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Friday, April 12, 2024

Russia Targets Christian Churches in Ukraine

Christian Post: Christians in Ukraine have faced torture, the destruction of their churches and other horrors at the hands of Russian forces, according to multiple religious freedom advocates who have called on Republican leaders to take notice of their plight. In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, Dr. Richard Land, the former president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, joined several advocates in asking Johnson to remember the persecuted Christians when considering efforts to support Ukraine. According to the letter, the Russian government has harmed Christians by torturing them and forcibly removing pastors from their positions. They add that Russian soldiers have targeted retired Baptist pastors they believe are not “pro-Russia” and whom they suspect of being supportive of the West (Christian Post). National Review: Mission Eurasia found that the “scale of the destruction of evangelical prayer houses is vast.” It has mapped more than 600 religious buildings damaged or destroyed by targeted Russian missiles, suicide drones, artillery strikes, and other violence. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church now has “no clergy left” in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson, in addition to Zaporizhzhia, according to Mission Eurasia (National Review).

Polling Indicates Black Men Divorcing From Democrats

Wall Street Journal: President Biden faces a dual-natured challenge to shore up his support with Black Americans, one of the Democratic Party’s most loyal constituencies. More Black men said they plan to back Donald Trump this fall, according to a recent Wall Street Journal poll of seven swing states. While most Black men said they intend to support Biden, some 30% said they were either definitely or probably going to vote for the former Republican president. There isn’t comparable WSJ swing-state polling from 2020, but Trump received votes from 12% of Black men nationwide that year, as recorded by AP VoteCast, a large poll of the electorate. 11% of Black women said they were either definitely or probably going to vote for Trump. In 2020, 6% of Black women nationwide backed Trump (Wall Street Journal). National Review: Fifty-four percent of respondents said they trust Trump more than Biden on the economy, compared with 34 percent for Biden. On immigration, 52 percent said they think Trump is best, while only 32 percent believe Biden is a better choice. 48 percent of those surveyed said they believe Trump is more mentally and physically capable of serving as president than Biden. Just 28 percent told pollsters Biden’s mental and physical ability are stronger than Trump’s. One area where Biden leads Trump is abortion. Forty-five percent of respondents said they prefer Biden to 33 percent for Trump (National Review). Ed Morrissey: That’s not just a red flag for Democrats; it’s a screaming tornado siren. And this skepticism comes with a black woman on Biden’s ticket — Kamala Harris, whose sole purpose was to keep black women from peeling away. With all this said, take it with a grain of salt. The election is in seven months, and voting habits are tough to break (HotAir).

Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) Refuses to Condemn “Death to America” Chants in Her District

New York Post: “Squad” Rep. Rashida Tlaib went off Wednesday on a Fox Business Network reporter who confronted the lawmaker about “Death to America” chants that sounded in her Michigan district last week. Tlaib (D-Mich.), whose district includes the Detroit suburb of Dearborn — home to the largest population of Muslims per capita in the US — had been mum on the viral video of an Al-Quds Day rally April 5, during which participants chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” which drew national outrage and condemnation from the White House. Tlaib was in no mood to talk when asked by FBN correspondent Hillary Vaughn about the shocking scene. “I don’t talk to Fox News!” the congresswoman said, repeating the point several times. “I don’t talk to people who use racist tropes,” Tlaib, 47, later chided after a couple of back-and-forths with Vaughn (New York Post). Daily Caller: Rep. Rashida Tlaib freaks out when a Fox News reporter asks if she condemns “death to America” chants at a rally in her district (X).

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) Chastises Harvard in Letter Stating They’re Protecting Jewish Students

Washington Examiner: Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) sent a letter to Harvard University on Thursday criticizing the institution for allowing an alleged antisemitic attacker to graduate in May, although Harvard disputed the accusation. The letter comes on the heels of a rocky several months for the elite university, which has been hit by accusations of protecting antisemitism and not enforcing campus bylaws by taking disciplinary action against pro-Palestinian students. The New York Republican and Harvard alumna is referring to an incident from Oct. 18, shortly after the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, during which members of the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee allegedly surrounded and physically assaulted an Israeli Harvard Business School student who was recording a “die-in” protest (Washington Examiner). National Review: The firm representing the victim, Holtzman Vogel, wrote a letter in March to the attorney Harvard retained to conduct its internal investigation asking why the probe had not progressed since it began. Noting that the university and its legal team had not notified them of any developments in the investigation and had not issued proper disciplinary action, the team of attorneys wrote that “the protracted delay all but ensures that at least one of the offending individuals will have the privilege of graduating from Harvard without facing any serious academic or professional consequences for his actions” (National Review).

Yale Students Threaten Hunger Strike if University Does Not Concede to Anti-Israel Demands

Daily Wire: Anti-Israel students at Yale University are threatening to go on a hunger strike if the school does not commit to divest from weapons manufacturers “contributing to Israel’s assault on Palestine” by Friday morning, they warned in a letter to the university’s president. “If these demands are not met by the morning of 4/12/2024, we will go on a hunger strike,” the students wrote to President Peter Salovey. “We will risk our bodily health and wellbeing in ways that mirror only a fraction of the absolute devastation that Palestinians are suffering right now, until you do. Yale’s complicity in genocide must end” (Daily Wire).

As NHS England Report Reveals Weak Evidence for Gender Surgery for Minors, the World Should Take Heed of Their Warning

Economist: Calm discussions of transgender medicine are rare. “There are few other areas of health care where professionals are so afraid to openly discuss their views,” argues Hilary Cass, a British doctor. On April 9th she published a 388-page report, commissioned by England’s National Health Service, assessing the evidence for and against treatments for children who identify as transgender. The treatments at issue include puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and (rarely) surgery. “There is not a reliable evidence base” to show that the benefits of offering such treatments to children outweigh the harms, says the Cass Review. Many studies have been published, but they are often of “poor quality.” Some draw conclusions from tiny samples. Some lack control groups, so that outcomes for patients receiving treatment are not compared with outcomes for those who do not. Far too little effort has been made to observe long-term effects. Some clinics even resisted attempts to gather such data. “It is unusual for us to give a potentially life-changing treatment to young people and not know what happens to them in adulthood,” Dr. Cass told the BBC (Economist). Albert Mohler: Now, remember, they already shut down surgery as an option for teenagers and minors who are identified as having gender dysphoria, and it’s because authorities in the National Health Service in Britain came back and said, “We are afraid by these surgeries we are doing more harm than good,” which by the way, is emphatically true. The point here is that eventually, everywhere there’s going to be an ethical reckoning with the transgender revolution, and quite frankly, I think everywhere over a period of time, it is going to be true that medical authorities are going to be absolutely humiliated and crushed by the fact they’re going to have to admit they have been mutilating children (Albert Mohler).

Biden Science Foundation Spends $1 Million to Research “Latina Resistance” and “Intraminority Solidarity”

Daily Wire: The National Science Foundation (NSF), the government agency tasked with promoting scientific progress, will allocate over a million taxpayer dollars to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts to study Latina resistance and “intraminority solidarity.” The NSF, which controls $9.9 billion of federal money and exists to “promote the progress of science,” “advance the national health,” and “secure the national defense,” pledged $498,271 to a three-year study at Loyola University Maryland focused on “Latinas resistance behaviors in engineering programs at predominantly white institutions” as part of its broader diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) agenda. It granted another $618,465 to support a study at the University of Washington centered around “promoting intraminority solidarity,” particularly looking into “how different framings of racism influence Asian Americans’ intraminority solidarity with Black Americans.” An agency spokesman defended the studies saying the projects are both “worthy of support” (Daily Wire).

Activist Group Pushes to Rename Francis Scott Key Bridge After Collapse

Townhall: Late last month, the Francis Scott Key bridge collapsed in Baltimore, Maryland, with six people losing their lives. Given that Francis Scott Key wrote the text for our National Anthem, but also owned slaves, some rushed to highlight his faults. Not long after that, we’re already hearing about demands for a name change (Townhall). Rep. Mike Collins: Who could have seen this coming (X)? NBC: They suggested that it be renamed after Rep. Parren J. Mitchell, the first Black Marylander to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1970 (NBC). HotAir: This should not happen. Let them honor “the first African American from Maryland elected to the U.S. House of Representatives” another way. A statue in his hometown, an easily accessed memorial marker (he died in 2007), a post office, or some other way is sufficient. There is no reason to change the name of a 47-year-old bridge. Activists have been allowed to try to erase American history in the public square for too long. Since the Marxist Black Lives Matter movement began, suddenly statues and memorials to white men who played important roles in American history have to be removed and demonized. It’s wrong (HotAir).

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) Decries Racism When People Criticize Her in Restaurant

Townhall: It’s been almost six years since Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) demanded her supporters harass officials working for then President Donald Trump. It wasn’t a good look for the congresswoman, to say the least. Making it even more of an infamous moment, though, is her hypocrisy. This week, a video conversation she had has making the rounds over X, as people called her out for daring to complain about supposed racism towards her when people dare to express their displeasure with the congresswoman (Townhall). Dan O’Donnell: In 2018, Congresswoman Maxine Waters demanded that mobs confront President Trump’s cabinet members in restaurants to tell them “they’re not welcome anymore anywhere.” In 2024, she thinks it’s racist that someone came up to her in a restaurant and gently criticized her (X).

10.

Biden Unveils Latest Efforts to Control Guns

Spencer Brown: White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre kicked off Thursday’s briefing by bragging about the Biden administration’s supposedly noble efforts to reduce gun violence in the United States and touting a new rule to “save lives by requiring background checks.” If you listen to Democrats and the mainstream media talk about the new ATF rule, it’s a move by Team Biden to close the so-called “gun show loophole.” But such a thing does not exist. In standard fare from the Biden White House, the rule is actually about more power for the federal government and greater harassment of law-abiding firearm owners (Townhall). Cam Edwards: The administration is cracking down on private sales of firearms by broadening the definition of who is “engaged in the business” of selling firearms; a move that could open millions of gun owners to criminal prosecution as well as diverting the ATF from going after real gun traffickers (Bearing Arms).