The strategy behind this Republican battle is to fight off the federal state until they have re-established federal power themselves

Florida governor Ron DeSantis has been grabbing national headlines with his relentless attacks on so-called “woke”. In addition to his Stop-Woke (Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees) Act, which prohibits educational institutions and businesses from teaching students and employees anything that would cause anyone to “feel guilt, anguish or any form of psychological distress” due to their race, color, sex or national origin, he has barred University of Florida professors from giving evidence against the state’s voting law, claimed that professors at public professors have no right to freedom of speech, and organizing a “hostile takeover” of the New College of Florida, one of the best liberal arts colleges in the country. But he is far from the only Republican politicians to attack the education system.

UCLA Law School’s CRT Forward Tracking Project has tracked 567 anti-Critical Race Theory (CRT) efforts introduced at the local, state, and federal levels. According to the World Population Review, there are currently seven states that have banned CRT, while another 16 states are in the process of banning it. That constitutes almost all states with a Republican governor. While CRT is a highly specific academic theory that is almost exclusively taught at some law schools, the anti-CRT laws are incredibly broad and vague and target all levels of education. In my state, Georgia, House bill 1084 bans the use of so-called “divisive concepts” (eg race and gender) from teaching. In a sentence that could come straight from Orwell’s 1984, the bill prohibits schools from “promoting concepts such as tolerance, mutual respect, cultural sensitivity, or cultural competency”.

Cas Mudde is a Guardian US columnist and the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor in the school of public and international affairs at the University of Georgia

Continue reading…

NEWYou can now hear to Fox Information articles or blog posts!

As the largest war in Europe nears its to start with anniversary, it has turn out to be evident to all that President Biden and his protection team have unsuccessful in their ongoing scheduling for Ukraine. 

The prevailing wondering in the White Dwelling and the Pentagon revolves about giving to Ukraine the “right package” – 1st, Stingers and Javelins, then HIMARs, Patriots, Bradleys, and now Abrams tanks.

Is this endless stream of high-tech armed forces components supposed to make Vladimir Putin surrender? Here are 3 explanations why the Biden administration’s incapacity to craft a major tactic, primarily based on real looking targets and affordable expenses, puts us all in hazard. 

1. A absence of tactic

President Biden evidently understands the challenges of acquiring much more and additional associated in what is promising to be an unwinnable war. When criticized for his lackluster reaction to Putin’s assault on Ukraine last February, Biden discussed why he would not deploy U.S. forces into Ukraine as follows, “That’s a planet war when People in america and Russia begin capturing at 1 yet another.” 

PUTIN’S PIVOT IN UKRAINE WILL Carry ABOUT Everlasting WAR IN EUROPE

Biden also exhibited a audio grasp of the threat of arming Ukrainians to the teeth when he evoked the probability of Armageddon in an handle to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in October. 

And nonetheless, what seemed to be off restrictions just a handful of weeks in the past is now en route to Kyiv. A working day right after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was advertising “significant company” opportunities to U.S. and intercontinental expense firms – at the Countrywide Association of State Chambers meeting in Boca Raton, Florida – Biden declared the shipping and delivery of 31 Abrams tanks. 

After Zelenskyy obtained his tanks, he is now inquiring for F-16 fighter jets, one thing the president has so significantly denied.

President Joe Biden and Russian leader Vladimir Putin

(Alex Wong/Getty Illustrations or photos  |  Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)

What is driving Biden’s risky conduct? Is it another signal of his attainable declining psychological health and fitness? There is absolutely a great deal of worry about that. 

Last July, 54 Property Republicans signed a letter to the president contacting on Biden to choose a cognitive exam, a psychological examine that the president is but to acquire. 

Making an attempt to shield her failing partner from mounting pressure, 1st lady Jill Biden has been hustling to “defend” her partner from journalists pestering him about the mishandling of labeled files. 

Could it be Biden’s incapacity to stand up to foreign leaders? 

The sudden choice on the Abrams tanks came following German Chancellor Olaf Scholz refused to send out Leopards to Ukraine right until Washington materials its possess tanks. Is it yet another example of a gross deficiency of method from this administration? 

Irrespective of the driving elements, Biden appears to be on shaky ground, especially throughout this critical time when the conflict in Ukraine will probable escalate into a broader war in Europe and pretty probably will drag the United States into it, far too.

2. Failure to realize the adversary’s attitude and modern day warfare

The Biden crew naively rationalizes that Abrams tanks will alter the battlefield dynamics as they are excellent to the Russian primary battle tank, T-90, an enhance from the T-72. Indeed, the Abrams is an exquisite piece of armor laced with the quite newest technological innovation. But Putin is not a moron. Russia does not fight symmetrically. 

There will be no repeat of the Entire world War II Fight of Kursk, in which 3,000 German tanks clashed with Soviet armor, practically double that variety. Just after an 8-day “slogging match,” the Russians won by what a person military historian known as “suicidal bravery” by acquiring near more than enough to throw mines under the tanks and acquiring plane decide off German tanks from higher than. Consistent with Russia’s warfare design, Soviet forces out-sacrificed the Germans, with the Russians dropping 3,800 tanks, even though the Germans dropped 760.

U.S. Military M1A1 Abrams tank fires during NATO increased Forward Existence fight group military services exercise Crystal Arrow 2021 in Adazi, Latvia, on March 26, 2021.

(Reuters/Ints Kalnins/File Image)

What the Pentagon seems to overlook is that the enemy does have a vote. Even the Taliban and insurgents have figured out a way all over U.S. substantial-tech superiority, forcing the Biden administration to capitulate in Afghanistan. But not right until U.S. losses in everyday living and treasure introduced reality to the tactically amazing nonetheless strategically incompetent Pentagon brass who pursued an unachievable mission for 20 several years. The point that U.S. tanks were being susceptible to the improvised explosive equipment (IED)s was a large surprise to our “planners.” 

Click In this article TO GET THE Impression Publication

In reaction to a U.S. assure of tank deliveries to Ukraine, one particular of the Russian firms introduced on Monday a cash bounty software aimed at incentivizing the Russian troops to be artistic at neutralizing the risk of Western tanks. It offered $72,000 in money to the very first Russian soldiers who would demolish or seize American and Western-designed tanks and $7,200 for assaults that follow. Whilst Washington has upgraded its M1s to augment the tank’s survivability, the Russians who are viewing its best perceived enemy’s just about every move no doubt have been operating on counter-steps and counter-methods. 

Putin views the war in Ukraine as his Cuban missile crisis, as Ukraine’s likely acceptance into NATO would provide the alliance even closer to Russia’s borders. Moscow is placing every thing on the line to reduce this threat that it sights as unacceptable. The Pentagon is foolish to presume that the Abrams tank will turn out to be a recreation-changer in the war and will convey peace to Ukraine.

4. Lowering US battle readiness as China’s threat looms

The regular outflow of U.S. weapons that integrate leading secret technologies in them poses grave risk to U.S. protection. The most up-to-date models of Abrams, for illustration, include considerably categorized facts related to the updates aimed at survivability. 

It is for this rationale that every Abrams that is sold to overseas customers, even allies, has the depleted uranium armor – which is meant to mitigate vulnerabilities – taken off, according to the specialised armed forces internet site, Breaking Defense. What has come to be an unrestricted offer of top rated of the line materiel to Ukraine – which is not, formally, even a U.S. ally – drives up the chance of these secrets and techniques slipping into our adversaries’ arms.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses a joint meeting of Congress on Capitol Hill on Dec. 21, 2022.

(AP/Carolyn Kaster)

As Biden is hyper-centered on transferring the very best of the greatest of our arsenal to support Ukraine, he is depleting our very own weapons stockpiles, consequently eroding our country’s overcome readiness. 

Click on Here TO GET THE FOX News Application

According to a modern study by a Washington assume tank, the substitution situations for important weapons techniques array from 5 to 18 many years. We are in the red when it will come to 155 mm ammunition, Javelins and Stingers. The gap in the Stinger inventory will consider 18 many years to shut. 

The Wall Street Journal not too long ago referred to as out the U.S. armaments business for its unpreparedness for a China conflict. Washington’s erratic steps through the highly-consequential Russia-Ukraine conflict, have uncovered an absence of preparing and tactic in the Biden administration. And that is reckless.

Simply click In this article TO Browse Extra FROM REBEKAH KOFFLER

Source link

The post Russia-Ukraine conflict exposes Biden security team’s inability to plan ahead appeared first on Ukraine Intelligence.

Hong Kong’s top court on Monday ruled that the policy of barring transgender people from changing their gender shown on ID cards unless they undergo full sex reassignment surgery violates their rights and is unconstitutional.

The Court of Final Appeal unanimously sided with appeals launched by transgender activists Henry Tse and another appellant identified as “Q” and quashed the Commissioner of Registration’s decision to refuse their applications to change their gender on their Hong Kong Identity Cards.

“The policy’s consequence is to place persons like the appellants in the dilemma of having to choose whether to suffer regular violations of their privacy rights or to undergo highly invasive and medically unnecessary surgery, infringing their right to bodily integrity,” the judges wrote in their judgment.

“Clearly this does not reflect a reasonable balance. The Policy imposes an unacceptably harsh burden on the individuals concerned.”

Both Tse and Q underwent lengthy medical and surgical treatments, including hormonal treatment and removal of breasts, but the registrar still required them to conduct a full sex reassignment surgery, which the pair argued was unnecessary, unwanted and highly invasive.

Tse welcomed the judgment as it would solve the “burning issues” he encountered due to possessing a wrong ID and he called for a gender recognition law.

“Today’s result is delayed justice, a Pyrrhic victory. This very case should never have happened,” Tse said in a statement.

“I will continue to work hard to plant the seeds for the transgender rights movement with my partners at Transgender Equality Hong Kong. I believe that one day, we shall succeed and welcome the rainbow with open arms.”

The former British colony of Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula meant to guarantee its freedoms and independent legal system for 50 years.

Many residents accuse Communist Party rulers in Beijing of creeping interference in the city’s affairs, an accusation China denies.

U.S. stock index futures fell on Monday as investors await more corporate results this week and a crucial speech by U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to assess the path of future interest rate hikes by the central bank.

Companies reporting quarterly results this week include Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) and PepsiCo Inc (PEP.O), while Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N), Lowe’s Cos Inc (LOW.N), Activision Blizzard Inc (ATVI.O) and Cummins Inc (CMI.N) report results later in the day.

Halfway through the earnings of the S&P 500 companies, 69.6% have reported results above expectations, according to Refinitiv. Overall, analysts still expect quarterly earnings of S&P 500 firms declining 2.7%.

Last week’s stunning nonfarm payrolls report, which showed U.S. economy added jobs at a rapid pace, pulled Wall Street’s main indexes down on Friday, but for the week both the S&P 500 (.SPX) and Nasdaq (.IXIC) gained 1.6% and 3.3%, respectively.

Job growth in the U.S. accelerated sharply in January, with nonfarm payrolls surging by 517,000 jobs, well above an estimate of 185,000. The unemployment rate hit a more than 53-1/2-year low of 3.4%.

After a bruising 2022, U.S. equities have posted strong gains in 2023 led by technology stocks amid hopes that the Fed will temper its aggressive rate hikes, which in turn could alleviate some pressure on equity valuations.

On the data front, investors will monitor jobless claims for the week ended Feb. 4 and University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey to assess the strength of the U.S. economy.

A host of Fed officials are also scheduled to speak this week, including Powell on Tuesday.

At 5:30 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 237 points, or 0.7%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 37 points, or 0.89%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 144.25 points, or 1.14%.

Wailing children, flattened buildings and hospitals full of bodies – a devastating earthquake on Monday looked painfully familiar for Syrian families and rescuers worn down by nearly 12 years of bombardment and displacement.

The 7.8 magnitude earthquake sent people rushing into the streets in the country’s north, where air strikes and shelling have already traumatised the population and weakened the foundations of many buildings.

In the rebel-held town of Jandaris in Aleppo province, a mound of concrete, steel rods and bundles of clothes lay where a multi-storey building once stood.

“There were 12 families under there. Not a single one came out. Not one,” said a thin young man, his eyes wide open in shock and his hand bandaged.

“We were pulling people out ourselves at three in the morning,” he said, his breath visible in the cold winter air as he spoke.

Young men could be seen clawing through debris and heaving hammers onto slabs of concrete to look for survivors. Dented water tanks and solar panels had flown off roofs and landed on the damp ground.

The White Helmets, a rescue service founded in rebel-held territory to treat people hurt in bombardment, said at least 147 people were killed in opposition-held northwest Syria. In government-held territory, officials put the death toll at more than 300 with more than 1,000 injured.

In Turkey, President Tayyip Erdogan said more than 900 people were killed and more than 5,000 injured.

“We are in a race against time to save the lives of those under the rubble. Even if our teams are exhausted, we don’t have time to rest,” White Helmets head Raed Fares told Reuters by phone.

He said air strikes over the years had left buildings structurally fragile so they “immediately collapsed”, ultimately leading to more deaths.

Millions of people in northwest Syria have been left vulnerable by the conflict, according to the United Nations, which says 2.9 million people in the region have been displaced and 1.8 million are living in camps.

The rescue teams have worked for years rescuing people from shelling and aerial raids by Syrian government or Russian forces which often hit the same location multiple times, risking paramedics’ lives.

“At least now, no one is going to bomb us as we work,” Fares said.

But the cold winter weather added another challenge for the rescue workers, who said families have been left exposed in near-freezing temperatures and heavy rains.

In the countryside of Idlib province, the earthquake damaged the modest structures set up in displacement camps hosting Syrians who had fled the war over the years, said Ahmad al-Sheikh, a resident of a nearby border town.

Further west, the main hospital in the rebel-held town of Afrin was teeming with wounded residents writhing on the ground and women struggling to reach loved ones by phone as the lines were down.

Medics zipped up black body bags on a bloodstained floor as toddlers screamed in the background.

“Ambulance sirens are heard everywhere. People are shocked,” said Afrin resident Ibrahim Obaid. “The situation is so tragic. There’s so much fear and we still feel the tremors.”

Related Galleries:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The biggest names in the music industry gathered in Los Angeles on Sunday for the 65th annual Grammy Awards ceremony.

Here is a list of winners in key categories:

“Harry’s House” – Harry Styles

“About Damn Time” – Lizzo

“Just Like That” – Bonnie Raitt, songwriter (Bonnie Raitt)

Samara Joy

“Unholy” – Sam Smith & Kim Petras

“Harry’s House” – Harry Styles

“The Heart Part 5” – Kendrick Lamar

“Broken Horses” – Brandi Carlile

BEST R&B SONG

“CUFF IT”- Beyonce

“A Beautiful Time” – Willie Nelson

A deep-pocketed green energy group working to ban gas stoves in the United States counts as a top adviser a Chinese government official who has urged his nation to compete with America on climate change.

Climate Imperative, a green nonprofit with a nearly $1 billion budget thanks to funding from billionaires Laurene Powell Jobs and John Doerr, lists Chinese Academy of Sciences professor Wang Yi as a member of its advisory council. The group does not disclose, however, that Wang also serves in China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress. Wang even sits on the Congress’s Standing Committee, according to a Chinese environmental research group to which he belongs. That committee consists of government insiders who wield state power to accomplish Communist Party goals when the full Congress is not in session.

With Wang as an adviser, Climate Imperative has awarded grants to the Building Decarbonization Coalition, another green nonprofit that works to “transition to clean buildings that don’t run on gas.” Climate Imperative executive director Bruce Nilles, meanwhile, in December outlined his goal to get “methane gas out of homes and buildings.” “It turns out that fossil fuels and humans don’t actually coexist very well,” Nilles said.

It’s unclear how much Wang has influenced Climate Imperative in the group’s bid to do away with natural gas. Climate Imperative, which did not return a request for comment, says its advisers provide “independent, expert advice” to the group and do not “endorse or approve specific grants.” Still, Climate Imperative is far from the only influential green group to partner with the Chinese. The Rocky Mountain Institute, a Colorado-based nonprofit that published a controversial December study attributing 13 percent of U.S. childhood asthma cases to gas-stove use, for years worked with China’s National Development and Reform Commission to implement an “economy-wide transformation” away from oil and gas, the Washington Free Beacon reported in January.

In addition to his role as a Climate Imperative adviser, Wang advises the Chinese government on climate change through the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED), a CCP-approved group that provides “policy recommendations to the Chinese government on environment and development.” As a CCICED council member, Wang in a September 2020 policy report called climate change the “highlight of Sino-U.S. relations” and argued that if U.S. “efforts to combat climate change prevail,” China will lose its “active, one-step-ahead position in global climate governance.” As a result, Wang and his coauthors wrote, China should pursue “strategic competition” with the United States on climate change and “engage in dialogue and exchange with relevant U.S. entities.”

Wang appears to be affiliated with the China Association for Promoting Democracy, a minor political party under the direction of the Communist Party that represents academics and holds seven seats on the National People’s Congress Standing Committee. One expert of China’s political system stressed that despite its name, the China Association for Promoting Democracy is not free from the CCP’s grips.

“They are subservient to the CCP,” the expert, who spoke on background to discuss the issue candidly, told the Free Beacon. “The idea is that they create these spin-off groups that are designed to appear to be independent in some kind of way from the CCP, when they’re actually controlled and directed by the CCP.”

Wang’s ties to the CCP are also shown through his status as a CCICED member. The council’s chairman is First Vice Premier Han Zheng, who from 2017 to 2022 served on the CCP’s Politburo Standing Committee, which consists of the party’s six highest-ranking leaders underneath President Xi Jinping.

Climate Imperative launched publicly in December 2021 with an annual budget of $180 million over five years, Axios reported. Given the group’s new status, it has not yet published tax forms with the Internal Revenue Service, meaning it is not known exactly how much funding the group has received from Powell Jobs and Doerr. The “majority” of the group’s sizable budget, however, comes from the two billionaires, according to energy reporter Robert Bryce.

Calls from green energy groups such as Climate Imperative and the Rocky Mountain Institute to ban gas stoves have intensified with President Joe Biden in the White House. Those calls gained serious traction within the federal government in January, when Biden-appointed Consumer Product Safety commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. told Bloomberg that “any option is on the table” when it comes to combating the “hidden hazard” of gas stoves. “Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”

While the White House walked back those comments amid intense public backlash, green energy groups are moving full steam ahead in their crusade against natural gas. “More than 12 percent of U.S. childhood asthma is preventable,” the Rocky Mountain Institute tweeted in January, “if we remove gas stoves from homes and move towards electric stoves instead.”

The post Billionaire-Backed Green Group Working To Ban Gas Stoves Counts Chinese Official as Top Adviser appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

One of the largest and most comprehensive studies on the effectiveness of masks found they do almost nothing to reduce the spread of respiratory viruses.

The study reviewed 78 randomized control trials—experiments that have long been considered “the gold standard” for medicine—which assessed the effectiveness of face masks against flu, COVID-19, and similar illnesses. It found that wearing masks “probably makes little or no difference” for the general public, no matter what kind of mask is used. Even N95 masks, considered the most effective at filtering airborne particles, showed no clear benefit for health care workers.

The study was published on January 30 by the Cochrane Library, a world-renowned medical database that is famous for its high-quality evidence reviews. It comes as a battering ram to the recommendations of the U.S. public health establishment, which urged children as young as two to wear masks throughout the pandemic.

“This amounts to the scientific nail in the coffin for mask mandates,” said Kristen Walsh, a clinical professor of pediatrics in Morristown, New Jersey. “I just can’t wrap my mind around the fact that some schools are still actively forcing children to wear masks, much less children who need to see faces to learn.”

Though most Western countries opted against masking kids—in part due to concerns about speech and social development—many blue school districts mandated face coverings for toddlers, citing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Both organizations have maintained the masks are effective at curbing COVID-19, including in schools. But the guidance was typically based on weak studies with small sample sizes and few controls, limitations that critics said biased their findings. Many of the studies just compared places with mask mandates with those without them, making it hard to sort out whether it was masks that reduced COVID or other factors, such as that COVID-cautious people were more likely to wear masks.

The sorts of experiments Cochrane canvassed—in which subjects were chosen at random to receive masks—were designed to avoid that problem. They helped researchers isolate the effects of masks from the caution levels of the people wearing them, providing a clearer picture of how well the masks themselves work.

That makes the Cochrane review, which is based exclusively on randomized trials, far more rigorous than the studies typically cited in defense of masks.

“Not all evidence is the same,” Vinay Prasad, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, wrote in a Substack post about the review. Randomized control trials “are imperative for recommendations that span years, or longer.”

More than two years after the start of the pandemic, some schools are still requiring masks. School districts in Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania reimposed mask mandates in January amid a spike in respiratory illnesses. The mandates came after the CDC warned of a “tridemic” of COVID, flu, and RSV, though cases of all three illnesses have significantly declined.

As of this writing, no major media outlets have covered the Cochrane review. It’s a sharp contrast to the reception of other, more pro-mask studies, which were the subject of glowing write-ups in the New York Times, the Atlantic, and the Washington Post.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not respond to a request for comment.

The post This Study Could Be ‘Scientific Nail in the Coffin’ for Masks appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.