Connecting Some Dots

There are some things we knew back in 2019 (I wrote here and here) that should have been earth-shaking news that would have prevented the situation we’re in now in our country. But they were ignored. Dribbles of additional evidence keep coming out to show that what we knew then—and certainly some people knew well before that—was true, and ever more significant.

A scripture passage I think applies to us here today.

Dan Bongino in his Tuesday, January 24, podcast laid out the details, adding in the new information. And he added a bit more in his Wednesday podcast. I had to listen to the podcasts several times to grasp it enough to repeat it. And then, as I try to synthesize, I keep coming upon more. So, before I get way too much for one post, I’m going to connect some dots.

But, spoiler alert, as Dan Bongino says (I counted 11 times plus the title of his podcast): Joe Biden is a foreign agent. He does not mean Biden is a 007-type spy; he means he is acting on behalf of foreign entities and what will benefit them, rather than acting on behalf of the United States of America as he swore an oath to do.

To lay this out, let’s back up a bit, so we can go through things somewhat chronologically. Do you remember Peter Strzok and Lisa Page? They were FBI people (and clandestine adulterers) who were intent on preventing and then disabling the Trump presidency. The means was the Russia hoax, the Christopher Steele dossier, etc. Among the emails Strzok and Page exchanged, there was one discussing who they should place to infiltrate the Trump White House to spy on a sitting president.

Incidentally, there was audio surveillance of the Trump campaign and also of the Trump White House after he was elected president. Spying actually took place. But this discussion was about placing a mole physically there.

They considered Mike Pence’s chief of staff, whose wife worked for Strzok. Then Strzok says in the text, “I’m talking with Bill. Do we want Joe to go with Evanina instead of Charlie for a number of reasons?” Page answers, “Hmm. Not sure. Would it be unusual to have [sic] show up again? Maybe another agent from the team?”

“Bill” is Bill Evanina. He was, as Bongino lays out, “knee deep in a scandal to get people into the White House, and to suppress information on social media, to spy on Donald Trump. And it looks like squash information negative for the Democrats.”

There was a Washington Times article from early December 2020 quoting Evanina as saying that “the federal government’s coordinated work with social media companies ahead of the 2020 election will provide a playbook for fighting foreign influence in the future.”

What we knew but now have clear evidence of—thanks to Elon Musk's Twitter purchase and opening up the files—is that the coordination was government using private corporations to take the actions that the government couldn’t legally take, to censor and suppress information it didn’t like. It’s corruption in a very socialist/fascist kind of way.

Dan Bongino
screenshot from Dan Bongino podcast

Bongino points out, the question for years has been who was Charlie?

Evanina was friends with another FBI guy named McGonigal. Not just any random FBI guy, but the head of counterintelligence in the New York field office, the highest ranking FBI counterintelligence person outside of DC. Here they were on stage together, right after Comey was fired, praising Comey. Oh, how they’ll miss working with him!

Charles McGonigal, right, with Bill Evanina, left
screenshot from Dan Bongino podcast

It becomes obvious now that “Charlie” in the email is McGonigal. Charles F. McGonigal was arrested Monday—indictment unsealed last Wednesday, January 18, but the investigation ongoing since 2017—for influence peddling and other serious felonies. [The indictment document Bongino refers to is here. However, I also found this summary, with a link to this indictment document.]

Charles McGonigal leaves court January 23
photo by John Minchillo/AP, found here

Lest you think this is not significant enough, let’s add in some information Kash Patel has laid out in his Kash’s Corner on EpochTV last Friday. 

There’s a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, close confidante of Putin, sanctioned and charged during the Trump administration. He hired Christopher Steele, paid him for the infamous dossier. Deripaska’s attorney, Adam Waldman, is buddy-buddy with Senator Mark Warner, at the time the highest ranking Democrat on the Senate Intel Committee. They were discussing Christopher Steele, and texts show efforts to arrange a meeting.

Oleg Deripaska, Russian oligarch
image is screenshot from here

Deripaska, according to the unsealed indictment, paid a quarter million dollars to Charles McGonigal, while he still held his FBI Counterintelligence position, to basically launder money and continue his (Deripaska’s) sanctions violations. McGonigal, it appears, took a bribe to work against the interests of his country.

That’s the main story. But there are additional dots to connect. Back to Bongino’s presentation, which leaves behind most of the Russia details and moves on to Albania. Because, again, the larger story is that Joe Biden is a foreign agent.

According to the charging documents,

On October 5, 2017, outside of a restaurant, in a parked car in New York City, Defendant McGonigal received approximately $80,000 in cash from Person A.

In the fall of 2017, at Person A’s residence in New Jersey, defendant McGonigal twice more received cash from Person A in the amounts of approximately $80,000 and $65,000.

Indictment document charging Charles McGonigal,
highlighted image is screenshot from Dan Bongino podcast

A few months later, in February, McGonigal traveled with Person A to Albania and failed to report the travel to the FBI as required. Two days after returning, McGonigal requests an FBI-NY investigation into a citizen lobbyist.

Person A, who was later identified by the FBI-NY as a confidential human source, cooperated and provided information during the investigation. That is important, because the person these two were getting the FBI to investigate was the political rival of the Prime Minister of Albania.

Indictment document charging Charles McGonigal,
highlighted image is screenshot from Dan Bongino podcast

A Person B is mentioned, who happens to be friends with Person A. Person B later helped facilitate a meeting between the FBI-NY and witnesses located in Europe by, among other things, paying for the witnesses’ travel expenses. Person B is later identified as several things:

·        An Albanian national employed by a Chinese energy conglomerate.

·        An informal advisor to the Prime Minister of Albania.

·        Retaining an official Albanian government email account and passport.

Indictment document charging Charles McGonigal,
highlighted image is screenshot from Dan Bongino podcast

While the charging documents do not identify Person B, Bongino is willing to connect some likely dots. In August of 2018 the New York Times runs a story mentioning that, in November of 2017, “American authorities arrested Patrick Ho, a top executive of CEFC’s nonprofit arm, and charged him with offering bribes to officials in Uganda and Chad in exchange for oil rights.” CEFC is a Chinese energy conglomerate.

New York Times article here,
highlighted image is screenshot from Dan Bongino podcast

As Bongino explains, “The Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC made deals in the UAE and Kazakstan, and it also courted top leaders, such as like prime ministers, in places like—oh, Albania!”

Then, being sarcastic, Bongino says, “You know, wouldn’t it be really crazy if that guy had a business relationship with Hunter Biden? Ohhh! Oh, he does! Wow!”

According to the Washington Post, Hunter Biden received an additional $1 million retainer issued as part of an agreement to represent Patrick Ho, a CEFC official, who would later be charged in connection with a multimillion-dollar scheme to bribe leaders from Chad and Uganda. The retainer contained signatures of Hunter Biden and Patrick Ho, who was later convicted and sentenced to three years in prison.

Washington Post article here,
highlighted image is screenshot from Dan Bongino podcast

So, Patrick Ho, on behalf of a Chinese company, is involved in bribing the Prime Minister of Albania, and is connected to Person A, friend of McGonigal, just arrested for influence peddling. Oh, and Ho has also been working closely with Hunter Biden.

By the way, Hunter Biden also happens to know McGonigal; their kids were on the same soccer team. Small world.

Bongino believes someone flipped. And that is related to the classified documents being found in various stashes by Joe Biden, left over from his vice presidency six years ago. According to an MSNBC reporter that Bongino cites, as well as Kash Patel, the FBI had been investigating into McGonigal for a while, at least since early 2017.

But they were investigating because they thought there was a Trump-Russia connection, through Manafort, Trump’s one-time campaign manager. Bongino says:

What I’m telling you is, the FBI may have inadvertently walked into a trap. They may have been investigating this guy, McGonigal, thinking they’re going to nail him, because of his connections to Manafort, who was Trump’s campaign manager. Now you getting the whole show? “Look what we got! And another Trump angle.” Inadvertently realized that this guy McGonigal’s larger connection may have been to a network that Hunter Biden was using to get money to influence his dad. And then they were like, “What do we do now? We can’t make it go away. We’re going to have to arrest this guy. Let’s just emphasize to Andrew Weisman and our other spokespeople in the media, the Muller hack, the Trump angle, through Manafort, but leave out all the Hunter Biden stuff.”

What does it matter? It matters because selling out your country for money is treason. And that’s what the Bidens have been doing.

There’s a Washington Examiner piece from September 2022 making the connection between Biden and Albania. Reporter Tom Rogan says,

The Albanian prime minister appears to be involved in a narcotrafficking conspiracy involving the Sinaloa cartel. That is to say, the cartel responsible for the largest share of narcotics smuggling into the United States. And for whatever reason, the Biden administration does not appear terribly bothered by this.

Washington Examiner article here,
image is screenshot from Dan Bongino podcast

It sure looks like Joe Biden is ignoring Albania’s narcotrafficking with the Sinaloa cartel—to the detriment of our country—because of the influence peddling he has always used to build his family wealth.

Bongino is not the only one connecting dots. John Sullivan, talking with Stu Burgierre of The Blaze, talks about the huge amount of money flowing from China to the University of Pennsylvania—where Joe Biden received close to $1 million for “work” there (guest lecturing, which he didn’t actually do), and had his office—and papers, the first ones found in the growing list. The arrangement with University of Pennsylvania was courted by Hunter Biden.

Money poured in from China to U Penn—$67.6 million according to records. Two-thirds of that came in during the years Joe Biden was affiliated with the university.

John Solomon on the Stu Burguiere show,
screenshot from here

The diamond gift from China,
image found here

During the Trump administration, Chinese spies were ousted from American universities. At the behest of the University of Pennsylvania, Biden reversed that policy, claiming it was “racist” to suspect Chinese nationals of spying, even though they were doing so. The Trump program had been working. Shutting it down benefitted China, and it benefitted the University of Pennsylvania, which was getting funding from China. And the timing of it appears to tie it in with China giving the Biden family a 3.16 carat diamond worth $80,000 and forgiveness of a $5 million loan—in other words, free money.

Almost as an aside, Solomon mentions that CEFC was intended to buy up US national gas assets and send them to China. He lists three things that we know about Biden’s dealings:

·        2013 December Hunter Biden travels with his father to China; Hunter creates an investment in China, which he ultimately gets 10% of. Hunter then facilitates a deal with American auto parts manufacturing, making sensitive technology for military jets. He gets the deal with a Chinese company known to be connected to the Chinese government.

·        2017-2018 is the U Penn deal, brokered by Hunter Biden, lucrative to both U Penn and the Bidens.

·        Until Patrick Ho got arrested and people got spooked from the CEFC deal, China was on the verge of scoring a deal that would take energy from American national gas, as well as the technology used to get it, the fracking technology, and give it to China—at a time when Biden was saying natural gas use was bad and was trying to curtail its use here—moving us from energy independent under Trump to once again dependent on foreign oil.

Solomon doesn’t list this, but Biden drew down the US oil reserves—reserves that are there to support us in times of war or natural disasters. This was ostensibly to lower the price of gas (which had gone up precipitously because of Biden’s policies), but couldn’t do that, because he went and sold the oil to China.

Biden acts as a foreign agent, benefitting foreign nations while harming US interests—and he does it for money.

Think back on his brag about firing a Ukrainian prosecutor, at a time when Hunter was on the board of Burisma, a shady Ukrainian company, getting paid for having no skills beyond the Biden name. The fired prosecutor was investigating Burisma.

I don’t think I’ve made it clear yet, and maybe I can’t, but this looks to be related to the classified documents caches. We were never told how those just happened to be found, and how/why they were looked for—suddenly, after six+ years, at an inconvenient time when the Biden administration was trying to claim Trump was the wrongdoer concerning classified documents.

Who sent someone to his U Penn office to looks for them? And then to his various homes?

Robert Gouveia asks, “Did Hunter Biden sell access to Joe Biden’s classified documents that were on the floor in his garage?”  There’s an email in question, purportedly written by Hunter Biden. But, according to Miranda Devine, author of Laptop from Hell, and expert on all things related to Hunter Biden’s laptop, this email was not written by Hunter; it looks like he copied and pasted from some possibly classified materials. That could be cleared up—or confirmed—by crossmatching.

Without that uncharacteristically intelligence-filled 22-bullet-points in that email, it is unlikely Hunter could have convinced anyone he knew anything about the oil industry or Ukraine; there’s no evidence anywhere else that he held such knowledge in his head. Nor is their evidence that he has the writing capability to produce such a detailed list on any topic.

Senator Ron Johnson describes the email as looking like background briefing material, what he says is called “scene setters” from the State Department, such as he has seen before traveling overseas. And it “is obvious that Hunter Biden is selling access to information.” He can’t say definitively that this is related to the classified documents that Biden has squirreled away, in five locations so far. But it is evidence of influence trading.

If Hunter had been marketing the name (and he’s still doing it, by selling his art for $50,000 on up—a surprising price for an unknown novice artist) but there was no evidence of favors granted in exchange, then his influence peddling would just be his own sleazy lifestyle. But there’s plenty of evidence that Joe Biden consistently doles out favors in exchange for money.

And right now Biden is pouring more and more money into Ukraine—one of his corrupt deal partners—ostensibly to protect their borders while he refuses to protect US borders.

To quote Bongino one more time:

Joe Biden is a foreign agent. His son is knee deep in this operation. His son is knee deep in selling his family name to international influence peddlers, who are using Hunter Biden as a conduit to Joe Biden, who’s now the president of the United States, for Joe Biden to influence people for money.

What can we expect to result from this evidence that's piling up? Bongino thinks that as long as this regime is in power, and in control of the Department of Justice, there won’t be any prosecutions. He thinks the likely result will be political.

I’m not encouraged by that. A political cost, if it materializes despite the controlled media, would mean more people vote against Biden in an upcoming election—which he may not survive to run in. And elections are run by these nefarious actors, so we can’t trust the outcome anyway.

I only know that having a president who is a foreign agent—a traitor to our country, selling us out for money—is untenable.

There Is No Worldwide Interest

There’s a principle of the Spherical Model I don’t talk about that often, but we’ve been getting examples lately, so this seems like a good time.

 

East and West on the Sphere

In the Spherical Model, north on the sphere is toward freedom; south is toward tyranny. The further north or south you go, the more freedom or tyranny you get. But the lateral direction, east or west, isn’t necessarily good one way and bad the other. It has to do with level of interest, going from furthest west individual families (the basic unit of civilization) eastward on up to communities, towns, cities, counties, states/provinces, nations, regions, and world. The level whose interest it is handles the issue.

West on the sphere is more local, with individuals and families being furthest west;
going east on the sphere is less local, with world being the furthest east meridian.

If that always happened, we’d have no east/west (on the sphere) problems. But there is a problem when the wrong level handles the issue.

It’s very rare that a lower level takes on the role of a higher level. However, you do have an example of that right now on the southern US border. International borders are the responsibility—the interest—of the national government. But if the national government fails to do that job, the next level down, the state, will need to do it. It’s a problem for the state, especially when the national government complains, “You can’t do that; that’s our responsibility.” If they know it’s their responsibility, then their failure must be purposeful.

The Bill of Rights are the first ten
amendments to the US Constitution.

So, that’s a rare case of a lower level taking on the interest of a higher level, by necessity. Almost always our lateral problems are higher levels insisting on usurping the lower-level authority. The school district overrides the role of the parent. The federal government overrides the powers left to the states. 

Our US Constitution is designed to prevent this, limiting—even enumerating—the powers of the federal government, and spelling out in the 9^th and 10^th Amendments that anything not expressly granted to the federal government is retained by the states and the people. Nevertheless, that limitation of power gets ignored all the time, causing just about every government-related problem we have.

It seems to be a tendency of governments to try to increase their power by usurping the authority of the lower levels. Even HOAs do it, taking power over the homeowner. And every time a government does it, that is tyranny.

The Spherical Model description, then, is that east/west direction is neutral—unless a higher level takes on a lower level’s authority. In an ideal national government, there could be some debate about whose authority is appropriate for a particular issue. But most of the time it’s pretty clear that whatever issue it is, it belongs to the lower level.

With this tendency toward usurping power over lower levels, we could make a policy—as individuals and as sovereign nations—never to give power upward above the national level. Indeed, the American people have never granted the authority to the federal government to give our sovereignty to some other entity. There might be a need for international treaties and organizations, but never a need to grant authority upward beyond the nation.

I tried a thought experiment to see if I could envision an issue or situation in which the world as a whole was the appropriate interest. If we were invaded by aliens from another planet, we might have a need to protect our border—the entire planet being the border. But even then the participation would come from the individual nations making up the world. Treaties and alliances would be sufficient, without giving up sovereignty to a worldwide leader. We have no need in our world for a Star Trek Federation, because we're not negotiating with alien worlds.

 

The Globalists

So let’s state unequivocally, before even looking at their arguments and assertions, that the World Economic Forum leaders meeting in Davos this past week should never be given power. Because they are globalists, you can know, despite their rhetoric, that they are power mongers, working out how to take power away from all the lower levels, from nations on down to individuals. Whatever they say, they are not about working for our good; they are about acquiring more power for themselves.

There was a weird moment when John Kerry was speaking, when he seems to notice how out of sync their efforts are:

John Kerry speaking at WEF Forum 2023
screenshot from here

And when you stop to think about it, it’s pretty extraordinary that we select group of human beings, because whatever touched us at some point in our lives, are able to sit in a room and come together and actually talk about saving the planet. I mean, it’s so almost extraterrestrial to think about “saving the planet.” And if you said that to most people, most people, they think you’re just a crazy tree-hugging Lefty liberal, you know, do-gooder or whatever.

“Saving the planet” would be the only level at which it would be conceivable to have a worldwide level interest. That is perhaps why these “crazy tree-hugging Lefty liberal do-gooders” have invented planet-wide dangers such as “climate change” or “sustainability” as their causes. When they say these things, put in their place the problem of “aliens invading the planet” and therefore you need to grant them power. And do not suppose they will show you evidence of the aliens invading; you must just trust them, because they know better than you down below, who are just “most people.”

Klaus Schwab, the Bond-villain-sounding head of the WEF, gives the classic wording. His welcome speech details the problems the world is facing, things like energy transmission, COVID, supply chains, high inflation, rising interest rates, growing national debt (of many nations, I’m guessing, not just the obvious US). He divides things into several categories:

Klaus Schwab, head of the World Economic Forum
screenshot from here

·        Global economic transformation.

·        Geopolitical systemic transformation: “a messy patchwork of powers.”

·        Existential problems: climate change, exploitation of nature, nuclear possible incidents, or even worse, extreme poverty and viruses.

·        Technological revolution.

These all happen to lead to what he refers to as some dreaded “fragmentation.” He says to those elites with him in Davos, “We have the ability to collaboratively build a more peaceful, resilient, inclusive, and sustainable world.” Doesn’t that sound nice? But in order to do this, they need to overcome the worst form of fragmentation of all—those who disagree and won’t follow along. There are bystanders, but there are, even worse, those who go negative and have a “critical and confrontational attitude.”

If only we would all just go along with the people who caused the economic shutdown with a planned-for pandemic, leading to the economic difficulties they are looking for in order to accomplish the “Great Reset,” their announced plan, not a conspiracy theory! If only we would not resist those who prevented us from getting cheap and effective medical treatments instead of the oft-mandated experimental “vaccines” that were neither safe nor effective—and were not even actually vaccines! If only we went along with the elites who want to shut down our energy supply, getting rid of gas-power cars even though they can’t provide reliable electric or other alternatives!

These supposed “problem solvers” are responsible for most of the world’s problems. It’s hard to know how much is for the purpose of creating chaos so people will turn to them to solve their problems—“just give us the power so we help you”; or how much is absolute incompetence.

meme posted on Facebook by Allie Duzett

 

Dispersion of Knowledge

One thing is certain: global elites have no business interfering in what I eat, what I drive, what kind of stove I cook on, what kind of lightbulb I use, what kind of toilet I have in my house, what I use to heat my home, what doctors I choose, what medical care I choose, and what I want to teach my children. They can’t know.

This is the basic dispersion of knowledge ideas expressed well in economic books such as Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson, Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics and a dozen of his other books, and Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. The knowledge is dispersed. (Incidentally, Bitcoin technology is dispersed, unlike the centralized blockchain currencies being pushed by some nations and their elites.)

Schwab’s concern about “a messy patchwork of powers” shows his preference for centralized power—with him at the center.

That patchwork argument is often used by centralizers. Shouldn’t you have all the states have common laws, instead of this messy patchwork? Shouldn’t we lay down policy on healthcare, abortion, education, insurance, oil and gas regulation—you name it—from above, so every place is uniform?

The answer is no. You should not have a policy from above, where the policymakers do not have to experience the results of their imposition. The people who have to live with the consequences, who have a stake in the outcome of policies—they should be the ones to have a say. They’re the ones who have reason to care, and immediate knowledge the faraway bureaucrats and elites do not have.

The decision should always be made as locally as possible. Every time a higher level takes on decision-making for what should be done more locally, tyranny results. No matter how well-intentioned the higher-level policy makers might be (and you probably shouldn’t be so generous with them; they’re power mongers), taking authority from its proper level reduces free will, which means tyranny.

When you let those to whom problems matter do the problem solving—those to whom the problem is immediate and local—then you get relevant ideas and innovation. Then they can share that innovation with other local areas who have the same or similar issues, and the other place can adopt or adapt the innovation. Top-down solutions from afar will not solve the issues. They don’t care to solve the issues; they care to preserve and increase their power.

I’ve waited too long to recall everything I watched, but someone pointed out that Schwab’s concerns about those pesky people with confrontational attitudes actually shows he is scared: we were supposed to comply, and we didn’t do according to plan. Many did, of course, but too many for his comfort did not.

And I don’t remember if it was that same person, so, again, I don’t know who to credit. But someone pointed out that we can do something to fight these global elites even as individuals: we can say no, I will not get that shot; no, I will not allow my child to be taught those things; no, I will not stop using my gas stove. When enough of us refuse to give them power, we all find they were powerless after all.

 

Additional Resources:

·        Law vlogger Robert Gouveia commented on the WEF Forum in Davos all week. He shared the video clips I took quotes from here. He got the John Kerry clip from @drewhlive on Twitter, which he recommended.

·        RebelNews sent a crew to cover the events all week. Their coverage is here. 

It's Time to Get Them Out Now

This past week I met with some other community members to talk about school board races. November is most of a year away, but campaigns will be underway in just a few months. And campaigns—like war campaigns—take planning and strategy. Those are things I’m not good at. But I’m an interested taxpayer and I have a stake in the education of the next generation, as do we all. So we’re in recruiting mode.

Our school board, Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District (CFISD), will have four of the seven positions up for election this round. We had three in 2021, and we conservative school choice people won all three, but they’re still a minority on the board, here in a conservative sector of northwest Harris County, Texas.

CFISD's current board. Green are those elected in 2021.
Blue are the 2023 races; dark blue will be open seats, light blue incumbents.
Image adapted from the CFISD Board website

Of the four seats, two will be open, where board members are retiring, and two have incumbents, one of which is the most pro-woke and most formidable as an opponent. She claims to be a Republican; her voting record shows her to be. She’s got an influential position on a state committee. She’s a petite, lovely woman who seems sympathetic, gentle, and child loving. I believe I voted for her when she got in, before she had revealed her real intentions. Still, if we get a strong candidate, and if there’s momentum going with other strong candidates, I think she can be defeated. At worst, we could disempower her with a board in opposition to the woke policies she favors. She supported school library books such as I will talk about below (I wrote about this here).

What I’m seeing in her is, I think, a not uncommon reaction to having a child with LGBTQ issues. She lost a child recently—which is heartbreaking. I didn’t know the cause for a while, but if I’m understanding correctly, it was to suicide, a daughter with gender dysphoria. I think this board member is now seeing any lack of acceptance of transgenderism as bullying that is life-threatening to those particular students.

Here is my belief about LGBT issues, based on social science, which I’ve written about, according to Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, Jr.: One likely cause is childhood trauma, often sexual, that causes a dissociation with the child’s sexual identity. The child can’t understand something traumatic, and rejects a portion of themselves, in this case their femaleness or maleness. As with other dissociative disorders, there is standard talk therapy that can help. This particular type is called reintegrative therapy. The intent is to help with the unwanted dysphoria. The intent is to deal with the mental problems, not necessarily to change orientation. But the resolution of the trauma does tend to help a person be happier, more functional, and less obsessed with the unhappy feelings.

In short, the way to deal with the high possibility of suicide accompanying gender dysphoria or unwanted same-sex attraction is not to change the world and its attitudes, but to relieve the underlying trauma in the person with the issues.

Which is more compassionate?

·        going along with a child’s delusion, while attempting to change the attitudes toward human reproduction in the entire human race, and then going ahead with body alterations that will both make a person freakish and likely also infertile for life?

·        or providing therapy that will at least make the person more mentally healthy and has the possibility of total resolution of the problem?

Let me add something I think is relevant here. Childhood trauma is often something we all recognize as traumatic and confusing; sexual assault would qualify. But sometimes it’s something we as adults might consider relatively minor. One of the possible traumas is introducing sex prematurely into a child’s life. A child has natural reserves and modesty. Breaking that down can cause trauma and confusion. Breaking down that natural reserve is something pedophiles do. It is called grooming. That is why that word is currently being used in reference to school curricula that sexualizes kids at earlier and earlier ages.

What can a drag queen “kid friendly” event do? Sexualize—and traumatize—kids. It attempts to normalize something the kids know instinctively is not normal. The trauma can lead to gender confusion and dysphoria—the normalizing of which can traumatize and confuse more children.

Trauma could come from sexualizing books or media. This could be in the schools or just about any other place. But in schools is a particular problem, because there’s a loophole in the law—until we can get it fixed through the legislature—that provides what is called an obscenity exemption for pornographic materials.

If you try to read from these materials at a school board meeting, you’ll get shut down, because those meetings are livestreamed, and children can see them, and they’re obviously offensive. But the moment you put that vile material in a school setting, it is considered educational, and those who provide it are exempt from prosecution for providing pornography to minors.

The proponents of these materials are very vocal. The defense is always the accusation that anyone wanting to remove a book from the school library is a Nazi book burner, or the same-old puritanical pearl clutchers who have tried to get classics like Huckleberry Finn banned.

If I weren’t paying attention, I could be swayed by such arguments. I’m against banning good books. I’m against banning books in general. However, I do believe we need books to meet certain quality standards to be in school libraries—paid for by taxpayers and given the approval of school authorities. If a parent wants their kid to read something I and many (most?) community members would find offensive or downright filthy, the parent can do that at home. [Warning: providing porn to a minor, even in your own home, might be a crime.] But that doesn’t mean the taxpayers and schools need to provide such materials to that irresponsible parent. Such parents can use their own money or a non-school library.

At our meeting about the school board last week, we had a presentation from a parent who is doing a project to get these books removed from our school libraries, and she was asking for help. (I hesitate to give her name and phone number here, but if you’re local, contact me and I’ll let you know how to reach her.)

You can’t just contact the school or school board and complain and expect a book to be removed. There’s a formal process called a request for reconsideration. It’s a “reconsideration,” because the book was “considered” when it was put into the school library. I expect there is a similar process in other Texas districts and in other states.

You’re allowed to submit the form if you live in the district, but there are a number of questions that make it look like they’re weeding out community groups that are coordinating such efforts. Here are the questions:

1.     Have you reviewed the resources in their entirety? (If not, please do so before completing and submitting this form.)

I just want to note here that I have seen some of these books, in person. I do not want to bring them into my home, and I do not want to put the words and images into my head. I am debating how to help with this project. Somebody’s got to do it. But at what personal spiritual risk?

2.     What brought this material to your attention?

3.     What concerns you about the resource? (Please be specific. Cite pages and the like.)

4.     What do you believe might be the result of using this material?

5.     Are there resource(s) you suggest that provide additional information and/or other viewpoints on this topic?

6.     For what age group would you recommend this material?

7.     What do you believe should be done with the material in question?

□ Reclassify library material.

□ Remove the material from the library.

□ Do not allow my child to use this material.

The project in our area was asking for parents with children in the schools—since there is a preference given to parents whose children have actually encountered the books, and the parent finds the problem after the damage is done to the child. Just a concerned taxpayer like me is not their priority. [This is why, when I vet school board candidates, I ask the question about who do they answer to and in what order; it should be taxpayers, including parents, then teachers, who need to be facilitated in what we hire them to do. They don’t answer to students; they are to educate them according to the requirements set by the community. And they don’t answer to teacher unions at all.]

Anyway, we can all help, but the advantage goes to parents with current students in the district.

If you’re like me, you’re shocked that these books exist, aimed at children. Sexual profanity that I never encountered before adulthood (and some that is still new to me) are pervasive in books aimed at middle-schoolers. There’s instruction on self-harm—some of it illustrated. There’s depiction of adult-on-child sex, with apparent approval intended by the author. There are graphic novels depicting sex acts of multiple varieties. 

These are in schools in my district. They are probably in yours.

We have people working to gather data on which books exist in which schools, so community members can target them. Each request has to be done book by book, school by school, parent by parent.  

If you’re wondering what the books are, there’s a book review site called BookLooks.org, a nonprofit intended to help parents identify questionable books. They have a fairly sizable list of books they have reviewed and rated. I tried them out with a book I had read: Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe, by Preston Norton. He grew up here, and I knew his family. The book has received awards. There is much to be said about its merits: it is engaging, creative, appealing, with a message about open-mindedness. It is also profane and troubling. I do not recommend it.

The BookLooks Summary of Concerns says: “This book contains excessive/frequent profanity; derogatory terms; sexual activities; sexual nudity; controversial religious commentary; alternate sexualities; drug use and abuse; alcohol use; violence; suicide; and hate.” I would add that religious people are portrayed as particularly mean, bigoted, and hypocritical. The book review site also includes actual references, with page numbers, from the book, which could be helpful in filling out that reconsideration form. And then it includes a profanity count. Without actually using the words, these include a** 116 times, f-bomb 62 times, s*** 178 times, plus sexual slang for various anatomical parts, among others.

BookLooks.org rating system, found here

This book was given a rating of 3, where 0 is safe for all and 5 is for adults only. 3 and up are recommended as minor restricted; in other words, there is reason not to have them in the schools. My assumption is that this book is in middle school and school libraries in your district. I don’t yet have a list of 100 or so books that activists are focused on getting removed. Those are books like Flamer (also rated 3), which I mentioned here. But it might be that any of the books rated 3 or higher (or even a lower rating, depending on age aimed at) on the BookLooks site might be on your personal list to get rid of.

Question 4 on the reconsideration form might be difficult for a typical parent to articulate—what the result might be. As a judge said many years ago about defining pornography, “I know it when I see it,” a parent might want to say, “It just ain’t fittin’.” It should be obvious that we don’t give sexual or sexualizing content to young children. It’s just wrong.

But it is also grooming. (I wrote more here.) It is attempting to immerse a child in a culture that accepts things that the child innately knows are unacceptable and wrong. It can traumatize. It confuses the child. It can lead to experimentation with sex—which for any school child is too early. It can lead to questioning that wouldn’t otherwise happen, resulting in unhappiness, depression, body dysphoria or various sorts. It can lead a child to discount the moral upbringing they get from their parents.

It harms the child. And it harms the parent/child relationship. We have schools to educate the children, not to usurp the role of parents and to corrupt the children.

Groomers have a purpose. It is to lure children into a sexual lifestyle. Child traffickers do this. And pedophiles do this. Where this grooming has been allowed, it has indeed led to pedophilia. David Strom wrote a piece for Hot Air, “Groomers Everywhere,” in which he recounts the problem in Chicago area schools, referencing a CPS [Chicago Public Schools] Office of Inspector General’s report that “hundreds of Chicago Public Schools teachers sexually groomed, assaulted and raped CPS students last school year.”

The account gives this comparison:

To give you an idea of the scope of the problem, the allegations of abuse numbered more than 600 in a single year in a single school district. The Catholic sexual abuse scandals for the entire United States over 52 years included 11,000 allegations. That would mean that in the same time period the CPS would see 2 1/2 times as many incidents of abuse as the Catholic Church in the entire US.

Mark Levin referenced this article and added that you need to get your kids out of public schools. He ended with this:

Everybody can’t afford it. But the fact that we pay hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars every year for these school systems, and there’s so little if any accountability, and that parents are under attack by the Biden FBI, parents are under attack by the media, is really grotesque. School choice is the answer…. Anyway, keep an eye on your kids and what’s happening in your public school, ‘cause in many cases it ain’t very pretty.

At our meeting last week, several people recommended two documentaries for informing you on this subject:

movie poster image from their website

§  The Mind Polluters by Mark and Amber Archer

§  Whose Children Are They?

I watched Mind Polluters, which was free, and easy to stream; the other was going to require a DVD purchase, so I haven’t seen that yet. Mind Polluters was excellent, with plenty of good sources and examples, verifying what I've said above. They also recommended that you get your kids out of public schools.

 

I pulled my kids out in 2000. It wasn’t because of this kind of material. It was because the district schools failed to meet my children’s educational needs, and there were safety issues as well. We happily homeschooled for a decade and didn’t miss the public schools. It was a financial challenge, but not remotely as much as putting three children in private schools, which wouldn’t have solved all our problems anyway.

 

The thing is, with your kids, you only have those years once. If a school fails your third grader, that’s going to make his life worse as a fourth grader. The lack accumulates. What good would it have done to work with the schools to try to make things better? It would have been a gamble I couldn’t afford. And I would have lost a bet that the schools would quickly improve; they clearly did not.

 

Today we've only talked about the sexualization. There is also the CRT problem, the instilling of racism and an alternate history that leads to hating our country, and adopting Marxism. These are often hidden in SEL (social emotional learning) programs, and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion). If they find we have caught on, they change what they call things. 

How bad does it have to get before you as a parent say, “That’s over the line; I don’t want my child exposed to that”?

 

Now that my kids are grown, I can be just a concerned taxpayer. I can try to get better school board members. I can work for school choice in the legislature. I can join in on a project like this local one to get obscene books out of the schools. But I have very little hope that enough changes will be made within a decade to satisfy any of us.

 

Yes, we need to work with the schools. But, for the sake of your kids right now, don’t wait. Get them to safety.

Don’t Be on That Side

Advice for the New Year

Here’s a key to understanding what’s happening in the world: the side that is about controlling others is the wrong side. Be on the other side, the one about freedom and responsibility.

A secondary clue is, the side that is obscuring the truth, stifling speech, or outright lying is the wrong side. Be on the other side, the one about truth and transparency.

A third clue is, the side that is inciting fear and helplessness is the wrong side. Be on the side of courage and resourcefulness.

A really big clue is when you see incitement of fear, combined with lying and censorship, in order to assert control over others, that's the wrong side. Be on the good side.

What can you do to be on the good side?

Speak truth. Strengthen family. Pay attention and think clearly. Treat others fairly. Have courage. Trust God.

 

Stories I’m Looking at as We Begin the New Year

Bill Gates Shows Which Side He’s On

In an interview on Al Jazeera (clip shown in this Viva Frei video), Bill Gates is commenting on preparing for the next pandemic. He says, 

Governments are there to protect us. And so, you know, they have us practice for earthquakes. They have a fire department with lots of full-time people to stop fires. They have armies that are there to deal with wars. But the pandemic is a disaster that they didn’t prepare for. The actual resources required, they have a global surveillance team to make better diagnostic technologies, to do quick detection. It’s actually not going to be that expensive once the world gets organized and makes it a priority.

Governments are instituted to protect our lives, liberty, and property from those who would take those things from us. Pandemic response is quite different from a fire department. A fire department is a local-run entity to deal with fires and similar emergencies, which are relatively rare in each person’s life, but a threat to property, and possibly also life, when they happen.

A pandemic is a worldwide health problem. But it is dealt with by each individual. Nations less developed—and therefore with less access to the globalist solution, faired better than developed nations.

Gates talks about this vague “they.” “They” have “us” practice for earthquakes. “They” have a fire department. “They have armies that are to deal with wars.

What does that mean exactly? Who is practicing for earthquakes? Who is the vague “they” that requests a vague “us” to do that?

As for armies, they are to protect sovereign borders of a nation. There should be no wars to deal with unless those borders are threatened. There are many ways to threaten a nation now, because of the global market and the online world. But wars aren’t something armies “deal with”; wars are fought, presumably because the nation and its people are being attacked.

And who is the vague “they” that supposedly didn’t prepare for the pandemic? That seems disingenuous at best. There was a lot of preparation for what "they" did. They war gamed this particular pandemic just a month or so before it happened. By this time they had banned, limited, disparaged the medications it was quickly known could have easily and cheaply prevented hospitalization and death in all but the most ill from other factors, mainly age. 

And their war gaming used quarantine of the entire population—of well people—as the prescribed strategy, controlling vast swaths of people who were not at risk from the illness. Meanwhile, they put at risk people in greater risk. It was coordinated.

Then there was the experimental vaccine—pressed on people, using coercive tactics on top of fearmongering. Gates just happens to be a person who believes the human race should be radically reduced in numbers. And he suggests vaccination as a way to accomplish that end. Hmm.

 

Prayer Is Acceptable on the Field

Good news today is that football player Damar Hamlin was released from the hospital. The 24-year-old had been in critical condition following a heart attack during a game between the   and the Cincinatti Bengals a week ago. The game ended, with players from both teams kneeling together to pray for him.

Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals players pray on the field
following the cardiac arrest of Bills player Damar Hamlin
image found here

Sports commentator Dan Orlovsky later prayed for Hamlin on the air, during a broadcast.

Dan Orlovsky prays on air for Demar Hamlin
screenshot from here

This past weekend players from the Titans and Jaguars got together on the field and prayed for Hamlin.

Players from the Titans and Jaguars pray on the field
image found on Wallbuilders Facebook re-post

Hamlin himself is openly Christian and involved in charities. I do not know what caused a cardiac arrest in a fit young athlete. But the young man’s ongoing recovery, which seems miraculous, and the unashamed willingness to pray for him, also miraculous, are worth prayers of thanks.

This is just months after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of high school football coach Joe Kennedy, who had been fired for praying on the field after games, where he could be seen by people who hate seeing signs of religion. 

May this be a new acceptance of prayer and religion in public once again!

 

We Have a Speaker

We knew in the end it would be Kevin McCarthy, as Speaker of the House, following the November election, which turned over the speakership to Republicans. No one else wanted the job badly enough to take him on.

But there were 20 members of the House Freedom Caucus who were willing to use the opportunity to push for reforms that were badly needed to break free of the Pelosi-controlled way of doing business. It took 15 votes over several days. The Freedom Caucus—and the American people—won a number of concessions, assuming Speaker McCarthy follows through. Here’s a pretty good list, told to Roger L. Simon by Rep. Andrew Ogles, for The Epoch Times (with a bit of added commentary from me):

1.      As has been reported, it will only take a single congressperson, acting in what is known as a Jeffersonian Motion, to move to remove the speaker if he or she goes back on their word or policy agenda. [This means they have to vote on it, once one person has made the motion. Pelosi had required 50% to support the motion for it to get a vote.]

2.      A “Church”-style committee will be convened to look into the weaponization of the FBI and other government organizations (presumably the CIA, the subject of the original Church Committee) against the American people.

3.      Term limits will be put up for a vote. [The only way this could be binding would be if they vote to amend the Constitution, it passes also in the Senate, and then the required number of states ratify it. But this does put the representatives’ votes on record on this issue. It's a platform issue going forward.]

4.      Bills presented to Congress will be single subject, not omnibus with all the attendant earmarks, and there will be a 72-hour minimum period to read them. [Two hurrahs for this. It can’t be representative government if it’s decided in back rooms and our representatives are pressed to vote for legislation they cannot even look at ahead of time.]

5.      The Texas Border Plan will be put before Congress. From The Hill: “The four-pronged plan aims to ‘Complete Physical Border Infrastructure,’ ‘Fix Border Enforcement Policies,’ ‘Enforce our Laws in the Interior’ and ‘Target Cartels & Criminal Organizations.’” [We’re simply asking the federal government to do what it is expressly required to do. What a concept!]

6.      COVID mandates will be ended, as will all funding for them, including so-called emergency funding. [And no such powers should ever be within the grasp of these power mongers ever again.]

7.      Budget bills would stop the endless increases in the debt ceiling and hold the Senate accountable for the same. [Has it been since Pelosi first got in in 2006 that we last had a budget? I should check whether there was one in 2017 or 2018. (There’s this story showing charts up until 2018.) Again, the budget is the one thing Congress is required by law to do, and they’ve failed to do it year after year.]

I have very little trust and faith in the federal government. But if there is to be any hope for regaining our constitutional republic, we must see it kick into gear immediately with this Republican-led House. I’m glad they did what they did. I hope it leads to meaningful immediate changes. Better freedom means better lives for all Americans.