Category: Watching

Biden admin funding controversial efforts to treat conservative groups as radical, watchdog warns

The Biden administration is doling out taxpayer money through an anti-terrorism grant initiative to a university program that has explicitly lumped the Republican Party, as well as Christian and conservative groups, into the same category as Nazis, according to documents shared exclusively with Fox News Digital.

The Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group, obtained documents through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests showing a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program meant to fight terrorism is funding a group whose work has explicitly targeted the American political right. The MRC outlined its findings in a report, arguing what the group found warrants criminal prosecution.

“This terrorism task force is engaged in an active effort to demonize and eliminate Christian, conservative, and Republican organizations using federal taxpayer dollars,” said Brent Bozell, founder and president of the Media Research Center. “What we have uncovered calls for criminal prosecution. The American people need to know those who are abusing their positions in the federal government will be held accountable for their criminal behavior.”

DHS’s Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program (TVTP) provides funds to various public, private, and non-profit institutions — such as universities and county governments — “to establish or enhance capabilities to prevent targeted violence and terrorism.” Grant applicants must be based in the U.S. and implement a U.S.-based program.

The Biden administration has awarded 80 grants through the TVTP totaling just under $40 million. The lowest grant was for $85,000, the highest was over $1.1 million, and the median was about $442,000. TVTP grant recipients are prohibited from engaging in viewpoint discrimination, according to DHS.

Started by the Obama administration under a different name, the TVTP was broadened and revamped by the Biden administration with a new focus on violent extremism and white supremacy. DHS named one of its TVTP goals as “media literacy and online critical thinking initiatives,” which many grantees listed as the mission of their projects.

Read more at: www.foxnews.com

With its activists now sitting in Israel’s government, the once-fringe movement has gained unprecedented influence over the fate of Jerusalem’s holiest site. The next weeks could herald even more danger.

Five young, clay-colored cows touched down at Ben-Gurion Airport in late September, greeted by a joyous gathering of rabbis and well-wishers. Flying cows from the plains of Texas to the Middle East is no easy task, and those waiting to greet the livestock celebrated the success of their years-long effort with a shehecheyanu, the Jewish blessing over something new.

These are no ordinary cows: they are red heifers, and as such any one of them might be the final missing ingredient needed for the coming of the Messiah — at least if you ask the rabbis who came to greet them. All of the rabbis are part of the Temple Mount movement, a loose coalition of groups and individuals working to rebuild the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem where the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque currently stand, and in so doing usher in the messianic age. Part of this grand plan involves restoring Temple worship, and for that to take place, the priests conducting the services must become ritually pure — a process that requires mixing the ashes of a slaughtered purely-red heifer with water from the Gihon stream, in Jerusalem.

Whether the red heifers meet the exacting requirements of Jewish law as prescribed in the book of Numbers — they may not have more than two non-red hairs on their body, and those two hairs cannot be adjacent — is another matter. But for those eager to see Temple worship resume after a 2,000-year hiatus, the arrival of five red heifer candidates in Israel is a pretty big deal.

The Temple Mount movement, for all its ambition, long languished in one of the most ideologically idiosyncratic corners of Israeli society. They faced opposition from the Israeli public, mainstream rabbinical authorities, the government, and the police — in addition to Muslims worldwide, for whom the Temple Mount compound is Al-Haram Al-Sharif (“the Noble Sanctuary”), the third holiest site in Islam, and who regard attempts at reviving Jewish Temple worship as a threat to the sanctity of the mosques, and to the political fate of the holy city.

But over the last few years, the movement has been extraordinarily successful at pushing past each of these sources of opposition. In what may be its greatest achievement yet, a striking number of Temple Mount activists now make up Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition, the most famous of whom is Itamar Ben Gvir, the Kahanist star of the last election who is now national security minister. With the surging movement at his back, Ben Gvir has returned the Temple Mount to the Israeli zeitgeist, inflaming tensions that have been steadily rising for years.

Read more at: www.972mag.com

“They also took all the pails, scrapers, snuffers, ladles, and all the other bronze vessels used in the service. KINGS 25:14 (THE ISRAEL BIBLE)

A recent initiative may be bringing Rome and Jerusalem closer together as the Vatican has expressed interest to advance a project releasing artifacts from their archives and allowing them to be placed in a museum.

Investigative archaeologist Rabbi Harry Moskoff has been searching for the Ark of the Covenant for decades and though he has yet to discover the holiest Temple artifact, he was recently contacted by the Vatican. In a stunning example of religious largesse, Vatican officials have expressed a willingness to reveal artifacts from the Holy Land that have been in their possession for hundreds of years. To facilitate this, Moskoff established the Vatican Museum Exchange Program.

The remarkable story began almost two years ago when a lawyer representing the Israeli government contacted Moskoff.

“A high profile lawyer, who happened to be religious, was researching a case at the National Library of France,” Moskoff related. “He came across a document recording gifts that were given to Pope Innocent III by Baldwin I, the Emperor of the Latin Empire of Constantinople in the year 1204.”

The document listed the gifts which were, in fact, artifacts taken from the Holy Land.

“The lawyer contacted me on behalf of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs because he knew that I am an investigative archaeologist,” Moskoff told Israel365 News. “He told me that the Vatican may be interested in sharing with the public Byzantine era artifacts from Israel from the 11th, 12th, and even 13th centuries. This includes ancient makhta (incense shovels) and khatzotzroth (silver trumpets), as well as other smaller Jewish cultic items that were used for sacrificial rites.”

Read more at: www.israel365news.com

A powerful California teachers’ union was part of a successful pressure campaign to get the Los Angeles Dodgers to re-invite a group of drag queen nuns to the team’s annual Pride Night. The union suggested that LGBT students’ lives were at stake.

“At a time when LGBTQ+ rights are under attack across the country with more than 400 pieces of legislation filed in states, at a time when 45 percent of LGBTQ+ youth report seriously considering committing suicide each year, we should be leading with love and inclusion in California rather than sowing division,” the California Teachers Association president said in a statement on Monday, referring to a spate of “red state” legislation restricting sex-change treatment for minors and a 2022 Trevor Project survey. “Our students are watching what happens on and off the field.”

The union had resolved to speak out after the Dodgers rescinded an offer to honor the drag group, known as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, for its advocacy before a June 16 home game against the San Francisco Giants. The resolution, which was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, went even further than the union’s public statement, likening the controversy over the baseball game ceremony to the AIDS epidemic.

“SILENCE = DEATH has long been a refrain of the LGBTQIA+ community, and though it refers to refusal to acknowledge the AIDS crisis, silence in the face of the national assault upon these marginalized youths will lead to more deaths,” the resolution read.

Between 1981 and 1990, more than 100,000 people died of AIDS in the United States, the overwhelming majority of whom were gay men. There is no evidence that the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence or sex-changes treatments for minors save lives.

The California Teachers Association’s over-the-top advocacy for the Sisters highlighted the union’s powerful role in California’s progressive politics. It has consistently ranked among the biggest-spending lobbyists in the state legislature and has supported California’s growing embrace of transgenderism in schools.

Hours after the union weighed in, joining LA Pride and others, the Dodgers caved and agreed to recognize the Sisters as originally planned. The team on Monday offered its “sincerest apologies” to the drag group and its allies and pledged to “continue to work with our LGBTQ+ partners to better educate ourselves.” The Sisters confirmed it had accepted the Dodgers’ renewed invitation.

Read more at: freebeacon.com

Bud Light and its parent company Anheuser-Busch are sponsoring at least three different upcoming Pride events despite backlash over the partnership with Dylan Mulvaney, a social media influencer who identifies as transgender.

Bud Light is listed as a sponsor on the Cincinnati Pride Parade website. Planned Parenthood and the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, which medically transitions minors, are both also listed.

Meanwhile, in St. Louis, Missouri, where Anheuser-Busch is headquartered, the company is listed as the presenting sponsor of the St. Louis Pride Parade. A sponsorship packet explains that there are only four “presenting sponsor” slots available. The “Rainbow” sponsorship tier, located below the “presenting sponsor” tier, requires entities to pay $25,000.

Bud Light is also listed as a “Diamond Sponsor” of Stonewall Columbus, which organizes and hosts the annual Columbus, Ohio, Pride Parade. The “diamond” sponsorship tier requires companies to donate $20,000, a document from the organization specifies. The document also adds, “All Stonewall Columbus sponsors must affirm Stonewall’s diversity, equity, and inclusion policies AND agree to donate no less than 8 hours of volunteer time during a calendar year.”

Anheuser-Busch was also listed as a premier sponsor for the San Francisco Pride Parade in 2022. The 2023 sponsors of the San Francisco Pride Parade have not yet been released.

Read more at: www.dailywire.com

Growing human babies from scratch in a lab could be possible in just five years thanks to a new breakthrough.

Researchers in Japan are on the cusp of being able to create human eggs and sperm in the lab from scratch, which would then develop in an artificial womb.

Professor Katsuhiko Hayashi, a Japanese scientist at Kyushu University who has already figured out the process in mice, believes he is just five years away from replicating the results in humans.

But there are ethical concerns, as it means women of any age could have babies. Parents may also want to design their offspring to have certain traits using gene editing tools, giving way to the notion of an assumed perfect child.

Dr Hayashi and his team recently created seven mice with two male biological parents, using skin cells from a male mouse to form a viable egg and then fertilize it.

The ability to produce custom-made human sperm and eggs in the lab is called in vitro gametogenesis (IVG).

It works by taking cells from a person’s blood or skin and reprogramming them to become induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells).

In theory, these cells can become any cell in the body, including egg and sperm cells.

They could then be used to make embryos and implanted into women’s wombs.

Scientists have been able to make very basic human eggs and sperm this way, but have not yet been able to make embryos.

Read more at: www.dailymail.co.uk

Guide argues that ‘sexuality education starts from birth’

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is under pressure to withdraw guidance for schools recommending that toddlers “ask questions about sexuality” and “explore gender identities”.

The guidance says that “sexuality education starts from birth” and is described as a “framework for policy makers, educational and health authorities and specialists”.

Its advice on how to “talk about sexual matters” with young children was aimed at policymakers across Europe, and was translated into several European languages and promoted at national and international events, according to the WHO.

The document was also cited in a report consulted by Welsh ministers who last year rolled out a mandatory sexual education syllabus to schools in Wales, and has led to a backlash from the Government, MPs and activists.

The advice proposes that four-to-six year olds should be taught to “talk about sexual matters” and “consolidate their gender identity”.

It recommends that children under the age of four should be told they have “the right to ask questions about sexuality” and “the right to explore gender identities”.

The WHO guidance also says that children aged four and under should be taught about “enjoyment and pleasure when touching one’s own body, early childhood masturbation”.

These topics are described as the “minimal standards that need to be covered by sexuality education”.

A government spokesperson said: “The UK Government does not recognise this WHO guidance and we don’t agree with its recommendations. We have not distributed or promoted it to schools.

“We offer our own guidance to help schools to teach children and young people about relationships and health.”

However, the WHO guidance, first published in 2010, was cited in a 2017 report commissioned by Welsh ministers entitled “Informing the Future of the Sex and Relationships Curriculum in Wales”.

Read more at: www.telegraph.co.uk

• An ancient stone, housed in Scotland and dubbed the “Stone of Destiny,” has been used in the coronation of kings since around 840 AD.
• The origins of the stone’s prominence remain unknown.
• New research has revealed never-before-seen markings on the stone, which will be used during King Charles III’s coronation in May.

There’s a special stone used in the coronation ceremonies of monarchs in the United Kingdom. It’s been this way since around 840 AD. And now we have found, for the first time, hidden markings on the red sandstone slab that will be a part of King Charles III’s May coronation.

An oblong block 25 inches long, 15 inches wide, and about 10 inches thick, the stone’s earliest origins are a mystery. But it has long held a special place in the royal history of the United Kingdom, and is considered by many to be a sacred object.

Believed to have been moved to Scone about 840 AD by Kenneth I from western Scotland, this block—also called the Stone of Scone—became part of the coronation tradition for Scottish rulers. It didn’t remain in Scotland forever, though, as King Edward I of England pillaged it in 1296 and moved it to Westminster. It was officially returned to Scotland in 1996—with some theft now a part of it’s history—and is currently housed in Edinburgh Castle. It remains part of the United Kingdom’s coronation tradition, however, and Scotland has agreed to allow it to be used as part of the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey come May 6.

Due to the remaining ambiguity in the Stone of Destiny’s very early history, the Historic Environment Scotland (HES) has renewed its investigation into the red slab ahead of the big royal event. Using a newly created 3D model, researchers now have access to fresh angles and details, showing off what appear to be Roman numerals on the stone’s surface for the first time.

“It’s very existing to discover new information about an object as unique and important to Scotland’s history as the Stone of Destiny,” Ewan Hyslop, head of research and climate change at Historic Environment Scotland, says in a news release. “The high level of detail we’ve been able to capture through the digital imaging has enabled us to re-examine the tooling marks on the surface of the stone, which has helped confirm that the stone has been roughly worked by more than one stonemason with a number of different tools, as was previously thought.”

Read more at: www.msn.com

Some with ‘body integrity identity disorder’ even desire amputation or other impairments — experts weigh in

A troubling societal issue called “transableism” is attracting attention these days.

Transableism is a newer term for BIID, or “Body Integrity Identity Disorder,” in which a person actually “identifies” as handicapped.

BIID has been relabeled to transableism to align with today’s trans community, according to some.

The point of “changing the identifier” from a psychiatric condition (BIID) to an advocacy term (transableism) is to “harness the stunning cultural power of gender ideology” to the cause of allowing doctors to “treat” BIID patients by “amputating healthy limbs, snipping spinal cords or destroying eyesight,” according to Evolution News and Science Today (EN), which reports on and analyzes evolution, neuroscience, bioethics, intelligent design and other science-related issues.

Culturally, transableism is “the next abyss,” that site also notes.

Read more at: www.foxnews.com

Today, April 23, is Saint George’s Day, which used to be widely celebrated, especially in England, as George is that nation’s patron saint.

To underscore just how much things have changed between England and its patron saint, consider the following “what if” scenario offered by English historian Edward Gibbon (1737-1794). Had the Muslims won at the pivotal Battle of Tours (732 A.D.), Gibbon predicted that:

Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people [meaning Brits would now be Muslim] the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Muhammad.

Today, of course, not only is the “revelation of Muhammad” being taught and honored at Oxford, but Christianity—including in the guise of Saint George—is being canceled for its sake. Most recently,

A decision by an Oxford university college not to celebrate St George’s Day with a formal dinner has been branded ‘barking mad.’ Magdalen College has decided against continuing an annual pre-pandemic banquet celebrating the English saint that drew together Oxford students, dons and fellows. Instead, the only occasion the college will observe on the day is Eid al-Fitr, the Islamic festival marking the end of Ramadan. The college will hold a formal dinner marking Eid on April 23, honouring a request made by its Muslim students. An email from college vice president Professor Nick Stargardt … outlines plans for a ‘festive dinner’ celebrating the occasion. The invitation, sent to hundreds of students and their lecturers, adds the meal will ‘follow Muslim customs.’ Cooks will prepare a halal meat dish with no alcohol served to diners.

Read more at: www.pjmedia.com