(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) As massive crowds lined streets in Florida on Monday to show support for former President Donald Trump, who was flying to New York to be arraigned on DA Alvin Bragg’s Soros-funded indictment, leading Republican politicians and conservative personalities were encouraging Team MAGA to remain peaceful in their protests.
“The Dems are hoping some group will act out in violent protests so they can seize more power. Don’t do it!” advised one MAGA supporter from Florida.
There’s crowds of people who are standing outside of Trumps residence in Mar-a-Lago right now at this hour, holding flags in show of support. The People are behind Trump. The Dems are hoping some group will act out in violent protests so they can seize more power. Don’t do it!
— Florida for Trump 🇺🇸This Election 🗳 4 FREEDOM (@rickyllesor1) March 31, 2023
“Don’t protest in NYC. You can bet it’s a set up with exponentially more Ray Epps around encouraging violence to entrap Trump supporters,” the National Mouth’s Tim Young warned.
If you're going to a Trump protest tomorrow in NYC, I beg you be safe. These people don't play by the same rules as us. Be safe but know there's a high chance you'll end up in jail after or worse. Remember January 6th and the set up, remember that NYC police are leftist pawns and…
Blaze Media founder Glenn Beck offered similar guidance, and for similar reasons.
“They’re doing it because they want people to strike out,” Beck told Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “Please, turn to God, repent. Pray for our country. Pray for peace.”
But peaceful protest doesn’t mean no protest, reminded Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who encouraged Trump supporters to attend a planned rally in Manhattan.
Join me TOMORROW at 10:30 AM with @NYYRC to protest the political persecution of President Donald J. Trump in NYC at Collect Pond Park.
— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) April 3, 2023
“Join us in peaceful protest of Alvin Bragg’s heinous attack on President Donald J. Trump!” encourages an Event Brite invitation. The event, slated for Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. in New York’s Collect Pond Park, is schedule to feature Greene, Jack Posobiec and Graham Allen.
Proving warnings of leftist retaliation against any pro-Trump support to be entirely valid, New York City Democrat Mayor Eric Adams promised swift action to deal with any protests.
Delusional @NYCMayor is trying to intimidate, threaten, and stop me from using my 1st amendment rights to peacefully protest the Democrat’s unconstitutional weaponization of our justice system against our top Republican Presidential candidate, President Trump.
Mayor Adams should…
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) April 3, 2023
“Mayor Adams should be more concerned about NY citizens and taxpayers being murdered, raped, robbed, and carjacked than an elected Member of Congress coming to town,” Greene wrote. “Or should I be the one concerned that the mayor of NYC will weaponize his government or maybe his thugs like DA Alvin Bragg against me?”
Popular conservative commentator Jesse Kelly warned that Trump supporters would be walking into a trap to be sprung by riotous activists with years of radical training, backed by mainstream media collaborators and the Democrat regime.
“Here’s why you shouldn’t protest in blue cities and why you should DEFINITELY stay out of NYC tomorrow,” Kelly tweeted. “Remember Mike Tyson? We all watched him knock people’s heads off for a living. But you know what we didn’t watch?”
You haven’t done the work. The communist street animals get to protest in those places because they’ve spent DECADES seizing political power in them. Now they’re protected from up on high.
“But you don’t see that decades of winning local elections and activism,” Kelly expounded. “You see the animals in the street and say, “Hey, I should be able to do that too! But you can’t. You’re not ready to step in the ring with Tyson.”
They’re waiting for you. They want you to come. But you can’t yet. Go spend decades winning local elections and putting in the work.
(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) In a case of Orwellian censorship on steroids, CBS News banned reporters from using the word “transgender” to describe the transgender triggerman who slaughtered six Christians, including three children, last month at Nashville’s Covenant School.
“The shooter’s gender identity has not been confirmed by CBS News,” the network’s executives insisted in a memo, despite police officials having previously confirmed the mass shooter was a woman who identified as a man. “As such, we should avoid any mention of it as it has no known relevance to the crime. Should that change, we can and will revisit.”
The memo stunned CBS staffers and reporters, who ripped the decision and accused top brass of “twisting themselves in knots” by putting their “liberal bias” over factual reporting, which was ultimately a “disservice” to viewers, the New York Postreported.
“Are we communicating to our readers and viewers that they cannot handle the basic facts of the case?” a CBS insider told the Post. “You can’t avoid who this person is. This is not an editorial decision. They made a judgment based on personal feelings.”
The executive’s attempt to justify their decision only made it worse.
“Right now we advise saying: POLICE IDENTIFIED THE SUSPECT AS A 28-YEAR-OLD AUDREY HALE, WHO THEY SHOT AND KILLED AT THE SCENE,” the memo instructed. “And move on to focus on other important points of the investigation, community and solutions.”
Staffers were outraged at the water-carrying directives they were being given.
“This is absurd because the police identified Hale as transgender,” a CBS insider said. “If the cops didn’t address it, maybe you could avoid it, but withholding information is not journalism.”
Louder with Crowder’s Brodigan noted that CBS wasn’t alone with its reporting transgressions.
“Then you have The Mirror, who felt Hale — who murdered children – having ‘childlike’ and ‘whimsical’ artistic skills was necessary information for us to have,” he wrote, adding that while the outlet’s tweet on the matter still exists, the article was deleted.
“That this article even passed editorial approval in the first place says much about the state of our media.”
The censorious decision by CBS came after law enforcement and multiple outlets had solidly confirmed that the shooter was transgender, and the network was roundly roasted for its reluctance to acknowledge the trans fact.
“And on Trans Day of Visibility, too?” the Daily Caller cracked.
I watched NORA ODDONNEL on CBS after the Nashville shooting. They never mentioned the crazed lunatic killer was a Chick-Pretending-to-be-a-man-TRANSBOY-maniac
Interesting CBS.
Trans Lunatic kills 6
No mention from NORA. Hmmmmmm….
“The police confirmed that the suspect was 28 years old, named Audrey Hale, and identified as trans,” Matt Walsh wrote. “CBS takes them at their word on the first two points but doesn’t want to accept the third point. I wonder why.”
I’ve noticed all the papers using ‘they’ as they aren’t quite brave enough to put she. Unreal.
“Remember some years back when Islamic radicals would commit terrorist attacks in America and the media would go out of their way to hide the identity and motives of the killers?” tweeted Rogan O’Handley. “Yeah they’re starting to do that again for Trans Terrorists.”
CBS News won’t report shooter was trans.
White House won’t say the victims were Christian.
Pro-Gun Control rallies in state capitol buildings.
Pro-Trans rallies nationwide.
All this because officials chose not to timely release the shooter’s manifesto.
(Ken Silva, Headline USA) More than five years after the deadliest mass shooting in American history, researchers are still questioning the many anomalies from that event—including the dubious physical logistics of the shooting, the alleged gunman’s ties to the military industrial complex, and bizarre warnings from a hysterical woman minutes before the killing spree began.
The FBI apparently interviewed a woman who also questions the official narrative. According to a trove of newly released internal bureau records, the FBI interviewed this woman a week after the Oct. 1, 2017, shooting.
The FBI memo indicates that the woman was posting about the Las Vegas shooting on Facebook. Why the FBI felt the woman’s Facebook posts were worth approaching her for an in-person interview is unclear, as the memo is heavily redacted.
“[REDACTED] advised she knew why the FBI wanted to speak with her. She stated she had gotten into an argument with her friend [REDACTED] on Facebook [REDACTED],” the FBI memo says.
“[REDACTED] did not believe the media and others were being truthful about what really happened with the Las Vegas mass shooting. [REDACTED] believed there was a conspiracy, and that the public was being misled. [REDACTED] had some theories about what ‘really happened’ and why what was being reported couldn’t be true.”
The FBI interviewed someone who alleged a wider conspiracy in the Las Vegas shooting.
However, the FBI memo redacts this woman’s theories about what “really happened.” The memo does include partial details about a Facebook argument the woman apparently had.
“[REDACTED] posted some comments on Facebook regarding the Las Vegas mass shooting. [REDACTED] used Facebook Messenger to start a chat with her. [REDACTED] did not agree with what [REDACTED],” this portion of the memo states.
The memo concludes by saying that the FBI took screenshots of the woman’s Facebook chats with the unidentified person she was arguing with.
“Reporting Agent used the internet to show [REDACTED] a Facebook profile for a [REDACTED]. [REDACTED] confirmed it was the profile for the [REDACTED] she knew. [REDACTED] also identified a photo on the page as [REDACTED],” this memo says. “[REDACTED] captured screen shots of her conversation with [REDACTED] and forwarded the images to reporting Agent.”
No other information about the woman’s theories is included in the newly released FBI documents. More than five years later, authorities have yet to determine a motive for why alleged gunman Stephen Paddock decided to kill 60 people.
When the FBI records were released last week, most media outlets concentrated on records about a possible motive for Paddock’s killing spree: some $38,000 in gambling losses. However, this is unlikely, considering that Paddock was reportedly a multimillionaire.
Local police agreed that the latest FBI document dump does little to clarify the motives behind the country’s deadliest mass shooting.
“It will be very damaging to the 22,000 people that attended the concert, the victims of the family members that were lost and the survivors,” Kelly McMahill, a retired deputy chief, reportedly told the Las Vegas Review-Journal last week.
“There is still no known motive five years later, and LVMPD would never hide a potential motive from any of our victims.”
(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and the Christian legal group First Liberty Institute sued two members of Antifa and the pro-abortion domestic terrorist group Jane’s Revenge for allegedly vandalizing three pro-life pregnancy centers in the south- and central parts of Florida.
In January, a federal grand jury indicted Caleb Freestone, 27, and Amber Smith-Stewart, 23, with violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, according to the Daily Signal. This act allows state attorneys general and the victims of vandalism and other attacks to sue for damages. First Liberty Institute is suing on behalf of one of the pregnancy centers that were terrorized.
“We commend Attorney General Ashley Moody for her determination to hold these vandals, along with the broader network associated with Jane’s Revenge, accountable for the over 100 attacks on life-affirming reproductive health facilities across the country since someone leaked the Dobbs decision,” Jeremy Dys, special counsel at First Liberty, said.
In her March 30 statement, Moody criticized pro-abortion terrorists, too.
“Antifa and Jane’s Revenge are criminal organizations and must answer for their crimes in Florida,” Moody said. “I am taking action to hold their members accountable for attempting to intimidate and threaten law-abiding citizens in our state.”
In her lawsuit, Moody stated that Freestone and Smith-Stewart spray-painted threats such as “If abortions aren’t safe then neither are you” and “YOUR TIME IS UP!!” at the South Broward Pregnancy Help Center in Hollywood on May 28, the LifeChoice crisis pregnancy center in Winter Haven on June 26 and the Heartbeat of Miami pregnancy center in Hialeah on July 3.
Moody asks the federal court to assess damages and fines of $170,000 each for Freestone and Smith-Stewart, while First Liberty, which represents Heartbeat of Miami, seeks to recover penalties imposed by the FACE Act and from other legal theories. Both lawsuits refer to Freestone and Smith-Stewart as members of Antifa and Jane’s Revenge.
Dys praised assistant U.S. attorneys in Florida for defending pregnancy centers against pro-abortion terrorists and noted that First Liberty will update its complaint to include Gabriella Oropesa and Annarella Rivera, whom the grand jury indicted on March 29 for allegedly working with Freestone and Smith-Stewart to violate the FACE Act.
He also predicted that more lawsuits will follow as law enforcement identifies suspected vandals.
Golden, the longtime producer for Rush Limbaugh, welcomed Cattturd on the March 30 edition of “Bo Snerdley’s Rush Hour” where they discussed his newfound fame, according to American Wire.
“When you name yourself Catturd, you don’t expect to get more than 10 followers,” Catturd joked, replying to Golden’s question of why he chose the nickname. “You don’t think it’s gonna be a big deal.”
Despite the low expectations, Catturd now has over a million people following him every day.
“Tucker Carlson has had you on his program and you are now moving from just being [on] social media. People want to talk to you,” Golden said.
Catturd then mentioned his humble background.
“I’m just a country boy… I live in North Florida and I got a little ranch down here. I’m just an average, ordinary, high school-educated, normal citizen and I just kind of say what I think.”
Then, Golden and Catturd started talking about so-called “climate change” and how leftists made it into their religion.
“In 100 years, they say… the whole earth is gonna be on fire,” he said.
Golden then brought up that California made a plan to outlaw gas vehicles and replace them with electric ones by 2030, not realizing that electric cars would not exist without fossil fuels.
“I like to say that liberals live in a fantasy land, while we have to live in the real world and power actual vehicles,” Catturd said.
“How do they think the electric cars get to the electric car store? Do you think they’re [brought there] on an electric car truck? What are the tires made of — not electricity? They’re made out of fossil fuels.”
After that, they returned to Catturd’s fame and the fact that now he has a horde of imitators.
“It’s really crazy because I do sell a few products just on my website, but there’s probably 100 companies overseas and in [America] that sell Catturd products that aren’t mine,” he said.
“I can’t control it. I can’t sue everybody. There are 13 or 14 fake Catturds on Telegram. There are 15 or 16 fake Catturds on Facebook… It’s almost like a Homer Simpson character now. It is way beyond me.”
(Bethany Blankley, The Center Square) Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Florida’s constitutional carry bill into law on Monday.
HB 543, co-sponsored by state Reps. Bobby Payne, R-Palatka, Chuck Brannan, R-Macclenny, and state Sen. Jay Collins, R-Tampa, who filed a companion bill in the Senate, allows Floridians to carry concealed weapons without a government-issued permit. It also expands law enforcement and educational programs and safety requirements.
After the law goes into effect July 1, Florida will become the 26th state to enact a Constitutional Carry law.
The law removes the state requirement to obtain a conceal carry license in order to legally carry a concealed weapon or firearm. It won’t affect laws related to the purchase of a firearm. A full and complete background check for all legal firearm purchases is still required in Florida. This includes a three-day wait period for purchases of all types of firearms, not just handguns, or until the applicant’s background check is completed, whichever is later.
The law requires a person carrying concealed without a license to obey existing laws prohibiting carrying in places like schools, certain athletic events, and correctional facilities, among others. It also leaves in place current licensing processes for those seeking to obtain a permit for reciprocity or other purposes.
“Floridians shouldn’t need a permission slip from the government to exercise the rights afforded them by the Second Amendment,” House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, said in a statement, adding that it was “the largest expansion of Second Amendment rights in state history.”
Brannan also lauded the bill, saying it “recognizes that while the government has a duty to protect its citizens, its citizens have a right to protect themselves.” He also said he was “very excited about the school safety portions of the bill that continue Florida’s work of improving school safety with new programs and over 50 million new dollars devoted to protect our most precious resource, our children.”
The new law expands community and school safety tools by requiring the Office of Safe Schools to develop a behavioral threat management operational process to guide public and charter schools with identifying, assessing, managing, and monitoring potential and real threats, according to the bill summary.
The office is also required to create a Florida specific behavioral threat instrument to help evaluate student behavior, including identifying those who may pose a very serious threat to the school, school staff or students. The office is required to coordinate intervention and services for the students and parents. When a serious incident or behavior occurs, the school’s threat management team is required to prepare a threat assessment report. The law requires the report and all corresponding documentation to be electronically maintained in a secure and confidential threat management portal to facilitate standardized documentation of the threat.
The law also expands the Chris Hixon, Coach Aaron Feis, and Coach Scott Beigel Guardian Program to private schools, allowing them to assign safety school officers to their facilities.
The law also creates the Florida Safe Schools Canine Program, which includes designating a person, school, or business entity as a Florida Safe Schools Canine Partner. The partner pays for or raises funds for a law enforcement agency to purchase, train, or care for a firearm detection dog.
The firearm dogs will also act as liaisons between students and law enforcement agencies and serve as ambassadors for a law enforcement agency to improve community engagement. K-12 schools and students are encouraged to partner with their local law enforcement agencies to raise money to purchase, train, or care for their schools’ dog.
Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, lauded the bill, citing the valuable tools recommended by law enforcement to “increase the safety of our schools and communities.”
(Casey Harper, The Center Square) International oil producers are planning to cut oil production, meaning gas prices will likely begin rising immediately as Democrats block Republican efforts to increase domestic oil and gas energy production.
OPEC+ announced Sunday a cut in oil production to the surprise of many who speculate prices could rise significantly as a result. Last summer, regular gas prices set new records, surpassing $5 per gallon on average.
Gas prices are already on the rise this year. According to AAA, the current national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline is $3.51, up from $3.44 a week ago and $3.39 one month ago.
Energy prices overall have soared since President Joe Biden took office, in part because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but also because of Biden’s work to discourage domestic oil and gas investment and production.
“Only a few short years ago foreign governments were unable to use energy as a weapon against the United States,” Daniel Turner, executive director of the energy workers advocacy group Power the Future, told The Center Square. “Then Joe Biden came along and made OPEC great again. Just last week, the House of Representatives passed a bill to put America back on the road to energy independence and it’s clear OPEC was paying attention. The Senate should pass H.R. 1 immediately and President Biden finally needs to put politics aside and unleash the power of American energy. Otherwise the high prices of food, utilities, and food will continue to punish the American people.”
Citing Biden’s role in cost increases, House Republicans passed the “Lower Energy Costs Act” last week. House Democrats opposed the bill, which is unlikely to get traction in the Senate.
“Under H.R. 1, America and our allies won’t be forced to rely on Russian natural gas, which is 41 percent dirtier than American natural gas,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a speech after the bill’s passage. “If we had replaced Russian natural gas in Europe for just one year, we would have reduced C02 emissions by 218 million tons.”
Experts say gas price increases are not a sure thing.
“Whether OPEC’s announced production cuts raise prices depends on whether global demand for oil holds up,” Myron Ebell, an energy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told The Center Square. “It seems to me that OPEC are guessing that the global economy is slowing down or even moving into recession, in which case demand will go down. By cutting production, they are trying to stay a step ahead of lower demand and avoid the collapse in oil prices that has happened in past economic downturns.
Ebell said Biden’s policies have empowered OPEC to have more control over the global market, including the U.S.
“The shale oil and gas revolution and the Trump deregulatory agenda made the U. S. the world’s top oil and natural gas producer and thereby lessened OPEC’s power to control the global oil market,” he said. “President Biden’s policies to constrain U. S. production and scare away investment in new production are empowering OPEC once again. To what extent remains to be seen.”
(Corine Gatti, Headline USA) When it comes to the revolutionary machine-learning product ChatGPT making jokes about Jesus Christ, it had one-liners, and offensive ones at that.
For example, when asked to make fun of Jesus, the bot replied, “Why did Jesus refuse to play hockey? Because every time he tried to score, they nailed him to the boards!”
Yet, if asked to make a joke about the Prophet Muhammad, the user is shutdown.
“As an AI language model, I have to follow guidelines that prevent me from creating content that could be offensive or disrespectful towards religious figures, including Prophet Muhammed,” it said. “I’m happy to help you with non-religious jokes or any other topic you’d like to discuss,” the Daily Wire reported.
The language model was trained by no other than Microsoft’s Azure network, the news outlet reported. The woke software giant poured billions into language models and the company has come under scrutiny in recent years for woke practices.
In 2022, the company developed an “inclusiveness” checker that flags expressions in Word documents that could potentially insult someone’s feelings. At Microsoft Ignite 2021, endured overt social justice and identity politics messaging, squeezing preferred pronouns and race into the conference, Blaze Media noted.
Overall, critics are complaining about how woke AI systems are becoming.
National Review staff writer Nate Hochman said it has a “built-in ideological bias” that is used to “suppress or silence viewpoints that dissent from progressive orthodoxy.” Computer science professor Pedro Domingos at the University of Washington told the New York Post, “It’s not the job of us technologists to insert our own ideology into the AI systems.”
AI seemingly restricts anything positive about fossil fuels, men or anything negative about drag queen story hour.
“ChatGPT by @OpenAI now *expressly prohibits arguments for fossil fuels*. (It used to offer them.) Not only that, it excludes nuclear energy from its counter-suggestions.” Energy expert Alex Epstein tweeted in in 2022.
CEO and ChatGPT co-creator Sam Altman claimed the bias was to avoid any misinformation as they are looking at “getting the balance right,” and results will get better with time.
a lot of what people assume is us censoring ChatGPT is in fact us trying to stop it from making up random facts.
tricky to get the balance right with the current state of the tech.
it will get better over time, and we will use your feedback to improve it.
(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Sunday’s Autism Awareness Day (as part of Autism Awareness Month) has undoubtedly seen many a virtue-signaler on social media replace their Ukrainian flag with a heart-shaped, multicolored jigsaw puzzle.
Indeed, it is one of those noble, bipartisan causes that everyone can get behind and feel good about—including future House Speaker Byron Donalds, R-Fla.
There are more than 5.4 million Americans currently living with Autism.
Today we raise awareness about Autism and express our continued support for those living with this condition. pic.twitter.com/FgCs4fDdqJ
— Congressman Byron Donalds (@RepDonaldsPress) April 2, 2023
Yet, there may be a more pernicious and sinister aspect to this latest rush to embrace scientifically unsupported psychobabble. A growing number of people now claim to have autism, despite exhibiting no obivious outward symptoms, while using the condition as a convenient scapegoat for basic bad behavior.
With only heartless, cruel, un-empathetic people—probably themselves autistic—daring to criticize this most recent recurrence of mass formation psychosis, it is a prime opportunity for left-wing con-artists once again to convert public sympathy into manipulative identity politics.
In short, autism may prove to be the ultimate conduit for anti-American radicals to take down democracy by persuading U.S. citizens that they have no agency, culpability or stake in their destructive choices.
A SCIENCE OF CONVENIENCE
In a 2008 article, WebMD noted the mysterious surge in cases surrounding autism.
The article, and many others like it, asked whether there was an actual shift in the number of individuals experiencing the disorder (for reasons like, say, a new vaccine) or if it were simply a rise in autism awareness leading to a larger frequency of diagnoses where symptoms might previously have gone unrecognized.
The explanation for this dramatic—and ongoing—uptick in cases remains just as elusive now as it did then.
Regardless of its cause, though, the fact remains that in a school of 1,000 students, about 21 more students would have autism now than in 2000, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The implications of that on a macro-level, and at the individual school level, are significant. A school that had one special-education teacher then would now need to hire at least four, driving a $50,000 annual budget up to $200,000.
Yet, apart from relying upon an ever-expanding list of symptoms, the diagnosis process remains somewhat nebulous since the spectrum of autism-related disorders (ASD) varies wildly.
“Some people with ASD have a known difference, such as a genetic condition,” says a CDC information page. “Other causes are not yet known, [and] … Diagnosing ASD can be difficult since there is no medical test, like a blood test, to diagnose the disorder.”
There likewise is no defined treatment for autism, but the scientific consensus appears to be that managing it can be an expensive—and medically lucrative—proposition.
“ASD affects each person differently, meaning that people with ASD have unique strengths and challenges and different treatment needs,” says the CDC. “Treatment plans usually involve multiple professionals and are catered to the individual.”
It also varies among states and populations. Adults in South Dakota and Louisiana are considerably less likely to have it than adults in Massachusetts, which has the highest rate of autistic adults in the country.
Prevalence of autism among children is notably higher as a proportion of the population in California than in any other state where data are available.
Moreover, Asian–American children are much more likely to be diagnosed with it than non-Latino Caucasians. And boys are also four times more likely to have it than girls—although, anecdotally, that appears to be changing.
In fact, the very science around the disorder appears to be shifting rapidly alongside the political trade-winds as powerful forces seek to undermine America’s democratic institutions by fostering a culture of helplessness and subservience to the administrative state.
AN EPIDEMIC OF OVERDIAGNOSIS
The same has been true of other maladies—notably attention deficit disorder and depression-related conditions, for which the desired outcome of those seeking treatment is a quick-and-easy chemical panacea.
For example, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a marketing company was responsible for essentially inventing social anxiety as a disorder to help promote the newly approved drug Paxil.
Few can be blamed for wanting a clinical solution that makes life easier to bear and explains all of its unpleasantries, while removing individual agency and responsibility.
And school systems are no different.
It is highly likely that if one were to do a regression-line analysis of the rise in autism cases and other learning disabilities, there would be some correlation with the rise in school counselors referring would-be patients for the purposes of additional accommodations—untimed tests, preferred seating and the like—which are rooted in section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
With the Bush-era No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, schools suddenly became more accountable for the failures of students. Thus, in order to continue receiving government funding, it became more necessary to explain them as something other than an institutional failure.
While parents of an earlier era may have looked at the autism diagnosis as a setback—consigning their kids to remedial-education classes and the dreaded short bus—it quickly became a palatable way to excuse any sort of student underperformance or behavioral concern.
And for ultra-engaged helicopter parents, it was only right that their child be given every available advantage to succeed in life, including designating them as “disabled” to receive a so-called 504 plan.
The burden (and blame) then shifts to the teacher who fails (or refuses) to let an unmotivated or otherwise unprepared student be spoon-fed the expected results.
AMERICA’S ‘CRUTCH’ ADDICTION
In the two decades since the uptick in autism cases was first noted, the excuses have continued to snowball.
Thus, we now find ourselves in a pharmaceutical culture on steroids—and Ritalin, Prozac, Paxil and every other “performance-enhancing” crutch of a drug.
Full-grown adults now take to Reddit and TikTok to recount their harrowing journey as autism survivors and wear their infirmities as a badge of pride.
Terms like “autism masking,” “autism assimilation” and “autism burnout” offer easy cover for why they are perfectly capable of functioning in society when they so choose.
Of course, those afflicted also are demanding accommodations from their workplaces—and even from their social relationships.
“The link between autism and gender dysphoria, and queerness as a whole, is well-established,” wrote MSNBC columnistEric Garcia in a recent column about Georgia’s ban on transgender surgeries for minors. “Transgender and gender-diverse adults are more likely to be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.”
In both cases, it may boil down to the extrinsic influence of our society, and a need for otherwise unproductive people to feel validated:
Is there an actual uptick in the number of afflicted people due to the broader acceptance and media representation opening closet doors everywhere? Or is the contrived push to force transgenderism and autism into the mainstream actually indoctrinating those who otherwise would identify as “normal,” by telling them there is something special and unique about divergency, be it sexual deviancy or neurodiversity?
TOXIC SNOWFLAKES
There is an inherent harm in allowing those who are not really afflicted with a serious condition to believe that they are—or in broadening the definition to include a larger swath of the population for the sake of political correctness.
There are, to be sure, low-functioning autistic individuals who clearly need extra compassion and support, etc., etc. And there are people who clearly suffer from gender dysphoria and should be given every available option to treat this disorder.
But a growing number of those who claim to be afflicted are, in fact, exploiting these disorders to advance a clear political agenda, and in the process victimizing those with whom they claim to be seeking solidarity.
As is the case with another overused “ism”—the word racism—it may simply be that the concept of autism over time ceases to have any meaning whatsoever.
And there is an even greater problem when that abuse of a false medical condition provides the cover needed to excuse socially unacceptable—and sometimes criminal—behavior.
In the wake of Monday’s shooting involving a high-functioning autistic who also happened to be transgender, it is worth asking whether our overdiagnosis culture may continue to have grim implications by failing to stigmatize and/or flag anti-social behaviors that might manifest in more violent and dangerous ways.
I have been telling you for a long time that left wing trans extremists are violent, dangerous people who have made been to feel absolutely entitled to say and do whatever they want. The deranged claims of “genocide” are an open invitation to violence. It will get worse from here
While transgenderism finally opened the door for your average white, middle-class, often heterosexual individual to identify as part of an oppressed and marginalized group, it takes a certain level of commitment that not everyone is willing to endure.
By contrast, neurodiversity can be readily self-diagnosed by anyone at any time.
In his screed about the Georgia transgender law, Garcia cited a “study” by the journal Autism with a population of 21 autistic adults reporting on their experiences.
“Being autistic is like everybody else has got the rulebook and you didn’t, so you can understand why gender would come into it because that was in the rulebook you do not get,” said one participant.
In a world where leftists are aggressively seeking to reframe every cultural institution and convention as part of an oppressive “construct” in order to pull a Marxist bait-and-switch on America’s democratic system, convincing an easily pliable population that breaking rules is their biological birthright may be the greatest coup of all.
(Ken Silva, Headline USA) On Oct. 1, 2017, an unidentified woman took a taxi to Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip—but she decided not to attend the concert, apparently because “things didn’t feel right.”
Soon thereafter, the deadliest mass shooting in American history took place.
The woman’s premonition about the shooting was revealed in newly released FBI records about the deadly event. The woman’s identity is redacted from the memo.
According to the heavily redacted FBI memo, the woman in question may have seen gunman Stephen Paddock at Mandalay Bay, where he was allegedly staying.
“At some point during her visit, [REDACTED] saw a man with an unusually large bag. [REDACTED] advised that the bag looked like it may have contained sports equipment or a portable massage table,” states the FBI memo, which is dated Oct. 5, 2017.
“[REDACTED] could not remember where or when she saw the bag or any details about the man who possessed it. [REDACTED] did not see anything else out of place or unusual while at the Mandalay Bay hotel. [REDACTED] took a cab to the country music concert on 10/01/2017, but when she arrived ‘things didn’t feel right’ and she decided not to attend.”
The memo doesn’t elaborate on the woman’s trip or why she may have felt uneasy immediately before the Las Vegas shooting began, killing 60 people.
The FBI memo’s release comes more than five years after media reports of a mysterious woman who had been telling concertgoers, “You’re all going to fucking die,” minutes before shooting started.
“There was a lady who came running up behind us in the concert and she started to play with people’s hair acting crazy and she told us that we’re all going to fucking die. She said they’re all around us and we were going to die. She was Hispanic, probably about 5 feet 5 [inches tall], brown hair. It felt like she had knowledge of what was about to happen, her and her boyfriend who was also Hispanic,” concert attendee Brianna Hendricks reportedly told the Daily Mail in 2017.
“The woman was saying her boyfriend couldn’t breathe so they could get through the crowd. It seemed she was telling us to either warn us or she was part of it, and she was telling us because she knew we were going to die. It was so scary.”
The FBI memo about the woman’s premonition is not the only head-scratching record included in the newly released document about the shooting. As Headline USA reported first last week, other records detail rumors that Paddock had been a psych patient.
However, most media outlets have concentrated on records about a possible motive for Paddock’s killing spree: some $38,000 in gambling losses—a dubious reason, considering that Paddock was reportedly a multimillionaire.
After the FBI released the records about this last week, local police responded by calling it “unprofessional” for the FBI to publish the new information without first notifying the Metropolitan Police Department.
“It will be very damaging to the 22,000 people that attended the concert, the victims of the family members that were lost and the survivors,” Kelly McMahill, a retired deputy chief, reportedly told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “There is still no known motive five years later, and LVMPD would never hide a potential motive from any of our victims.”
