For the first time since a ban against face masks became law in New York State’s Nassau Country, a man was arrested for appearing masked in public. Weslin Omar Ramirez Castillo, an illegal migrant from Guatemala, was dressed in all black and was wearing a ski mask in hot August weather. He was not a protestor but he was found to be carrying a 14 inch knife. Support for laws to ban Ku Klux Klan-like face and head coverings have gained support in both New York and California. Various interest groups are already up in arms. They fear that this first-of-a-kind ban will be selectively enforced, mainly against people of color, against illegal migrants, against pro-Palestine activists, and against disabled individuals who are afraid of contracting Covid. Bizarrely, face-masking is also seen as a form of free speech. For such reasons, those in charge of American universities cannot seem to find a way to ban face masks. Such face coverings, which obscure one’s identity, are worn by criminals, burglars, terrorists, kidnappers, and by those students and outside activists who want all the privileges of “free speech,” but only for themselves. Their “speech” often includes property damage, harassment, and civil unrest but they do not want to be held accountable for either their views or their crimes. Thus, they hide behind masks, in cowardly anonymity.  (READ MORE from Phyllis Chesler: The Stakes for Women in This Election Are Enormous) Since 10/7, the most aggressive anti-American, anti-Israel, pro-Palestine/pro-Hamas activists have shut down campuses, vandalized campus property, terrorized Jewish and other students, stopped traffic, and harassed civilians while disguised, wearing keffiyehs around their necks or on their faces. Some young, non-Muslim white women, also wore the a hijab (head covering), and sometimes a niqab (Islamic face coverings), to support Palestine/Hamas. For a long time, I have viewed the burqa (full body covering), niqab, and sometimes even hijab, as a violation of women’s rights as well as a health and security hazard. The burqa is a sensory deprivation isolation chamber, a moveable prison, a garment that removes women from society. The niqab also makes identification difficult and makes it impossible for a woman to dine in public with male colleagues who are non-family members. Moroccan feminist, Fatima Mernissi, and Tunisian feminist, Samia Labidi, both viewed hijab as an incendiary political symbol, denoting oppressive patriarchal control, not as a legal, religious obligation. It is a forced, not a free choice. There is a lively debate among Muslim feminists about this issue in terms of whether the state, especially a non-Muslim state, has the right to tell women how to dress or whether such rights belong to the family, the mosque, or to the woman alone. Some view the hijab and the niqab as a form of “resistance” to Western ways and believe that veiled women are more liberated than those who wear bikinis. Many American student activists seem to agree with this line of reasoning. But here’s something else to consider for all those who view face masking as a Muslim religious right. Historically other countries, including Muslim countries, have not hesitated to ban the hijab, the niqab, the burqa, and the chador (an open cloak). During the 1920s and 1930s, Kings, Shahs, and Presidents unveiled their female citizens and Muslim feminists campaigned for open faces in public. They were successful in Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Turkey, Pakistan, and Iran to name but a few countries. (READ MORE: Why Are Women in America Cheering for Hamas and Iran?) My favorite tale took place in Afghanistan, when Shah Amanullah Khan (1919-1929) scandalized the populace by permitting his wife to go unveiled. By 1928, he urged Afghan women to uncover their faces and advocated the shooting of interfering husbands. He said that he himself would supply the weapons and promised that no inquiries would be instituted against the women. Once, when he saw a woman wearing a burqa in public, he tore it off and burned it. Alas, poor Amanullah was exiled and the country plunged back into the past — at least until the 1960s when some modernization took place in the cities until the death-eating Taliban arose. In 1926 in Iran, Reza Shah provided police protection for Iranian women who chose to dispense with the traditional scarf. Within a decade, he ordered all teachers and wives of ministers, and high military officials to wear European clothes and hats rather than chadors. Nearly a century later, in 2007 and 2009, the President of Tajikistan, a Muslim-majority country, banned the hijab. Why? According to a Tajikistani-American friend, this was done to stop the Arab Sunni radicalization of the country, to safeguard national cultural values, combat superstition and extremism, and to return the country to Tajikistan’s indigenous culture. The Tajikistani President-for-Life was alarmed by the spread of Arab Sunni Muslim imperialism and the accompanying terrorism. The chattering classes and the legal gliterrati in America say that banning is a very complex issue. What if one wears a face mask for religious reasons? (That custom applies only to women though — why are the male activists dressing like women?) Support for laws to ban Ku Klux Klan-like face and head coverings have gained support in both New York and California. There is a Black-Jewish coalition in favor of banning masks at protests. Hazel Dukes, President of the NAACP New York State Conference, said: “Black communities know all too well that individuals who hide their identities with intent to terrorize, intimidate, or harass are a threat to all our safety and have no place in New York.” The Foundation for Individual Rights views the First Amendment as Protecting the right to speak anonymously, “shielding individuals from retaliation for expressing dissenting or unpopular ideas.” Support for Palestine is not dissent, as this view seems to be popular globally and on campuses. The issue here is not free speech; it is vandalism and intimidation, harassment, and violence against Jewish/Zionist students, professors, and others. It is incitement based on lethal lies that always leads to violence, Brownshirt behavior that should no longer be coddled. Even France and Belgium, two countries often appropriately deemed solicitous of Islamic extremism, banned the burqa and the niqab long ago. Every state in the union should pass religion-neutral bans on face masks. The post Ban Face Masks: Our Safety Requires It appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Candidate Kamala Harris says her healthcare plans — “HarrisHealth” — are “for-the-people” and will “insure everyone in America.”  She attacks candidate Trump’s proposals saying he will take away care from millions of Americans and will “throw granny off the cliff.” The more she enrolls people in government insurance, the less care people get. The two candidates have diametrically opposite answers for our failing healthcare system. Harris sees the solution as more government involvement and Trump wants to give patients more control. Ignoring campaign-driven hyperbole and each side’s dire predictions for the other side’s plans, what do they propose and what are the likely effects? Trump Healthcare Proposals Continuing his MAGA theme, Trump’s plan is called Health Reform to Make America Great Again. He would repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA, “Obamacare”); make insurance premiums fully deductible on federal taxes; allow insurance sales across state lines; and offer Medicaid block grants to the states. Clearly, he intends to reduce the federal footprint in healthcare. The media has consistently touted the ACA as “popular” based on the millions of Americans who enrolled in expanded Medicaid. After all, it is free for many of them, so what’s not to love?! The ACA is not so popular with those who actually need medical care — they can’t get it. Fewer and fewer doctors are willing to care for Medicaid patients because of low payments and the regulatory burden.  Medicaid patients wait so long for care, they die while waiting, called death-by-queue. When a patient with Medicaid dies in hospital, his family suddenly discovers government insurance isn’t so free. There is MERP, the Medicaid Estate Recovery Program, that allows the state to recoup the decedent’s medical expenses plus a large administrative fee from the surviving family, including putting a lien on the family home. The repeal of ACA would significantly reduce Medicaid roles taking away insurance from several million Americans. A large but unknown number will restore their employer-provided insurance. Interestingly, repeal of ACA would increase access to care for tens of millions by the seesaw effect. As fewer people are enrolled in Medicaid, fewer dollars go to insurance companies, and more dollars become available to pay for care. Trump plans to allow Americans to deduct health insurance premiums against federal income taxes. This would cause an infinitesimal reduction in federal revenue and give a large boost to the buying power of take-home pay. Approving the sale of insurance across state lines increases competition, driving down prices. With more money in their pockets and lower prices, Americans will have more health care options, such as direct-pay care. Medicaid block grants to the states are a good idea on many levels. First, it restores the original Medicaid law which includes “Section 1801: Prohibition against any federal interference.” Medicaid was always supposed to be state-structured, not federal one-size-fits-all. Second, states know their needs and resources better than Washington and can use Medicaid dollars more efficiently to deliver care, especially when relieved of the federal regulatory shackles. Third, block grants stop the unremitting increase in both federal and state spending. Fourth, fewer healthcare dollars will be wasted on Washington’s BARRCOME — bureaucracy, administration, rules, regulations, compliance, oversight, mandates, and enforcement. Finally, some states may want work requirements, or different eligibility standards, or higher payment schedules. With block grants, they are free to tailor their programs for the specific needs of their state residents. HarrisHealth Kamala Harris would start by making increased ACA subsidies permanent. These increases were passed in 2021 to compensate for the loss of income due to federal mandatory lockdowns during CoViD. A sunset clause was built in so that when the mandates were rescinded (as they have been) the increases would also sunset. Harris wants to keep the increases despite the unnecessary extra spending. This is, after all, an election year. Harris would accelerate Medicaid expansion, giving more people free … oops, no-charge, government insurance. At its height in 2022, 94 million Americans had Medicaid/CHIP coverage — 28 percent of the population of the entire country was enrolled in a program designed exclusively “to increase benefits under the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance System.” Harris has approved, but doesn’t publicize, the enrollment of illegals in Medicaid, starting with 100,000 children. In her drive to insure all Americans, Harris ignores or refuses to accept the seesaw effect. The more she enrolls people in government insurance, the less care people get. She will accept a false facade of success —– zero uninsured rate — for the disaster of more Americans succumbing to death-by-queue. Harris wants all Americans dependent on government insurance. Despite her current strategic, campaign-driven silence on Bernie Sanders’ exceedingly unpopular Medicare-for-All (M-4-All), single payer plan. For years, she has been a whole-hearted supporter. M-4-All is a complete takeover of healthcare by the federal government. It abolishes all public and private insurance, except Tricare and Indian Health Service, and enrolls everyone in a single one-size-fits-all federal plan. Patients pay nothing, except in higher taxes, much higher taxes. The top rate in Sweden’s single payer, cradle-to-grave healthcare system is 52.2 percent. With M-4-All that Harris will impose on us, Washington decides what care you get, when, where, by whom, and even if. Washington credentials, licenses, and punishes care providers. Woe unto physicians who oppose Washington narratives. Just as during CoViD, they will be censored, canceled, and fired. With M-4-All, there will likely be a mass exodus of senior physicians. Then, who will care for today’s patients or teach tomorrow’s doctors? In addition to her failure to accept the seesaw effect, HarrisHealth ignores fiscal impacts of her plans. Expanded ACA subsidies nearly doubled the cost of benchmark private insurance premiums from $244 per month (2013) to $477 per month (2024). Medicaid expansion diverts more money to insurance companies and BARRCOME, leaving less for patients. The Commonwealth Fund calculated that Trump’s healthcare plans could add as much as $41 billion to the national debt. The M-4-All that Harris wants to impose on us eventually will cost $40 trillion. In addition to bringing more death-by-queue to the U.S., HarrisHealth would cost 1,000 times more than what Trump proposes. Voters: You choose. Deane Waldman, M.D., MBA is Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics, Pathology, and Decision Science; former Director of the Center for Healthcare Policy at Texas Public Policy Foundation; former director, New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange; and author of 12 books including the multi-award winning Curing the Cancer in U.S. Healthcare: StatesCare and Market-Based Medicine.   READ MORE from Deane Waldman: Wait Times for Medical Care Matter There’s a Tiny ‘Bubble’ That Could Save Healthcare The post Health Care: Trump vs. Harris appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

As a child, I loved clouds. I would spend lazy summer afternoons on my back in the grass in my parents’ front yard under a massive maple tree watching the clouds float by and my siblings and I would tell one another stories based on their shapes. “There is no skin color, because the skin is mummified, but you can see it  … The expert doctors can see Teresa’s face almost clearly.” We had active imaginations. The spiritual world was very real to us. I remember, at one point, telling my younger sisters that the rays of sun streaming down to earth between the folds of a massive front of clouds were the ladders angels used to visit us — as far as I remember, I fully believed it. (RELATED: Living Crucifixes: The Phenomenon of Stigmata) No one knows the exact moment we lose our childlike belief in the otherworldly. Perhaps it is when we learn that Santa Claus doesn’t exist, or maybe we develop our skepticism in high school and college when we come to suspect that we know everything there is to know and have experienced everything there is to experience. I’ve never lost my faith but at some point, when I wasn’t paying attention, my beliefs became rooted in the tangible things I could experience. Sure, God and the angels exist, but thunderstorms aren’t the result of God crying over lost sinners and angels aren’t climbing down from heaven on sun-bathed ladders. Women Are Fighting Against Spirits, Principalities, and Powers We often don’t know how far we’ve moved from our childhood simplicity until we come across something — a claim, a person, an experience — that makes us react in a very different way than we might have in years past. For me, that thing was Carrie Gress’s book, The Anti-Mary Exposed: Rescuing the Culture from Toxic Feminity.  Specifically, it was Gress’s assertion towards the very beginning of the book that feminism has demonic influences. Gress points to ancient demons — including those going under the names Jezebel and Lilith — as key players in the growth of feminism as an ideology that requires women to deny the intrinsic calling of motherhood. Further, she cites the growth of occult practices and “goddess circles” as evidence that women are actively inviting these demons into their lives. (READ MORE: Young Believers Are Fueling a Renaissance of Catholic Culture) For those unfamiliar with Gress’s research, it’s worth taking into account — especially for young women as they try to figure out what their place in society ought to look like. If true, it makes the battle for the hearts and minds of modern women about more than just preference, it makes it a battle against spirits, principalities, and powers. That consideration requires an openness to the idea that the spiritual world is very much involved in the physical world as we experience it. I’ll be perfectly honest, despite being raised in a large Catholic family reading the stories of the saints, that idea makes me uncomfortable. The trouble is, while skepticism is sometimes healthy, it can also be a fault. St. Teresa Found to Be Still Incorrupt During Recent Investigation Accounting for the reality and impact of demonic forces on our lives is one thing. But every once in a while, God gives us hard-hearted, skeptical adults something physical to chew on. This week, that thing was the discovery that the renowned mystic, reformer, and doctor of the Catholic Church, St. Teresa of Avila, is still incorrupt. On Wednesday, Discalced Carmelites in Alba de Tormes processed from the Basilica de Sancta Teresa to a room specially reserved for studying her remains while singing the Te Deum. Once there, they opened the saint’s silver tomb for the first time in 110 years in the presence of scientists, ecclesiastical authorities, and the artisans necessary to get the tomb open. Her body appears to be in the same condition it was in 1914 — i.e., it is not dust. (READ MORE by Aubrey Gulick: A Clash of Sacred Sounds: Ancient Liturgical Music vs. Contemporary Praise and Worship) The postulator general of the order, Father Marco Chiesa, confirmed that, while the images taken in 1914 are black-and-white, they clearly reveal that the exposed parts (St. Teresa’s face and foot), look the same as they did then. “There is no color,” he said. “There is no skin color, because the skin is mummified, but you can see it, especially the middle of the face … The expert doctors can see Teresa’s face almost clearly.” So no, she doesn’t look like she fell asleep yesterday. But she’s looking miraculously well for a woman who died 442 years ago. Events like this one — and the recent confirmation by the diocese of Kansas City-St. Louis that Sister Wilhelmina of Gower, Mo., also seems to be incorrupt — are, without a doubt, signs that the spiritual is not so far away from the physical. A few days ago, I was driving on the highway when I happened to look up at the clouds above me. There was an afternoon thunderstorm rolling in from the West, and sun rays were poking through the edges of tall purple clouds. For some reason, the child in me woke up. Perhaps, I thought, the angels are coming down their golden ladders. We certainly need them now more than ever. The post Spiritual Reality Check: St. Teresa of Avila Found To Be Still Incorrupt appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

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The Political Appropriation of Christianity

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz Hate You

by Joseph P. Farrell, Giza Death Star: Something is going on with Argentina’s gold, according to the following article shared by D.P.(for which we are grateful). The question is…what?  The article, as one might imagine, has its own speculations, and I have another: New shipment of Argentine gold abroad reported According to the article, the administration of […]