and warp facts?
Consider what drives rational people to embrace supposed “conspiracy” theories around the so-called “insurrection?”
One reason, of course, is that there was evidence of FBI informants present on January 6. Do not take the word of conservatives for such suppositions.
Instead, remember what award-winning New York Times’s reporter and keen follower of right-wing political activity, Matthew Rosenberg said of January 6, albeit in an ambush interview conducted by Operation Veritas:
The left’s overreaction — the left’s reaction to it in some places was so over the top. They were making it too big a deal … that gave the opening for lunatics in the right to be like, ‘Oh, well, nothing happened here. It was just a peaceful bunch of tourists,’ you know, and it’s like, but nobody wants to hear that.”
Rosenberg then remarked that he spotted numerous FBI informants among the crowd milling around the Capitol. Or as he put it, “There were a ton of FBI informants among the people who attacked the Capitol.” Cannot the FBI refute such allegations?
Apparently not. Given such speculation, one would expect that FBI Director Christopher Wray might at least categorically deny such inflammatory accusations.
Yet in congressional testimony when asked whether the FBI had inserted informants among the protestors, sphinxlike Wray merely shrugged, “So I really need to be careful here talking about where we have or have not used confidential human sources.”
Then there is the mysterious case of Ray Epps, initially sought by FBI “as a person of interest” for allegedly inciting demonstrators to break the law and enter the Capitol.
But then oddly Epps was de facto exempted for some 30 months from arrest—even as hundreds who urged no such action were indicted and convicted of “illegal parading” or unlawfully “demonstrating in front of the Capitol”—misdemeanors that ended up resulting in felony-type sentencing.
In one video clip, as Epps attempts to gin up the stationary crowd to move illegally into the Capitol, he is met with “conspiratorial” accusations from skeptical bystanders calling out: “Fed! Fed! Fed!”
Epps filed suit against Fox News for defamation on grounds that anchor Tucker Carlson had tied him to efforts to incite January 6 violence. Yet then suddenly Epps announced that he believes he will soon be charged, after all, by the government for his role in the January 6 protests.
If true, such an arrest was long anticipated, since Epps is caught on tape, unambiguously, on more than one occasion, urging demonstrators to enter the Capitol unlawfully (e.g., “We need to go to the Capitol”).
If one would like to hatch an Epps conspiracy theory, then one could do no better than quoting another Ray Epps braggadocious claim that he had texted to his nephew: “I orchestrated it.”
It did not help the Left’s construction of a January 6 “insurrection” theory that it serially misled the country about the actual loss of life. At first, Democrats insisted, falsely, that Officer Sicknick’s tragic death was due to protestor violence. Yet an autopsy revealed that he died a day later from a stroke.
Then Democrat leaders pivoted to claim that any law enforcement officer present on January 6, who for any reason subsequently committed suicide, was to be counted a victim of protestor violence.
All the while, the media kept largely quiet about the fact that the only unambiguously violent death that day was that of military veteran Ashli Babbitt. She was unarmed as she was shot unlawfully entering the Capitol through a broken window.
The name and identity of the officer, remember, were suppressed for months—a protective protocol unlike any other accorded law enforcement officers in the country who lethally shoot unarmed suspects.”
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Disgusting.
These people corrupt everything.
“Defense Department Is Boxing Parents Out Of Their Children’s Medical Care And Records ”
https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/26/defense-department-is-boxing-parents-out-of-their-childrens-medical-care-and-records/
“The Department of Defense (DOD) has quietly implemented controversial adolescent health policies throughout the military health system (MHS) that kick in when children turn 12 years old.
Because the official policies are hard to find and are not posted publicly at base clinics, most parents are shocked to find out that doctors prefer to treat their adolescent children in a completely parent-free setting. Parents are outraged to be treated as if they cannot be trusted to guide their own children. Here is my story detailing a quest for answers on why online medical record access is limited and why I was being asked to leave the room.
Two years ago, my family made a military move overseas. At our very first well-child visit to the base medical clinic, my child’s doctor, a complete stranger to us — as are most doctors in this transient lifestyle — said I would be required to leave the exam room at the next year’s exam so she could ask my child more “invasive” questions now that she was an adolescent. The next year, I was surprised to learn via the Tricare online portal (TOL) that I was barred from accessing my child’s online medical record from 12 years of age onward (for the new MHS Genesis system, it’s 13). Additionally, as I came to learn, my child was not allowed to have her own password or create her own account until she turns 18.
When I asked the doctor for the reason why, she said it was “above her paygrade.”
Wanting a more precise answer, I submitted an Interactive Customer Evaluation (ICE) comment to the clinic asking for the DOD policy and underlying law that allow for parents to be barred from online medical records. In the end, it took months for DOD to find the policy, and it also involved submitting a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Defense Health Agency (DHA) as well as my U.S. senator opening up casework into the matter.
Different State Policies on Medical Records
While I waited for the official policy, which appeared to be a well-kept secret, I researched civilian electronic health records (EHR) systems and civilian policies surrounding adolescent confidentiality and consent.
A June 2022 issue of Pediatrics published by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) revealed that it is difficult for doctors to manage EHR systems when it comes to adolescent privacy because of differing state laws on minor consent and confidentiality. As military families make moves across the United States and overseas every two or so years, it’s crucial for parents to understand that their rights are treated very differently depending on the state.
Though the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) gives parents access to their children’s medical records until they turn 18, it cedes this privacy rule to state law, which means parents may lose such access. So, for instance, California law allows minors to obtain an abortion, and no parental involvement or notification is required. Additionally, hospital systems like Scripps restrict parents from online medical records when their children turn 12. On the other hand, Florida law requires minors to notify at least one parent 48 hours before an abortion, and permission must be given — though a judge can bypass this; and parents have the right to access and review their minor children’s medical record, which was clarified by a Parents’ Bill of Rights law.
Another article from adolescent medicine researchers in the same 2022 issue of Pediatrics specifically mentions the complexity around keeping abortion and transgender interventions for young people confidential.
Additionally, researchers in the Journal of Adolescent Health promoted providing different types of access to parents and adolescents. Options included, in part, “permitting full access only to the 13- to 17-year-old adolescents, with parents able to receive only nonconfidential information — an approach that requires actively blocking access to certain information by the parent and requires vigilance and ongoing effort to maintain … or (4) turning off portal access for all patients aged 13-17 years.”
Doctors Want to Be Alone with Kids
In regard to “alone time” with the doctor, the now-highly politicized AAP recommends that practitioners ask parents of adolescents to leave the exam room during well-child checks so they can conduct a psychosocial assessment without parental interference. The implication is clear: Medical personnel can be trusted, but parents cannot.
One tool doctors use for the psychosocial evaluation is the HEEADSSS assessment. “The Psychosocial Interview for Adolescents Updated for a New Century Fueled by Media,” written by U.S. military-associated doctors, is a detailed explanation of HEEADSSS. Some suggested questions from a HEEADSSS survey are: “Tell me about your sexual life. Are you attracted to boys? Girls? Both? Not yet sure?” If the doctor wants specifics, some suggested follow-up questions are: “Are your sexual activities enjoyable?” “How many sexual partners have you had altogether?” “What are you using for birth control? Are you satisfied with your method?”
Parents are rightly outraged to learn these questions could be asked of children as young as 12 while parents are excluded.”
—
“Unelected Bureaucrats Decide
I had reasonably (but incorrectly) assumed that in the absence of state law’s guidance on privacy, the fallback would be federal law, HIPAA, which gives parents access to minor medical records as their minors’ personal representatives until 18. I never thought the fallback would be policy created by unelected bureaucrats at DHA.
I later obtained a policy memo, “Minors and Reproductive Health Care Services (Overseas)” that states that at overseas medical treatment facilities, “where there is no applicable state or federal law, clinicians generally look to the general principles of American law to determine if a minor can self-consent. … Unless modified by host nation law or a SOFA [Status of Forces Agreement], and consistent with the general principles of American law, a mature minor is further defined …as being of sufficient age (age 15 or older) who, in the licensed independent practitioner’s opinion, is also capable of making important decisions on their own behalf.”
In other words, an adolescent health provider can deem a child to be a mature minor based on his or her professional opinion. However, after reading recent research reports by leaders in military adolescent medicine stating that 7-year-old children were mature enough to help direct their transgender medical interventions and claiming that efforts to assist patients in becoming comfortable with their sex are unethical, there is no reason for confidence in the ability of activist-minded doctors to determine maturity levels of minors.”
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This is why it matters when the president is compromised. He’s an easy target for extortion.
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Totally normal….
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But muh narrative….
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The unsafe and ineffective Covid jab claims another healthy victim.
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Oh noooooos…..
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Surprised?
Not at all.
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I love it.
Cameraman fact checks the govt spokes liar in real time. 🙂
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Cameraman Humor😀🤣
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I am sorry for those in the military for years, who will now have to get out ASAP to protect their own children. I know a family who lived apart during Covid to protect them from having to get the shot. These people are not going to take a chance on their children’s lives. We should end up with a great military. God help us! He is our real protection, at any rate.
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Bidenomics is working…..that’s all he has to say. Apparently, the US economy is doing better than predicted. His Shepherd doesn’t like cops – he’ll get along with my Shepherd; she has the same attitude. Strangely she likes everybody else just not men in uniform
I’m amused by the Post – they think Garland blew it by not burying this in the first two years of the admin. In other words, they admit Garland didn’t interfere because if he did, he would have buried it. Perhaps this also betrays a Republican or Conservative thought process – we’d bury so obviously Biden and Garland must have buried something.
DeSantis is spiralling downwards. The anti-LGBQT/Trump ad probably sealed the deal. He’s done. Apparently, he hired Ted Cruz’s team from 8 years ago – it shows. Some analysts now see Ramaswamy passing DeSantis.
Speaking of spiralling – from yesterday – Twitter has lost 50% of its ad revenue and is in the negative. Its hard to attract corporate ads if you allow racist speech. Obviously Musk and Zuckerberg have enough resources to undercut each other until one blinks. The question is who can afford to lose the most money. One will go broke.
From what I understand OECD countries are attempting to cooperate on the issue of corporate taxes . The idea is to prevent companies from hopping to different jurisdiction seeking the lowest rate possible – for example; many US tech companies are taxed in Ireland as opposed to the US. OECD leaders like Biden have been trying to prevent this and force companies to pay in their country of origin or face penalties. Its a complicated scheme as some OECD countries – the Netherlands and Ireland for example, — collect tax revenue as tax havens and don’t want to give it up. I’m not going to research but the hotair article doesn’t make any sense logically given the aims of the OECD.
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Victor Hanson might want to analyse Republican based conspiracies. I’m looking forward to the discovery in the FOX libel suit – Dominion was fun.
“she was shot unlawfully entering the Capitol through a broken window.”
Huh; if you are entering through a broken window are you not committing a crime and if you do not stop committing the crime, can you not expect to be shot? Too bad DC wasn’t Florida – stand your ground law.
Europe is in the middle of a two week heat wave with temperatures hitting close to 40 (105 F) throughout southern Europe. Record heat is everywhere. I don’t panic about things I have little control of but climate change is real.
The Atlantic isn’t the only one that takes liberties – most of the sites AJ quotes here take liberties. There’s still good journalism but its harder to find as eyeball popping headlines and opening paragraphs are needed for the clicks.
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I have mentioned the medical age of consent here before. There is no fixed age in either the US or Canada or it varies widely from state to state to province. In most cases, it comes down to the doctor’s discretion and the situation. For example, my daughter was 12 when she went to therapy – I was informed as to the process and procedures but I never sat in nor do I know what was discussed. Patients won’t be honest if they know what they say may be repeated elsewhere. On the other hand, parents still have legal authority over a child – I had a student who was committed to the psych ward for a weekend by her mother.
I’m sure the defence policy isn’t actually new but just affected this particular parent for the first time and they were surprised. Medical age of consent is a grey area but allowing your child to have medical privacy is important. I’m sure most 13 year old girls don’t want to discuss their menstrual cycle with dad in the room.
The “sample” questions listed in the article are exactly that – sample or suggested and depending on the age highly unlikely. Of course, having confidence in your family doctor is important. As having trust and confidence in your child – after all as a parent you are their biggest influence.
Thankfully, we can pick our family doctor in Canada and I’m quite certain my Irish Catholic family doctor didn’t ask any invasive questions of my daughter – although he did prescribe her birth control at 17.
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In the military medical system you take what you can get–if/when you can get it. Three times I met the doctor delivering my baby on the delivery table. Because you move so regularly and the physicians/PAs/ODs/NPs also move regularly, it’s unlikely you have time to develop any sort of a relationship with any medical personnel–unless you or your child have a rare condition that requires specialist care.
Or, as I used to say, if you can get to the second floor with the specialists, everything changed for the better–other than the physical ailment.
I actually asked one physician to write into my child’s chart: “Mother is an intelligent woman.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I’m always treated as if I was a fool or imbecile.”
He didn’t write anything into my child’s chart, but he respected me more.
I don’t know what I’d do about this current situation. Dividing children and parents, IMHO, is not a good thing unless you have definite proof of a problem.
Planting suspicion about their parent’s love, care, and concern into a young teenager’s mind–especially when the teenager may not understand what is being explained to them and which the parent will live with for the rest of their life as well–is morally wrong IMHO.
My friends are advising their children and grandchildren to avoid the military.
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Senior officer spouses, senior enlisted spouses, ombudsmen, and often neighbors are trained to look for problems within their sphere/community. Over a certain seniority level, particularly within a sea-going community–all servicemembers and spouses are given training on anti-alcohol, anti-drug, anti-spousal abuse, and potential child-abuse issues.
The military used to look after its own.
Errant behavior by servicement, spouse, or children, went up the chain of command. Violence in military housing required intervention–families could be moved, servicemembers caught abusing anything could be put into the brig. There were standards of safety–because of the need for military readiness–that had to be maintained.
Years ago, probably 35 years ago now, when women first shipped out on ships, a ship readied for deployment on five days notice–which was in the contract everyone reviewed and signed.
Several women showed up with their children in tow.
They were ordered aboard their ship, and the CO’s wife (a friend) was called to come pick up all the children. The child went into foster care until relatives could be found to pick them up. Their mothers/maybe some fathers I don’t recall now, reclaimed them when the ship returned–months later.
The CO was exasperated when he called his wife. “Come get them. I don’t know what else to do.”
After that, the Navy passed a law. Every sea-going servicemember had to supply a notarized letter and plan authorizing and spelling out what would happen with the dependent children when the ship sailed. It was part of the contract.
I’m sure problems developed at some points, but for the majority of the children of seagoing parents, it meant they had a good chance of being well settled before their parents deployed.
My point is, during our time, the Navy members looked after their own.
Social services was the last resort.
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The same “press” that refuses to ask one single question about bizarre behavior of the President!!
CNN
—
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters that he’s “fine,” after freezing during a news conference on Wednesday.
McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, stopped speaking in the middle of remarks at his regularly scheduled weekly news conference on Capitol Hill. After a 30-second pause, his colleagues crowded around to see if he was OK and asked him how he felt. GOP Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming was seen gripping McConnell’s arm and whispered to him, “Hey Mitch, anything else you want to say? Or should we just go back to your office? Do you want to say anything else to the press?”
He said nothing, and was led away from the press conference and towards his office by an aide. He returned to the news conference a few minutes later.
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HRW: “There’s still good journalism but it’s harder to find as eyeball popping headlines and opening paragraphs are needed for the clicks.”
Amen. It takes some work these days!
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Very little about McConnell on the left side of the internet – the memes are not there yet. One comment I saw, wished him well and hoped the excellent health care he was entitled to would help him, to take advantage of the paid time off and of course the generous pension. They only wish this was available to all Americans.
The lack of memes might be explained by the death of Sinead O’Connor. The left is busy posting memorials and songs. I particularly like her version of Silent Night but I think the following is more symbolic of her attitude. She had her mental health struggles but the voice…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbre5Fs9m8I
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Heard something by her tonight that reminded me of Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane. Way back in the day, my teen-age self had the album. ‘Go Ask Alice’
Sorry to hear the news even though I didn’t follow O’Connor, but the loss of her 17-year-old son to suicide a few years ago must have been so tragic — and I’m concerned, too, for McConnell. Hoping it was nothing significant, but it was somewhat alarming to watch. Quite sure those around him will make sure he gets checked out.
Life can get hard. Lord have mercy.
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S. O’Connor was far more than her music – she was the first and still one of the only public figures to so openly criticize the Catholic Church’s pedophilia. In Ireland in the early 90s, no less.
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I do remember she was a bit of a social commentary lightning rod. 🙂
And I think Erick Erickson is correct on this point, but time will tell:
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