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DeSantis to sign executive order allowing parents to defy school mask mandates

Natalie Prieb
The Hill
Fri, 30 Jul 2021 14:25 UTC
Ron DeSantis
© AFP / Joe Raedle
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Friday said he will sign an executive order to "protect the rights of parents" and allow them to choose whether their children should wear masks even if their school requires them to do so.

"In Florida, there will be no lockdowns, there will be no school closures, there will be no restrictions and no mandates in the state of Florida," DeSantis said.

The governor cited a Brown University study that found no connection between case rates and mask mandates at schools. Critics have said that study was centered on schools in smaller communities that reopened earlier in the pandemic and is now outdated, according to WPLG, which reported on the DeSantis decision.

Comment: DeSantis finds himself in the precarious position of having to fight people's trumped-up irrational fear with logic and reason. It's not an enviable position.

See also:

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Light Saber

Beijing warns UK as Royal Navy enters disputed South China Sea, occurred 2 days before US incursion in Taiwan Strait

Danielle Sheridan
The Telegraph
Fri, 30 Jul 2021 23:52 UTC
HMS Queen Elizabeth
© LPhot Unaisi Luke/Ministry of Defence/Crown Copyright
The Royal Navy's carrier strike group is led by the flagship HMS Queen Elizabeth
Beijing has blasted Britain for sending the HMS Queen Elizabeth carrier strike group into the South China Sea, threatening action if it does not "remain restrained and obey the rules".

In a terse warning, an editorial in state newspaper the Global Times made clear that Beijing wouldn't hesitate to make an example out of Britain - "to execute one as a warning to a hundred".


Comment: China wouldn't be reckless, but it will take decisive action if left with no other option; similar to how Russia recently drove a British air-defence destroyer ship out of Crimean waters with warning shots after a deliberately provocative incursion by the Royal Navy.


"China is likely to escalate its attempts to expel the warships at any time. In the future, stopping such intrusive behavior that violates China's territorial waters is a struggle China is destined to intensify."

Comment: See also: Manila claims nearly 300 Chinese militia vessels have swarmed Philippines-held islands in latest incursion

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Mr. Potato

Woketopia: New Zealand plans to ban transgender 'conversion therapy'

Tess McClure
The Guardian
Thu, 29 Jul 2021 23:36 UTC
Jacinda Ardern
© Fiona Goodall/Getty Images
Clown world: New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern opens the 2018 Pride Parade in Auckland. Wellington has announced plans to ban gay conversion therapy.
New Zealand has introduced legislation to ban conversion practices, saying the practice is harmful and has "no place in modern New Zealand".

Conversion therapy refers to the practice, often by religious groups, of trying to "cure" people of their sexuality, gender expression, or LGBTQI identity.


Comment: What deceptive nonsense. Notice the "often." By including it, they capitalize on liberal rejections of religious viewpoints. But so-called conversion therapy is much wider than that. This will apply to any therapist that even hints that maybe their patient isn't REALLY transgender. It will require therapists to simply accept their patients' self-diagnosis, no matter how misguided or wrong.


"Those who have experienced conversion practices talk about ongoing mental health distress, depression, shame and stigma, and even suicidal thoughts," the minister of justice, Kris Faafoi, said as he introduced the legislation on Friday. "Conversion practices have no place in modern New Zealand. They are based on the false belief that any person's sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression is broken and in need of fixing."


Comment: Sometimes it IS broken and need of fixing. Pedophiles (who are victims of pedophiles as children). Rapid onset gender dysphoria, a psychogenic mental illness. There are more examples than that, of course, but according to these clowns sexual or gender problems are never the result of psychopathology.


The legislation makes it an offence to perform conversion practices on anyone aged under 18, or with impaired decision-making capacity, with a sentence of up to three years' imprisonment. It also makes it an offence to perform conversion practices that cause "serious harm," irrespective of age. That carries a sentence of up to five years' imprisonment.


Comment: Under 18 is when transgender kids need help the most. This will prevent them from getting it. State-enforced child abuse, plan and simple.


Conversion therapy is legal is many parts of the world, including the UK and many states in the US. A report by the United Nations Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity found conversion practices caused "significant loss of self-esteem, anxiety, depressive syndrome, social isolation, intimacy difficulty, self-hatred, shame and guilt, sexual dysfunction, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder."
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Bizarro Earth

Israel calls for harsh response over attack on tanker in Oman, blames Iran despite lack of evidence

Lisa Barrington
Reuters
Fri, 30 Jul 2021 12:30 UTC
oil tanker
© Reuters / Morteza Nikoubazl
FILE PHOTO. An oil tanker pictured in Assaluyeh seaport at the Persian Gulf.
A Briton and a Romanian were killed when an Israeli-managed petroleum product tanker came under attack on Thursday off the coast of Oman, the company said on Friday, in an incident that Israel's foreign minister blamed on Iran and said deserved a harsh response.

There were varying explanations for what happened to the Mercer Street, a Liberian-flagged, Japanese-owned ship, with Israeli-owned Zodiac Maritime describing the incident as "suspected piracy" and a source at the Oman Maritime Security Center as an accident that occurred outside Omani territorial waters.

Iran and Israel have traded accusations of attacking each other's vessels in recent months and Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said he had told Britain's foreign secretary of the need for a tough response to the incident in which two crew members, one British and the other Romanian, were killed.

Comment: See also:

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Chess

A new Great Game is afoot in Afghanistan as China hosts the Taliban and eyes a key role in the country's future


RT
Fri, 30 Jul 2021 16:06 UTC
Taliban china
© Li Ran/Xinhua via AP
In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, left, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi pose for a photo during their meeting in Tianjin, China, Wednesday, July 28, 2021.
The inviting of a delegation from the Taliban Islamic fundamentalist group to Beijing this week has raised eyebrows across the world. Is China being clever, or does it face grave dangers on entering the "graveyard of empires"?

China this week took the highly unusual step of hosting a delegation from the Taliban in Beijing for talks, as concerns rise about the future of Afghanistan, amidst growing fighting and a massive offensive by the Islamist group against the government, whose days are increasingly seen as numbered.


Comment: Pepe Escobar reports that the Taliban claims they didn't take every town by force, they were welcomed by citizens who mistrust the Kabul administration.


Comment: See also: Russia's about-face on Syria's Idlib is the opening gambit of a larger diplomatic chess game

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Chess

Russia & China expanding yuan share in mutual trade, pushing out US dollar - Chinese Ambassador to Russia


RT
Fri, 30 Jul 2021 20:16 UTC
yuan
© Reuters / Jason Lee
The share of the Chinese currency in trade between Russia and China has increased, as the countries boost efforts to move away from the US dollar in response to Washington's sanctions policies, according to a top Chinese diplomat.

The yuan's share in the countries' bilateral trade rose from 3.1% in 2014 to 17.5% in 2020, Chinese Ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui told news agency Interfax.

According to Zhang, Russia has been steadily following a policy of de-dollarization of foreign trade, expanding the use of Chinese currency for buying financial products denominated in the renminbi and using it as a reserve currency over recent years. He added that the yuan has been gaining recognition from the Russian government, enterprises, and investors.
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Star of David

Another Israeli spy story: When will it end?

Philip Giraldi
Strategic Culture
Thu, 29 Jul 2021 00:00 UTC
Protest Budapest
© Marton Monus/Reuters
Protest against the Hungarian government for using Pegasus spyware to monitor journalists, opposition leaders and activists in Budapest.
It is perhaps not necessary to point out how the mainstream media in the United States as well as in Europe and Oceania persist in ignoring or otherwise covering up stories that make the Israelis look bad. Recent accounts of the slaughter of children and mostly civilians in Gaza by Israeli planes, missiles and artillery consistently try to depict the conflict as warfare between two comparable opponents, ignoring the enormous disparity in the military force available to the two sides. Israel has a modern army, air force and navy while Hamas has nothing but some small arms as well as improvised rockets and incendiary balloons.

The reluctance to criticize Israeli behavior is largely attributable to the power of the Zionist lobbies in the respective countries but it is also at least in part due to the complicity of Western governments in conniving at the Jewish state's actions in its own region. The persistence in Israeli demands for war against Iran, preferable fought by the United States, was clear again this past week when the new government in Jerusalem declared that it would be increasing its military budget in anticipation of war with the Islamic Republic. Perhaps not surprisingly, the U.S. Congress also has several bills pending that would increase military assistance to Israel by a factor of three.

Comment: Israel is allowed to continue and expand its spy operation unabated. It defies logic - unless we consider its infiltration into the decision-making power structures within many governments. What we 'know' is merely the tip of the problem. And, that is its hedge.

See also:

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Syringe

Biden orders plans for mandatory COVID vaccination for military personnel

Brittany Bernstein
National Review
Thu, 29 Jul 2021 04:53 UTC
Biden
© Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times
US President Joe Biden remarks on COVID vaccination mandates
President Biden announced Thursday that he has instructed military officials to craft a plan for making COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for service personnel.

"I think it's going to happen," Biden said of a military vaccine mandate during remarks at the White House.

He said it was only a question of when.

The news comes as Biden also announced that all federal employees will be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or face weekly or twice weekly testing as well as mask mandates and distancing rules in the workplace.

"After months and months of cases going down, we're seeing a spike in COVID cases," Biden said in remarks at the White House. "Why? Because of this new form, this new variant called the delta variant."

The new rules for federal employees will affect more than 4 million Americans.
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Briefcase

GOP senators request subpoenas for CDC and HHS for documents regarding school reopening coordination

Nicholas Sherman
Just the News
Thu, 29 Jul 2021 09:26 UTC
Senators Johnson and Peters
© RealClearPolitics screenshot/Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP/KJN
Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) • Senator Gary Peters (D-MI)
A group of GOP Senators led by Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson sent a letter on Thursday to Democrat Sen. Gary Peters, the chairman of the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, requesting that he initiate issuing subpoenas requesting information regarding school reopening guidance and coordination, plus unredacted copies of Dr. Anthony Fauci's emails.

The letter comes after the group sent two previous letters to the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health requesting the information.

The first letter was dated May 19, 2021, in which Sens. Rand Paul, James Lankford, and Josh Hawley requested all documents related to coordination between the CDC, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association regarding the drafting of federal school reopening guidance.

The senators alleged that the documents provided to them were only "a small subset of records that it had already made public through the Freedom of Information Act," stating that "these records contained the exact same FOIA markings as the public documents."

Comment: See also:

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Padlock

Biden administration signals it is willing to return to lockdowns, school closures if recommended by CDC


The Daily Wire
Thu, 29 Jul 2021 00:00 UTC
Karine Jean-Pierre
© Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre
The Biden administration signaled during Thursday's White House press briefing that it is willing to return to lockdowns and school closures if the CDC and other experts recommend those strategies for stopping the spread of COVID-19.

Fox News reporter Peter Doocy said:
"President Biden says that we are not returning to lockdowns, shutdowns, and school closures, but he also once said that we didn't have to wear masks anymore once we were vaccinated. So why should Americans trust him now?"
Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded:
"Well, because we listen to the scientists, we listened to the expert[s]. This is a public health situation. This is not about politics at all. This is about saving lives. And this is what the president is all about. He wants to make sure that we are saving lives. If you look at ... the last six months, that's what he's done, every day. And you see that in the numbers. Now we're at a point where we have to double down and make it very, very clear to people that we can't, we can't let the pandemic win, we have to continue to fight."

Comment: Blinding...isn't it? No thought whatsoever.

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