Since Disney seems utterly insistent on remaking every classic from its vault (well, maybe not “Song of the South”), it was never a matter of if Disney would eventually remake the 1942 classic “Bambi,” but when.

While talks of a live-action Bambi movie have persisted for years now, it wasn’t until this year that things began crystallizing.

As Deadline reported in June, the film now has its director in Sarah Polley. At the time, Deadline noted the film was “in very early development.”

(There is still no official release date for this film. Many experts have pegged 2025 as the likeliest release year.)

Now, a former writer attached to the movie is shedding some light on some of the on-screen happenings of the live-action film — and it’s raising some eyebrows.

Lindsey Anderson Beer spoke to entertainment site Collider about the movie she was once attached to (she has a number of active films in the works, and they’re the reason she ultimately left the live-action Bambi project.)

But the most attention-catching part of her interview came when she discussed one of the most iconic and legendary death scenes in all of film — when the unnamed hunter shoots and kills Bambi’s mother.

“Not to spoil the plot, but there’s a treatment of the mom dying that I think some kids, some parents these days are more sensitive about than they were in the past,” Anderson Beer told Collider. “And I think that’s one of the reasons that they haven’t shown [the 1942 Bambi movie] to their children.”

The screenwriter added: “I do think there is a way to update Bambi and our take on it was… did give a little bit more of a scope to it. And I just think that to be able to bring it to life for kids these days in a way that maybe they relate to a little bit more would be of service to the original.”

Many outlets, such as Newsweek and ScreenRant took Anderson Beer’s remarks as proof positive that Disney would be straying from the source material for Bambi, particularly in regards to softening the mother’s death scene.

Disney’s ‘Bambi’ remake will change a key scene to avoid traumatizing kids https://t.co/sqDvE7rt42

— Bo Snerdley (@BoSnerdley) September 30, 2023

Online backlash on social media was just as swift, with many people pillorying the revelation for one reason or another.

And look, while dunking on Disney, a creatively bankrupt woke company with absolutely no scruples, is as American as apple pie in 2023, it’s still worth examining why this purported particular scene change is triggering such strong responses.

After all, this isn’t an obviously problematic matter like a man pretending to be a woman or infringing on Constitutional rights — this is a far deeper societal issue.

Namely: Death is a part of life. Grief is a part of life. Loneliness is a part of life.

Learning to cope, grow and work through those feelings is a key aspect of growing up and it’s something today’s youths are hopelessly robbed of, largely thanks to the left and its puppets — like Disney and Big Pharma.

“There’s no such thing as loss. Here’s a participation trophy!”

“There’s no such thing as sorrow. Here’s some anti-depressants!”

“There’s no such thing as loneliness. Here’s the government!”

You know what kind of adults this produces? The kind that think they can get away with anything and expect you to play along in perpetuity.

So yes, this is literally just one potential scene change in an upcoming movie — but it feels representative of so much more about everything that’s wrong in society today.

The post Disney's Upcoming 'Bambi' Remake Will Bring a Big Change to Iconic Hunter Scene appeared first on The Western Journal.

Several parts of a Maryland gun control law set to take effect Sunday were shelved Friday after a U.S. District Court Judge blocked the law’s prohibition on carrying guns at bars, public gatherings and in private buildings.

U.S. District Court Judge George L. Russell III repeatedly invoked the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen in granting a preliminary injunction that bars those pieces of the law from taking effect while the lawsuit against it moves through the courts, according to The Washington Post.

Russell, nominated by former President Barack Obama, said restrictions on carrying guns at schools. hospitals, transit facilities government buildings and other locations were likely to be constitutionally valid, other parts of the law failed that test.

In the opinion, Russell wrote that “bars and restaurants are not analogous to any established sensitive place.”

“While it is true that such businesses can attract crowds and there are risks associated with alcohol consumption, the Court is unconvinced that intoxicated people qualify as a vulnerable population, like children or hospitalized individuals,” he wrote.

“Additionally, while some crowded spaces are considered sensitive places, Bruen rejected the argument that Manhattan was sensitive ‘simply because it is crowded and protected generally by the New York City Police Department,’” he continued.

Noting the theme laid down by the Supreme Court in its 2022 ruling, Russell added, “Additionally, the Court concludes that SB 1’s restriction on locations selling alcohol is not consistent with historical regulations.”

Gottlieb: “Maryland is one of a handful of states that have adopted new statutes designed specifically to get around the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the 2022 Bruen case.” @2AFDN @aarmark https://t.co/8bBRYLgGZP

— Lee Williams (@HT_GunWriter) September 29, 2023

Russell wrote that “The Second Amendment ‘presumptively guarantees’ citizens the right to carry arms ‘in public for self-defense” and that in his opinion, under the proposed law the citizens suing the government “have suffered an injury in fact.”

“State Defendants mischaracterize Plaintiffs’ injury — it is not merely the inability to carry in privately-owned buildings,” he wrote.

“Rather, their injury is the threat of prosecution for carrying firearms in places that, under prevailing law, they have previously had the presumptive right to do so absent express prohibition by the property owner,” Russell wrote.

In banning the part of the law that would ban guns near demonstrations, Russell noted, “Just before the ratification of the Second Amendment, ‘six out of the thirteen original colonies required their citizens to go armed when attending . . . public assemblies.'”

Mark Pennak, president of the gun rights group Maryland Shall Issue said the law’s section banning guns at bars or restaurants impacted his safety when he ate out, the Post wrote.

“No one is advocating drinking and being armed. But people who do carry like to do so while we eat, and they serve alcohol at most restaurants. It’s not like there’s a sign ‘no bad guys allowed’ and the bad guys say, ‘OK, we’ll stay away.’ There’s still shootings at restaurants.”

The judge disagreed with the state’s attempt to use racist historical gun laws to justify its current ones: https://t.co/t2rzRCLNon pic.twitter.com/rKLUNAakLX

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) September 29, 2023

In assessing the decision, the National Rifle Association wrote that “The biggest win was stopping the ‘private building consent rule,'” which declares all private property that is open to the public to be a prohibited place — unless the property owner expressly allows individuals to enter the premises with a firearm.

“These private building consent restrictions were cooked up by anti-Second Amendment advocates to effectively nullify the Bruen decision. They are the heart of the states’ response to Bruen. And courts are having nothing to do with them. Today’s ruling was the fourth on enjoining these private consent rules from taking effect,” the NRA explained on its NRA-ILA website.

The post Federal Judge Sides with Gun Advocates: Halts Parts of Maryland's Strict Carry Ban That Had National Implications appeared first on The Western Journal.

With the passing of California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the seat is now open for Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom to fill by appointment. And many wonder if he might give the nod to TV talk show host and billionaire Oprah Winfrey.

By state law, Newsom, of course, will be the one responsible for replacing Feinstein, who died Friday at the age of 90, for the remainder of her term now that Feinstein is no longer in the picture.

Not long ago, Newsom pledged that he’d put a black female in Feinstein’s seat if it came down to him to fill Feinstein’s unexpired term. And many are speculating that he just might give the nod to Winfrey.

Unsurprisingly, blacks have already started ramping up the pressure on Newsom to fulfill his promise to appoint a black woman to Feinstein’s seat.

“He made the commitment, and I do not believe there is any wiggle room for the governor not to honor his commitment,” said Kerman Maddox, a black Los Angeles-based Democratic strategist and fundraiser, according to ABC News.

“Newsom must honor his promise to appoint a black woman. I trust him at his word. We currently have zero black women in the Senate, so if the opportunity becomes available the governor must act to help remedy this lack of representation,” added Democratic state Assemblywoman Lori Wilson, who is the head of the Legislative Black Caucus.

If Newsom is to stick to his promise, he has a number of candidates from whom to choose.

Already three candidates have announced their intention to officially run for Feinstein’s seat; Rep. Barbara Lee, who is black; Rep. Katie Porter, who is white; and Rep. Adam Schiff, who is also white.

Choosing Lee might put Newsom in a tricky spot. Yes, she would fulfill his pledge of appointing a black woman to the seat, however, he would also anger the other two, both of whom are power players in California’s far-left politics.

Newsom has already nixed that, though. During a visit to “Meet The Press” last month, Newsom rejected the notion of appointing any of the three announced candidates.

So, Newsom is faced with a self-imposed task of having to find a black woman who would not want to run for a full term once the appointment to run out Feinstein’s time comes to an end. Meaning, he might be looking for a seatwarmer, someone who won’t want to stick around for too long.

Election adviser Stan Taney said that there is not a deep pool of qualified black women who would fill that category and Newsom may have put himself in a touchy spot, the California Globe reported.

Newsom “put himself in a corner after promising a female black Senator should Feinstein go. There’s only so many who are qualified in California,” Taney said.

But he went on to say that Oprah may be just what Newsom needs.

“Winfrey has been known to be political and outspoken on issues, plus she is popular with many people,” Taney added.

Taney also said that “she is known, is liked, does know about many subjects, college grad, and would likely agree to only serve out the term.”

“You really can’t call her the best candidate,” Taney said, “but you can also do worse. If she is picked, it would make front page news. I mean, come on, Senator Oprah? I mean, there has been Governor [Arnold] Schwarzenegger, so this would be very on brand for California.”

Newsom, though has been blasted for setting himself up to fill a racial and gender preference instead of looking for the best person to represent California in the U.S. Senate.

He even took criticism from Barbra Lee who called his pledge “insulting.”

“I am troubled by the Governor’s remarks. The idea that a Black woman should be appointed only as a caretaker to simply check a box is insulting to countless Black women across this country who have carried the Democratic Party to victory election after election,” Lee said on X.

I am troubled by the Governor’s remarks. The idea that a Black woman should be appointed only as a caretaker to simply check a box is insulting to countless Black women across this country who have carried the Democratic Party to victory election after election. https://t.co/Q5Q3jznuFd

— Barbara Lee (@BarbaraLeeForCA) September 11, 2023

Regardless, Gavin Newsom has once again proven that he makes no move except that which will push the far-left agenda. Clearly, he is more interested in pushing a racial and gender quota than in choosing someone who could best serve his own voters.

The post Could Oprah Become a Senator Without an Election? It's a Real Possibility appeared first on The Western Journal.

It’s official.

The lines between professional wrestling and modern American politics are rapidly blurring.

Pro wrestling has its talking segments, or “promos,” where wrestlers viciously (but verbally) tear into each other. Modern American politics has primary debates.

Pro wrestling has former President Donald Trump as a WWE Hall of Famer. Modern American politics has Trump as the GOP presidential candidate frontrunner.

Pro wrestling has amateurish stunts and bad nicknames. Modern American politics… Well, you get the idea by now.

But just in case you didn’t, look no further than the recent accusation being levied by former South Carolina governor and GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley.

The GOP hopeful (but longshot) took to X, formerly Twitter, and shared an image of what she claims was left for her at her hotel room:

After a day of campaigning, this is the message waiting for me outside my hotel room…#PrettyPatheticTryAgain#YouJustMadeMyCaseForMe pic.twitter.com/htbSumo58r

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) October 1, 2023

“After a day of campaigning, this is the message waiting for me outside my hotel room…” Haley posted to X. She also used the hashtags “#PrettyPatheticTryAgain” and “#YouJustMadeMyCaseForMe.”

The accompanying image depicted an empty bird cage with a bag of bird feed sitting atop of it. A note tucked into the cage read: “From: Trump Campaign.”

For context, this X post comes shortly after Trump blasted Haley on Truth Social, following Haley’s performance at Wednesday’s GOP primary debate (of which Trump did not attend.)

“MAGA, or I, will never go for Birdbrain Nikki Haley. No loyalty, plenty of lies! ‘I will never run against our great President,’ she said,’he has done an outstanding job.’ To which I responded, ‘How nice of you to say, Nikki,’ knowing full well that her words mean nothing,” Trump said in his post.

(For whatever it’s worth, this writer personally thinks “Birdbrain” is one of Trump’s weaker verbal jousts. It’s certainly no “Little Marco” or “Rocket Man.”)

Trump added: “She even came to Mar-a-Lago with her family, ‘bearing gifts.’ Anyway, Birdbrain doesn’t have the TALENT or TEMPERAMENT to do the job. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

So, as surreal as it is to write this about American politics, that “Birdbrain” nickname appears to have inspired a Trump fan or (as doubtful as it is) campaign staffer to send an empty bird cage and some feed to a GOP presidential hopeful’s hotel room.

Or so Haley claims.

Look, proving the veracity of Haley’s claims seems pretty simple. This is a hotel, so one would assume that they could dredge up the relevant security footage, and come up with a name and face. This doesn’t exactly have to be like combing through the Zapruder cut.

But regardless of whether this was a rogue Trump operative or a self-staged stunt, this entire incident makes one thing clear: If modern American politics is professional wrestling, Donald Trump is the current world champion.

At the crux of all this bird caging is a pretty straightforward and simple issue: Donald Trump, by virtually any and all metrics, is the prohibitive favorite to emerge from the GOP primary as the Republican presidential candidate.

His rivals will do whatever they can to smear him and knock him down a notch — even potentially frame his side as deranged birdcage deliverers.

But will it work?

RealClearPolitics currently has Trump polling at a commanding 57.6 percent. His next closest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is polling at a much more modest 13.7 percent.

Haley, meanwhile, trails DeSantis and is polling at a paltry 5.6 percent.

Now, is the best way to make up that cavernous gulf of a difference between herself and Trump to attack him, be it on social media or the debate stage?

Early returns from similar strategies (See: Chris Christie) suggest, no, that’s not the way to go.

The post Nikki Haley Claims Trump Followed Up 'Birdbrain' Insult with Brutal Delivery to Her Hotel Room appeared first on The Western Journal.

It’s a tale as old as (smart watch) time.

Boy meets new iPhone. Boy buys new iPhone. Boy swiftly discovers issues with said new iPhone.

If you’re at all vested in the tech space, you’ve no doubt heard about Apple’s ballyhooed new iPhone 15 (of which there are four new iterations: the standard version, the iPhone 15 Plus, the iPhone 15 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max), which dropped to the general public on Sept. 22.

The phones come with the expected improvements, bells and whistles, as well as the sort of pricing that would make Scrooge McDuck do a double take.

A quick glance at Apple’s own listed pricing shows that acquiring an iPhone 15 (any model) on its own will run consumers at minimum $799. The most advanced model, the Pro Max, begins at $1,199.

Given that you’re shelling out what amounts to many people’s mortgages to pay for a luxury phone, consumers are well within their rights to have certain baseline expectations.

One such baseline expectation is that your very new, very expensive phone does not melt or burn you to the touch.

For some who’ve bought a Pro or Pro Max model, that expectation appears to have run askew.

Despite barely being a week since its big public launch, certain customers who’ve invested in a Pro or Pro Max have begun reporting an issue where the phone is too hot to handle — and not in a figurative way.

Both the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg have reported that customers who’ve purchased the priciest models of the iPhone 15 have been complaining that their new toys are reaching outrageously hot temperatures, particularly while using intensive apps or while charging.

And while some device warmth is to be expected with today’s pocket-sized supercomputers, both outlets are reporting that the Pro and Pro Max models of Apple’s latest product are too warm to even be held normally.

One popular theory being bandied about comes from tech expert Ming-Chi Kuo, according to the WSJ, and it involves the higher-end casing the Pro models use.

Those models use a titanium frame that is sturdy but lighter weight than the other models. Kuo theorizes that the new framing may not dissipate heat as well.

If true, that would obviously be a rather sizable misstep from Apple — and one that would not be so easy to fix given that it’s a hardware issue, not a software issue.

Apple provided a statement to Apple-focused website MacRumors about the issue.

Per MacRumors, Apple will be issuing a new iOS 17 software update that will help alleviate this overheating issue.

Additionally, the company is vehemently denying that the lightweight titanium frame was the source of the issue.

Instead, Apple told MacRumors that the source of the issue was that certain apps (Instagram, Uber and a racing video game app were listed as confirmed problems) were overloading the circuitry of the Pro model’s processor, causing the phone to reach scalding temperatures.

Interestingly, Apple noted that it did not know why, exactly, those apps were overloading the processor.

The post Apple Says That Popular Apps, Not Design, Is Causing Overheating Issue on iPhones appeared first on The Western Journal.

Republican bomb-thrower Rep. Matt Gaetz has made no secret of his battles with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

The Florida congressman spent Sunday morning telling national television talk show audiences he plays to try to remove McCarthy from the speaker post this week.

And if a charge he launched Saturday night has any truth to it, he’s got more ammunition than ever.

Just after 8 p.m. Saturday, Gaetz picked up on a statement from House Democrats declaring that when the House returns to business, they expect McCarthy to”advance a bill to the House Floor for an up-or-down vote” on funding to support Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion.

Funding for Ukraine was not part of the stopgap spending bill passed by the House and Senate and signed by President Joe Biden late Saturday.

To Gaetz, the statement was proof that McCarthy had betrayed his own party, which has been leery of giving a blank check to Ukraine.

“Wow,” Gaetz wrote in a post on X, the former Twitter. “@Speaker McCarthy made a side Ukraine deal with Democrats and didn’t tell House Republicans until after his Continuing Resolution passed.

“More deceit.”

Wow.@SpeakerMcCarthy made a side Ukraine deal with Democrats and didn’t tell House Republicans until after his Continuing Resolution passed.

More deceit. https://t.co/LC91laLyTp

— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) October 1, 2023

Backing up Gaetz’s suspicion, for what it’s worth, Biden on Sunday also suggested a deal had been cut, according to Reuters.

Asked at a news conference if he trusted McCarthy “in future deals,” according to Reuters, Biden responded, “We just made one about Ukraine, so we’ll find out.”

So, assuming Biden was a shade more compos mentis than his usual Thorazine Shuffle self, that sounds like there could be something to Gaetz’s charge.

If there is, or if enough Republicans believe there is, that is going to make for a long week as McCarthy tries to hold onto his job.

There are plenty of conservatives and Republicans who think — with good reason — that supporting Ukraine against the Russian war machine in 2023 is the equivalent of supporting Winston Churchill’s Great Britain against Nazi Germany in 1940.

Not only is it a moral obligation, to support a beleagued people against the evil of military aggression, it’s a strategic one, to contain an ambitious dictatorship that presents its own danger to the United States.

There are likewise plenty of conservatives and Republicans who think — with good reason — that Ukraine is a cesspool of corruption, that its government is not to be trusted with the vast American aid that has already gone to Kyiv.

There are also many who think both conditions are true — and that Democrats are cynically using the Ukraine war to set themselves up as defenders of freedom abroad while their programs are aimed at curtailing American freedoms at home (while opening the country up to its own invasion from the southern border).

All of those are defensible positions — particularly the third one.

It’s true that the Russian aggression Joe Biden invited is a special horror in the world, and natural American distaste for tyranny and sympathy for a courageous underdog make the plight of Ukrainians irresistible.

But the Democratic Party’s domestic politics — especially since the 2016 election — have poisoned the well of bipartisanship.

Abroad, the president’s shameful withdrawal from Afghanistan humiliated the United States on the world stage, but his party members backed him to a man and woman. On Ukraine, Democrats have made the country’s security a political football for years — even using it as the setting for their ludicrously lame attempt to impeach then-President Donald Trump in 2019-20.

Conservatives are supposed to believe them now?

Add to that that Republicans and conservatives the peculiarities of Biden himself — a man inextricably linked to potential corruption in Ukraine by not only his son but his own boastful words — and there’s a witches’ brew of bad faith big enough to drown even the most idealistic of American support for Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government.

And now this?

A secret McCarthy deal with Democrats over aid to Ukraine would be a good deal worse than simple disagreements over the arc of entitlement spending, say. It would be a breach of trust with his own party conference — and its voters — that the speaker would have a real problem justifying.

If it’s true, it could well send him back into the Republican ranks. If that happens, it would be a demotion that would be well-deserved not so much for deceiving his own supporters but for being dumb enough to deceive them with a political party as dishonest as the contemporary Democratic leadership, starting with the man in the Oval Office.

The next week is going to be interesting for a lot more people than Matt Gaetz and Kevin McCarthy.

The post Matt Gaetz Rages, Says McCarthy Cut Deceitful Side Deal with Democrats appeared first on The Western Journal.

Farming destroys the natural world, nay the planet itself!

We hear and read this assertion everywhere in leftist and establishment media sources.

Like nearly everything that originates in such places, we have good reason — many good reasons — not to believe it.

The assertion that agriculture drives so-called “climate change” has appeared in so many sources that it would take decades to catalog them.

For instance, the World Wildlife Fund, which has described itself as “the world’s leading conservation organization,” posits a direct connection between farming and climate change.

“Many farming practice — such as burning fields and using gasoline-powered machinery — are significant contributors to the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” according to the WWF.

Likewise, “clearing land for agricultural production is a major contributor to climate change, as the carbon stored in intact forests is released when they are cut or burned.”

Some food company executives agree.

According to The Guardian, a 2022 climate-focused task force consisting of CEOs recommended dramatic action in the agricultural sector.

“We are at a critical tipping point where something must be done,” said taskforce chair and Mars CEO Grant Reid.

Sunny George Verghese, chief executive of the Singapore-based food supplier Olam, echoed Reid’s urgency.

“We cannot continue to produce and consume food and feed and fiber in the way we are doing today unless we don’t mind destroying the planet,” Verghese said.

There you have it. Modern agriculture destroys the planet.

But does it really? Does farming pose a threat by driving climate change? Does human activity in general?

We have many good reasons for suspecting that climate alarmists doth protest too much. They have exaggerated our true situation.

Those of us who lack any special claim to scientific knowledge may nonetheless cite a myriad of reasons for skepticism. Here are six of them:

First, we have a long historical perspective.

The largest volcanic eruption in recorded history occurred in April 1815, when Indonesia’s Mount Tambora spewed 12 cubic miles of ash and rock into the atmosphere.

A prolonged period of global cooling ensued. New Englanders called 1816 the “year without a summer.” They saw snow in August.

Nothing of that kind has occurred in either a cooling or a warming direction since 1815. All the human activity from that day forward has not affected global temperatures in the way a single volcano did.

The “planet” laughs at our pretensions.

Second, we need not look far for credible voices who cast doubt on climate change.

In 2022, for instance, International Climate Science Coalition Executive Director Tom Harris told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that climate change amounts to a “scam.”

“There is no climate crisis,” Harris said plainly.

A former aerospace engineer and one-time climate alarmist, Harris explained that he reversed his opinion after speaking to geologists who corrected him on his own scientific work and alarmist conclusions.

Those geologists “found no consistent correlation between carbon dioxide and Earth’s temperature.”

Third, we have a strong explanation for why climate change appeals to some minds.

On Joe Rogan’s podcast earlier this year, Canadian psychologist and conservative commentator Jordan Peterson noted that climate change resembles religion.

“There’s a narrative at the base of any belief system,” Peterson said.

“And the climate pseudo-religion is based on characterization of nature as something like a hapless, defenseless, fragile virgin.”

By that reckoning, human activity becomes a “rapacious, power-mad demolisher of natural virginity and beauty.”

Note that in tackling the question of agriculture’s effect on climate change we have not yet mentioned agriculture itself. We have no need. The premise raises questions of its own.

Even if we accept the more moderate and sensible view that human beings, as environmental stewards, have good cause to reduce carbon emissions, this need not lead to alarmism.

Fourth, we have better ways to think about the relationship between farming and the environment.

Danish scientist Bjorn Lomborg has written a book called “False Alarm.” He observes that “while climate change is real, it is not the apocalyptic threat that we’ve been told it is.”

More importantly, Lomborg offers environmental solutions that defy the “farming drives climate change” narrative.

He notes, for instance, that people in the developing world “face more pressing issues like feeding and educating their people.”

Thus, he calls for helping those people to “become more resilient to climate change through prosperity.”

As he has argued elsewhere, Lomborg regards an investment in early childhood nutrition as the world’s highest priority and its best way forward. Healthy children enjoy prosperity and then begin to care about the environment.

Imagine destroying agriculture in the face of such a priority!

Fifth, we know what happens when governments commandeer farmland.

In the 1950s, China’s Communist regime caused catastrophic famine when Mao Zedong, on a dictator’s whim, decided to prioritize industrialization. Rural hamlets turned into makeshift manufacturing centers. Farming suffered. Tens of millions starved to death thanks to Mao’s “Great Leap Forward.”

Modern globalist elites have shown that same Maoist hubris.

Recall, for instance, the Dutch government’s insistence upon destroying its own agricultural sector in the name of fighting climate change — an insistence that sparked massive protests in 2022.

As Saul Zimet of the Foundation for Economic Education put it, “there is no good ending to the story of limiting and reducing the ability of the farming industry, possibly humans’ most important industry, to produce food.”

Finally, even if climate change poses a problem, which we are far from admitting, and even if agriculture contributes to the problem, which we have reason to doubt, we still cannot justify draconian solutions based on apocalyptic fears, for we have plausible projections of diminished farmland usage by mid-century.

Based on the 2013 article, “Peak Farmland and the Prospect for Land Sparing,” by Jesse Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University, and his colleagues, we have reason to expect that “the amount of land globally devoted to food production may soon begin falling as population growth slows and agricultural productivity increases.”

In fact, Ausubel projected “a vast ecological restoration over the course of this century.”

His most optimistic forecast would involve nearly 1 billion acres “restored to nature by 2060, an area almost twice the size of the United States east of the Mississippi River.”

Ordinary people, educated or otherwise, have many good ways to evaluate sources and evidence.

When we do this, we find that the purported connection between farming and apocalyptic climate change cannot withstand scrutiny.

We further suspect that belief in climate change merely gratifies elite globalists’ pride. It makes them feel good about their place in the world.

But only something demonic would attack our food source and tell us it is for our own good.

Nothing is more demonic than pride.

They tell us that human activity, including agricultural activity, destroys the planet.

We have compelling reasons both to reject their assertion and to question their motives.

The post The Left Is Wrong About Farmers Destroying the Environment appeared first on The Western Journal.

The death of Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California has ignited speculation that Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, might seek to be appointed to Feinstein’s seat.

Feinstein died on Friday at the age of 90 with about 15 months remaining in her term.

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom will appoint a replacement who will serve until the winner of the 2024 election for Feinstein’s seat takes office.

“Meghan is definitely a long-shot but in the craziness that is U.S. politics these days it’s not an impossibility. Crazier things have happened,” the U.K. Daily Mail reported one major Democratic donor as speculating.

The report noted that when Vice President Kamala Harris left her U.S. Senate seat after the 2020 election, British sources indicated Meghan had an interest in the post.

It’s legitimately laughable that Meghan Markle in all her narcissistic sociopathy, would consider herself anywhere near experienced enough to be considered for Diane Feinsteins senate seat! You have to actually lead something other than a PR campaign to be in the same…

— Mystifeyed (@Mystifeye) September 29, 2023

Unlikely as it might seem for Meghan to fill the Senate seat, the Daily Mail quoted a source it did not name citing the peculiar dynamics of California politics, with its emphasis on race and gender, to raise at least the possibility that Meghan is a contender.

In February, after Feinstein said this would be her final term, Newsom said that if she left office early he would name a black woman to her seat, according to Axios. Although Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee of California, who has 25 years in Congress, might seem an obvious pick — being both black and a woman — she is running in the primary for Feistein’s seat.

Newsom has said he would not pick one of the candidates to fill the spot.

“Newsom needs to find a woman of color who can do the job for 13 months and will agree to not stand against any of the seasoned politicians who have already thrown their hats into the ring,” the source said, according to the Daily Mail.

“There are not that many women who fit the bill. Which is why Meghan’s name is being bandied about,” the source said.

The report noted Meghan has become friends with feminist Gloria Steinem — an influential voice in progressive politics.

“Gloria has been introducing Meghan to pivotal people within the party,” the report quoted what it said was a friend of Steinem’s as saying.

“Meghan is interested in politics more than anything else. That’s where she believes her power is but she has had to focus on making money,” the source said.

Word is, Meghan Markle may run for a US Senate seat

Replacing the late Dianne Feinstein

Me- ~#WhenHellfreezesOver #DumbPrinceAndHisStupidWife #MeghanMarkleIsAGrifter pic.twitter.com/cV7aLmAl5F

— TruthInBytes (@bytesintruth) October 1, 2023

As noted by Fox News, Meghan is not the only high-profile name under consideration. In spite of past avowals that she did not want the job, Oprah Winfrey’s name has surfaced.

More prosaic names of black female Democrats who could be named to the Senate have also emerged, including Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell.

The post Senator Meghan? Celebrity Royal Reportedly in Running for Feinstein's Seat - 'Crazier Things Have Happened' appeared first on The Western Journal.

If you pay any attention to American politics, you’ve surely heard about the Saturday incident at the Cannon Office Building in Washington, D.C.

On Saturday, Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman fell under intense scrutiny (and mockery) after he appeared to be caught red-handed pulling a fire alarm in the Cannon Office Building.

BREAKING: Capitol police release photo of Jamaal Bowman pulling the fire alarm. pic.twitter.com/XpUoEu9lU4

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 30, 2023

The prevailing theory is that Bowman pulled the juvenile stunt as a means to delay a critical vote on passing a bill meant to avert a government shutdown.

It’s a prevalent theory that Bowman has vociferously denied — even as he admitted to pulling the alarm in the first place late Saturday.

Statement from Congressman Jamaal Bowman. pic.twitter.com/v6qjdHNI7T

— Congressman Jamaal Bowman (@RepBowman) October 1, 2023

“I want to personally clear up confusion surrounding today’s events,” Bowman wrote in a statement. “Today, as I was rushing to make a vote, I came to a door that is usually open for votes but would not open. I am embarrassed to admit that I activated the fire alarm, mistakenly thinking it would open the door.

“I regret this and sincerely apologize for any confusion this caused.

“But I want to be very clear, this was not me, in any way, trying to delay any vote. It was the exact opposite — I was trying urgently to get to a vote, which I ultimately did and joined my colleagues in a bipartisan effort to keep our government open.”

The beleaguered representative eventually added: “My hope is that no one will make more of this than it was. I am working hard every day, including today, to do my job, to do it well, and deliver for my constituents.”

Fair enough Rep. Bowman. This writer won’t make more of this than it was. This writer will actually take you completely at face value and acquiesce that you had no idea what you were doing.

That leaves just two options, however: Rep. Bowman is either aggressively blind or incredibly dumb — neither of which is a particularly sterling endorsement of the progressive “squad” member.

Why such a harsh assessment of Bowman?

Well… just look at this viral image of the door that Bowman was trying to “use,” courtesy of reporter John Bresnahan:

This is the door that ⁦@RepBowman⁩ used to leave the Cannon Building pic.twitter.com/OiUVB0iyJ4

— John Bresnahan (@bresreports) September 30, 2023

For anyone who’s never been a part of civilized society before, the above image is the standard image of a door that is rather clearly demarcated as an “Emergency Exit Only.”

So if Bowman was indeed not attempting to obstruct this vote (of note, Bowman did vote along with the continuing resolution, which does genuinely raise the question of why he’d want to delay that, though perhaps by then, Bowman already knew his fire alarm stunt had failed and thus toed the line), and this was an honest mistake… boy, what an honest mistake it is.

Because if Bowman really had no nefarious or ulterior motives for this stunt, it just leaves the following possibilities — and questions:

• Bowman has never seen a fire alarm or emergency door — Does America really need a representative who is so sequestered in his echo chamber that he doesn’t recognize what most 4th graders would?
• Bowman can’t read — Wouldn’t this present its own can of worms for a sitting U.S. lawmaker?
• Bowman can’t see — Wouldn’t this also be an issue for a U.S. lawmaker?
• Bowman doesn’t care — Wouldn’t it be nice to have some Republicans with a backbone who’ll actually act against this nonsense?

As to that last bullet point, it does appear that Republicans are gearing up for some sort of punishment to be levied against Bowman, with possible punishments ranging from censure to expulsion.

Given that Republicans have been rather ineffectual these last couple of years and Democrats haven’t cared in decades, this writer is not going to hold his breath that anything happens to Bowman.

But in all seriousness: If a grown man cannot discern between a door and alarm that is clearly marked for fires and emergencies, and a standard door meant to whisk you to the great outdoors (again, this is his explanation), how can anyone trust this man to discern between issues that will actually affect his constituents?

You can’t.

The post Critical Detail Seen in Alcove Where Rep. Bowman Pulled the Fire Alarm - There's No Way He Didn't Notice This appeared first on The Western Journal.

A San Francisco man got the shock of his life twice over when his car was robbed in Oakland, California. Not only did he lose $24,000 worth of camera equipment, but what the police told him about the crime made matters so much worse.

Justin Schuck was just in the midst of rebuilding his life after coming back from a substance abuse problem four years before and was preparing to start a new career in filmmaking. In pursuit of that goal, Schuck had purchased $24,000 worth of camera equipment, lenses, drones, and other items and had the lot stashed in a way he thought no one could see it in his rented Tesla.

Schuck had enrolled in the masters film program at SF State and was going to use the equipment to work toward his degree. The items were all brand new and had not yet even been taken from the boxes. In fact, he only had the items a short time and had not yet insured them, according to KGO-TV.

The budding filmmaker had an appointment to shoot some production video in Oakland and headed into the town on Sept. 9.

“I had just been driving through downtown and I was like, ‘Isn’t Oakland beautiful? Like, I love Oakland,'” Shuck told KGO.

Schuck parked across from the YMCA in that beautiful downtown but when he came out only a short time later, he was met with a heartrending sight as the rear window of his Tesla was shattered. And when he looked inside, he realized that his expensive cache of equipment was gone.

“I literally felt like the pit of my stomach drop. And I knew that the equipment wasn’t insured. And so to have it gone so soon after, like, buying it, just was devastating,” Schuck said.

Schuck had just ruefully joined a club that is getting less exclusive every day in Oakland. According to official police data, more than 10,000 people have had their cars broken into with “smash and grab” crimes that are running rampant in San Francisco and so many other cities in California.

Still, even though he felt like he had been gut-punched, Schuck thought he had a small bit of hope left.

The photographer had placed tracking tags inside the bags and among the camera gear and when he jumped onto his tracking app, he discovered that the tags showed his stolen items being transported across the bridge into San Francisco and coming to a halt at Post Street.

Schuck thought he nailed it. He knew exactly where his items had gone!

Consequently, Schuck went to the San Francisco Police to report the theft and the destination of his stolen goods. But what the police told him made him feel like he was gut-punched all over again.

Schuck told the police the exact address of where his items stopped moving and said that his stolen equipment was probably sitting right there waiting for them to walk in and grab it all back for him. But apparently, it wasn’t going to be that easy.

“And he goes, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s a known major fencing operation,'” Schuck said of the officer he was dealing with. “‘Everybody in the Bay Area knows that they can bring their stolen goods and offload them there,'” Schuck told KGO. “Think about that.”

Even worse, the location is close to a police station. “And it’s a block and a half, not even a block and a half from the Tenderloin Police Station. Like, how were you not raiding that place on a daily basis?” he said.

When KGO contacted the San Francisco Police, they were told that officers cannot talk about a location that is at the center of an ongoing investigation. But according to KGO, this place has been fencing stolen goods for years and the police haven’t made a single move against it.

KGO also discovered that the surveillance video of the street where the smash-and-grab crooks took his camera items was not saved, so there isn’t even any video evidence of the theft anymore.

The entire escapade left Schuck very cold on local leaders. “I honestly think it’s time for new leadership at like every level because this has gone on long enough. And I’m sick and tired. I’m sick and tired,” Schuck said.

Sadly, this incident is being repeated thousands of times a day in similar Democrat-run cities all across America. George Soros-funded prosecutors won’t prosecute criminals, police therefore don’t bother catching them, and politicians turn a blind eye to it all. Meanwhile, citizens lives are being destroyed day by day as authorities do nothing at all.

Schuck is right. It’s time Democratic voters wised up. They are voting for their own destruction. And it’s time to stop being such fools.

The post California Man Pinpoints Gear Stolen in Car Break-In, Floored by What Police Tell Him: Report appeared first on The Western Journal.

A taxi driver in Sweden was found dead in the woods, and the identity of the prime suspect makes the case even more grisly.

According to the Swedish website Fria Tider, on March 26, an abandoned taxi belonging to a Middle Eastern taxi driver was found in the parking lot of the Hjälstaviken nature reserve near Stockholm. On April 1, the body of the missing taxi driver was found hanging in the nature reserve.

This story is already disturbing enough, but police quickly discovered that it may have been a form of vigilantism — spearheaded by a 15-year-old girl, her boyfriend, and her brothers.

The murdered taxi driver was alleged to have raped the then-14-year-old girl in February, and the girl and the four boys are now alleged to have killed the taxi driver in revenge.

According to the indictment, the girl lured the taxi driver into the woods where he was then set upon by the boys, who had brought rope, and they strangled and hanged him.

According to Fria Tider, the prosecutor in the case stated that the murder had, “the character of an execution.”

In addition, the police claim to have found text messages from the girl the day before the murder, in which she says that her boyfriend and her brothers were going to “meet [her] rapist” and take revenge.

The girl also allegedly sent text messages to the taxi driver the night before the murder, asking him to purchase vodka and to meet her in a remote location near the nature reserve.

The girl has admitted to luring the driver into the woods but claims that she only intended for him to be beaten, not killed.

This is a really sad situation for everyone involved. If the claims about the case are true, then the girl’s life was ruined because she was raped, and now she has been indicted as part of a revenge murder. Not to mention, the taxi driver lost his life in this situation.

What the taxi driver allegedly did to this young girl is horrendous and he should have faced justice for it. However, what ended up happening was not proper justice but vigilantism.

Justice would have been having the taxi driver tried in a court of law and then sentenced to jail time.

Vigilantism may seem cool and tempting, especially when we consider characters like Batman and the Avengers, extra-legal actors who put their lives on the line to defend innocent people.

This becomes especially true when we consider the soft-on-crime approach taken by many leftist authorities that force ordinary citizens to take matters into their own hands to defend themselves.

But what happened in Sweden was not an act of self-defense, but an act of revenge.

Justice must come from the proper authorities, not from private citizens who have no authority, and no reason, to take actions like this against people.

The solution to lawlessness is never more lawlessness.

The post Taxi Driver Found Hanging in the Woods, Police Put the Clues Together and Realize a 14-Year-Old Girl Might Be Behind It appeared first on The Western Journal.

American colleges and universities have been the spawning ground of radical leftists for too long. The freedom-sucking parasites produced in these once-vaunted institutions that have turned into Marxist indoctrination camps have seeped into society at large to rot America from the inside out.

The poison fruit of these liberal strongholds does not fall far from the tree.  The misnamed “schools of education”  have become hotbeds of progressive ideology. Many unknowing students have wandered into what they thought were the hallowed halls of higher education only to be transformed into vile spewers of hate and confusion.

They’re getting away with it. Remember Professor Shellyne Rodriguez? She’s the one who held a machete at the throat of veteran New York Post reporter Reuven Fenton.

Simply doing his job, Fenton knocked on the door of Rodriguez’s apartment in the Bronx, New York, in May.  The incident was caught on camera and there’s no way Rodriguez could wiggle out of her culpability by blaming the reporter for provoking her with “white privilege” or “patriarchy” or the latest half-baked theory of oppression Marxists dream up in their campus offices.

Rodriguez was an adjunct art professor at Hunter College — ranked the 39th most liberal college in America in 2020, according to CBS News. She was fired by Hunter for her dangerously crazy behavior after the incident went viral. It now appears the smoke has blown over. Rodriguez has been offered a new position at Cooper Union School of Art, a private college in New York City’s East Village, according to The College Fix.

In the video, Rodriguez threatened to chop Fenton up with a machete, which very well may have killed him. I don’t know what happened to Rodriguez to turn her into a hate-filled college professor, but I do know she must have gone to graduate school to get credentials for the job. You do the math.

“Get the f**k away from my door, or I’m gonna chop you up with this machete!” shouted Rodriguez from behind the closed door of her apartment, according to the Post. Quicker than a rabid feline on meth, she then pounced through the door and held the blade to the Fenton’s neck.

“Get the f**k away from my door! Get the f**k away from my door!” Rodriguez repeated before slinking back through the door and slamming it. She was charged with harassment and menacing following the incident.

Fenton was at the apartment to question Rodriguez about another one of her feral moments when she attacked a student anti-abortion group that had set up an informational booth at school.

That was captured on video, too. Both incidents are below:

“You’re not educating s–t. This is f–king propaganda,” Rodriguez frothed. “What are you going to do like anti-trans next?”

“I mean no, we’re talking about abortion,” a male student said and then went so far as to apologize for “triggering” Rodriguez’s students.

Unable to contain herself, Rodriguez ranted the display was “violent” and accused the student of lying about the apology “because you can’t even have a f**king baby.” She then cleared anti-abortion information off the table and exclaimed,  “f**k this s**t” before turning her back and walking away, according to The Post.

It’s plain to see that Rodriguez is unhinged and suffering from acute radical progressive dysphoria syndrome. She is a danger to the public — including students and reporters — who happen to cross her path. Hunter College was right to fire her.

The question is, why would Rodriguez be listed as an adjunct instructor on Cooper Union’s fall schedule? The answer is obvious: Radical leftists take care of their own and academia is a safe haven for radical leftists.

The schedule lists S. Rodriguez as teaching a three-credit sculpture class. Shellyne Rodriguez happens to be the sole faculty member with those initials listed in the staff directory, according to The College Fix.

On the other hand,  the smattering of conservatives who — by bad luck, bad timing or bad planning — find themselves teaching at colleges and universities live in constant fear of professional assassination.

Take the case of David Richardson, a self-described gay conservative and a 33-year veteran educator at Madera Community College in Califonia. According to Just the News, college officials are “investigating the tenured history professor for the ‘serious misconduct’ of handing out chocolate.”

Richardson told Just the News that he was put on administrative leave not for handing out chocolate but because of the gendered pronouns on the wrappers. The chocolate bars with nuts had  “He/Him” while the bars without nuts had “She/Her” wrappers, a cute way to highlight a self-evident truth.

The next thing he knew, a letter was delivered to Richarson “by a uniformed police officer” indicating he was on paid administrative leave for creating a “hostile work environment” and harassing colleagues “based on gender.” You can’t make this stuff up.  And that’s one example among many.

According to the New York Post, “Since 2015, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has recorded a staggering 591 instances of retaliation toward college faculty members for expressing their ideas.”

You can bet the overwhelming majority of the “retaliations” were against conservatives. As of March, about a quarter of college professors are conservative, according to RealClearEducation. That means 75 percent of college professors do not identify as conservative.

In 2022, The College Fix found “that about 50 percent of departments have no registered Republican professors.”

In that same year, The Harvard Crimson found that “80 percent of surveyed Harvard faculty identify as liberal.”

Taken together, the surveys leave no doubt that conservatives are hopelessly outnumbered in our colleges and universities. The cases of radical leftist ideologue Shelley Rodriquez — who is unquestionably violent — and David Richardson — a tenured 33-year college veteran who identifies as gay — indicate that liberal privilege is not only alive and well in our education system, it’s toxic.

The double standard in higher education is emblematic of the country at large. Liberal privilege means you get away with and are even rewarded for bad behavior.

If there is any hope of taking the country back from radical leftists, education is on the frontline.

The post Liberal Privilege: Professor Lands Cushy Job After Holding Machete to Man's Throat, Bullying Pro-Life Students appeared first on The Western Journal.

What to one Democratic Arizona legislator was pure common sense has been denounced by a conservative group as illustrating “the lunacy of the left.”

Arizona’s legislature this year passed bill SB 1040, which would require to have a private bathroom available for students of either sex unwilling or unable to use a group bathroom. The bill was eventually vetoed by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.

One moment from the debate and voting on the bill has recently emerged in the form of a video showing Democratic Sen. Christine Marsh offering her reasons for opposing the bill. The AZ War Room, which posted the video, called her comments “sick and deranged.”

“I would just like to point out that we could have just passed a law that schools have to have shower curtains and it could’ve solved this whole thing,” she said in the video posted to X.

An unbelievably troubling video.

Christine Marsh’s message to young girls who are uncomfortable showering with biological males — *Get a shower curtain.*

It’s sick, and it’s demeaning.#LD4 needs new representation. pic.twitter.com/XKXSBKfag2

— AZ War Room (@AZVictoryPAC) September 25, 2023

“So I wasn’t kidding — I mean people kind of chuckled, but I’m not kidding. That should be the law: Schools have to have shower curtains, period. End of story,” she said before voting against the bill.

Marsh told the Arizona Republic that most students are not bothered by having a different sex in their bathroom.

“It’s pretty stigmatizing and discriminatory to expel transgender students from common spaces,” she said earlier this year, according to the Arizona Mirror.

“The idea that we’re going to pass a law that tells a certain population of kids that they are so shameful that they shouldn’t be allowed to participate in activities and in proximity to their peers is rather offensive,” she continued.

American Principles Project President Terry Schilling said nothing was quite as offensive as Marsh’s idea.

“It is insane that the Arizona legislature would have to pass a law to bar biological males from using girls’ restrooms and locker rooms in schools, and it is beyond insane that a legislator would actually oppose this measure, never mind a female former teacher,” Schilling said, according to the Grand Canyon Times.

“The English language simply doesn’t have the adjectives to adequately describe the lunacy of the left,” he added.

“To believe that young girls should be comfortable showering with males, behind a shower curtain or not, is utterly deranged,” Schilling said.

“Anyone who holds such views doesn’t belong in a school or a legislature; they belong in an asylum,” he said.

Republican Sen. John Kavanagh told the Arizona Republic that girls, in particular, deserve the protection his bill sought to provide.

“There is something terribly wrong with making a 15-year-old high school freshman co-ed stand naked in a school shower next to a 16-year-old biological male,” he said.

According to her official biography, Marsh is a teacher who has 29 years of experience teaching elementary and junior high school students.

The post Dem Senator Tells Schoolgirls Fearful About Showering with Boys to Simply Use Shower Curtains appeared first on The Western Journal.

Members of the Navy’s elite special forces units will be tested for steroids beginning next month.

Rear Adm. Keith Davids, commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, announced the new program Friday, according to the Associated Press, which in its reporting called steroid use a “somewhat limited but persistent problem.”

Army Special Operations Command said it will also be imposing testing but did not indicate when that would start.  The Air Force and the Marine Corps special operations units have not indicated that they plan to follow suit.

Four Navy units will be randomly selected per month, with about 15 percent of each unit to be tested.  That does out to about 200 people per month. Violators will face disciplinary action. The Navy policy impacts about  9,000 active-duty military personnel and those reservists who are on active-duty orders.

Testing is expected to cost about $4.5 million per year over the next two years.

The new rule follows a program in which about 2,500 screenings were conducted between February 2022 and March 2023. As a result, 74 SEAL or Special Warfare Combat Crewmen were found with elevated testosterone levels.

“This incremental, random, force-wide testing initiative is far more than a regulatory step — it’s a steadfast commitment to the health, safety and operational readiness of every member of the NSW community,” Rear Adm. Keith Davids, commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, said in announcing the program according to the Navy Times.

“My intent is to ensure every NSW teammate operates at their innate best, while preserving the distinguished standards of excellence that define NSW,” Davids said.

Davids said there will be exceptions.

“The unauthorized and unsupervised use of PEDs is what we are trying to identify and prevent. Nevertheless, we realize that some of our teammates may have legitimate medical conditions that need to be treated with prescription supplementation. If that is the case, we encourage our teammates, who haven’t already, to speak with their medical providers to get diagnosed and properly treated,” he said.

Last year, SEAL candidate and Seaman Kyle Mullen, 24, went into cardiac arrest after a grueling week of training. Testosterone, human growth hormone and several other drugs were found in a car he shared with other SEAL candidates, according to The New York Times.  Although the incident raised concerns about steroid use, drug use was not connected with his death.

Steroid use has been cited in the past among SEAL teams.

“If they tested the teams, we wouldn’t have SEAL teams,” former SEAL Jeff Nichols said last year. “If they were doing this in the teams, there wouldn’t be enough SEALs to deploy,” he said.

“You have to have some compassion and understanding for what these guys are enduring. I needed to heal because I needed to do my job. That’s when I started injecting,” he said.

Nichols said although he used steroids while in the service, he has come to find them “dangerous and unnecessary.”

Family members of SEAL candidate Brandon Caserta said he told them in 2017 that steroid use was prevalent, and that as a non-user, he was considered a pariah among other candidates. He eventually dropped out due to injuries and committed suicide in 2018.

“Brandon had a chance to try again, but he didn’t want to because of all the drugs,” his father, Patrick Caserta, said. “I hope this levels the playing field. Guys might have to work harder, but ideally, they get better SEALs out of it.”

The post Navy Finally Set to Randomly Test Special Forces for Steroids, Army Special Ops to Follow appeared first on The Western Journal.

A new lawsuit against comedian and actor Bill Cosby has been filed by a woman who claimed he raped her in 1972.

New Mexico resident Donna Motsinger filed the suit last week in Los Angeles Superior Court, according to the New York Post. The production firm Jemmin Inc. and the Circle Star Theater Corp. are also named as defendants.

According to the lawsuit, the two met at a Sausalito restaurant where Motsinger was working.

“During one particular week when Ms. Motsinger was working, Defendant Cosby came in every day. He hung out to talk to Ms. Motsinger. One time Defendant Cosby asked her if he could call her son and called her son at the payphone inside the restaurant. Defendant Cosby did this to lure and groom Ms. Motsinger for his future assault,” the lawsuit said.

“Everybody was fawning over him due to his international celebrity and acclaim. Ms. Motsinger had served him at his table,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit said that on the evening in question, Cosby followed Motsinger  to her home and asked her join him at a show he was performing that night at the Circle Star Theater in San Carlos. She agreed and he said he would pick her up later.

“Mr. Cosby picked Ms. Motsinger up in a limousine from her house and drove her to the Circle Star Theater. Mr. Cosby gave Ms. Motsinger a glass of wine in the limo along the way. At the Circle Star Theater, Mr. Cosby took Ms. Motsinger to the dressing room there. She began to feel sick and Mr. Cosby gave her what she believed was an aspirin,” the lawsuit said.

“Next thing she knew, she was going in and out of consciousness while two men attending to Mr. Cosby were putting her in the limousine with Mr. Cosby. In the limousine, Mr. Cosby sat near the window and put his arms around her. The last thing Ms. Motsinger recalls were flashes of light,” the lawsuit said.

“She woke up in her house with all her clothes off, except her underwear on – no top, no bra, and no pants. She knew she had been drugged and raped by Bill Cosby,” she said.

The lawsuit argued that Cosby had a history of preying upon women.

“For decades, defendant Cosby engaged in the serial sexual assault of dozens of women for his sexual gratification by drugging women and using unknown substances to incapacitate them. Defendant Cosby used his enormous wealth, power, fame, and prestige, giving women like Ms. Motsinger access to a world of celebrities and entertainers,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit said that businesses making money off of Cosby failed to act responsibly.

“At all relevant times, the Circle Star Theater Corp. had the power to control the activities backstage where Ms. Motsinger was drugged by Mr. Cosby and had the power to ensure the safety of guests and invitees against the sexual assault at the hands of its performers,” the suit wrote.

The suit said Jemmin Inc. “engaged in a cover-up or attempted a cover-up of all instances of sexual assault at the hands of Bill Cosby.”

The suit seeks unspecified damages.

Attorney Jesse Creed, among those representing Motsinger, said “companies and organizations not only provided a platform for Mr. Cosby to showcase his fame and fortune to lure in women, but then put their own profits over the safety of their female guests by turning a blind eye to Mr. Cosby’s alleged sexual assaults on women,”  according to Deadline.

In June, a lawsuit filed in federal court in Nevada alleged that the women were individually drugged and assaulted between approximately 1979 and 1992 in Las Vegas, Reno and Lake Tahoe homes, dressing rooms and hotels.

The former “Cosby Show” star, 86, has now been accused of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment by more than 60 women. He spent nearly three years at a state prison near Philadelphia before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court court threw out the conviction and released him in 2021.

Although Cosby’s legal team had not replied to Motsinger’s suit, Cosby has denied all past allegations against him.

In June, Cosby publicist Andrew Wyatt accused women of having an “addiction to massive amounts of media attention and greed.”

“From this day forward, we will not continue to allow these women to parade various accounts of an alleged allegation against Mr. Cosby anymore without vetting them in the court of public opinion and inside of the courtroom,” Wyatt said.

The post Bill Cosby to End Up in Court Again After New Accuser Files Suit Against Comedian appeared first on The Western Journal.

Bills safety Damar Hamlin is active against the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, and set to appear in his first regular season game since having a near-death experience on the field at Cincinnati in early January.

Hamlin was a healthy scratch through the Bills first three games this season, and gets the nod with starting safety Jordan Poyer sidelined by a knee injury.

Primary backup Taylor Rapp is expected to fill Poyer’s spot alongside Micah Hyde, with Hamlin serving as a backup in facing a high-octane Dolphins offense that leads the league in almost every statistical category.

Appearing in a regular-season game would mark the final step in Hamlin’s bid to resume his playing career in what’s been described as the 25-year-old’s remarkable recovery after going into cardiac arrest and needing to be resuscitated on the field during a game at Cincinnati on Jan. 2.

Since being cleared to resume playing in April, Hamlin has showed no signs of tentativeness in passing every on-field test he’s faced in making the Bills 53-player roster in August.

He combined for nine tackles in appearing in all three of Buffalo’s preseason games in August.

Hamlin was starting in place of Hyde when he went into cardiac arrest after making what appeared to be a routine tackle in the first quarter against the Bengals.

His heart stopped as a result of commotio cordis, which happens when a direct blow at a specific point in a heartbeat causes cardiac arrest.

Doctors have assured Hamlin he can resume playing without any fear of setbacks or reoccurrence.

The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.

The post Major Milestone for Damar Hamlin, Final Step in Recovery Underway appeared first on The Western Journal.

The evergrowing feud between former President Donald Trump and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie shows no sign of slowing, as the rivalry sharply veered into a Walt Disney fever dream this week.

The latest squabble was ignited Wednesday during the GOP Republican debate when Christie decided to take aim at Trump for his lack of attendance — claiming Trump was “ducking” the debates and his rivals, and labeling Trump “Donald Duck.”

Chris Christie confidently, straight to camera, threatens Donald Trump with the nickname “Donald Duck.” pic.twitter.com/8JqYrWGz1T

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 28, 2023

The 45th president fired back on Truth Social Thursday, stating, “Sloppy Chris Christie only had an 8% Approval Rating when he was Governor of New Jersey.

“His Financial and Economic Results were even WORSE. In other words, he was TERRIBLE!” Trump added.

“Chris is a loser, he always was, and always will be. Very BAD for the Republican Party!”

Christie attempted to fire back Friday on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Nothing better than a fake tough guy hiding behind a failed third-tier social media site,” Christie posted.

The former governor decided to once again double down on calling Trump “Donald Duck” and added an altered image of the classic Disney figure, which sported Trump’s signature hairstyle.

Nothing better than a fake tough guy hiding behind a failed third-tier social media site.

On your watch: 52 miles of new wall. $7 trillion in new debt. Obamacare is alive and well. Lost to Joe Biden.

Who’s the loser?

Stop ducking me Donald. pic.twitter.com/k4d3pF6hMN

— Chris Christie (@GovChristie) September 29, 2023

While Christie wants his nickname to gain traction, it was met with mockery online as soon as he stated it during the Wednesday debate:

Christie literally did the meme with the Donald Duck line pic.twitter.com/ZMxthhNENp

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 28, 2023

“Good wind-up…but terrible punch line: ‘Donald Duck?’ hard to believe Christie is from Jersey,” Fox News contributor Charles Payne noted.

Good wind-up…but terrible punch line: “Donald Duck?”
hard to believe Christie is from Jersey

— Charles V Payne (@cvpayne) September 28, 2023

Commentator Megyn Kelly called the line “lame” on X.

Trump remains the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination with 57.6 percent, with the nearest competitor being Florida Governor Ron DeSantis with 13.7 percent, according to RealClearPolitics.

Christie is in seventh place with only 2.8 percent.

The post Trump Trades Haymakers with Chris Christie, Ex-Gov Posts Photo of Donald Duck appeared first on The Western Journal.

Twitter has taken an interesting turn since Elon Musk took it over almost a year ago.

For starters, Musk completely changed the company image, literally, by switching the name to X and changing the logo to go along with it. But more importantly, he has committed the company to protecting freedom of speech.

However, that commitment was called into question in May when Musk announced that Linda Yaccarino, a former NBC executive and member of the leftist World Economic Forum, would take the reigns as CEO.

The announcement of Yaccarino prompted concerns that she would bring the platform back to the dark days when everyone was liable to be censored for merely expressing a dissenting political opinion.

However, people have found some encouraging signs that suggest we should not be too hasty with our judgment.

On Friday, senior editor of The Verge Tom Warren shared a photo on X of Yaccarino holding her unlocked iPhone. He pointed out that strangely, Yaccarino, despite being the CEO of X, does not have X on her home page.

What Warren failed to point out, however, was that if you look closely, you can see that Yaccarino has YouVersion’s Bible app on her home screen.

X (Twitter) CEO Linda Yaccarino at the Code Conference is a truly wild interview. But even more wild is that she has Settings in the iPhone dock and no X app on the home screen https://t.co/AsRPJ71OVP pic.twitter.com/VmdwvqgelG

— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) September 29, 2023

Is this a sign that Yaccarino is actually a Christian? Maybe, but we can’t tell just by looking at the home screen. Millions of people around the world have the Bible app for a variety of reasons, but not all of them are Christians.

However, people have also done a bit of digging and are looking at her likes on X, and it turns out that Yaccarino does like a lot of Christian content on the platform. One X user pointed out that she is liking posts of Bible verses from Katie Lee Gifford.

Look at Linda Yaccarino’s likes… maybe she is a closet christian pic.twitter.com/7rR516Cg3S

— aussie17 (@_aussie17) May 14, 2023

pic.twitter.com/dPZqvtYB8i

— aussie17 (@_aussie17) May 14, 2023

In addition, Yaccarino has liked other explicitly Christian, mainly Catholic, content. Her likes include posts from Catholic X user Sachin Jose, a “Happy Easter” post from former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (who served under former President Donald Trump), and a post from Pope Francis himself.

So do these likes prove that Yaccarino is a Christian? Again, they are not definitive proof, but they are encouraging signs.

The fact that Yaccarino is liking Christian content from X users, many of whom are not only Christian but openly very conservative as well, is a sign that perhaps she is not as bad as we thought.

Granted, we still need to see how she does with the company, but the early signs from her X likes are encouraging.

Let’s hope that this is a genuine sentiment and that she and Musk will continue to turn X into a haven for freedom of speech.

The post Is Elon Musk's Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino a Christian? Exec's App on Her Phone May Be Clue appeared first on The Western Journal.

Special counsel Jack Smith is again requesting that a gag order be placed on former President Donald Trump, citing Trump’s recent remarks against retiring Army Gen. Mark Milley and the judge presiding over his case, along with a viral video that showed Trump admiring a firearm and saying he wanted to buy it.

Earlier this month, Smith asked U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to place a limited gag order on Trump and members of his legal team. A hearing on that request is scheduled for Oct. 16, according to The Washington Post.

Smith filed another motion in Chutkan’s court on Friday, again asking the court for a gag order on Trump and accusing him of “potentially violating his conditions of release.”

The motion cited a video showing Trump at the Palmetto State Armory gun store in Summerville, South Carolina, admiring a Glock with his likeness engraved on it.

“I want to buy one,” Trump is heard saying in the video.

Guns with Trump’s likeness on them are huge sellers, the Washington Examiner reported in April.

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump’s campaign wrote in a since-deleted post that Trump had purchased the gun, according to The New York Times.

Cheung later retracted his claim and clarified that Trump “did not purchase or take possession of the firearm. He simply indicated that he wanted one,” the Times reported.

Still, Smith argued that Trump “either purchased a gun in violation of the law and his conditions of release,” or he is trying to “benefit from his supporters’ mistaken belief that he did so.”

Trump faces 91 felony charges in four different criminal cases.

“It would be a separate federal crime, and thus a violation of the defendant’s conditions of release, for him to purchase a gun while this felony indictment is pending,” Smith wrote.

Trump handles custom “Trump 45” Glock at Palmetto State Armory in Summerville, SC

American badass pic.twitter.com/kUdWL48dMz

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 25, 2023

According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms website, it is against federal law for an individual under felony indictment to buy a firearm.

In asking for the gag order, Smith pointed out Trump’s recent comment accusing Milley, the former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, of treason.

“Mark Milley, who led perhaps the most embarrassing moment in American history with his grossly incompetent implementation of the withdrawal from Afghanistan … will be leaving the military next week,” Trump wrote in a lengthy Truth Social post last week.

“This guy turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States.

“This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” he wrote. “A war between China and the United States could have been the result of this treasonous act.”

Smith responded: “No other criminal defendant would be permitted to issue public statements insinuating that a known witness in his case should be executed; this defendant should not be, either.”

Smith further noted  Trump’s comments on social about Chutkan to judge his case fairly, as well as Trump being heavily critical of Smith’s office.

“Contrary to the defendant’s claim, the Government is not trying to ‘unconstitutionally silence’ the defendant … and the proposed [gag] order would have no such effect,” he wrote.

The post Jack Smith's New Gag Order Request Cites Trump 'Potentially Violating Terms of Release' in Viral Glock Video appeared first on The Western Journal.

There was once a time when scientists were held in high esteem for opening our eyes to the wonder of the world thanks to their new and exciting discoveries.

Unfortunately, those days may be long behind us, and it does not bode well for the reputation of the profession when one of the chief representatives of modern science publicly defends the great delusion of our age.

On Saturday, world-renowned astrophysicist Niel deGrasse Tyson appeared on British comedian Konstantin Kisin’s “TRIGGERnometry” podcast to defend his recent statement that gender exists “on a spectrum.”

When Kisin asked Tyson about the comment, Tyson responded, “If who you decide is male and female in the street is a construct of style and trends, and what the beauty industrial complex wants you to see . . . then maybe some people want to be fluid within that gender.”

Okay, then.

Right away, it’s a little weird for someone whose profession is based on doing objective research into concrete facts to say that facts are merely a social construct.

Kisin and Tyson then moved on to discuss the pressing issue of men competing in women’s sports.

When Kisin pointed out that the differences between men and women were not just psychological but physical as well, giving them an advantage over women in sports, Tyson pointed out that athletes in several sports were already divided based on weight to even out the competition.

“Then you find ways to slice the population so that whatever the event is interestingly contested,” he said. “So, for example, I wrestled in my life. I was captain of my high school wrestling team. It would be unfair for me at 190 pounds, which is what I was back then, to wrestle someone 120 pounds.”

When Kisin countered that women facing men in sports still have an unfair disadvantage, Tyson responded by comparing those who want to keep separate sports for men and women to people who want to go back to the days of segregation.

“We’re in a transitional period. So we have to figure that out. But the way to figure out things that require solutions to progressive change is not to regress it to how things once were. If that were the case, I would still be drinking from a segregated water fountain,” he said.

Kisin’s co-host responded that people would see it as an unfair playing field, and at this point, Tyson exploded.

“So fix the playing field, d*mn it!” he yelled. “Well, don’t say it’s an unfair playing field so all of a sudden, the big issue is trans women taking the slot of a woman in an unfair playing field. Fix the playing field!

“And you know something? The day you fix that playing field, this conversation will look completely ridiculous. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

Tyson is right, the conversation will one day look ridiculous, but not for the reason he thinks. The reason it will look ridiculous is because it shows a famous scientist denying basic biology to follow the LGBT agenda.

Tyson is a smart man, and much of his scientific work is admirable. At the same time, however, it is really troubling to see a scientist of his stature be unable to articulate the basic scientific fact that there are differences between men and women. Even a five-year-old knows that.

The LGBT agenda is unfortunately very strong, and now it seems to have ensnared very smart people.

The post Top Scientist Has Meltdown When Confronted with Absurdity of Men in Women's Sports appeared first on The Western Journal.