Daily Archives: August 26, 2021

Even prior to the stunning display of American failure in Afghanistan, President Biden appeared slow-witted and spineless on crucial U.S. national security matters.

For example, Biden handed Russias Vladimir Putin gift after gift: extending the START Treaty, lifting Nord Stream 2 pipeline sanctions despite bipartisan legislation and essentially surrendering Ukraine to Russia. During the Biden-Putin summit in Geneva, Biden was tougher with an American journalist than with Putin. After Bidens advisers and the first lady told the press how extensively he prepared for the meeting, he cut it short.

Biden also responded to the several major cyberattacks traced to Russiaincluding the meat processor JBS and the Colonial pipelineby handing Putin a list of critical infrastructure that was off limits. Biden claimed Putin would change his behavior if his standing was diminished in the world, showing a fundamental lack of understanding Putins motivations.

Rejoining the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran has been Bidens top priority since taking office, and he was willing to offer Tehran almost anything for it. Tehran refused to negotiate with the United States directly, and operates with impunity in the Middle East.

In July, Iranian intelligence attempted to kidnap Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist, from American soil. In August, an Iranian drone attacked an Israeli merchant ship, killing two crew members. Iranian proxies targeted Americas in Syria and Iraq, and Hezbollah increased rocket attacks on Israel. It also appears Tehran attempted to close the Strait of Hormuz using sea mines.

In June, Biden proclaimed America is back with renewed commitment to our allies and partners. But North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies with troops on the ground in Afghanistan disagree as they scramble to get out their people out due to Americas hasty withdrawal. British paratroopers, prepared for face-to-face combat, have descended on Kabul to rescue British citizens.

Weakness invites aggression, so we should prepare for a tumultuous fall on the world stage. Heres what to watch for.

The Biden administration is not even aware of how many Americans are left in Afghanistan. It could be as many as 15,000. The administration canceled a Trump-era bureau overseeing protection and evacuation for American citizens in Afghanistan. Now Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin says the U.S. military does not have the capability to go in and collect large numbers of people.

President Obama ensured the Taliban understood the value of American hostages. In 2014, Obama released five Taliban commandersone of whom is currently among Taliban leadership in Kabulfor Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who later pled guilty to desertion and was dishonorably discharged. The abandoned Americans may be used for leverage, either by the Taliban or other extremist groups. What is unfolding in Afghanistan may make the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis may look tame by comparison.

Jihadists are relishing the idea that the United States weak and can be defeated. The anniversary of the 9/11 attacks has always posed heightened risk of terrorism. On September 11, 2012, jihadists attacked a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. On August 13, DHS warned of a heightened risk from al-Qaeda, which released a new issue of its propaganda magazine Inspire for the first time in four years. The massive intelligence failure in Afghanistan does not inspire confidence in this administrations ability to keep tabs on foreign terrorists.

The administration also appears utterly incapable of stopping foreign threats. The U.S. southern border is wide open. The president claims climate change is the greatest national security threat. Attorney General Merrick Garland says white supremacy is the greatest domestic threat.

The Justice Department has called the Capitol riot investigation one of the largest in American history, even as a Reuters report claims the FBI does not believe the riot was a conspiracy to overthrow the government. Still, those who did not engage in violence or destruction have been held in isolation for six months.

It is clear the Biden administration is distracted and incapable, making deterrence and prevention that much less likely.

As Center Senior Analyst Andrei Illarionov wrote in April, Putin was not ready for a large-scale invasion of Ukraine in the spring, but he would be ready by September. Putin may be able to extract concessions from Ukrainian President Zelensky that would negate need for an invasion.

If Putin decides to invade, however, it will likely be after the Zapad-2021 military exercises in mid-September. Military exercises can mask offensive operations, and Putin has used the tactic before.

Chinese state media taunted Taiwan after the fall of Kabul, claiming the United States would not come to Taiwans aid. Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen responded by saying: Taiwans only option is to grow stronger and become more united, strengthening our determination to protect ourselves. On August 17, China held live-fire air and sea exercises near Taiwan, and sent 11war planes into Taiwanese airspace.

In March, Americas top military officer in the Indo-Pacific told Congress China could invade Taiwan in the next six years. The Washington establishment is confident the idea of an imminent risk to Taiwan is overblown, but as Center for Security Policy analyst Grant Newsham pointed out in June, the Chinese military regularly increases capabilities faster and better than western analysts assume.

In the wake of Afghanistan, Newsham wrote, Beijing is likely to challenge the United States in multiple ways. This could include confronting U.S. forces in the South China Sea, establishing bases in Africa and South America, intensify the assault on the U.S. dollar, and intensifying nuclear weapons buildup, to name a few.

In the non-Western world, might makes right. Bidens rhetoric and proclaimed compassion is meaningless, as bad actors pay attention to action. Bidens incompetence has made the world a more dangerous place.

Morgan Wirthlin is the chief of staff at the Center for Security Policy, a national security think-tank in Washington, D.C. Follow her @morganwirthlin on Twitter.

Photo U.S. Army photo by Spc. Eric Cabral/Released

Excerpt from:

Biden's Weakness Will Result In Aggression. Here Are 4 Likely Scenarios - The Federalist

President Joe Biden finally took a few questions from a handful of reporters Friday after delivering remarks on the unfolding disaster in Afghanistan.

What he had to say did not inspire confidence, and in fact seriously calls into question Bidens connection to reality right now.

For example, the president is either lying or completely misinformed when he says that any American who wants to leave Afghanistan will be able to leave, or that any American who wants to get to the airport can get there.

Americans trapped in Kabul right now are saying the opposite. A deluge of news reports coming in from Afghanistan indicate its almost impossible to get into the Kabul airport, even for Americans and Afghan with Special Immigrant Visas, for SIVs. There have even been reports, for days now, that some Americans have been beaten at Taliban checkpoints, and that contrary to Bidens claims, showing a U.S. passport doesnt guarantee anyone passage to the airport.

Even those who can get to the airport cant get past the gates because the entire area is in chaos.David Fox, an American man trapped in Kabul with his Afghan wife and son, told ABC News that when he arrived at the airport perimeter, there were perhaps a thousand people, mostly Afghans, trying to get in. U.S. Marines were firing warning shots into the air and throwing flash-bang grenades to keep the crowd at bay.

When he managed to make eye contact with a Marine, Fox said, the soldier shouted at him to leave the area, that it wasnt safe. The airport is very dangerous, Fox told ABC News. The Americans do not have control of the northern gates. He added that British troops, for some reason are not allowing American passport-holders to come in at the south gate they control.

Asked whether he would authorize U.S. troops to go out into Kabul to get Americans who are unable to get to the airport or who are trapped behind Taliban checkpoints, Biden said, We know of no circumstance where American citizens have not been able to get to the airport, and claimed that U.S. officials are in close contact with the Taliban, and that, essentially everything is going swimmingly.

But we all know that isnt true and we also know that other countries are sending troops out into Kabul to rescue their stranded citizens and bring them to the airport. The United Kingdom this week deployed 900 elite paratroopers into Kabul to rescue some 4,000 U.K. nationals in the city. The soldiers were reportedly told to expect combat with Taliban fighters.

Inside the airport perimeter, conditions are deteriorating. CNNs Clarissa Ward, who has been reporting from the airport, said yesterday that in an eight-hour span, not a single U.S. evacuation flight had left. The situation she describes is harrowing. Thousands of people, Afghans and Americans and dozens of other nationalities, have gotten into the airport compound, but there is no process or system in place to get people on flights or provide basic necessities for the people who are waiting. What she describes is utter chaos:

Moreoever, so many people are fleeing the country, there is nowhere to process them once they leave. News came Friday that U.S. flights out of Kabul had been halted because the processing center in Doha, Qatar, was overwhelmed.

People inside the U.S. airbase thats been receiving evacuation flights from Afghanistan described the situation to CBS News as, pretty much a full-blown humanitarian disaster.

Biden told reporters he sees no reason U.S. troops cant complete the evacuation of all Americans as well as tens of thousands of Afghans who worked with the U.S. in the next couple of weeks.

Ward, however, said that from what shes seeing at the airport, that timeline is impossible: The scale of this mission is now enormous beyond the scale of any military but even beyond the capacity of the U.S. military and the six or eight thousands troops who are now here How on earth are you going to evacuate 50,000 people in the next two weeks? It just cant happen.

Meanwhile, there seems to be no real plan in place to ensure that Americans can get out. Fox, the American, told ABC News that the State Department emailed Americans in Afghanistan a generic visa document they could use to get to the Kabul airport.

The problem is, the document has no name or serial numbers on it, and was also emailed to thousands of Afghan citizens eligible for special immigrant visa, or SIVs. This generic visa document is now being copied and printed off by the thousands, sold to Afghans trying to get to the airport, essentially rendering it worthless.

Even the Taliban cant control two or three thousand people at the Camp Sullivan gate when you have tens of thousands of Afghans who now have this kind of ridiculous, bogus document that the State Department created, Fox said. I dont know how to explain something like this, an idea like this, except for brain worms. I mean its absurd. What were they thinking?

For his part, Biden remains defiant and strangely out of touch. This is about America leading the world, he said at the press conference.

No, this is about America blundering on the world stage. If the situation on the ground in Afghanistan remains as it is, we are almost certainly going to leave Americans behind and not hundreds, but thousands.

Read more:

Biden Is Lying. We Are Going To Leave Behind Thousands Of Americans In Afghanistan - The Federalist

Virginias Democrat gubernatorial candidate is calling on businesses in the commonwealth to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for their workers following the Food and Drug Administrations full approval of the Pfizer vaccine on Monday.

Following the full FDA approval of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine this morning, Im calling on EVERY Virginia employer to require all eligible employees to be vaccinated, McAuliffe said in a tweet. We need every eligible Virginian to get vaccinated to beat this virus. Together, well get it done.

The former governor previously made similar statements at a fundraiser in Las Vegas less than two weeks prior, in which he argued that society should make life difficult for people who choose not to get the jab.

We have 93 million Americans today that are not vaccinated, and we need to do everything that we possibly can, he said. And I tell my private businesses all the time, I hope you mandate vaccines for people coming in. Until we make it hard for people to get on planes or go to movie theaters, people just arent going to do it.

Virginias Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin took to Twitter to push back on McAuliffes comments, saying he opposes any form of a vaccine mandate and that the choice to get vaccinated is a personal decision.

Terry McAuliffe wants to make life difficult for Virginians by issuing a government mandate that attempts to bully them into complying with what McAuliffe and the government thinks is best, and that will clearly evolve into closing down businesses & locking down Virginia again, he said.

If successful in his gubernatorial bid, McAuliffes proposed mandate would disproportionately affect minorities throughout Virginia. According to the Virginia Department of Health, African Americans are the least vaccinated racial group in the commonwealth, with only 51 percent of eligible citizens having received at least one dose of the shot. Vaccination rates among eligible whites remained slightly higher at 55.7 percent, with Hispanic Americans at 66.5 percent.

Demographics that saw the states highest vaccination rates include American Indians at 90.9 percent and Asian Americans at 75.8 percent.

Shawn Fleetwood is an intern at The Federalist and a student at the University of Mary Washington, where he plans to major in Political Science and minor in Journalism. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

See the original post here:

McAuliffe Wants To 'Make Life Difficult' For Virginia's Unvaxxed With Shot Mandates - The Federalist

In between cable news interviews and performing TikTok dance routines, health care workers have also started protesting, and it raises the question: When do all these people do their actual jobs and, you know, provide health care?

To be sure, not all, nor perhaps even most of them, are spending their days whining to CNN about how tough their jobs have become and how frustrating it is that their hospital beds are full. But its a lot.

A group of 75 doctors in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, briefly staged a walk-out protest on Monday because theyre tired and resentful of patients who have declined to receive a vaccination shot against COVID. One of them, JT Snarski (Yes, thats her real name), wasnt too tired, though, to be on standby for MSNBC, telling a reporter in an interview that it was incredibly frustrating to see others dispute the safety of vaccines.

We are exhausted, another doctor said at a podium set up for the protest.

Im sure. And Im sure its also frustrating for doctors to treat opioid addicts who keep returning to the emergency room, wasting untold resources that could be put to better use. Yet health care providers have managed to deal with that day in and day out for years without needing to post crying selfies on social media.

Thats what Adam Hill, a doctor at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis, did last week on Twitter. Hi. Im a healthcare worker crying at the hospital, he wrote. Its important to show more of this. Included with the post was a picture Hill took with his surgical mask pulled down and a solitary tear streaking down the side of his face.

The tweet was shared 13,000 times and received nearly 99,000 likes. (Hill then went to give an interview to a local TV news channel, which noted that he doesnt typically care for COVID patients.)

Powerful! Though Im not sure how much more of this we really need to see. Its everywhere.

Earlier this month another woman, nurse Felicia Croft of Shreveport, Louisiana, recorded a three-minute video on the verge of a breakdown because she has been experiencing the feeling of defeat in losing patients who succumb to the virus.

In November last year, nurse Kathryn Sherman of Nashville posted a type of before and after set of photos on Twitter, one that was taken professionally when she was a nursing student and the other, a selfie in hospital lighting, appearing haggard during a shift in the intensive care unit. How it started, How its going, her caption said.

We get it. The job is hard.

Thats why the Bureau of Labor Statistics has doctors and surgeons averaging earnings above $200,000 per year. Registered nurses are at more than $75,000 per year. This isnt charity work.

Its true that some hospital systems are overwhelmed with COVID patients who have not received a vaccine, perhaps by choice, but plenty of people get sick and die through their personal choices. Getting them not to die anyway is a health care providers role, one they signed up for. Yet some providers are musing aloud, in the New York Times no less, about declining care for the unvaccinated.

These people are quickly becoming the new public school teachers who expect constant attention for choosing a certain career path. Teacher appreciation month! Thank a teacher! Give a teacher something for free! Maybe they should trade places for a day with a garbage collector or even just a flight attendant.

Being a health care provider is just like plenty of other jobs. Some days are harder than others. We happen to be in a pandemic, which is the best time for doctors and nurses to shine, not whine.

See the rest here:

Whiney, Needy Health Care Workers Are The New Public School Teachers - The Federalist

The nine worst unemployment rates in the country are in states and areas run by pro-lockdown Democrats.

According to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the highest unemployment rates in July were in blue states. Despite the flow of federal COVID-19 bailouts for the last year and a half, these states saw significantly higher rates of unemployment than the national rate of 5.4 percent in July.

Nevada topped out the list with a 7.7 rate of unemployment for July and was closely followed by California (7.6 percent), New Mexico (7.6 percent), New York (7.6 percent), Connecticut (7.3 percent), Hawaii (7.3 percent), New Jersey (7.3 percent), Illinois (7.1 percent), and the District of Columbia (6.7 percent). All are Democrat-run. As tyrannical lockdowns are being lifted and businesses start to reopen, Democrat states are seeing some job growth but still have a long road to recovery.

On the contrary, out of the 20 states with the lowest unemployment rates, 17 are either completely led by Republicans or lean that way. Of the red states on the list, 25 saw an uptick in jobs since June. Idaho and Utah, both GOP-led states, both saw job numbers rise above the pre-pandemic numbers recorded in February 2020.

Some of these Republican-led states and one Democrat-led state have already been refusing the Biden administrations supplemental unemployment benefits. But blue states and the 7.5 million people that have relied on these government handouts disguised as COVID-19 relief could receive a shock when the dollars are set to expire on Sept. 6, unless states channel other funds to go to the unemployed.

Even as the economy continues to recover and robust job growth continues, there are some states where it may make sense for unemployed workers to continue receiving additional assistance for a longer period of time, allowing residents of those states more time to find a job in areas where unemployment remains high, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh wrote in a letter last week.

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

See the original post here:

9 Worst Unemployment Rates In America Are In Areas Run By Democrats - The Federalist

A recently published study from the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention (CDC) shows there is no scientific rationale for forcibly masking schoolchildren. The studys publication simultaneously vindicates Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has been a vocal opponent of the policy due to its lack of scientific evidence.

When analyzing more than 90,000 elementary school students in 169 Georgia schools from Nov. 16 to Dec. 11 last year, the study found that schools that required mask use among students was not statistically significant compared with schools where mask use was optional. According to the CDC, this might be attributed to higher effectiveness of masks among adults, who are at higher risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection but might also result from differences in mask-wearing behavior among students in schools with optional requirements.

Moreover, as New York Magazine noted, Children are less likely to have severe diseasefrom SARS-CoV-2, and when infected less likely to be symptomatic, which correlates withlower contagiousness. Those facts alone may account for part of the reason why the Georgia study found no clear benefit for amasking requirement for kids in schools.

The studys findings provide further credence to actions taken by DeSantis, who has come under attack from the Biden administration for following the science on children and COVID-19. Following DeSantis signing an executive order last month prohibiting the forced masking of children in Florida schools, President Joe Biden announced at a recent press event that he has instructed Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to use all of his oversight authorities and legal actions, if appropriate, against governors who are trying to block and intimidate local school officials and educators as it relates to prohibiting mask mandates.

Cardona later echoed the presidents statements, saying that states like Florida are needlessly placing students, families, and educators at risk.

In response to the attacks, DeSantis blasted the White House for its obsession with using the powers of the federal government to forcibly mask children.

I mean, youve got to wonder, where are your priorities that youre so obsessed with this issue and so obsessed with taking away parents rights? the governor asked. And youre letting Afghanistan burn, our border burn, and so many other things in our country fall to pieces.

Shawn Fleetwood is an intern at The Federalist and a student at the University of Mary Washington, where he plans to major in Political Science and minor in Journalism. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

Excerpt from:

DeSantis Vindicated: There's No Science Behind Masks On Kids - The Federalist

Joined by Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, more than two dozen Republican House members on the Second Amendment caucus released a comment criticizing a new proposed rule by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) that would prohibit homemade guns, develop a backdoor gun registry, and regulate gun parts with a background check.

The proposed rule, the Definition of Frame or Receiver and Identification of Firearms was introduced in May and signed by Attorney General Merrick Garland. Public comments on the rule closed Thursday.

It would amend the Code of Federal Regulations, including the term firearm in order to regulate firearm kits, and amend the term gunsmith to clarify that gunsmiths must mark unlicensed guns effectively making the individual the manufacturer. It would implement regulations on nearly all portions of a firearm.

Contrary to ATFs claims that the [proposed rule] will clarify various aspects of federal gun laws, in reality the proposed rule would inject ambiguity after ambiguity into an otherwise unambiguous definition of firearm, which has existed unmolested since its enactment over half a century ago, the congressmen wrote. These changes will cause significant problems not only for the law-abiding public and the courts in trying to apply the agencys intent instead of a statute, but also for the firearms industry.

The rule would further complicate types of guns by crafting definitions for what ATF deems a complete weapon, complete muffler or silencer device, and a privately made firearm. A deadline would also be put in place for the timeframe of marking guns.

Mark Oliva, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, told The Federalist the caucus is correct in asserting its role to alert the Department of Justice and ATF as to the problematic nature of the proposed rule.

The proposed rule redefining frames and receivers by the Biden administration is a naked attempt at legislation through regulation, Oliva said. The proposed rule is an attempt to shift the goalposts and enact gun control the Biden administration knows runs counter to the will of Congress, the duly-elected representatives of the People.

Oliva said it would bypass the lawmaking process and, in essence allow the president to enact gun control via executive fiat. It is executive overreach. It is nothing more than a gun grab.

The Republicans notably take issue with ATF redefining frame or receiver. Under the proposed rule, an upper receiver of an AR-15 would be deemed a firearm since the gun portion can be seen from the exterior.

However, ATF has always deemed the lower receiver of an AR-15 to be a frame or receiver since it is compromised of the fire control group: the trigger, disconnector, hammer, and fire selector. The lower receiver is the portion that is currently marked by my manufacturers with a serial number, but the upper portion would be marked as well under the new rule.

Of course, ATF has never considered the AR-15 upper receiver to be a firearm, the members insist. Rather, since the rifles creation, the agency has opined that only the lower receiver is considered the frame or receiver for this platform.

ATF has the potential to move further to restrict Second Amendment rights should President Joe Bidens director nominee, David Chipman, be confirmed in the Senate. Chipman was caught claiming on television that he is frustrated by the First Amendment rights of gun owners. The gun lobbyist told Congress he supports a ban on AR-15s.

These members of Congress are taking their oaths to uphold the Constitution seriously by standing up to the tyrants at the ATF. Their stand earns applause from gun owners nationwide, Aidan Johnston, director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America said in a statement to The Federalist.

Read the full letter below.

2A Caucus Comments to ATF o by The Federalist

Read more:

Republicans Slam ATF For Attempting To Alter Legal Definition Of 'Firearm' - The Federalist

OnlyFans claimed last week it will ban sexually explicit imagery starting in October, although nudity posted in compliance with platform guidelines will reportedly still be permitted. The cultural establishment is siding with OnlyFans DIY pornographers, echoing and amplifying criticisms of the company for making its money on the backs of creators and then cutting off their income under pressure from payment processors.

Its true that OnlyFans rocketed to success during the lockdowns by exploiting creators, referred to sympathetically in the corporate media as sex workers, because the platform made it easier for them to commodify their bodies. That also made it easier for consumers of pornography to access and commission amateur content.

Neither the creators nor consumers on this platform are engaging with a healthy or moral product. OnlyFans was always exploiting our human weakness for cheap sexual pleasure, along with the socioeconomically disenfranchised creators who used the platform to sell their bodies.

But the cultural establishment, including legacy media outlets and mainstream celebrities, bears equal responsibility for this dynamic of exploitation. Without a culture that normalizes and lionizes pornographers, OnlyFans would be much less successful. The journalists who laud sex work are normalizing conduct for desperate working people in which New York Times reporters would never want their own daughters and sons to engage. They may not be honest about that or capable of articulating why, but its true.

Having the freedom to engage in such behavior, by the way, is morally different than actually engaging in it. Im not of the belief it should be illegal, but its clearly immoral and our lack of consensus on that question speaks to the swift radicalization of our culture. When your education and corporate style guide both insist on referring to pornography as sex work, calling into question its morality is made much more difficult because weve softened the reality.

The conflict about payment processors is critical. OnlyFans move to ban sexually explicit content, its main offering, apparently comes in response to investor anxieties over the companys pornographic product. An Axios report listed three reasons potential investors were steering clear:

This is really interesting because it suggests our culture still stigmatizes so-called sex work, and the market is naturally directing a moral outcome. Thats not exactly true for several reasons.

First, to the extent investors are worried, as Axios reported, about subscriptions from minors, thats all well and good but should extend beyond fears about minors exposure to pornography. Second, the Axios report also suggests some of the VC funds are hampered from investing in the product by their limited partnership agreements, not their worldview. Perhaps those agreements still reflect a cultural stigma, but given the medias broadly positive treatment of OnlyFans, Im not sure how durable those restrictions are right now.

OnlyFans gets negative treatment and media coverage when pornographers are exploited and endangered, which is great but stops short of conceding those dangers are inevitable byproducts of sex work and a culture that normalizes it. (Again, normalizing and legalizing are different concepts, and the distinction is important.) Normalized pornography warps and numbs men, consequentially hurts women, and absolutely commodifies bodies and intimacy to psychologically scarring effects.

Tellingly, OnlyFans pledged in the wake of the announcement to be working towards a solution for its pornography creators, a decent indication the company is not worried about the stigma so much as its worried about profits. (The companys tweet was hashtagged #SexWorkIsWork.) Its understandable, then, that people who designed their business models and professional lives around the platform, selling their bodies with unfathomable ease, would now feel callously discarded by the companys decision.

Yet its the entirely predictable consequence of reducing your body and your sex life to a product. In a decadent culture, capitalists will sell whatever youre willing to sell. If that happens to be your body, theyll sell it just like they sell cars and data and hamburgers. Youre an object.

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OnlyFans Is Exploitive, But Not In The Way Elites And Prostitutes Claim - The Federalist

Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, and the left would have you believe that involving government in every nook and cranny of Americans lives will bring nothing but benefits for the public. But the case of Alta Fixsler, a girl British courts would effectively condemn to death, provides another example of the very real costs of the ever-encroaching power of the state on the rights of parents and the right to life.

The two-year-old Fixsler suffered a catastrophic brain injury at birth. Her parents, Hasidic Jews, consider withdrawing life-saving medical treatment against their religious beliefs. They wish to evacuate their child overseas, either to Israel or the United States, for treatment. American authorities have granted Fixsler, whose father holds U.S. citizenship, a non-immigrant visa to receive care.

But British authorities have forbidden Fixslers parents from transferring her overseas for treatment. By instead requiring that her medical care be withdrawn, they have all but issued her death sentence. A Mayrulingin the matter did not mince words: Alta has no quality of life. The burdens of Altas life outweigh any benefits that [British authorities have] been able to ascertain.

The ruling joins a growing line of cases in which U.K. authorities have demanded that parents watch their children die when care gets withdrawn. To the names of Charlie Gard, Alfie Evans, and other infants who succumbed because courts would not allow their parents to continue providing medical care, British courts would now add the name of Alta Fixsler.

In response to the justifiable outrage the Fixsler case has generated, the British intelligentsia continues to make the case that, however unfortunate the circumstances, the state and not parents should make these life-and-death choices. An Oxford University ethicist claimed parents dont have an absolute right to make decisions for their children. The legal and ethical system in [the U.K.] says that the childs interests must take precedence.

Of course parents do not have an absolute right to make decisions that would result in their childrens harm, or to abuse or neglect their offspring. But by all accounts, the Fixslers deeply love and care for their young daughter, and want to provide for her including via medical treatment as best they can.

As the mother of two young daughters, including one with a disability, I find the British willingness to substitute the judgment of the state for the wishes of two loving, qualified parents deeply troubling. The callous language used in its rulings, as when the judge wrote Fixslers parents would face the siren call of continuing medical treatment should she be transported to Israel, shows the way in which the U.K. court system devalues the lives of the most vulnerable in society.

Its not just the courts; socialized medicine is also to blame. Although notdirectly involved in the legal dispute regarding the Fixsler case,Britains model of universal health care, the National Health Service, denies access to life-saving therapeutics and treatments and empowers government, giving bureaucrats the authority to make critical care decisions for individuals, silencing the patient and their loved ones.

Sadly, our health-care and legal systems in the United States are not far behind. With the lefts constant push for socialized medicine, the growth of the murderous abortion industry, and legalized euthanasia, we may find ourselves in similar situations as the Fixsler case where vulnerable life is no longer valued.

As a society, we need to protect and cherish the most defenseless in our midst, and I hope and pray that Britain will come to the same conclusion for young Alta Fixsler.

Mary Vought resides in Virginia with her husband and two children. You can follow her at @MaryVought.

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Thanks To Government-Run Health Care, Alta Fixsler Is Fighting To Live - The Federalist

Months after the Department of Justice (DOJ) opted not to charge the unnamed U.S. Capitol Police officer who killed Ashli Babbitt on Jan. 6, a memo obtained by NBC News indicates the investigation will be fully closed.

Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran, was shot by the service pistol of an officer during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. She was trying to climb through a smashed glass door near the Speakers lobby. After receiving assistance from a Capitol Police emergency response team, Babbitt died at Washington Hospital Center.

The memo, written by the commander of the Capitol Polices Office of Personal Responsibility, states that no further action will be taken in this matter, according to NBC. The information comes on the heels of the DOJ announcing in April that it would not levy charges against the officer.

Specifically, the investigation revealed no evidence to establish that, at the time the officer fired a single shot at Ms. Babbitt, the officer did not reasonably believe that it was necessary to do so in self-defense or in defense of the Members of Congress and others evacuating the House Chamber, the department said in a press release at the time.

Shortly after the DOJs decision in April, Babbitts family unveiled a $10 million lawsuit against the Capitol police. The suit was filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which permits compensation in the case of a personal injury or death, caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of a Government employee while acting within the scope of his or her office or employment, under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred.

Two weeks ago, Babbitts mother criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein for never getting back to her after reaching out. Babbitt served in the Middle East from 2004 to 2016 on multiple tours.

The Capitol Police did not immediately respond to The Federalists request for comment.

Originally posted here:

DOJ Shuts Down Investigation Into Capitol Police Shooting Of Ashli Babbitt - The Federalist