Author Archives: Everette Hatcher III

My name is Everette Hatcher III. I am a businessman in Little Rock and have been living in Bryant since 1993. My wife Jill and I have four kids (Rett 24, Hunter 22, Murphey 16, and Wilson 14).

6 Key Takeaways From Devon Archer’s Testimony About Joe and Hunter Biden

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Devon Archer walking through a doorway

The Biden “brand” provided “signals, and those signals are basically used as currency” for advancing Hunter Biden’s business interests, according to his former business partner, Devon Archer. Pictured: Archer arrives for closed-door testimony with the House Oversight Committee at the O’Neill House Office Building on July 31, 2023, in Washington, D.C. Republicans asked Archer if President Joe Biden was involved in business dealings with his son during his time as vice president. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

A U.S. vice president, a Russian oligarch’s widow, and a Greek Orthodox priest walk into a cafe. 

That’s not the opening line of a joke; it’s part of the story told from the transcript of Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Devon Archer, in a closed-door interview with members and counsel of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. 

The transcript is 141 pages and covers much of his answers previously reported about what Archer said of the “brand” that then-Vice President Joe Biden lent to son Hunter’s various business ventures

Here are some key takeaways from the transcript. 

 

1. ‘Signals Are Basically Used as Currency’

Archer said at several points in the testimony that the Biden “brand”  was sending “signals” to business partners. 

“There are particular, you know, objectives that Burisma was trying to accomplish,” Archer said. “And a lot of it’s about opening doors, you know, globally in D.C. And I think that, you know, that was the, you know—and then obviously having those doors opened, you know, sent the right signals, you know, for Burisma to, you know, carry on its business and be successful.” 

At one point, Biden defender Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., asked Archer: “The scope of what he [Hunter Biden] can and cannot do and that he cannot intervene directly with domestic policymakers and needs to abide by FARA [the Foreign Agents Registration Act] and any other U.S. laws in the strictest sense across the board. Was that your understanding of both his approach and Burisma’s understanding, as well?”

Archer replied: “The first part of the statement, yes, I think Burisma was constantly looking for more, and it kind of speaks a little bit to that other email that we used as an exhibit earlier where it’s, like, we’re going to use my dad’s thing and take credit for it. There was an element that he was always trying to avoid that but at the same time trying to prove value. So, it was this element of, like, signals.”

At another point in the interview, the committee’s counsel pressed him on how much influence Hunter Biden had on federal policy. 

“I have no basis to understand what his father and his conversations were about policy in Ukraine,” Archer said. “But, as you can see, that seems pretty familiar, that, you know, he can’t influence it but take credit for it. I mean, that was—it’s literally the back and forth between the last exhibit and this exhibit. That’s what goes on. People send signals, and those signals are basically used as currency.” 

2. ‘The Brand’

Archer routinely said that Joe Biden was “the brand” that allowed Hunter Biden to haul in investors. 

Jacob Greenberg, the oversight committee’s majority counsel, asked, “You keep saying ‘the brand,’ but by ‘brand,’ you mean the Biden family, correct?”

“Correct,” Archer said. 

Later, Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., interjected, “When you say ‘Biden family’—sorry to cut in here—I just want to get a clarification. You aren’t talking about Dr. Jill [Biden] or anybody else? You’re talking about Joe Biden. Is that fair to say?” 

Archer replied, “Yeah, that’s fair to say.”

He followed with, “Listen, I think it’s—I don’t think about it as, you know, Joe directly, but it’s fair. That’s fair to say. Obviously, that brought the most value to the brand.”

3. Burisma Survival and ‘Intimidation’

Archer told the committee that Burisma likely wouldn’t survive without the Biden brand. 

“My only thought is that I think Burisma would have gone out of business if it didn’t have the brand attached to it,” Archer said. “That’s my, like, only honest opinion. But I have no basis for any—never heard any conversations.”

According to an FBI form, FD-1023, Burisma executives told a confidential informant they paid a $5 million bribe to the then-vice president and another $5 million to Hunter Biden. 

Goldman, the New York congressman and staunch Biden ally, followed with: “But that’s different than Joe Biden’s action.” 

Archer said, “Right.”

Goldman said, “You’re just talking about that Hunter was on the board.” 

Archer replied, “Right. And I think that’s why it [Burisma] was able to survive for as long as it did.”

Goldman asked, “Because of additional capital or—”

Archer corrected him, “Just because of the brand.”

Goldman seemed to become snippy, replying, “Well, I don’t understand. How does that have an impact?” 

Archer told the New York Democrat, “Well, the capabilities to navigate D.C. that they were able to, you know, basically be in the news cycle. And I think that preserved them from a, you know, from a longevity standpoint. That’s like my honest—that’s like really what I—that’s like how I think holistically.”

Goldman asked, “But how would that work?”

Archer answered, “Because people would be intimidated to mess with them.” 

Goldman asked, “In what way?”  

Archer answered, “Legally.”

As far as a legal matter, in 2018, Biden boasted during a speech that he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine unless the government fired Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma at the time. Biden has argued that Shokin was a corrupt prosecutor. 

4. Burisma and ‘Help From DC’

The counsel asked about a dinner at the Four Seasons with Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky and Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma. 

During this meeting, at a time when the company was under investigation by Shokin, they asked Hunter Biden to make phone calls.  

“The request was I think they were getting pressure and they requested Hunter, you know, help them with some of that pressure,” Archer said. 

“What pressure?” the majority counsel asked. 

“Government pressure on their—you know, government pressure from Ukrainian government investigations into Mykola, etc.,” Archer said. “But it was not—it wasn’t like a specific—not a specific request. It was just we were sitting there at the Four Seasons having, you know, coffee and there was—there was Mykola, there was one of the managers for the Four Seasons who managed that property, Vadym.”

Archer said that Shokin wasn’t the only concern, as the company was facing problems with Britain, the United States, and Mexico. 

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, asked, “The request from Mr. Mykola Zlochevsky and Vadym to Mr. Biden and/or if you said it was to you, the request for help from whom to deal with what pressure?”

Archer answered there wasn’t a specific “the big guy can help” reference. 

Joe Biden has become known as “the big guy” in several Hunter Biden communications. 

“The request—you know, basically the request is like, can D.C. help? But there were not—you know, I’m not going to—there were not—it wasn’t like—there weren’t specific, you know, can the big guy help? It was—it’s always this amorphous, can we get help in D.C.?” 

Biggs later asked, “Why do you think they were asking Hunter Biden for D.C. help?” 

Archer answered, “Well, I mean, he was a lobbyist and an expert and obviously he carried, you know, a very powerful name. So, I think it was—that’s what they were asking for.”

5. Dinner Guest Joe Biden and Money Wires

Then-Vice President Biden attended dinners with Hunter Biden’s foreign business partners who wired money to various Biden family-associated companies, according to Archer. 

The committee’s majority counsel asked about a spring 2014 dinner at Cafe Milano in Washington. 

Archer named individuals present, which included Yelena Baturina, a billionaire and the widow of former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov.

“And so, this dinner takes place in spring of 2014, approximately. But then do you recall getting a wire on February 14th of 2014 from Yelena Baturina for $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca Thornton?” the majority counsel asked. 

Archer clarified that it was to Rosemont Seneca Thornton, one of his business operations with Hunter Biden.  

“Yes. And why I remember that is from the—from other testimony. Yes.”

The majority counsel also noted a wire transfer with Rosemont Seneca and Kenes Rakishev, a businessman associated with the Malta company Novitas Holdings, PTE Ltd. 

“Why did Rosemont Seneca Bohai receive this $142,000 payment from Rakishev?” the counsel asked. 

Archer replied, “It was for a car.”

The counsel followed, “For whose car?”

Archer said, “For Hunter’s car.”

The counsel asked, “Was this a Porsche?”

Archer wasn’t sure. 

“It gets a little foggy here. I believe it was a Fisker first and then a Porsche. But it was—yes, it … for an expensive car, yes.” 

He was also asked about another dinner at Cafe Milano the following year in spring 2015 that Joe Biden attended with Hunter Biden business associates, as well as with a Greek Orthodox priest. 

“What did Joe do at that dinner? Did he have dinner? How long was he there?” the counsel asked. 

Archer answered, “He had dinner. And there was—on that one, I believe the first one was, like, a birthday dinner, and then the second was—I think we were supposed to talk about the World Food Programme. So there was some talk about that.” 

6. Speakerphone Meetings

Archer said that Hunter Biden “would sometimes make it apparent that he spoke to his dad, and sometimes he put him on speaker.”

“If I were to just call my dad right now and put him on speakerphone and we’re in a professional business meeting here, would that be odd to you?” the majority counsel asked. 

“That would be odd, if you called your dad right now,” Archer said. 

After additional questions, Archer explained about the calls, “That is a little odd. I mean, it’s not odd—I mean, it’s quite obvious what we’re talking around.”

The counsel asked, “You are talking around it, and so I’d like to get out, what are we talking about here?”

“At the end of the day, part of what was delivered is the brand. I mean, it’s like anything, you know, if you’re Jamie Dimon’s son or any CEO,” Archer said. “You know, I think that that’s what we’re talking about, is that there was brand being delivered along with other capabilities and reach … I think ‘brand’ is the best way to describe it.”

Archer went on to note that business associates in the meeting were impressed that the then-vice president joined by speaker phone. 

“I think everybody remains, you know, cool and calm like it was, you know—and then probably called their friends and family and said that they spoke to him,” Archer said. “But, you know, the reaction—I don’t have any specifics of, like, people jumping up and giving high-fives, but I think it was, you know, a signal that, you know, they respected and thought it was of value.” 

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com, and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

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Hunter Biden used dad Joe as leverage in China business dispute: text message

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Lunden RobertsClinton Lancaster, an attorney for Lunden Roberts, ripped the 53-year-old Hunter in a 12-page discovery motion filed Thursday in Independence County, Arkansas.Lunden Roberts/Facebook

First son Hunter Biden warned a Chinese business associate in a 2017 text message that dad Joe and his political allies would “make certain … that you will regret not following my direction” while negotiating a six-figure business deal.

The July 30, 2017 WhatsApp missive from Hunter to Henry Zhao was revealed to the House Ways and Means Committee last month by IRS supervisory agent Gary Shapley and made public Thursday.

“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” Hunter Biden wrote Zhao, the director of Harvest Fund Management, according to Shapley.

“Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight,” the now-53-year-old went on. “And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction.”

“I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father,” Hunter reiterated to conclude the stunning message.

<img class=”i-amphtml-intrinsic-sizer” role=”presentation” src=”data:;base64,” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” />First son Hunter Biden
First son Hunter Biden used his father as leverage while negotiating a six-figure business deal with a Chinese associate in 2017.
President Biden
Hunter threatened in a text message that his associate would “regret not following my direction” as he was “sitting” in the same room with now-President Biden, according to IRS criminal investigators.
AP

An August 2020 search warrant revealed the exchange between Hunter and Zhao, which resulted in $100,000 payment to the 53-year-old’s firm Owasco P.C., the whistleblowers said.

The IRS investigators alleged Justice Department prosecutors denied their requests to look further into Hunter’s texts or obtain their location data — and that DOJ attorneys suggested the first son may have been lying about his father being in the room with him.

Shapley singled out Delaware Assistant US Attorney Lesley Wolf as one of the prosecutors who shut down their probe of a multimillion-dollar deal Hunter, first brother James Biden and their associate Rob Walker cashed in on with China’s CEFC Energy, saying “she did not want to ask questions about ‘dad.’”

IRS supervisory agent Gary Shapley
IRS supervisory agent Gary Shapley (above) and another whistleblower made the stunning admission as part of transcribed interviews that took place over the past two months before the House Ways and Means Committee.
CBS Evening News

“When multiple people in the room spoke up and objected that we had to ask, she responded, there’s no specific criminality to that line of questioning,” Shapley said in recounting a Dec. 3, 2020, meeting with US Attorney David Weiss’ team — less than a month after Biden had won the presidential election.

The comment rankled the IRS and FBI agents who were present, all of whom “tried to skirt AUSA Wolf’s direction,” he added.

Hunter and James Biden received $4.8 million from CEFC Energy in 2017 and 2018, The Washington Post confirmed when reviewing the contents of the first son’s abandoned laptop

President Biden and Hunter Biden
The whistleblowers alleged Justice Department prosecutors denied their requests to look further into Hunter’s texts or obtain their location data.
AP

A May 2017 email about the deal showed the partnership would include a percentage stake of “10 held by H for the big guy,” who has separately been identified as Joe Biden by ex-Hunter associates Tony Bobulinski and James Gilliar.

When quizzed about the “big guy” email, written by Gilliar, Walker told investigators on Dec. 8, 2020: “I think that maybe James was wishful thinking or maybe he was just projecting that, you know, if this was a good relationship and this was something that was going to happen, the VP was never going to run [for president], just protecting that, you know, maybe at some point he would be a piece of it, but he was more just, you know — it looks terrible, but it’s not. I certainly never was thinking at any time the VP was a part of anything we were doing.”

However, according to Shapley, Walker later recalled a CEFC meeting where Joe Biden “stopped in, just said hello to everybody. I don’t even think he drank water. I think Hunter Biden said, ‘I may be trying to start a company or try to do something with these guys and could you?’ And I think he was like, ‘If I’m around,’ and he’d show up.”

In Shapley’s retelling, an FBI agent quizzing Walker asked: “”So you definitely got the feeling that that was orchestrated by Hunter Biden to have like an appearance by his dad at that meeting just to kind of bolster your chances at making a deal work out?”

<img class=”i-amphtml-intrinsic-sizer” role=”presentation” src=”data:;base64,” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” />Henry Zhao
Zhao, who is a Communist Party official, invested in Hunter’s firm Bohai Harvest RST Equity Investment Fund Management Co., also known as BHR Partners, which the first son cofounded with other Chinese entities in 2013.

“Sure,” Walker reportedly said.

“Any times when he was in office? Or did you hear Hunter Biden say that he was setting up a meeting with his dad with them while dad was still in office?”

“Yes,” Walker replied again.

“And, inexplicably, the FBI agent changed the subject,” Shapley recalled.

Zhao, who is a Communist Party official, invested in Hunter’s firm Bohai Harvest RST Equity Investment Fund Management Co., also known as BHR Partners, which the first son cofounded with other Chinese entities in 2013 — 12 days after he joined then-Vice President Biden for a trip aboard Air Force Two to Beijing.

<img class=”i-amphtml-intrinsic-sizer” role=”presentation” src=”data:;base64,” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” />Rob Walker speaks to the NY Post
Shapley singled out Delaware Assistant US Attorney Lesley Wolf as one of the prosecutors who shut down their probe of a multimillion-dollar deal Hunter, first brother James Biden and their associate Rob Walker (pictured above).
DANIEL WILLIAM MCKNIGHT

During the trip, Biden met the firm’s CEO, Jonathan Li, in China’s capital. The 80-year-old president has since written college recommendation letters for Li’s children.

Hunter Biden as recently as 2021 held a 10% stake in BHR Partners, which holds nearly $2.2 billion in assets, but the White House has refused to answer questions about his current holdings.

Business records show Hunter remains invested. His attorney, Chris Clark, maintains he sold the funds.

The whistleblowers told Ways and Means Committee members that their team pressed for felony charges against Hunter Biden for ducking $2.2 million in back taxes, but were ignored by federal prosecutors.

First son Hunter Biden
Hunter pleaded guilty Tuesday for having twice failed to pay taxes on roughly $3 million he earned in 2017 and 2018.
Ouzounova / Shutterstock

They also said the Department of Justice refused to let Weiss file tax charges against the first son in the District of Columbia and Southern California — going against sworn testimony by Attorney General Merrick Garland that the US attorney had “full authority” to do so.

What do you think? Post a comment.

Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said Thursday that the whistleblowers’ testimony also showed Hunter’s deals came from “Ukraine, Romania and China totaling $17.3 million from 2014 to 2019,” with the first son having “personally received $8.3 million.”

Hunter pleaded guilty Tuesday for having twice failed to pay taxes on roughly $3 million he earned over 2017 and 2018. He has also agreed to a pretrial diversion program to dodge a felony gun conviction for purchasing a firearm while addicted to crack cocaine.

Hunter Biden appears in Arkansas court for hearing in child support case of 4-year-old daughter

Hunter Biden pays $20K a month to Navy Joan Roberts’ mother, attorney claims during Batesville, Arkansas, court hearing

Hunter Biden appeared in person in an Arkansas courtroom Monday for a hearing in the child support case of his unclaimed 4-year-old daughter born out of wedlock. 

Lunden Roberts, the mother of 4-year-old Navy Joan Roberts, had reached an agreement with Hunter Biden in 2020 regarding the child’s paternity and child support payments. 

The case was reopened when Biden requested adjustments to the child support payments. In December, Roberts’s lawyers filed a motion to have the girl’s last name changed to Biden. 

During Monday’s hearing, Biden’s new attorney, Abbe Lowell, said the president’s son is paying $20,000 a month to the plaintiff. 

HUNTER BIDEN ORDERED TO APPEAR IN-PERSON FOR ARKANSAS PATERNITY CASE HEARING FOR UNCLAIMED 4-YEAR-OLD-DAUGHTER

Independence County Circuit Judge Holly Meyer set deadlines for attorneys to submit discovery and begin depositions. 

“I expect this case to move,” she said. “So get it done.” 

In court, Biden appeared to blankly stare ahead and had no interaction with Roberts. 

Hunter Biden

Hunter Biden must appear in person for an Arkansas paternity case.(Getty images)

Roberts’ family sat behind her along with Garrett Ziegler, whom Biden’s other attorney, Brent Langdon, described during a hearing last week as a potential expert witness in the case involving the contents of Biden’s laptop, which reportedly includes some income-tax records. 

The judge on Monday said the ability to redact information is “being abused” by the Biden team. 

Langdon cited last week’s Daily Mail article on the case, claiming it included redacted information in violation of a protective order in exposing income-tax records. Meyer disagreed and said what the press comes up with is out of her control, remarking, “I can’t gag the whole world.” 

Roberts’ attorney, Clint Lancaster, told the court he has not talked to Daily Mail, explaining to Ziegler the doom and gloom that would come on him if he discussed the case. 

BLINKEN AND WIFE EMAILED FREQUENTLY WITH HUNTER BIDEN, RAISING QUESTIONS ABOUT ROLE IN LAPTOP COVER STORY 

From the Biden team, Lancaster requested information on the value of Biden’s art, the president son’s salary/employment for past 5 years, estates/funds from foreign persons/domestic persons/family members, flight/hotel payments, the reason for a promissory note from top Hollywood lawyer, Kevin Morris, and documents on business done with a Chinese firm. 

In response, Langdon claimed his team has already turned over more than 490 documents. Biden’s attorney also requested Roberts’ tax returns, information on “fringe benefits” from her employer father, bank statements and Ziegler’s witness statements. 

The deadline for discovery was set for May 12 at 5 p.m. 

Ziegler’s deposition is to take place on May 22 at Lancaster’s office in Little Rock. 

A status conference hearing will be held on May 23 to address discovery requests, any contempt filings, and a potential request to push back trial date. Deposition for both parties and witnesses will take place from June 13-16 at Lancaster’s office. 

As of now, the trial start date is still set for July 24. 

In a January 2020 order, Meyer declared “with near scientific certainty” that Biden is the father of the girl, referred to in court documents as “Baby Doe,” following a DNA test. 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The girl was born in August 2018, and a paternity suit was initially filed in May 2019.

President Biden has refused to acknowledge the granddaughter born out of wedlock. Last Christmas season, first lady Jill Biden hung stockings for six of their grandchildren at the White House, excluding Navy. Those recognized were Naomi, 27, Finnegan, 21, Maisy, 20, Natalie, 17, Robert Hunter Biden II, 15, and little Beau, 1. 

Fox News’ Lindsey Reese contributed to this report. 

“I think retaliatory conduct against whistleblowers is unacceptable. They serve a very, very important role in our system,” FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies Thursday during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

FBI Director Christopher Wray referred to “malign foreign influence with, potentially, public corruption” during a Senate committee hearing Thursday where participants described Hunter Biden’s alleged misconduct in overseas business dealings in a hypothetical manner. 

When asked specifically about the case of President Joe Biden’s son, Wray described it as an “ongoing investigation that I expect our folks to pursue aggressively.”

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, raised the Hunter Biden issue early in the hearing by talking about efforts—reported by FBI whistleblowers—to close down an investigation into the president’s son ahead of the 2020 presidential election. 

“In August 2020, the FBI supervisory intelligence analysts opened an assessment. This August 2020 assessment served as a vehicle by which the FBI headquarters team falsely labeled Hunter Biden information as you-know-what disinformation,” Grassley said, referring to partisan Democrats’ claim of Russian interference in the election.

 

“In October 2020, an avenue of reporting on Hunter Biden was ordered closed,” the Iowa Republican added. “That Hunter Biden information related to potential criminal activity. According to whistleblowers, the reporting was either verified or verifiable, via criminal search warrants. But it was shut down on the basis of it being at risk of disinformation.”

Grassley asked Wray about “politically exposed” individuals involved with allegedly improper or illegal foreign financial transactions. 

“I’m not asking about a case here. … If the FBI received information that foreign persons had evidence of improper or unlawful financial payments paid to elected officials or other politically exposed persons, would that pose a national security concern?” Grassley asked the FBI director. 

Wray stressed that it would depend on the facts and circumstances of the individual case. 

“The kind of conduct you’re describing is typically something we would look at very closely through our efforts at malign foreign influence. It starts to shade into a blend of what we call malign foreign influence with, potentially, public corruption, and it’s something we take seriously,” Wray said.  

The hearing came a week after Grassley wrote a letter to Wray and his boss, Attorney General Merrick Garland, about reports from whistleblowers who reported on politicized efforts by the FBI to suppress a probe of Hunter Biden, and falsely characterize anything negative about the president’s son as “Russian disinformation.”

U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss is leading an investigation into Hunter Biden’s foreign business deals, conducted both while his father was vice president and afterward. Federal prosecutors are looking at possible charges over taxes and lying to investigators, according to recent news reports. 

 “What steps should the FBI take to vet or more fully investigate evidence of improper or unlawful financial payment paid to elected officials and other politically exposed persons?” Grassley asked.

Wray replied: “There could be an assessment. There could be an investigation. There could be any number of steps that would be taken to make sure that there is not a national security risk.” 

To date, the younger Biden has not been charged with anything.

During the question-and-answer session between Grassley and Wray, both seemed to support protecting whistleblowers. 

“Do you agree that any retaliatory conduct against whistleblowers must be disciplined?” the Iowa lawmaker said. 

Wray responded: “I think retaliatory conduct against whistleblowers is unacceptable. They serve a very, very important role in our system.”

After information about Hunter Biden’s foreign business activities in Ukraine, Russia, China, and other countries surfaced in 2019, two Senate committee chairmen at the time—Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and Grassley on Judiciary—opened an investigation in 2020. 

“In August 2020, Sen. Johnson and I received an unsolicited and unnecessary briefing from the FBI. This briefing reportedly was related to our [Hunter] Biden investigation. In the end, the briefing had nothing to do with it,” Grassley said, adding:

The briefing was instituted after the FBI received pressure from my Democrat colleagues to do just that. The content of that briefing [was] later leaked in order to falsely paint the Grassley-Johnson investigation as advancing you-know-what Russian disinformation.

That briefing was held the very same month the FBI opened the assessment that was used to label Hunter Biden’s information as you-know-what disinformation. Considering the timing of events, the timing draws very serious concern. The FBI’s credibility is on the line.

By contrast, Grassley said, the FBI greenlighted a long investigation into then-President Donald Trump and “Russian collusion” with his presidential campaign based on scant evidence. Yet the bureau closed down a probe of Hunter Biden, he said. 

Later in the hearing, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., asked about the two cases. 

“Americans look at what they perceive to be, and I think rightly so, a ton of money that was wasted on the Russia collusion investigation. So, do you agree that the allegation of secret collusion between President Trump and Russia was a hoax?”

Wray responded, “I don’t think that’s the terminology I would use.”

Blackburn then asked, “Do you agree that the Hunter Biden laptop was not Russia disinformation?”

Wray replied: “Now you are asking about an ongoing investigation that I expect our folks to pursue aggressively, and I can’t comment on that.”

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

 

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left undermines America width=

The left praises democracy when elected but claims the right will destroy democracy when it loses. Pictured: Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton discusses the 2016 election during her 2017 book tour. (Photo: Bastiaan Slabbers, NurPhoto/Getty Images)

Recently, Democrats have been despondent over President Joe Biden’s sinking poll numbers. His policies on the economy, energy, foreign policy, the border, and COVID-19 all have lost majority support.

As a result, the left now variously alleges that either in 2022, when it expects to lose the Congress, or in 2024, when it fears losing the presidency, Republicans will “destroy democracy” or stage a coup.

A cynic might suggest that those on the left praise democracy when they get elected, only to claim it is broken when they lose. Or they hope to avoid their defeat by trying to terrify the electorate. Or they mask their own revolutionary propensities by projecting them onto their opponents.

After all, who is trying to federalize election laws in national elections contrary to the spirit of the Constitution? Who wishes to repeal or circumvent the Electoral College? Who wishes to destroy the more than 180-year-old Senate filibuster, the over 150-year-old nine-justice Supreme Court, and the more than 60-year-old 50-state union?

Who is attacking the founding constitutional idea of two senators per state?

The Constitution also clearly states that “When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside.” Who slammed through the impeachment of former President Donald Trump without a presiding chief justice?

Never had a president been either impeached twice or tried in the Senate as a private citizen. Who did both?

The left further broke prior precedent by impeaching Trump without a special counsel’s report, formal hearings, witnesses, and cross-examinations.

Who exactly is violating federal civil rights legislation?

New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in December decided to ration new potentially lifesaving COVID-19 medicines, partially on the basis of race, in the name of “equity.”

The agency also allegedly used racial preferences to determine who would be first tested for COVID-19. Yet such racial discrimination seems in direct violation of various title clauses of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

That law makes it clear that no public agency can use race to deny “equal utilization of any public facility which is owned, operated, or managed by or on behalf of any State or subdivision thereof.” Who is behind the new racial discrimination?

In summer 2020, many local- and state-mandated quarantines and bans on public assemblies were simply ignored with impunity—if demonstrators were associated with Black Lives Matter or protesting the police.

Currently, the Biden administration is also flagrantly embracing the neo-Confederate idea of nullifying federal law.

The Biden administration has allowed nearly 2 million foreign nationals to enter the United States illegally across the southern border—in hopes they will soon be loyal constituents.

The administration has not asked illegal entrants either to be tested for or vaccinated against COVID-19. Yet all U.S. citizens in the military and employed by the federal government are threatened with dismissal if they fail to become vaccinated.

Such selective exemption of lawbreaking non-U.S. citizens, but not millions of U.S. citizens, seems in conflict with the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

After entering the United States illegally, millions of immigrants are protected by some 550 “sanctuary city” jurisdictions. These revolutionary areas all brazenly nullify immigration law by refusing to allow federal immigration authorities to deport illegal immigrant lawbreakers.

At various times in our nation’s history—1832, 1861-65, and 1961-63—America was either racked by internal violence or fought a civil war over similar state nullification of federal laws.

In the last five years, we have indeed seen many internal threats to democracy.

Hillary Clinton hired a foreign national to concoct a dossier of dirt against her presidential opponent. She disguised her own role by projecting her efforts to use Russian sources onto Trump. She used her contacts in government and media to seed the dossier to create a national hysteria about “Russian collusion.” Clinton urged Biden not to accept the 2020 result if he lost, and herself claimed Trump was not a legitimately elected president.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has violated laws governing the chain of command. Some retired officers violated Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice by slandering their commander in chief. Others publicly were on record calling for the military to intervene to remove an elected president.

Some of the nation’s top officials in the FBI and intelligence committee have misled or lied under oath either to federal investigators or the U.S. Congress, again, mostly with impunity.

All these sustained revolutionary activities were justified as necessary to achieve the supposedly noble ends of removing Trump.

The result is Third World-like jurisprudence in America aimed at rewarding friends and punishing enemies, masked by service to social justice.

We are in a dangerous revolutionary cycle. But the threat is not so much from loud, buffoonish, one-day rioters on Jan. 6. Such clownish characters did not for 120 days loot, burn, attack courthouses and police precincts, cause over 30 deaths, injure 2,000 policemen, and destroy at least $2 billion in property—all under the banner of revolutionary justice.

Even more ominously, stone-cold sober elites are systematically waging an insidious revolution in the shadows that seeks to dismantle America’s institutions and the rule of law as we have known them.

(C)2022 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation. 

 

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

The Honorable Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Washington D.C.

Dear Representative Adam Kinzinger, 

I noticed that you are a pro-life representative that has a long record of standing up for unborn babies! It was in the 1970’s when I was first introduced to the works of Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop and I wanted to commend their writings and films to you.

I recently read about your impressive pro-life record:

Washington, DC – Today, Congressman Adam Kinzinger (IL-16) joined his House Republican colleagues in a press conference urging Democratic leadership to allow a vote on the Born Alive protections. The proposal would protect babies who survive abortion and provide them with the same medical care that any other premature baby would receive. Yesterday, the Democrats blocked the proposed legislation—for the 17th time—from coming before the House for a vote.

Joining the Congressman and House Republican leaders at the press conference this morning was Jill Stanek, an Illinois nurse and pro-life advocate who has witnessed the devastating realities of these pro-abortion laws. The Illinois legislature is currently debating two abortion bills, similar to the extreme pro-abortion agendas in New York and Virginia. 

It seems you have a grudge against President Trump while our freedoms under President Biden are being taken away. I recommend to you the article below:

The January 6 Insurrection Hoax

 • Volume 50, Number 9 • Roger Kimball

Roger Kimball
Editor and Publisher, The New Criterion

Mr. Kimball concludes his article with these words: 

That’s one melancholy lesson of the January 6 insurrection hoax: that America is fast mutating from a republic, in which individual liberty is paramount, into an oligarchy, in which conformity is increasingly demanded and enforced.

Another lesson was perfectly expressed by Donald Trump when he reflected on the unremitting tsunami of hostility that he faced as President. “They’re after you,” he more than once told his supporters. “I’m just in the way.”

 

Bingo.

You can google and get Roger Kimball article “The January 6 Insurrection Hoax”

NOW WHAT DID YOU DO TO TURN YOUR BACK ON OUR LIBERTY AND PERPETUATE THE HOAX THAT JANUARY 6TH WAS AN INSURRECTION? Read below!! 

9 Republicans voted to hold Trump aide Bannon in contempt of Congress

There were a few Republicans Thursday who surprised observers when they voted in support of holding former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress and referring him to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution.

Prior to the vote, four Republicans were considered a lock to approve the criminal referral, according to Capitol Hill sources: Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Fred Upton of Michigan and Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio.

Cheney and Kinzinger are on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and have for months stood alone as the only two House Republicans willing to speak out against former President Donald Trump’s continued lies about the 2020 election. They were the only two House Republicans to vote for the formation of the select committee on June 30.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi formed the select committee after Republicans rejected a bipartisan commission that would have been evenly split between five Democrats and five Republicans. Only 35 Republicans voted for that measure when itpassed the House of Representatives, and it was defeated by a GOP filibuster in the Senate.

WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 27:  (L-R) Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) arrive for the House Select Committee hearing investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol on July 27, 2021 at the Canon House Office Building in Washington, DC. Members of law enforcement will testify about the attack by supporters of former President Donald Trump on the U.S. Capitol. According to authorities, about 140 police officers were injured when they were trampled, had objects thrown at them, and sprayed with chemical irritants during the insurrection. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
 
More

Upton has served in the House for more than three decades, since 1987, and will face a primary challenge next year because of his willingness to stand up to Trump.

Gonzalez is retiring from Congress next year, after only four years in the House. “While my desire to build a fuller family life is at the heart of my decision, it is also true that the current state of our politics, especially many of the toxic dynamics inside our own party, is a significant factor in my decision,” Gonzalez said in September when heannounced he would not seek another term.

 

The remaining five Republicans included three who voted for impeachment — Peter Meijer of Michigan, John Katko of New York and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington — and two House Republicans who did not vote to impeach Trump: Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.

Do you realize that Americans rights are being taken away from them and would you like an example? I am going to quote Mr. Kimball again.  You can google and get Roger Kimball article “The January 6 Insurrection Hoax”

Trump seems never to have discerned what a viper’s nest our politics has become for anyone who is not a paid-up member of The Club. 

Maybe Trump understands this now. I have no insight into that question. I am pretty confident, though, that the 74 plus million people who voted for him understand it deeply. It’s another reason that The Club should be wary of celebrating its victory too expansively. 

Friedrich Hayek took one of the two epigraphs for his book, The Road to Serfdom, from the philosopher David Hume. “It is seldom,” Hume wrote, “that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.” Much as I admire Hume, I wonder whether he got this quite right. Sometimes, I would argue, liberty is erased almost instantaneously.

I’d be willing to wager that Joseph Hackett, confronted with Hume’s observation, would express similar doubts. I would be happy to ask Mr. Hackett myself, but he is inaccessible. If the ironically titled “Department of Justice” has its way, he will be inaccessible for a long, long time—perhaps as long as 20 years. 

Joseph Hackett, you see, is a 51-year-old Trump supporter and member of an organization called the Oath Keepers, a group whose members have pledged to “defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.” The FBI does not like the Oath Keepers—agents arrested its leader in January and have picked up many other members in the months since. Hackett traveled to Washington from his home in Florida to join the January 6 rally. According to court documents, he entered the Capitol at 2:45 that afternoon and left some nine minutes later, at 2:54. The next day, he went home. On May 28, he was apprehended by the FBI and indicted on a long list of charges, including conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, destruction of government property, and illegally entering a restricted building. 

As far as I have been able to determine, no evidence of Hackett destroying property has come to light. According to his wife, it is not even clear that he entered the Capitol. But he certainly was in the environs. He was a member of the Oath Keepers. He was a supporter of Donald Trump. Therefore, he must be neutralized.

Joseph Hackett is only one of hundreds of citizens who have beenbranded as “domestic terrorists” trying to “overthrow the government” and who are now languishing, in appalling conditions, jailed as political prisoners of an angry state apparat.

Let me recommend that you read this letter below from Senator Ron Johnson and his colleagues:

Sen. Johnson and Colleagues Request Answers from DOJ on Unequal Application of Justice to Protestors

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), along with senators Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), sent a letter on Monday to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting information on the unequal application of justice between the individuals who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, and those involved in the unrest during the spring and summer of 2020. The senators sent 18 questions to the attorney general on what steps the DOJ has taken to prosecute individuals who committed crimes during both events, and requested a response by June 21.

“Americans have the constitutional right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances,” the senators wrote. “This constitutional right should be cherished and protected. Violence, property damage, and vandalism of any kind should not be tolerated and individuals that break the law should be prosecuted. However, the potential unequal administration of justice with respect to certain protestors is particularly concerning.”

The full text of the letter can be found here and below.

June 7, 2021 

The Honorable Merrick B. Garland

Attorney General

U.S. Department of Justice

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20530

Dear Attorney General Garland:

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is currently dedicating enormous resources and manpower to investigating and prosecuting the criminals who breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. We fully support and appreciate the efforts by the DOJ and its federal, state and local law enforcement partners to hold those responsible fully accountable.

We join all Americans in the expectation that the DOJ’s response to the events of January 6 will result in rightful criminal prosecutions and accountability.  As you are aware, the mission of the DOJ is, among other things, to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.  Today, we write to request information about our concerns regarding potential unequal justice administered in response to other recent instances of mass unrest, destruction, and loss of life throughout the United States. 

During the spring and summer of 2020, individuals used peaceful protests across the country to engage in rioting and other crimes that resulted in loss of life, injuries to law enforcement officers, and significant property damage.[1]  A federal court house in Portland, Oregon, has been effectively under siege for months.[2]  Property destruction stemming from the 2020 social justice protests throughout the country will reportedly result in at least $1 billion to $2 billion in paid insurance claims.[3] 

                In June 2020, the DOJ reportedly compiled the following information regarding last year’s unrest:

  • “One federal officer [was] killed, 147 federal officers [were] injured and 600 local officers [were] injured around the country during the protests, frequently from projectiles.”[4]
  • According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), “since the start of the unrest there has been 81 Federal Firearms License burglaries of an estimated loss of 1,116 firearms; 876 reported arsons; 76 explosive incidents; and 46 ATF arrests[.]”[5]

Despite these numerous examples of violence occurring during these protests, it appears that individuals charged with committing crimes at these events may benefit from infrequent prosecutions and minimal, if any, penalties.  According to a recent article, “prosecutors have approved deals in at least half a dozen federal felony cases arising from clashes between protesters and law enforcement in Oregon last summer. The arrangements — known as deferred resolution agreements — will leave the defendants with a clean criminal record if they stay out of trouble for a period of time and complete a modest amount of community service, according to defense attorneys and court records.”[6]       

                DOJ’s apparent unwillingness to punish these individuals who allegedly committed crimes during the spring and summer 2020 protests stands in stark contrast to the harsher treatment of the individuals charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.  To date, DOJ has charged 510 individuals stemming from Capitol breach.[7]  DOJ maintains and updates a webpage that lists the defendants charged with crimes committed at the Capitol.  This database includes information such as the defendant’s name, charge(s), case number, case documents, location of arrest, case status, and informs readers when the entry was last updated.[8]  No such database exists for alleged perpetrators of crimes associated with the spring and summer 2020 protests.  It is unclear whether any defendants charged with crimes in connection with the Capitol breach have received deferred resolution agreements.

Americans have the constitutional right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances.  This constitutional right should be cherished and protected.  Violence, property damage, and vandalism of any kind should not be tolerated and individuals that break the law should be prosecuted.  However, the potential unequal administration of justice with respect to certain protestors is particularly concerning.  In order to assist Congress in conducting its oversight work, we respectfully request answers to the following questions by June 21, 2021:  

Spring and Summer 2020 Unrest:

  1. Did federal law enforcement utilize geolocation data from defendants’ cell phones to track protestors associated with the unrest in the spring and summer of 2020?  If so, how many times and for which locations/riots?  
  1. How many individuals who may have committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020 were arrested by law enforcement using pre-dawn raids and SWAT teams?
  1. How many individuals were incarcerated for allegedly committing crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020? 
  1. How many of these individuals are or were placed in solitary confinement?  What was the average amount of consecutive days such individuals were in solitary confinement?
  1. How many of these individuals have been released on bail?
  1. How many of these individuals were released on their own recognizance or without being required to post bond?
  1. How many of these individuals were offered deferred resolution agreements?[9]
  1. How many DOJ prosecutors were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
  1. How many FBI personnel were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?

January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol Breach:

  1. Did federal law enforcement utilize geolocation data from defendants’ cell phones to track protestors associated with the January 6, 2021 protests and Capitol breach?  If so, how many times and how many additional arrests resulted from law enforcement utilizing geolocation information?
  2. How many individuals who may have committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach were arrested by law enforcement using pre-dawn raids and SWAT teams?
  1. How many individuals are incarcerated for allegedly committing crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
  1. How many of these individuals are or were placed in solitary confinement?  What was the average amount of consecutive days such individuals were in solitary confinement?
  1. How many of these individuals have been released on bail?
  1. How many of these individuals have been released on their own recognizance or without being required to post bond?
  1. How many of these individuals were offered deferred resolution agreements?
  1. How many DOJ prosecutors have been assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
  1. How many FBI personnel were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach?

Sincerely,

Ron Johnson

United States Senator

Tommy Tuberville

United States Senator

Mike Lee                                                            

United States Senator

Rick Scott

United States Senator

Ted Cruz

United States Senator

###


[1] Jennifer Kingson, Exclusive: $1 billion-plus riot damage is most expensive in insurance history, Axios, Sept. 16, 2020, https://www.axios.com/riots-cost-property-damage-276c9bcc-a455-4067-b06a-66f9db4cea9c.html.

[2] Conrad Wilson and Jonathan Levinson, Protesters, federal officers clash outside Portland’s courthouse Thursday, OPB, Mar. 12, 2021, https://www.opb.org/article/2021/03/12/protesters-vandalize-portlands-federal-courthouse-again/.

[3] Jennifer Kingson, Exclusive: $1 billion-plus riot damage is most expensive in insurance history, Axios, Sept. 16, 2020, https://www.axios.com/riots-cost-property-damage-276c9bcc-a455-4067-b06a-66f9db4cea9c.html.

[5] Id.

[6] Josh Gerstein, Leniency for defendants in Portland clashes could affect Capitol riot cases, Politico, Apr. 14, 2021, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/14/portland-capitol-riot-cases-481346.

[7] Madison Hall et al., 493 people have been charged in the Capitol insurrection so far. This searchable table shows them all., Insider, accessed June 4, 2021, https://www.insider.com/all-the-us-capitol-pro-trump-riot-arrests-charges-names-2021-1.

[8] Capitol Breach Cases, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, accessed May 21, 2021, https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases?combine=&order=title&sort=asc.

[9] Josh Gerstein, Leniency for defendants in Portland clashes could affect Capitol riot cases, Politico, Apr. 14, 2021, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/14/portland-capitol-riot-cases-481346.

—-

I want to recommend to you a video on YOU TUBE that runs 28 minutes and 39 seconds by Francis Schaeffer entitled because it discusses the founding of our nation and what the FOUNDERS believed: 

How Should We Then Live | Season 1 | Episode 5 | The Revolutionary Age

Thank you for your time, and again I want to thank you for your support of the unborn little babies!

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, 13900 Cottontail Lane, AR 72002, cell 501-920-5733, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org

——————————————————————————————

——

Dr. Francis schaeffer How Should We Then Live | Season 1 | Episode 5 | The Revolutionary Age

 

– Whatever happened to human race? PART 1 Co-authored by Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop)

C. Everett Koop
C. Everett Koop, 1980s.jpg
 
13th Surgeon General of the United States
In office
January 21, 1982 – October 1, 1989

Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 2 | Slaughter of the Innocents

Francis Schaeffer – Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 3 | Death by Someone’s Choice

Mr. Hentoff with the clarinetist Edmond Hall in 1948 at the Savoy, a club in Boston.

Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 4 | The Basis for Human Dignity 

Image<img class=”i-amphtml-blurry-placeholder” src=”data:;base64,Edith Schaeffer with her husband, Francis Schaeffer, in 1970 in Switzerland, where they founded L’Abri, a Christian commune.

________________

______________________

March 23, 2021

President Biden c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. I know that you don’t agree with my pro-life views but I wanted to challenge you as a fellow Christian to re-examine your pro-choice view. Although we are both Christians and have the Bible as the basis for our moral views, I did want you to take a close look at the views of the pro-life atheist Nat Hentoff too.  Hentoff became convinced of the pro-life view because of secular evidence that shows that the unborn child is human. I would ask you to consider his evidence and then of course reverse your views on abortion.

___________________

The pro-life atheist Nat Hentoff wrote a fine article below I wanted to share with you.

Nat Hentoff is an atheist, but he became a pro-life activist because of the scientific evidence that shows that the unborn child is a distinct and separate human being and even has a separate DNA. His perspective is a very intriguing one that I thought you would be interested in. I have shared before many   cases (Bernard Nathanson, Donald Trump, Paul Greenberg, Kathy Ireland)    when other high profile pro-choice leaders have changed their views and this is just another case like those. I have contacted the White House over and over concerning this issue and have even received responses. I am hopeful that people will stop and look even in a secular way (if they are not believers) at this abortion debate and see that the unborn child is deserving of our protection.That is why the writings of Nat Hentoff of the Cato Institute are so crucial.

In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented  against abortion (Episode 1),  infanticide (Episode 2),   euthanasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close look at the truth claims of the Bible.

Francis Schaeffer

__________________________

I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video below. It is very valuable information for Christians to have.  Actually I have included a video below that includes comments from him on this subject.

Francis Schaeffer Whatever Happened to the Human Race (Episode 1) ABORTION

_____________________________________

 

Dr. Francis schaeffer – from Part 5 of Whatever happened to human race?) Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 5 | Truth and History

Dr. Francis Schaeffer – A Christian Manifesto – Dr. Francis Schaeffer Lecture

Francis Schaeffer – A 700 Club Special! ~ Francis Schaeffer 1982

Dr. Francis Schaeffer – 1984 SOUNDWORD LABRI CONFERENCE VIDEO – Q&A With Francis & Edith Schaeffer

________________

Jewish World Review June 12, 2006/ 16 Sivan, 5766

 

Insisting on life

http://www.NewsandOpinion.com | A longtime friend of mine is married to a doctor who also performs abortions. At the dinner table one recent evening, their 9-year-old son — having heard a word whose meaning he didn’t know — asked, “What is an abortion?” His mother, choosing her words carefully, described the procedure in simple terms.

“But,” said her son, “that means killing the baby.” The mother then explained that there are certain months during which an abortion cannot be performed, with very few exceptions. The 9-year-old shook his head. “But,” he said, “it doesn’t matter what month. It still means killing the babies.”

Hearing the story, I wished it could be repeated to the justices of the Supreme Court, in the hope that at least five of them might act on this 9-year-old’s clarity of thought and vision.

The boy’s spontaneous insistence on the primacy of life also reminded me of a powerful pro-life speaker and writer who, many years ago, helped me become a pro-lifer. He was a preacher, a black preacher. He said: “There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of a higher order than the right to life.

“That,” he continued, “was the premise of slavery. You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore out of your right to be concerned.”

This passionate reverend used to warn: “Don’t let the pro-choicers convince you that a fetus isn’t a human being. That’s how the whites dehumanized us … The first step was to distort the image of us as human beings in order to justify what they wanted to do — and not even feel they’d done anything wrong.”

That preacher was Jesse Jackson. Later, he decided to run for the presidency — and it was a credible campaign that many found inspiring in its focus on what still had to be done on civil rights. But Jackson had by now become “pro-choice” — much to the appreciation of most of those in the liberal base.

The last time I saw Jackson was years later, on a train from Washington to New York. I told him of a man nominated, but not yet confirmed, to a seat on a federal circuit court of appeals. This candidate was a strong supporter of capital punishment — which both the Rev. Jackson and I oppose, since it involves the irreversible taking of a human life by the state.

I asked Jackson if he would hold a press conference in Washington, criticizing the nomination, and he said he would. The reverend was true to his word; the press conference took place; but that nominee was confirmed to the federal circuit court. However, I appreciated Jackson’s effort.

On that train, I also told Jackson that I’d been quoting — in articles, and in talks with various groups — from his compelling pro-life statements. I asked him if he’d had any second thoughts on his reversal of those views.

Usually quick to respond to any challenge that he is not consistent in his positions, Jackson paused, and seemed somewhat disquieted at my question. Then he said to me, “I’ll get back to you on that.” I still patiently await what he has to say.

As time goes on, my deepening concern with the consequences of abortion is that its validation by the Supreme Court, as a constitutional practice, helps support the convictions of those who, in other controversies — euthanasia, assisted suicide and the “futility doctrine” by certain hospital ethics committees — believe that there are lives not worth continuing.

Around the time of my conversation with Jackson on the train, I attended a conference on euthanasia at Clark College in Worcester, Mass. There, I met Derek Humphry, the founder of the Hemlock Society, and already known internationally as a key proponent of the “death with dignity” movement.

He told me that for some years in this country, he had considerable difficulty getting his views about assisted suicide and, as he sees it, compassionate euthanasia into the American press.

“But then,” Humphry told me, “a wonderful thing happened. It opened all the doors for me.”

“What was that wonderful thing?” I asked.

“Roe v. Wade,” he answered.

The devaluing of human life — as the 9-year-old at the dinner table put it more vividly — did not end with making abortion legal, and therefore, to some people, moral. The word “baby” does not appear in Roe v. Wade — let alone the word “killing.”

And so, the termination of “lives not worth living” goes on.

 

______________________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband. Now after presenting the secular approach of Nat Hentoff I wanted to make some comments concerning our shared Christian faith.  I  respect you for putting your faith in Christ for your eternal life. I am pleading to you on the basis of the Bible to please review your religious views concerning abortion. It was the Bible that caused the abolition movement of the 1800’s and it also was the basis for Martin Luther King’s movement for civil rights and it also is the basis for recognizing the unborn children.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733,

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Al Mohler on Kermit Gosnell’s abortion practice

Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ Picture of Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith from the 1930′s above. I was sad to read about Edith passing away on Easter weekend in 2013. I wanted to pass along this fine […]

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part U “Do men have a say in the abortion debate?” (includes the film SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS and editorial cartoon)

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Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part D “If you can’t afford a child can you abort?”Francis Schaeffer Quotes part 4 includes the film ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE) (editorial cartoon)

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SANCTITY OF LIFE SATURDAY “AngryOldWoman” blogger argues that she has no regrets about past abortion

Sometimes you can see evidences in someone’s life of how content they really are. I saw  something like that on 2-8-13 when I confronted a blogger that goes by the name “AngryOldWoman” on the Arkansas Times Blog. See below. Leadership Crisis in America Published on Jul 11, 2012 Picture of Adrian Rogers above from 1970′s […]

 

“Sanctity of Life Saturday” The Church Awakens: Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (includes the video ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE)

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Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part G “How do moral nonabsolutists come up with what is right?” includes the film “ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE”)

I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control  and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part E “Moral absolutes and abortion” Francis Schaeffer Quotes part 5(includes the film SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS) (editorial cartoon)

I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control  and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” (Schaeffer Sundays)

E P I S O D E 1 0   Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode X – Final Choices 27 min FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence” (Schaeffer Sundays)

E P I S O D E 9 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence 27 min T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 8 “The Age of Fragmentation” (Schaeffer Sundays)

E P I S O D E 8 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VIII – The Age of Fragmentation 27 min I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 7 “The Age of Non-Reason” (Schaeffer Sundays)

E P I S O D E 7 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 6 “The Scientific Age” (Schaeffer Sundays)

E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 Uploaded by NoMirrorHDDHrorriMoN on Oct 3, 2011 How Should We Then Live? Episode 6 of 12 ________ I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 5 “The Revolutionary Age” (Schaeffer Sundays)

E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live? Episode 5: The Revolutionary Age I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 4 “The Reformation” (Schaeffer Sundays)

Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IV – The Reformation 27 min I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to […]

“Schaeffer Sundays” Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance”

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance” Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 3) THE RENAISSANCE I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 2 “The Middle Ages” (Schaeffer Sundays)

  Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 2) THE MIDDLE AGES I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard […]

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 1 “The Roman Age” (Schaeffer Sundays)

Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 1) THE ROMAN AGE   Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 487 My 11th LETTER TO HUGH HEFNER (Francis Schaeffer said that Hugh Hefner’s goal with the “playboy mentality is just to smash the puritanical ethnic.”) Featured Artist is Henry Moore

December 25, 2015

Hugh Hefner
Playboy Mansion  
10236 Charing Cross Road
Los Angeles, CA 90024-1815

Dear Mr. Hefner,

Around 50 years ago Francis Schaeffer said that Hugh Hefner’s goal with the “playboy mentality is just to smash the puritanical ethnic.” HUGH you would think that you would never get married, but a  few years ago I read about your Christmas of 2010. “Hugh Hefner Proposes to Girlfriend on Christmas Eve” by Robyn Ross | Dec 26, 2010 9:45 AM EST noted: 

Hugh Hefner gave his girlfriend a pretty good Christmas gift.

The 84-year-old Playboy founder proposed to his 24-year-old girlfriend, Crystal Harris Friday night. “I gave Crystal a ring. A truly memorable Christmas Eve,” Hefner  tweeted. “When I gave Crystal the ring, she burst into tears. This is the happiest Christmas weekend in memory.” 

Hefner later clarified that he did indeed ask Harris to marry him. “Yes, the ring I gave Crystal is an engagement ring,” he wrote. “I didn’t mean to make a mystery out of it. A very merry Christmas to all.”

HUGH not only am I glad you have embraced marriage but I am also glad that you have NOT embraced the HAPPY HOLIDAYS politically correct point of view these days. There has been such an effort to get away from even using the phrase A very merry Christmas to all.” The reason for that is very simple. There are those who don’t think that Christ has any place in our celebration of Christmas.

HUGH you seem to make a big deal out of Christmas but do you know the true meaning of Christmas. Listen to what Linus had to say in the Charlie Brown Christmas Show.

A Biblical Response to ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’

Well Done, Linus

BY CP GUEST CONTRIBUTORDecember 11, 2009|5:01 pm

(Photo: ABC)

On Tuesday, countless households tuned in to watch as Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang pondered the meaning of Christmas. I admit that I have watched the show from my youth, and have always enjoyed both the characters and the special, “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

The Christmas special, originally believed to be a failure in the minds of those bankrolling the project back in 1965, has become as much a part of “Christmas Americana” as other well known favorites like, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”

Even conservative Christians who believe the Bible to be the divinely inspired, plenary (look it up), infallible, authoritative Word of God show excitement when this favorite returns to the airwaves. How can this be, you ask, when these people are typically known for having a disdain for most things secular? I believe it all hinges on 60 seconds of footage toward the end of the cartoon.

After being terribly frustrated with the consumer mentalities around him, not to mention how badly things are going with the Christmas play, blockhead-turned-director Charlie Brown asks the pivotal question: “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?

To the credit of Charles Schulz and Bill Melendez, the show’s main creative forces, Linus responds by stepping onto the stage, and reciting Luke 2:8-14 from his King James Bible, reminding us of the true “Reason for the Season,” that being the virgin birth of the promised One, the Messiah, the Lamb of God: Jesus Christ.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

I still get shivers up and down my spine when Linus shares the gospel with his cartoon friends….We can be sure that Schulz and Melendez did all they could to bring these biblical truths to their Christmas special. Under the conditions in which they were working, it is surprising that any Scripture made it to the viewers at home. Turning people away from their “consumer Christmas” mentality, though, isn’t enough. We need to remember that, unless our loved ones understand of their great need of the Savior, and turn to faith in Christ, a fiery eternity apart from God awaits themMay we, like little Linus Van Pelt, be faithful to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to our family and friends. May we be committed to the hard thing, the uncomfortable thing – for the sake of He who was committed to the most difficult of things when He allowed Himself to be scourged and slain so that sinners might be saved – and share the Father’s wonderful plan of salvation with our loved ones this Christmas season.

WHAT IS CHRISTMAS ALL ABOUT? It is about the messiah who left heaven to live 33 years on this earth as the GOD-MAN and died for our sins. WANT SOME EVIDENCE? Take a look at this article below from Walter Kaiser, Jr.

The Promise of the Messiah

By Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.   •   November 22, 2006

In his “Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy,” J. Barton Payne itemized 127 Messianic predictions involving more than 3,000 Bible verses, with a remarkable 574 verses referring directly to a personal Messiah! My book “The Messiah in the Old Testament” examined 65 direct prophecies about the Messiah. These incredible promises formed one of the most central themes of the Old Testament: the coming Messiah.

The word Messiah or Anointed One (or in Greek, Christ), is taken from Psalm 2:2 and Daniel 9:25-26. The term took its meaning from the Jewish practice of anointing their priests and kings. But this term was applied in a special sense to the future Ruler who would be sent from God to sit on the throne of David forever. He is the One that God distinctly identified many years ahead of His arrival on earth, as Acts 3:18 affirms: “But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ [Messiah] would suffer” (NIV).

Likewise, according to 1 Peter 1:11, the Old Testament prophets predicted “the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow” (NIV). The Messiah’s coming was not a secret left in a corner, but the repeated revelation of God to His people in the Old Testament.

Here are some of the definite clues about this coming that God gave in the Old Testament:

  • The Messiah would be the seed/offspring of a woman and would crush the head of Satan (Genesis 3:15).
  • He would come from the seed/offspring of Abraham and would bless all the nations on earth (Genesis 12:3).
  • He would be a “prophet like Moses” to whom God said we must listen (Deuteronomy 18:15).
  • He would be born in Bethlehem of Judah (Micah 5:2).
  • He would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14).
  • He would have a throne, a kingdom and a dynasty, or house, starting with King David, that will last forever (2 Samuel 7:16).
  • He would be called “Wonderful Counselor,” “Mighty God,” “Everlasting Father,” “Prince of Peace,” and would possess an everlasting kingdom (Isaiah 9:6-7).
  • He would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, righteous and having salvation, coming with gentleness (Zechariah 9:9-10).
  • He would be pierced for our transgression and crushed for our iniquities (Isaiah 53:5).
  • He would die among the wicked ones but be buried with the rich (Isaiah 53:9).
  • He would be resurrected from the grave, for God would not allow His Holy One to suffer decay (Psalm 16:10).
  • He would come again from the clouds of heaven as the Son of Man (Daniel 7:13-14).
  • He would be the “Sun of Righteousness” for all who revere Him and look for His coming again (Malachi 4:2).
  • He is the One whom Israel will one day recognize as the One they pierced, causing bitter grief (Zechariah 12:10).

The prophesies about the Messiah were not a bunch of scattered predictions randomly placed throughout the Old Testament, but they form a unified promise-plan of God, where each promise is interrelated and connected into a grand series comprising one continuous plan of God. Thus, a unity builds as the story of God’s call on Israel, and then on the house of David, progresses in each part of the Old Testament.

However, this eternal plan of God also had multiple fulfillments as it continued to unfold in the life and times of Israel. For example, every successive Davidic king was at once both a fulfillment in that day as well as a promise of what was to come when Christ, the final One in the Davidic line, arrived. Each of these successive fulfillments gave confidence that what was in the distant future would certainly happen, because God was working in the fabric of history as well. And although the promise was made to specific persons, such as Eve, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David, it was cosmopolitan in its inclusiveness. What God was doing through Israel and these individuals was to be a source of blessing to all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:3).

Some insist that the Messiah whom Christians revere is not the same one that Jewish people also look forward to meeting. Some years ago, I had an opportunity to be part of a televised debate with a rabbi who is a Jewish New Testament scholar around the question, “Is Jesus the Messiah?” The rabbi explained the Jewish point of view: “Evangelicals believe the Messiah has two comings: one at Christmas and one at His second coming. We Jews believe He will only come once, at a time of peace on earth just as the prophet Zechariah declared in Zechariah 12-14. Since we still experience wars, Messiah has not yet come.”

I responded, “It says in Zechariah 12:10 that ‘They will look on me.’ Who is the one speaking here?”

He replied: “The Almighty, of course.”

I responded, “It says, ‘They will look on me, the one they have pierced.’ How did He get pierced?” He answered that he did not know. I said, “I have an idea. It was at Calvary.” He did not counter with any further argument.

The Bible is saying that on that future day of His Second Coming, Jews and Gentiles will personally see the One who was pierced for the sins of the world. In other words, that “future day” will not be the first time they have seen Him. So even the Old Testament, it turns out, anticipated two comings of the Messiah: one at His birth and another when He comes as triumphant king at His Second Coming.

What would this world be like without the Messiah? What would Christmas be like without the fulfillment of all those ancient promises and the prospect of Messiah’s coming yet once more as King of kings and Lord of lords? His arrival has made the difference between light and darkness itself. Think what His triumphal appearance once more will mean to this world. Everyone, including all of nature itself (Romans 8:20-21), will let out a burst of praise such as has never been heard: Here comes the King Himself, our Lord and our Savior! Joy to the World!

______

This was the 11th letter I have written to you in the last three months. Thank you again for your time and I know how busy you are.

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.comhttp://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221

PS: Again I have quoted you and then responded to what you have said.  If your mother (Grace Caroline Hefner) were here she would urge you to take a few moments and look up these scriptures that are cited.  You may not have become a missionary like she prayed you would but  at least you take a few moments and try to discover what the true meaning of Christmas is.

(In a handwritten note) It is obvious how  much love is in this picture below. I am glad my parents are still here to celebrate Christmas with me and I wish your parents were here for you. MERRY Christmas Hefner family from the Hatchers!!!!!

__________

Crystal and Hugh Hefner from 2015 Christmas Card

______________

______________

______________________

Moore, Henry – by H.R. Rookmaaker

Henry Moore searches for a new kind of sculptureby H.R. RookmaakerComplete control of mass, material and space Sometimes we say of a painting that ‘it doesn’t rise above the paint’, whereby we mean that the artist was unable to make us see past the medium itself – instead of seeing trees, grass and so on, we see only green and brown paint. The same kind of thing could be said about some sculptures. But the remarkable thing about the sculpture of Henry Moore is that in his work the material not only holds its value but is emphasized. The weight and the mass, the structure of the stone or wood or whatever, receive their own expressiveness and significance. That is an important facet of Henry Moore’s search for a new kind of sculpture – one that is really sculpture and not a semblance of reality. The image must remain an image, not becoming, as it were, the subject itself – which is what has sometimes threatened to be the case in the previous era. Initially Moore drew his inspiration mainly from early Mexican sculpture, which is also heavy and imposing but nevertheless has an expressiveness that makes all the later European art look sickly and frail.   After having in a similar way reinvested his material with its own natural weight, and after having giving his work a dynamically expressive power, he sets out to discover the possibilities for pure sculpture. The expression of an actual subject was largely lost, but the sculpture now ‘people’ and we get beings with heads that look like car parts or little stumps; because we see them that way (for, after all, it is impossible for one to detach oneself from the subject), they do not satisfy in the long run. Then we would prefer the completely unrecognizable pieces, for there our associations do not hinder us; or we would prefer the work in which the structure of the person as such is not affected but is rendered and represented (not imitated or copied) in a truly sculptural way. In summary, it is very difficult to evaluate Moore’s work in its entirety: sometimes it is acceptable, sometimes not; sometimes it is enjoyable and sometimes not; but we are always convinced of the great talent of this sculptor.   Published in Dutch in Trouw, 20 June 1953.   Published in English in M. Hengelaar-Rookmaaker (ed.): H.R. Rookmaaker: The Complete Works 5, Piquant – Carlisle, 2003. Also obtainable as a CD-Rom. piquanteditions.com/product_info.php

_____________

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FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 118 THE BEATLES (Why was Tony Curtis on cover of SGT PEP?) (Feature on artist Jeffrey Gibson )

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March 3, 2016 – 12:21 am

Dan Mitchell: Grading the DeSantis Economic Plan

Grading the DeSantis Economic Plan

During the 2016 presidential cycle, I graded the tax reform plans of various presidential candidates based on factors such as marginal tax rates, double taxation, and fairness.

For the 2024 cycle, candidates have been disappointingly reluctant to make specific proposals about tax policy. Heck, most of them have very little to say about economic policy in general.

So I was excited when I read that Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, was unveiling an economic plan. The good news is that he seems to favor a smaller burden of government. The bad news is that he is not very specific.

His theme is to have a Declaration of Economic Independence.

There’s a lot to like on the above list, but also some items that may cause heartburn.

But my main reaction is that we don’t see details. Even if you go to the DeSantis website, there are very few specific policy proposals (though the ones I did find – such as support for full expensing and opposition to a central bank digital currency – are admirable).

The Wall Street Journal editorialized about the DeSantis plan and found many positive features.

Mr. DeSantis’s economic plan calls for “ambitious tax and regulatory reform,” including making permanent “full immediate expensing” for businesses. Ditto for today’s tax rates on personal income. …he says he’d simplify the tax code further, while purging “K Street carveouts and loopholes.”This is the right instinct, though we await specifics. …It says Mr. DeSantis’s appointee to lead the Federal Reserve would “focus on maintaining a stable dollar instead of the political pressures of the day.” Stable money is essential to rising incomes, and GOP candidates should make it the basis for any economic program. …The plan says he’d “support school choice nationwide…” As for college, he wants to stop government subsidies for “useless degrees” by making “universities, not taxpayers, responsible for the loans their students accrue.”

But the editors also worried that the Florida governor is using populist rhetoric…and perhaps even supporting populist policies.

Sometimes Mr. DeSantis sounds like an optimistic believer in economic freedom, arguing that the way to produce broad prosperity is to get government out of the way. With the next breath, he’s a Trumpian who wants industrial policy, speaks ominously of “large corporations,” and pits the middle class against “elites.” The Governor is trying to advance conservative policy while simultaneously appealing to Mr. Trump’s base. …He needs a vision for American renewal that transcends Mr. Biden’s plans to use big government for income redistribution and Mr. Trump’s desire to use it for political “retribution.”

Probably the most disappointing feature of the DeSantis plan is that absence of any plan to restrain the burden of government spending.

My former colleague Brian Riedl is similarly frustrated (though he focuses more on red ink while I care about excessive spending).

For what it is worth, DeSantis got very high scores for fiscal policy from both the Club for Growth and the National Taxpayers Union while serving as a Congressman last decade.

So I suspect he knows what should be done(including genuine entitlement reform), but is afraid Trump will attack him from the left.

Which is strange since he has a great opportunity to attack Trump from the right by pointing out his bad track record on spending (and bad future agenda on taxes).

The Debt Limit and Long-Overdue Spending Restraint

Regarding the debt ceiling, the hysterical headlinesabout default and an economic apocalypse are silly because the Treasury Department surely will “prioritize” if Republicans and Democrats don’t reach an agreement.

The above clip was taken from an interview last week with the Soul of Enterprise.

I wasn’t intending to write about this topic, but it’s getting a lot of attention now that the deadline is approaching.

If you want to understand the real issue, there is an excellent column in the Wall Street Journal by former Senator Phil Gramm and his long-time aide, Mike Solon.

They explain that the fight is between House Republicans, who want domestic discretionary spending to grow at a slower rate and Democrats in the Senate and White House who want it to grow at a faster rate.

Here’s some of what they wrote.

Of the $5 trillion of stimulus payments between 2020 and 2022, some $362 billion has yet to be spent. The House debt-limit bill proposes to claw back $30 billion—or some 8% of the unspent balance. Only in Mr. Biden’s White House and Mr. Schumer’s Senate Democratic Caucus could such a modest proposal be considered extreme. …The most recent CBO estimate projects that fiscal 2024 discretionary spending will clock in at $1.864 trillion—a 10% real increase from the pre-pandemic estimate. …This growth in nondefense discretionary spending is the post-pandemic bow wave that Mr. McCarthy’s debt-limit plan seeks to mitigate. Even if the House GOP’s proposed reductions in discretionary-spending growth took effect, total discretionary spending would still be 2.4% more in inflation-adjusted dollars than the CBO’s 2020 projection for fiscal 2024. …A clean debt-ceiling hike would give us more government spending, and the House GOP’s proposal would allow more private spending. Only in Washington is that a hard choice.

Needless to say, I disagree with both sides. There should be deep and genuine cuts in domestic discretionary spending.

But a slower increase is better than a faster increase. And I reckon any support for fiscal restraint by Republicans is welcome after the reckless profligacy of the Trump years.

The bottom line is that fights over the debt limit are messy, but if we actually got some good policy reforms, such battles could save us from something very bad in the future.

The best way to destroy the welfare trap is to put in Milton Friedman’s negative income tax.

A Picture of How Redistribution Programs Trap the Less Fortunate in Lives of Dependency

I wrote last year about the way in which welfare programs lead to very high implicit marginal tax rates on low-income people. More specifically, they lose handouts when they earn income. As such, it is not very advantageous for them to climb the economic ladder because hard work is comparatively unrewarding.

Thanks to the American Enterprise Institute, we now have a much more detailed picture showing the impact of redistribution programs on the incentive to earn more money.

It’s not a perfect analogy since people presumably prefer cash to in-kind handouts, but the vertical bars basically represent living standards for any given level of income that is earned (on the horizontal axis).

Needless to say, there’s not much reason to earn more income when living standards don’t improve. May as well stay home and good off rather than work hard and produce.

This is why income redistribution is so destructive, not just to taxpayers, but also to the people who get trapped into dependency. Which is exactly the point made in this video.

P.S. Most of you know that I’m not a fan of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development because the Paris-based bureaucracy has such statist impulses. But even the OECD has written about the negative impact of overly generous welfare programs on incentives for productive behavior.

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Dan Mitchell: America’s Declining Fiscal Position

—-

A.F. Branco for Oct 21, 2021

America’s Declining Fiscal Position

I’m not a big fan of Moody’s, Fitch, and Standard & Poor’s.  As I explained in this 2011 interview, these credit rating firms don’t provide much insight, at least with regards to assessing whether governments can be trusted to honor their debts.

That being said, I don’t object to Fitch’s decision to reduce America’s rating from AAA to AA.

Here’s some of what the company wrote.

Fitch Ratings has downgraded the United States of America’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to ‘AA+’ from ‘AAA’. …The rating downgrade of the United States reflects the expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years,a high and growing general government debt burden, and the erosion of governance relative to ‘AA’ and ‘AAA’ rated peers over the last two decades that has manifested in repeated debt limit standoffs and last-minute resolutions. …Additionally, there has been only limited progress in tackling medium-term challenges related to rising social security and Medicare costs due to an aging population.

While I agree with the downgrade, I have a couple of observations.

  • The US is in strong shape in the short run: There is zero chance that bondholders will lose money in the next 20 years. Even if Republicans and Democrats had a bigger-than-normal fight over the debt limit, leading to some bondholders not getting paid on time, lawmakers would fully compensate them in any eventual agreement.
  • The US is in terrible shape in the long run: American politicians are grotesquely irresponsible. They mostly understand that America faces an entitlement crisis, but most of them are unwilling to address the problem. Heck, some of them want to dig the hole deeper by expanding the welfare state.
  • America’s long-run fiscal problem is bipartisan: Starting with LBJ and Nixon, politicians from both parties have expanded the burden of government. The deterioration has continued this century with two Republican presidents and two Democratic presidents pushing for more spending.

By the way, there’s little reason for future optimism. Trump and Biden attack anyone who wants to do the right thing on entitlements, so that makes it more likely that politicians eventually will compound the damage of higher spending by enacting higher taxes.

P.S. A big problem with the credit rating firms is that they seemingly think tax increases and spending restraint are equally acceptable ways of reducing red ink and improving creditworthiness. But since higher taxes lead to less growth and encourage more spending, the inevitable result is that tax increases lead to more debt. Just look at what’s happened in Europe.

 

 

The Optimistic Case for Spending Restraint, Part II

Earlier this year, speaking at the Acton Institute in Michigan, I presented an optimistic case for spending restraint.

My premise was very simple, summarized in four sentences.

  1. Spending restraint is desperately needed.
  2. Spending restraint is impossible without entitlement reform.
  3. Republicans used to be good on entitlement reform.
  4. Republicans can be good once again on the issue.

My left-leaning friends disagree about the first point, as you might expect.

My right-leaning friends, meanwhile, are skeptical about the fourth point. And I understand why since Republicans have a less-than-impressive track record on fiscal policy. Heck, they are often even worse than Democrats.

But as I explained at the Acton Institute, Republicans occasionally decide to push for good policy.

For what it’s worth, I think we may be on the verge of another one of these moments. Let’s look at the Senate, where Rand Paul has a budget plan based on spending restraint.

Here are some excerpts from a report in the Washington Examiner.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has presented an alternative plan to the recent Fiscal Responsibility Act introduced by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). Paul’s proposal comes as the agreement from McCarthy and Bidenhas drawn discontent among some Republican lawmakers, who are refusing to vote for the deal. Under Paul’s plan, the debt ceiling would be given a $500 billion increase to encourage Congress to take action on the nation’s debt sooner. Paul’s proposal also includes caps on both the sums of discretionary and mandatory spending, which would cut 5% spent every year.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that only 21 Senators voted for Paul’s proposal.

Nonetheless, that’s a base of support for sensible policy.

Now consider this story from the Hill about a budget plan by some House Republicans.

The Republican Study Committee (RSC), the largest conservative caucus in the House, …would balance the federal budget in seven years, …while also cutting spending by $16.3 trillion and taxes by $5 trillion over a decade.…It does not include any age increases for Medicare eligibility, but does include some “modest adjustments to the retirement age.” …Leaders of the caucus stressed that the proposed entitlement reforms will require bipartisan cooperation, since Social Security is set to be insolvent in 2033 and Medicare is set to be insolvent in 2031.

Does this mean every House Republican is ready to support needed spending reforms? Or that any Democrats will join them to do the right thing?

Of course not.

But, as is the case in the Senate, there is a base of support for good policy.

The bottom line is that there is zero chance of good budget policy happening while Biden is in the White House. As such, I mostly view Senator Paul’s plan, as well as the RSC plan, as opportunities for fiscally sensible lawmakers to lay the groundwork for future reform.

Which means the real issue is whether the next president prefers spending restraint or massive tax increases. And, if the next president wants to do the right thing, then we will see if the base of support in the House and Senate can be expanded to a majority.

January 31, 2021

President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

The federal government debt is growing so much that it is endangering us because if things keep going like they are now we will not have any money left for the national defense because we are so far in debt as a nation. We have been spending so much on our welfare state through food stamps and other programs that I am worrying that many of our citizens are becoming more dependent on government and in many cases they are losing their incentive to work hard because of the welfare trap the government has put in place. Other nations in Europe have gone down this road and we see what mess this has gotten them in. People really are losing their faith in big government and they want more liberty back. It seems to me we have to get back to the founding  principles that made our country great.  We also need to realize that a big government will encourage waste and corruptionThe recent scandals in our government have proved my point. In fact, the jokes you made at Ohio State about possibly auditing them are not so funny now that reality shows how the IRS was acting more like a monster out of control. Also raising taxes on the job creators is a very bad idea too. The Laffer Curve clearly demonstrates that when the tax rates are raised many individuals will move their investments to places where they will not get taxed as much.

______________________

17 Reasons the large national debt is a big deal!!!

We got to stop spending so much money and start paying off our national debt or the future of our children and grandchildren will be very sad indeed. Everyone knows that entitlement spending must be cut but it seems we are not brave enough to do it. I have contacted my Congressmen and Senators over and over but nothing is getting done!!! At least there are 66 conservative Republicans in the House that have stood up  and voted against raising the debt ceiling.

June 17, 2013 at 7:13 am

GO-Debt-Denial-rev_600

Remember the debt? That $17 trillion problem? Some in Washington seem to think it’s gone away.

The Washington Post reported that “the national debt is no longer growing out of control.” Lawmakers and liberal inside-the-Beltway organizations are floating the notion that it’s not a high priority any more.

We beg to differ, so we came up with 17 reasons that $17 trillion in debt is still a big, bad deal.

1. $53,769 – Your share of the national debt.  

As Washington continues to spend more than it can afford, every American will be on the hook for this massive debt burden.

willrogers_450

SHARE this graphic.

2. Personal income will be lower.

The skyrocketing debt could cause families to lose up to $11,000 on their income every year. That’s enough to send the kids to a state college or move to a nicer neighborhood.

3. Fewer jobs and lower salaries.

High government spending with no accountability eliminates opportunities for career advancement, paralyzes job creation, and lowers wages and salaries.

4. Higher interest rates.

Some families and businesses won’t be able to borrow money because of high interest rates on mortgages, car loans, and more – the dream of starting a business could be out of reach.

5. High debt and high spending won’t help the economy.

Journalists should check with both sides before committing pen to paper, especially those at respectable outlets like The Washington Post and The New York Times. A $17 trillion debt only hurts the economy.

6. What economic growth?

High-debt economies similar to America’s current state grew by one-third less  than their low-debt counterparts.

7. Eventually, someone has to pay the nation’s $17 trillion credit card bill, and Washington has nominated your family.

It’s wildly irresponsible to never reduce expenses, yet Washington continues to spend, refusing to acknowledge the repercussions.

>>>Watch this video to see how scary $17 trillion really is for your family.

8. Jeopardizes the stability of Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid.

Millions of people depend on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, but these programs are also the main drivers of the growing debt. Congress has yet to take the steps needed to make these programs affordable and sustainable to preserve benefits for those who need them the most.

9. Washington collects a lot, and then spends a ton. Where are your tax dollars going?

In 2012, Washington collected $2.4 trillion in taxes—more than $20,000 per household. But it wasn’t enough for Washington’s spending habits. The federal government actually spent $3.5 trillion.

>>> Reality check: See where your tax dollars really went.

10. Young people face a diminished future.

College students from all over the country got together in February at a “Millennial Meetup” to talk about how the national debt impacts their generation.

>>>Shorter version: They’re not happy. Watch now.

11. Without cutting spending and reducing the debt, big-government corruption and special interests only get bigger.

The national debt is an uphill battle in a city where politicians too often refuse to relinquish power, to the detriment of America.

12. Harmful effects are permanent.

Astronomical debt lowers incomes and well-being permanently, not just temporarily. A one-time major increase in government debt is typically a permanent addition, and the dragging effects on the economy are long-lasting.

13. The biggest threat to U.S. security.

Even President Obama’s former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff thinks so:

Mullen_450

SHARE this graphic.

14. Makes us more vulnerable to the next economic crisis.

According to the Congressional Budget Office’s 2012 Long-Term Budget Outlook, “growing federal debt also would increase the probability of a sudden fiscal crisis.”

15. Washington racked up $300 billion in more debt in less than four months.

Our nation is on a dangerous fiscal course, and it’s time for lawmakers to steer us out of the coming debt storm.

16. High debt makes America weaker.

Even Britain’s Liam Fox warns America: Fix the debt problem now, or suffer the consequences of less power on the world stage.

17. High debt crowds out the valuable functions of government.

By disregarding the limits on government in the Constitution, Congress thwarts the foundation of our freedoms.

Read the Morning Bell and more en español every day at Heritage Libertad.

_____________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733,

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By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)

RESPONDING TO HARRY KROTO’S BRILLIANT RENOWNED ACADEMICS!! Carl Sagan Part 30 My letter to Carl Sagan on August 30, 1995 and his response on December 5, 1995 concerning the relationship between secular humanism and abortion!

Below are Francis Schaeffer and his son Franky:

In 1992 I began to write skeptics letters after reading their books and articles and watching their films and I was introduced to Carl Sagan’s name by a book published in 1968 by Francis Schaeffer entitled HE IS THERE AND HE IS NOT SILENT in chapter 4!

Carl Sagan Planetary Society cropped.png

Sagan in 1980

It is my view that Carl Sagan let his evolutionary views affect the way he looked at the issue of abortion. I would like to also assert that Sagan was willing to manipulate science in order to try and reach objectives he had that didn’t fit the evidence. The tactic he uses in his article on abortion in 1990 is especially reprehensible because he is using the language of a discredited scientific notion to try and give the impression that there is a scientific reason that it is okay to abortion unborn babies. Anybody familiar with Carl Sagan’s work knows how powerful he can be with his word pictures.

Recently I have been revisiting my correspondence in 1995 with the famous astronomer Carl Sagan who I was introduced to when reading a book by Francis Schaeffer called HE IS THERE AND HE IS NOT SILENT written in 1968.

Image result for francis schaeffer

Francis Schaeffer

Francis Schaeffer in his book HE IS THERE AND HE IS NOT SILENT (Chapter 4) asserts:

Because men have lost the objective basis for certainty of knowledge in the areas in which they are working, more and more we are going to find them manipulating science according to their own sociological or political desires rather than standing upon concrete objectivity. We are going to find increasingly what I would call sociological science, where men manipulate the scientific facts. Carl Sagan (1934-1996), professor of astronomy and space science at Cornell University, demonstrates that the concept of a manipulated science is not far-fetched. He mixes science and science fiction constantly. He is a true follower of Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950). The media gives him much TV prime time and much space in the press and magazine coverage, and the United State Government spent millions of dollars in the special equipment which was included in the equipment of the Mars probe–at his instigation, to give support to his obsessive certainty that life would be found on Mars, or that even large-sized life would be found there. With Carl Sagan the line concerning objective science is blurred, and the media spreads his mixture of science and science fiction out to the public as exciting fact. 

Carl Sagan pictured below:

Carl Sagan pictured below:

__________________

When you read Sagan’s words below on abortion it reminds me of Schaeffer’s accusation of scientists like Sagan “manipulating science according to their own sociological or political desires rather than standing upon concrete objectivity.”

_______________

Carl Sagan

I mailed a letter to Carl Sagan on August 30, 1995 and it included a letter that I had published that very day in the Democrat-Gazette.

My letter to the editor to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette was published on August 30, 1995 and appeared under the title THE HUMANIST WORLD VIEW. Here is a portion of the published letter:

Image result for adrian rogers

Adrian Rogers (pictured above was my pastor in the 1970’s and 1980’s)

Adrian Rogers, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, has rightly said, “Secular Humanism and so-called abortion rights are inseparably linked together.”

The pro-abortion movement in America has benefited from support from such humanists as Lester R. Brown, James Farmer, Sol Gordon, Matthew Ies Spetter, Richard Dawkins, Kendrick Frazier, Gordon Stein and Gerald R. Larue. 

Everette Hatcher III, Little Rock, Arkansas 

In a letter from Carl Sagan dated December 5, 1995, Sagan disagreed with me concerning the close relationship between atheistic evolutionists and the abortion movement.

Thanks for your recent letter about evolution and abortion. The correlation is hardly one to one; there are evolutionists who are anti-abortion and anti-evolutionists who are pro-abortion.

I am not going to argue this point any further although I have done that elsewhere, but I want to move back to Schaeffer’s original point about Sagan. Sagan went on his December 5, 1995 letter to tell me that he was enclosing his article “The Question of Abortion: A Search for Answers”by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan. In that article you find these words below:

“By the third week . . . it looks a little like a segmented worm. By the and of the fourth week . . . it’s recognizable as a vertebrate, its tube-shaped heart is beginning to beat, something like the gill arches of a fish or an amphibian have become conspicuous, and there is a pronounced tail. It looks something like a newt or a tadpole…. By the sixth week . . . the eyes are still on the side of the head, as in most animals, and the reptilian face has connected slits where the mouth and nose eventually will be….

By the end of the eighth week the face resembles a primate’s but is still not quite human.”

Here Sagan jumps back into former evolutionary thinking and uses the discredited theory of embryonic recapitulation to lead the reader to believe that the unborn baby is not a real human for the first six months. Ken Ham does a great job of exposing this below.

Image result for ken ham

Ken Ham

ACTS & FACTS     BACK TO GENESIS    The Smartest Man in America?BY KENNETH HAM  | TUESDAY, DECEMBER 01, 1992S

If you were asked to place a vote for the person whom you considered the smartest man in your country, for whom would you vote? Perhaps the President or Prime Minister? Maybe a leading scientist? What about a Nobel Prize winner?

In an August article in Parade Magazine, readers were asked the question, Who Are the Smartest People in America?” And who did the readers vote for? None other than Carl Sagan! He was the person mentioned by the most readers.

Who is Carl Sagan? He is an astronomer and author. He was appointed Professor of Astronomy and Space Science at Cornell University in 1968. Much of his fame has been gained by popularizing science through books, magazines, and the television series “Cosmos.”

Carl Sagan is also an ardent evolutionist. In fact, he received the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction for the book The Dragons of Eden, which deals with the evolution of the human brain. Many people will be familiar with his phrase; “billions and billions of years” heard on the “Cosmos” television series.

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He is also a doctrinaire “pro-choice” advocate in regard to the issue of abortion. In Parade Magazine April 22, 1990, Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan co-authored an article in which they advocated that an embryo developing in its mother’s womb is not a real human until perhaps the sixth month of development. Thus they were insisting that babies could be aborted up until the third trimester.

The astonishing thing about this article is the so-called “scientific” justification used as a major part of the argument. What did the man voted as the “smartest man in America” say in this article?

He and his co-author used the old, discredited idea of embryonic recapitulation to assert that an embryo in its mother’s womb is not a real human for the first six months. What is this recapitulation idea?

A German scientist at the time of Darwin, Professor Ernst Haeckel, said that when an embryo develops, it passes through the various evolutionary stages that reflect its evolutionary history. As the embryo develops, it supposedly goes through a worm-like state, then a fish stage with gill slits, then an amphibian stage, and so on, until it becomes human. This view once was prevalent in biology textbooks in schools and colleges around the world. Many students became convinced of evolution because of this idea—an idea that was even illustrated with diagrams to “prove” that it was true.

Image result for Ernst Haeckel

(Ernst Haeckel pictured above)

ERNST HAECKEL
BORN Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel
16 February 1834
PotsdamKingdom of Prussia
DIED 9 August 1919 (aged 85)
JenaWeimar Republic
NATIONALITY German
ALMA MATER University of BerlinUniversity of WürzburgUniversity of Jena
AWARDS Linnean Medal (1894)
Darwin–Wallace Medal (Silver, 1908)
Scientific career
INSTITUTIONS University of Jena
AUTHOR ABBREV. (ZOOLOGY)

However, it is now a well-known fact that Haeckel doctored his illustrations to support this erroneous view. For instance, in the book The Neck of the Giraffe, by Francis Hitching (an author who is critical of Darwinian evolution but nonetheless is an evolutionist and not a creationist), the following statements are made:

“Although Haeckel’s theory fell into disrepute during the peak years of neo-Darwinist supremacy, the revival of interest in embryonic development has led a number of today’s biologists to look upon his ideas more favorably. The trouble is, Haeckel was a rogue. Time and time again, Haeckel doctored his illustrations outrageously to support his biogenetic law.” Hitching goes on to talk about Haeckel’s forgeries and deception. Haeckel even admitted that he falsified the diagrams.

What is so disturbing is that the man voted the “smartest man in America” still promotes ideas like Haeckel’s. Read what the article in Parade Magazine, co-authored by Sagan, stated concerning the developing human embryo:

“By the third week . . . it looks a little like a segmented worm. By the and of the fourth week . . . it’s recognizable as a vertebrate, its tube-shaped heart is beginning to beat, something like the gill arches of a fish or an amphibian have become conspicuous, and there is a pronounced tail. It looks something like a newt or a tadpole…. By the sixth week . . . the eyes are still on the side of the head, as in most animals, and the reptilian face has connected slits where the mouth and nose eventually will be….

By the end of the eighth week the face resembles a primate’s but is still not quite human.”

Although Sagan doesn’t mention Haeckel, this article, which is cleverly written, clearly uses Haeckel’s discredited recapitulation theory to justify abortion! Any person who had been taught recapitulation at school or college would immediately think that Sagan is also promoting Haeckel’s ideas. How sad that many thousands of people (many of them young women), will have read this article thinking that what they read from this “smart” scientist must be trustworthy. Many may even abort a baby on the basis of this misleading information.

Just for interest, I checked a medical textbook called Medical Embryology, 3rd edition, by Jan Langman. The author states: ” . . . it can no longer be said that the human embryo ever has gills. It has pharyngeal pouches. . . .”

One of the textbooks used in high schools in Australia, Biology – The Spectrum of Life, on page 208, states:”lt was once thought that the embryo’s development (ontogeny) repeated the stages of evolutionary change. We now realize that this is not so.” I am very pleased to see this change, because when I was a teacher in the public schools in Australia, the textbooks stated Haeckel’s ideas as fact. The same has been true of textbooks in American schools. (It is distressing to learn, however, that some textbooks in schools today still promote or at least suggest Haeckel’s ideas.) Many women who went through this education system may never have heard that what they were taught was wrong, and thus may have views on abortion based on false ideas. Evolutionary indoctrination (even using known false ideas) through public schooling has certainly been a powerful tool for the humanist agenda.

Why do people listen to Carl Sagan? Parade Magazine states that he is a man who has brought scientific knowledge down to earth for millions of people. Certainly, evolutionists have done a great job of popularizing their material to the public at a level they can understand. Creationists should take note of this. Evolutionists are master propagandists. Creationists have done much exciting scientific research and have tremendous challenges andanswers tothe evolutionists’ dogma; and when people hear this information, it can change their lives. We need your support more than ever before to counteract the massive evolutionary propaganda.

According to one of the readers of Parade Magazine, Sagan “seems to have answers to every question, regardless of the subject.” One of the problems in Christendom is that many Christians have not had answers to the basic questions of life because of the intense indoctrination of evolution and the lack of good teaching in our churches. But there is no excuse now! ICR and similar organizations around the world have a wealth of information available on the creation/evolution issue so that every Christian can have the knowledge and understanding to “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear” (I Peter 3:15).

And remember at this Christmas time the One who came down to be our Savior did not develop through evolutionary worm, fish, and reptile stages to become a human. Just as the first Adam was made directly by God, so the physical body for the last Adam (Jesus Christ—the eternal Creator) was made by God to develop in Mary’s womb, to be born (as the God-man), to live on Earth as a human, and to become the perfect sacrifice so that all may have the offer of eternal life with Him.

Cite this article: Kenneth Ham. 1992. The Smartest Man in America?Acts & Facts. 21 (12).

Professor Ernst Haeckel was a well known scientist and his philophical views were criticized by Francis Schaeffer!

Francis Schaeffer rightly noted where the materialistic time plus chance point of view has brought us to:

The German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872) was an early exponent of a philosophy of materialism, as was German physician Ludwig Büchner (1824–1899), whose book Force and Matter (1855) went into twenty-one editions and was translated into all the major languages. It is of more than passing interest that Richard Wagner (1813–1883), the German composer of opera, was reading Feuerbach as early as 1848. Wagner at this period of his life was deeply influenced by Feuerbach, and it was Wagner who encouraged Ludwig II of Bavaria to read Feuerbach. Thus the work of Feuerbach had its influence not only in abstract thought but also on the arts and on the state. Ernst Haeckel (1834– 1919), a biologist at the University of Jena, wrote The Riddle of the Universe at the Close of the 19th Century (1899), and it became a best-seller, too. In this work Haeckel posited that matter and energy are eternal and also assumed that the human mind or soul is to be explained on the basis of materialism. He saw where this would lead and accepted that people have no freedom of will. 

When people began to think in this way, there was no place for God or for man as man. When psychology and social science were made a part of a closed cause-and-effect system, along with physics, astronomy and chemistry, it was not only God who died. Man died. And within this framework love died. There is no place for love in a totally closed cause-and-effect system. There is no place for morals in a totally closed cause-and-effect system. There is no place for the freedom of people in a totally closed cause-and-effect system. Man becomes a zero. People and all they do become only a part of the machinery.

On November 21, 2014 I received a letter from Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto and it said:

…Please click on this URL http://vimeo.com/26991975

and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.

Harry Kroto

I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:

Arif AhmedHaroon Ahmed,  Jim Al-Khalili, Sir David AttenboroughMark Balaguer, Horace Barlow, Michael BateSir Patrick BatesonSimon Blackburn, Colin Blakemore, Ned BlockPascal BoyerPatricia ChurchlandAaron CiechanoverNoam Chomsky, Brian CoxPartha Dasgupta,  Alan Dershowitz, Frank DrakeHubert Dreyfus, John DunnBart Ehrman, Mark ElvinRichard Ernst, Stephan Feuchtwang, Robert FoleyDavid Friend,  Riccardo GiacconiIvar Giaever , Roy GlauberRebecca GoldsteinDavid J. Gross,  Brian Greene, Susan GreenfieldStephen F Gudeman,  Alan Guth, Jonathan HaidtTheodor W. Hänsch, Brian Harrison,  Stephen HawkingHermann Hauser, Robert HindeRoald Hoffmann,  Bruce HoodGerard ‘t HooftCaroline HumphreyNicholas Humphrey,  Herbert Huppert,  Gareth Stedman Jones, Steve JonesShelly KaganMichio Kaku,  Stuart KauffmanMasatoshi Koshiba,  Lawrence KraussHarry Kroto, George Lakoff,  Rodolfo LlinasElizabeth Loftus,  Alan MacfarlaneDan McKenzie,  Mahzarin BanajiPeter MillicanMarvin MinskyLeonard Mlodinow,  P.Z.Myers,   Yujin NagasawaAlva NoeDouglas Osheroff, David Parkin,  Jonathan Parry, Roger Penrose,  Saul PerlmutterHerman Philipse,  Carolyn PorcoRobert M. PriceVS RamachandranLisa RandallLord Martin ReesColin RenfrewAlison Richard,  C.J. van Rijsbergen,  Oliver Sacks, John SearleMarcus du SautoySimon SchafferJ. L. Schellenberg,   Lee Silver Peter Singer,  Walter Sinnott-ArmstrongRonald de Sousa, Victor StengerJohn SulstonBarry Supple,   Leonard Susskind, Raymond TallisMax TegmarkNeil deGrasse Tyson,  Martinus J. G. Veltman, Craig Venter.Alexander Vilenkin, Sir John Walker, James D. WatsonFrank WilczekSteven Weinberg, and  Lewis Wolpert,

<a style=”font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:auto;text-indent:0;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:auto;word-spacing:0;box-sizing:border-box;background-color:transparent;color:#c01823;text-decoration:none;margin:0;padding:0;border:0;font-size:13px;font-family:Lato, ‘Helvetica Neue’, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;transition:color 0.2s linear, background 0.1s linear, border-color 0.1s linear;text-align:left;-webkit-text-size-adjust:100%;” title=”Remember when Carl Sagan trashed Star Wars on late-night TV?” href=”https://lithub.com/remember-when-carl-sagan-trashed-star-wars-on-late-night-tv/”&gt;

Carl Sagan

nitially an associate professor at Harvard, Sagan later moved to Cornell where he would spend the majority of his career as the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences. Sagan published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books.[5] He wrote many popular science books, such as The Dragons of Eden, Broca’s Brain, Pale Blue Dot and narrated and co-wrote the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. The most widely watched series in the history of American public television, Cosmos, has been seen by at least 500 million people in 60 countries.[6] The book Cosmos was published to accompany the series. He also wrote the 1985 science fiction novel Contact, the basis for a 1997 film of the same name. His papers, containing 595,000 items,[7] are archived at The Library of Congress.[8]

Sagan advocated scientific skeptical inquiry and the scientific method, pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI). He spent most of his career as a professor of astronomy at Cornell University, where he directed the Laboratory for Planetary Studies. Sagan and his works received numerous awards and honors, including the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, the National Academy of SciencesPublic Welfare Medal, the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for his book The Dragons of Eden, and, regarding Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, two Emmy Awards, the Peabody Award, and the Hugo Award. He married three times and had five children. After suffering from myelodysplasia, Sagan died of pneumonia at the age of 62, on December 20, 1996.

In  the 1st video below in the 45th clip in this series are his words and  my response is below them. 

50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)

Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2

A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)

CARL SAGAN interview with Charlie Rose:

“…faith is belief in the absence of evidence. To believe in the absence of evidence, in my opinion, is a mistake. The idea is to hold belief until there is compelling evidence. If the Universe does not comply with our previous propositions, then we have to change…Religion deals with history poetry, great literature, ethics, morals, compassion…where religion gets into trouble is when it pretends to know something about science,”

I would respond that there is evidence that Christianity is true. The accuracy of the Bible has been confirmed by archaeology over and over in the past and one of the amazing finds was in 1948 when the Dead Sea Scrolls had copies from every Old Testament Book except Esther! One of the most powerful recent discoveries involved the bones of the high priest Caiaphas who questioned Christ in 30 AD.

Related posts:

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 52 THE BEATLES (Part D, There is evidence that the Beatles may have been exposed to Francis Schaeffer!!!) (Feature on artist Anna Margaret Rose Freeman )

______________   George Harrison Swears & Insults Paul and Yoko Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds- The Beatles The Beatles:   I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking […]

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 51 THE BEATLES (Part C, List of those on cover of Stg.Pepper’s ) (Feature on artist Raqib Shaw )

  The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA Uploaded on Nov 29, 2010 The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA. The Beatles:   I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis […]

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 50 THE BEATLES (Part B, The Psychedelic Music of the Beatles) (Feature on artist Peter Blake )

__________________   Beatles 1966 Last interview I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about them and their impact on the culture of the 1960’s. In this […]

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 49 THE BEATLES (Part A, The Meaning of Stg. Pepper’s Cover) (Feature on artist Mika Tajima)

_______________ The Beatles documentary || A Long and Winding Road || Episode 5 (This video discusses Stg. Pepper’s creation I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about […]

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE PART 48 “BLOW UP” by Michelangelo Antonioni makes Philosophic Statement (Feature on artist Nancy Holt)

_______________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: _____________________ I have included the 27 minute  episode THE AGE OF NONREASON by Francis Schaeffer. In that video Schaeffer noted,  ” Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.” How Should […]

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 47 Woody Allen and Professor Levy and the death of “Optimistic Humanism” from the movie CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS Plus Charles Darwin’s comments too!!! (Feature on artist Rodney Graham)

Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 1 ___________________________________ Today I will answer the simple question: IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE AN OPTIMISTIC SECULAR HUMANIST THAT DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GOD OR AN AFTERLIFE? This question has been around for a long time and you can go back to the 19th century and read this same […]

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE PART 46 Friedrich Nietzsche (Featured artist is Thomas Schütte)

____________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: __________ Francis Schaeffer has written extensively on art and culture spanning the last 2000years and here are some posts I have done on this subject before : Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” , episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence”, episode 8 […]

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 45 Woody Allen “Reason is Dead” (Feature on artists Allora & Calzadilla )

Love and Death [Woody Allen] – What if there is no God? [PL] ___________ _______________ How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason) #02 How Should We Then Live? (Promo Clip) Dr. Francis Schaeffer 10 Worldview and Truth Two Minute Warning: How Then Should We Live?: Francis Schaeffer at 100 Francis Schaeffer […]

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 44 The Book of Genesis (Featured artist is Trey McCarley )

___________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: ____________________________ Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race?) Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical flow of Truth & History (intro) Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of History & Truth (1) Dr. Francis Schaeffer […]

__

__

On Nov. 2, 2015, Pozharskyi emailed Hunter Biden, emphasizing that the “ultimate purpose” of the agreement to have Hunter on the board was to shut down “any cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine,” referring to Zlochevsky, who also went by Nikolay.

Devon Archer: Hunter Biden, Burisma execs ‘called DC’ to get Ukrainian prosecutor fired

Devon Archer testified for hours at the House Oversight Committee Monday

Brooke Singman

 By Brooke Singman | Fox News

Devon Archer testified Monday that Hunter Biden and top executives of Burisma Holdings “called D.C.” in 2015 to ask the Obama administration to help fire the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the firm, a source familiar with his testimony told Fox News Digital.

Archer, a former business associate and longtime friend of Hunter Biden, testified for hours before the House Oversight Committee Monday.

Archer testified that Hunter put his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, on speakerphone while meeting with business partners at least 20 times, and said Joe Biden was put on the phone to sell “the brand.” Archer was on the board of the natural gas firm along with Hunter Biden.

He also testified about an interaction in December 2015, involving Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky and Vadym Pozharski — an executive at the firm.

Archer and Hunter split image

Devon Archer, left, and Hunter Biden, right (Fox News)

Archer said Zlochevsky and Pozharski “placed constant pressure on Hunter Biden to get help from D.C.” in getting Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin ousted. Shokin was investigating Burisma for corruption.

According to the source, Archer testified that in December 2015, Hunter Biden, Zlochevsky and Pozharski “called D.C.” to discuss the matter. Archer testified that Biden, Zlochevsky and Pozharski stepped away to make the call.

It is unclear if Hunter and the Burisma executives spoke directly to Joe Biden on the matter.

At the time, though, Joe Biden was in charge of U.S.-Ukraine policy for the Obama administration.

A source said that Archer testified that just days later, on Dec. 9, 2015, Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine and made a speech. Biden, during the speech, said the government needed to fix the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office. 

“This is the most revealing aspect of Archer’s testimony and maybe the most important in our entire investigation so far,” House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan told Fox News Digital. 

BIDENS ALLEGEDLY ‘COERCED’ BURISMA CEO TO PAY THEM MILLIONS TO HELP GET UKRAINE PROSECUTOR FIRED: FBI FORM

Devon Archer, a former longtime business associate of Hunter Biden, testified before James Comer’s committee on Monday.

The testimony comes after Fox News Digital reported on an unclassified version of an FBI-generated FD-1023 form, which contained allegations that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden allegedly “coerced” Zlochevsky to pay them millions of dollars in exchange for their help in getting Shokin fired.

Biden has acknowledged that when he was vice president, he successfully pressured Ukraine to fire prosecutor Shokin. At the time, Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings, and at the time, Hunter had a highly lucrative role on the board receiving thousands of dollars per month.

The then-vice president threatened to withhold $1 billion of critical U.S. aid if Shokin was not fired.

Biden allies maintain the then-vice president pushed for Shokin’s firing due to concerns the Ukrainian prosecutor went easy on corruption, and say that his firing was the policy position of the U.S. and international community.

That form said Pozharski said the reason Hunter Biden was hired was “to protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”

REPUBLICANS ERUPT OVER 2015 EMAIL EXPOSING ‘ULTIMATE PURPOSE’ OF HUNTER’S INVOLVEMENT WITH BURISMA

Fox News Digital has reported that on Nov. 2, 2015, Pozharskyi emailed Hunter Biden, emphasizing that the “ultimate purpose” of the agreement to have Hunter on the board was to shut down “any cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine,” referring to Zlochevsky, who also went by Nikolay.

Joe, Hunter and Archer split image

Joe Biden (L), Hunter Biden (C), and Devon Archer (L) (Fox News)

The White House has said President Biden was “never in business with his son.”

Archer’s testimony comes as part of the House Oversight Committee’s months-long investigation, which Republicans say has yielded evidence related to the Biden family’s alleged foreign business schemes — including that the Biden family and its business associates created more than 20 companies and received more than $10 million from foreign nationals while Joe Biden served as vice president.

House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said that some of these payments could indicate attempts by the Biden family to “peddle influence,” and said the family appeared to take steps to “conceal the source and total amount received from the foreign companies.”

Meanwhile, the White House released a statement following Archer’s testimony: 

“It appears that the House Republicans’ own much-hyped witness today testified that he never heard of President Biden discussing business with his son or his son’s associates, or doing anything wrong,” White House spokesperson Ian Sams told Fox News Digital. “House Republicans keep promising bombshell evidence to support their ridiculous attacks against the President, but time after time, they keep failing to produce any.” 

“In fact, even their own witnesses appear to be debunking their allegations. Instead of continuing to waste time and resources on this evidence-free wild goose chase, House Republicans should drop these stunts and work with the President on the issues that actually impact Americans’ daily lives, like continuing to lower costs, create jobs, and strengthen health care,” Sams said. 

In February 2022, Archer was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for defrauding a Native American tribal entity and various investment advisory clients of tens of millions of dollars in connection with the issuance of bonds by the tribal entity and the subsequent sale of those bonds through “fraudulent and deceptive means,” according to the Department of Justice.

The Justice Department, over the weekend, sought to set a date for Archer’s sentence to begin.

Political Vendetta’: Sen. Grassley Slams FBI’s Role in Trump-Russia Collusion Narrative

Daily Signal Staff  / May 25, 2022

“The Clinton campaign fabricated evidence trying to connect [Donald] Trump to [Russia]. They fed it to the media to start a yearslong wildfire of false allegations,” says Sen. Chuck Grassley. Pictured: Hillary Clinton speaks at the Museum of Modern Art on May 24. (Photo: Cindy Ord/Getty Images)

COMMENTARY BY

Daily Signal Staff

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is accusing the FBI of having “a get-Trump-at-all-costs attitude.”

Speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday, Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, highlighted new information that had come to light during the ongoing trial of Michael Sussmann, a lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. 

“The Clinton campaign fabricated evidence trying to connect [Donald] Trump to [Russia],” Grassley said. “They fed it to the media to start a yearslong wildfire of false allegations. They fed it to the FBI to trigger a federal investigation into their opposing candidate.”

As part of the continuing probe by special counsel John Durham, Sussmann is charged with lying to the FBI about whether he was coordinating with the Clinton campaign when he came forward with a tip that a Russian bank secretly communicated with Trump’s circle. Sussmann, the FBI’s source in pursuing alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, has pleaded not guilty.

In his remarks, Grassley highlighted how the FBI later suggested that the source of the Trump-Russia ties was the Justice Department, not an individual with ties to the Clinton campaign.

“I fear these recent developments are just the tip of the iceberg,” Grassley said. “The FBI’s exposure to false information and actually using that false information for investigative purposes reeks of a political vendetta. It points to a get-Trump-at-all-costs attitude.”

“Whether Sussmann is convicted or not, the evidence introduced by Durham shows serious government misconduct, misconduct by the federal government of the United States of America,” the Iowa Republican added.

Read Grassley’s full speech, pasted below, or watch it here:

On Sept. 23, 2021Nov. 30, 2021; and again on Feb. 15, 2022, I spoke on this floor about the fake Russia/Alfa Bank narrative.

That narrative started in 2016.

It took on a new life when Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann met with FBI general counsel James Baker.

In that meeting, Sussmann provided information and data files that allegedly contained evidence of a secret communication channel between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank—Alfa Bank.

The evidence was fabricated by the Clinton campaign. The allegations about the Trump Organization being linked with a Russian bank were false.

Of note, Sussmann also provided Baker information Fusion GPS gave him as part of their work for the Clinton campaign.

This was an all-hands-on-deck strategy to destroy the Trump presidency and the campaign.

With the ongoing Sussmann trial, now underway here in D.C., the false Alfa Bank narrative is more relevant now than ever before. So I want to tell you why. 

A mere several days after the meeting with James Baker, the FBI opened a full investigation on Sept. 23, 2016.

And around that time, an FBI agent working on cyber matters reviewed the information provided by Sussmann.

That agent said, “We didn’t agree with the conclusion … that this represented a secret communication channel.”

He also stated, “Whoever had written that paper had jumped to some conclusions that were not supported by the data,” and, “the methodology they chose was questionable to me.”

And here is the kicker: “I didn’t feel that they were objective in the conclusions that they came to. The assumption that you would have to make was so far-reaching that it just didn’t make sense.”

So last Friday in the courtroom, Robby Mook, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, testified that Hillary Clinton was asked about the plan to share this fake information with the media.

Hillary Clinton approved that plan.

Jake Sullivan was involved in that decision as well. He’s, of course, as we know, [President Joe Biden’s] national security adviser.

The Clinton campaign fabricated evidence trying to connect [Donald] Trump to [Russia]. They fed it to the media to start a yearslong wildfire of false allegations. They fed it to the FBI to trigger a federal investigation into their opposing candidate.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The Clinton campaign was the conspiracy. And it was a big bag of dirty tricks.

This false Alfa Bank information eventually landed with the media outlet Slate, which ran an article on Oct. 31, 2016. After that article, Sullivan, the now-national security adviser, issued his now-infamous tweet: “This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow.”

Hillary Clinton also tweeted: “Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.”

They weren’t the only ones pleased with this fake news. On Oct. 13, 2020, Sen. [Ron] Johnson and I wrote a letter to the FBI where we made public texts between [then-FBI Deputy Director] Andrew McCabe and [then FBI lawyer] Lisa Page.

Page says to McCabe: “The alfa bank story is in Slate.”

McCabe replied: “Awesome.”

The FBI’s excitement didn’t end there. This week, [special counsel John] Durham’s prosecutors introduced a message between FBI agents that said, “People on 7th floor to include Director are fired up about this server.”

… They were fired up about fake information, which is just terrible. The FBI’s job—the FBI’s job is really to get fired up about fake information? It’s more than that, however. It’s a gut-wrenching attack on our system of government.

Now, there’s another data point that I want to share. Durham recently released notes from a March 6, 2017, meeting between the Justice Department and FBI officials. In that meeting, they discussed predication and Crossfire Hurricane issues.

This meeting was two weeks before [then-FBI Director James] Comey publicly announced his investigation into Trump. On that very day, March 6, 2017, I wrote a letter to Comey asking him questions about the Steele dossier. 

My press release for that letter is titled “FBI Plan to Pay Ex-Spy for Trump Intel During Campaign Sparks Questions of Obama Administration’s Use of Federal Authorities for Political Gain.” That was from March 6, 2017. Now, in May of 2022, that title just about sums up Crossfire Hurricane as best as it can be described.

Now, in closing, I’d like to make a few notes with respect to predication.

[The] Sept. 23, 2016, FBI electronic communication opened a full investigation into the Alfa Bank allegations. But let’s unpack the first few lines from that document.

“The FBI received a referral of information from the U.S. Department of Justice.”

“The Department of Justice provided the FBI with a white paper that was produced by an anonymous third party.”

Well, the information didn’t come from the Department of Justice. It came from Sussmann and the Clinton campaign. Hardly an anonymous third party, since Sussmann himself showed up at the door.

By wording it this way, the document almost blesses this so-called white paper. Mind you, the white paper is the false Alfa Bank information.

By the looks of it, the FBI document contains false information.

I fear these recent developments are just the tip of the iceberg. The FBI’s exposure to false information and actually using that false information for investigative purposes reeks of a political vendetta. It points to a get-Trump-at-all-costs attitude.

Whether Sussmann is convicted or not, the evidence introduced by Durham shows serious government misconduct, misconduct by the federal government of the United States of America.

Special counsel Durham can’t let government misconduct go unpunished.

I yield.

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation. 

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state. 

MEDIAPublished December 11, 2020Last Update 12 hrs ago

From ‘smear campaign’ to ‘Russian disinformation,’ liberal media teamed up to dismiss Hunter Biden story

NPR declared, ‘We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories’

By Joseph A. Wulfsohn | Fox News

There has been plenty of criticism in recent days of the mainstream media’s refusal to cover the New York Post’s bombshell reporting on Hunter Bidenever since the Biden transition issued a press release acknowledging that he was under investigation over his so-called “tax affairs,” but the media went far beyond simply ignoring the controversy. 

Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent quickly declared the day after the New York Post first began reporting on the alleged contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop that it was “Trump’s fake new Biden scandal,” calling the allegations “laughably weak.”

“While Trump and his propagandists would surely prefer to have a more compelling scandal to tout, the thinness of this new gruel is largely secondary,” Sargent wrote on Oct. 15, stressing Steve Bannon’s involvement in the distribution of the laptop’s contents. “Trump’s last-ditch hope is to cast a vague pall of corruption over Biden… But plainly, the mere fact of covering smears and disinformation, even negatively, itself rewards their purveyors.”

That same day, The New York Times ran a report sounding the alarm about “Russian disinformation,” claiming that President Trump was warned that Russians were “using” his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who was given the laptop before providing its contents to the press, to spread false claims about the Bidens. 

“The intelligence agencies warned the White House late last year that Russian intelligence officers were using President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani as a conduit for disinformation aimed at undermining Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidential run, according to four current and former American officials,” the Times reported at the time.

It is not clear whether the ongoing taxes probe is in any way connected to the laptop’s contents.

Back in October, Politico published a joint letter signed by “more than 50 former senior intelligence officials,” who insist that the published emails that allegedly came from Hunter Biden’s laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

The letter, which was parroted by much of the mainstream media, baselessly suggested that the emails were hacked and that they could have been tampered with by the Kremlin in order to make its contents look incriminating. 

Signatories of that letter included outspoken Trump critics John Brennan, James Clapper, Michael Hayden, Leon Panetta, and Jeremy Bash, many of whom work as on-air analysts on MSNBC and CNN.

NPR public editor Kelly McBride addressed a listener’s question about the news outlet’s blackout of the Hunter Biden story. After claiming that the Post’s reporting had “many, many red flags,” including its potential ties to Russia, NPR apparently determined that the “assertions don’t amount to much.”

“We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions,” NPR managing editor Terence Samuel told McBride. “And quite frankly, that’s where we ended up, this was … a politically driven event and we decided to treat it that way.”

DAILY BEAST PANNED FOR CLAIMING HUNTER BIDEN CONTROVERSY WENT ‘LARGELY UNNOTICED’ BEFORE THE ELECTION

Unlike NPR, CNN wasn’t nearly as transparent with its efforts to spike the Hunter Biden story. Last week, Project Veritas leaked audio recordings of conference calls featuring CNN’s top executives urging staff to avoid the Biden scandal during the election. 

“Obviously, we’re not going with the New York Post story right now on Hunter Biden,” CNN political director David Chalian said during a conference call on Oct. 14, the same day the Post published its first story on Hunter Biden’s emails. Chalian later insisted the report was “giving its marching orders” to the “right-wing echo chamber about what to talk about today.”

“The Trump media, you know, moves immediately from — OK, well, never mind — the [Michael Flynn] unmasking was, you know, found to be completely nonsensical to the latest alleged scandal and expects everybody to just follow suit,” CNN president Jeff Zucker told his staff on Oct. 16. “So, I don’t think that we should be repeating unsubstantiated smears just because the right-wing media suggests that we should.”

Apparently such messaging was received by CNN star anchor Jake Tapper, who dismissed the allegations against Hunter Biden as “too disgusting” to repeat on-air and that the “rightwing is going crazy.” 

CNN’s discomfort in covering the Hunter Biden story was put on full display when GOP spokesperson Elizabeth Harrington challenged CNN chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour to dig into the Biden family’s foreign ties during a heated exchange.  

“As you know perfectly well, I’m a journalist and a reporter and I follow the facts and there has never been any issues in terms of corruption,” Amanpour asserted. 

“Wait, wait, wait, how do you know that?!?” Harrington pushed back. 

“I’m talking about reporting and any evidence,” Amanpour responded. 

“OK, I would love if you guys would start doing that digging and start doing that verification,” Harrington said, referring to the published Hunter Biden emails. 

“No, we’re not going to do your work for you,” Amanpour scolded the GOP spokesperson. 

“That’s a journalist’s job!” Harrington exclaimed. “It’s a journalist’s job to find out if this is verified.”


Of all the media deceit and propagndizing disseminated in the lead-up to the election to justify their refusal to report on the Hunter Biden documents — despite knowing they were genuine and not from Russia — this on CNN from @camanpour may be the most amazing:

A similar exchange took place on “60 Minutes,” when veteran journalist Lesley Stahl laughed off President Trump’s claim that Biden was “in the midst of a scandal” in an interview that aired just days before the election.

RIC GRENELL CALLS OUT CNN’S JAKE TAPPER FOR BELATEDLY COVERING HUNTER BIDEN STORY

“He’s not,” Stahl gleefully replied. 

“Of course he is, Lesley,” Trump sternly doubled down. 

“No, c’mon,” Stahl continued to reject the president’s claim, before lecturing him, “This is ’60 Minutes’ and we can’t put on things that we can’t verify.”

During the campaign, Joe Biden was mostly successful at avoiding the Post’s report as the pool reporters who followed him on the campaign trail refrained from asking him about it. However, the one reporter who did, CBS News correspondent Bo Erickson, faced hostile pushback by other journalists, including one of his own colleagues. 

“My @CBSEveningNews report clearly lays out warnings about Giuliani & Russian disinformation,” CBS News White House correspondent Paula Reid tweeted, attempting to undercut the legitimacy of Erickson’s question to Biden. 

“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin attempted to comfort Dr. Jill Biden during an interview on the ABC daytime program while tip-toeing around the subject, accusing President Trump of “disrespecting” her family with “personal attacks.” 

MSNBC anchor Katy Tur mocked the Post’s story, saying it “dropped like a bomb,” but to “wither under scrutiny, not really dropping like a bomb.” NBC News national security correspondent Ken Dilanian called it a “fishy story” despite acknowledging that various emails and images that came from the laptop looked “legitimate.”

“We have no idea, and neither does the New York Post, whether any of it was doctored or forged or faked. And that’s why the mainstream news media has declined to really touch the story because it just lacks credibility,” Dilanian told Tur. “We now know that Russian disinformation… is as dangerous to our democracy as anything exposed in these emails.”

Ahead of the final presidential debate, where President Trump hammered his Democratic rival on his son’s business dealings, NBC News correspondent Hallie Jackson offered a slanted preview of what was to come in the political showdown. 

“The President’s also expected to bring up Hunter Biden and unverified emails of his business dealings, described by many intelligence experts as having hallmarks of a foreign disinformation campaign,” Jackson reported. “The Biden campaign says they’re ready for the attack, hoping to flip the script to argue the President’s more obsessed with Biden’s family than American families.”

Jackson also made an effort to degrade President Trump’s debate guest, former Hunter Biden associate Tony Bobulinski, who claimed the former VP was directly involved with his son’s business dealings.

“While President Trump is expected to bring a former business associate of Hunter Biden’s, Joe Biden is expected to bring small business owners struggling in this pandemic,” Jackson told NBC’s Lester Holt. 

Following the debate, CBS political analyst John Dickerson pointed out that Biden “has an ally in the news cycle,” suggesting that media’s coverage of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic will bury the scandal, which would benefit the former VP. 

“If President Trump tries to shift the turf onto the Biden family for the purposes of muddying Joe Biden, the news cycle keeps returning to the central piece of this campaign, which is the coronavirus and the president’s response to it and the country has a very negative view on that,” Dickerson explained to “CBS This Morning” co-host Anthony Mason. “And as these numbers continue, it keeps voters focused on that very bad issue for the president.”

MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle attacked those who were covering the Hunter Biden controversy, referring to it as a “so-called story” with “unverified claims.”

“We are now four days away from the election and the truth is more important than ever,” Ruhle told her viewers. “The truth is that we’re in the middle of a pandemic. The truth is that millions of Americans are out of work. The truth is we have to listen to science. And in these final days, instead of debating crowd size or unverified claims or conspiracy theories, we should be talking about policy, values, and ideas.”

—-

4 Big Takeaways From Senate Hearing on Tech Bias

Fred Lucas @FredLucasWH / October 28, 2020 / 2 Comments

Sen Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, listens Wednesday as Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey appears on a monitor while testifying remotely during the panel’s hearing. (Photo: Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images)

The CEOs of Twitter, Facebook, and Google defended themselves Wednesday on Capitol Hill from charges of political bias in how they share news and other information.

They testified before a Senate committee roughly a week after Twitter and Facebook suppressed a New York Post expose on the lucrative foreign business dealings of Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden. 

But the hearing went well beyond the Post’s coverage two weeks ago of the files contained in a laptop computer purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden, delving into what Republicans called a consistent double standard in blocking content on the digital platforms.  

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified under oath before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. The three agreed to appear voluntarily and remotely to avoid a subpoena during what has become a hot issue this election year.

The left is actively working to undermine the integrity of our elections. Read the plan to stop them now. Learn more now >>

Several Republicans have talked about revoking the protection from litigation that social media platforms enjoy under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The provision  exempts the companies from being sued for published content they didn’t originate–such as the New York Post’s coverage of the Hunter Biden scandal. 

If the companies are blocking or suppressing  online content based on political leaning, some lawmakers have argued, they are functionally publishers and not neutral platforms, and can be exposed to the same defamation laws as news organizations such as the Post.

Section 230 should be “carefully refined” to fit the law’s original intent but not scrapped, even if  social media giants and other tech firms have squandered the public’s trust, contends Klon Kitchen, director of the Center for Technology Policy at The Heritage Foundation, in a reportpublished Tuesday.  

“Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has been critical to the development of today’s Internet and Internet services,” the report’s summary states, adding:

But the expanding presence of these services in the lives of Americans and a growing political distrust of the companies providing these services highlight the need to refine the scope and language of Section 230 to better fit the statute’s original intent and to assuage these concerns. Such refinement is the best way to fan the flames of economic freedom and creativity while protecting individual and corporate freedom of speech.

Here are four key takeaways from the Senate committee’s hearing on the perceived bias of tech firms such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter. 

1. ‘Just One Example?’

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, noted several cases in which digital platforms put restrictions on conservative politicians and media outlets, and pressed the CEOs to name one example of a liberal individual or entity that got the same scrutiny. Only Google’s CEO was able to give a specific answer. 

“I see these quotes where each of you tell consumers about your business practices. Then you seem to do the opposite and take censorship-related actions against the president, against members of his administration, against the New York Post, the Babylon Bee, The Federalist, pro-life groups, and there are countless other exammples,” Lee said. 

The Utah Republican clarified what he meant. 

“When I use the word ‘censor,’ I mean block content, fact check, or label content or demonetize websites of conservative, Republican, or pro-life individuals or groups or companies, contradicting your commercial policies,” Lee said. “But I don’t see this suppression of high-profile liberal commentators.” 

Facebook’s Zuckerberg said examples exist, but he just couldn’t think of any. 

“There are certainly many examples that your Democratic colleagues object to when a fact-checker might label something as false that they disagree with,” Zuckerberg said. 

Lee responded: “I get that. I’m just asking if you can name one high-profile liberal person or company who you have censored. One name.” 

Zuckerberg replied, “I’d need to think about it and get you a list.” 

Dorsey of Twitter responded, “We can give a more exhaustive list.” 

Lee reiterated, “I’m not asking for an exhaustive list, just one example, one entity. Anyone.”

Twitter’s Dorsey said, “Two Democratic Congress people. … I’ll get those names to you.” 

By contrast, Google’s Pichai seemed prepared for the question. 

“We have turned down ads from Priorities USA, from Vice President Biden’s campaign,” the Google chief said. “We have had compliance issues with World Socialist Review, which is a left-leaning publication. We can give you several examples. We have a violent graphic content policy.”

World Socialist Review apparently was last published in 2011.

Lee said the tech companies have the right to set their own terms of service. 

“But given the disparate impact of who gets censored on your platforms, it seems that one, you are to enforce your terms of service equally, or two, you’re writing your standards to target conservative viewpoints,” Lee said. 

2. Who Elected You?

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, didn’t mince words, declaring: “The three witnesses we have before this committee collectively pose, I believe, the single greatest threat to free speech in America and the greatest threat we have to free and fair elections.”

Cruz jumped into the example of the New York Post’s explosive Oct. 14 story on Hunter Biden. Twitter blocked the Post’s Twitter account after the newspaper posted the story, and prevented Twitter users from sharing it.Twitter also blocked the account of a Politico reporter who tweeted the story until he removed it from his feed, the Texas Republican said. 

“You forced a Politico reporter to take down his post about the New York Post as well. Is that correct?” Cruz asked.

Dorsey said the company changed its policy on the story. 

“Within that 24-hour period, yes. But as the policy has changed,” Dorsey said.  

Dorsey said if the New York Post deleted the story it would have the account back, and would be free to re-pose the story. 

Cruz responded by talking about the power of Twitter’s platform:

So Twitter can censor Politico, you can censor the New York Post. Presumably you can censor The New York Times or any other media outlet. Mr. Dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear? And why do you persist in behaving as a Democratic super PAC, silencing views to the contrary of your political beliefs?

Dorsey defended his company, stating it plans to publish the process for content moderation and provide greater transparency to gain public trust. 

“We’re not doing that [censoring the media]. That is why I opened this hearing with calls for more transparency,” Dorsey said. “We realize we need to earn trust more. We realize that more accountability is needed to show our intentions and to show the outcomes. So I hear the concerns and acknowledge them. But we want to fix it with more transparency.”

3. Sticking Up for Tech Giants

Democratic senators on the committee generally denied any anti-conservative bias on social media, and in some cases said there should be more censorship. 

Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, went a step further than colleagues by casting the three CEOs as victims who were being bullied by Republicans on the committee. 

“We never do this and there is a good reason we do not haul people before us to yell at them for not doing our bidding during an election,” Schatz said. “It is a misuse of taxpayer dollars.”

Schatz added: 

What we are seeing today is an attempt to bully CEOs of private companies into carrying out a hit job on a presidential candidate by making sure that they push out foreign and domestic misinformation meant to influence the election. 

To our witnesses today, you and other tech leaders need to stand up to this immoral behavior. The truth is that because some of my colleagues accuse you, your companies, and your employees of being biased or liberal, you have institutionally bent over backwards and overcompensated. You’ve hired Republican operatives, hosted private dinners with Republcian leaders, and in contravention of your terms of service, given special dispensation to right-wing voices and even throttled progressive journalism. 

Schatz cited no examples of such “throttled” news sites.

4. Tweets by Iran, China, Trump 

Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., first called out Dorsey about a Chinese government official’s tweet that the U.S. Army created COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus that originated in China. 

Wicker asked about a disclaimer that Twitter quickly attached to a Trump tweet about problems with mail-in ballots, in which Twitter claimed there is no security problem. By contrast, when a Chinese official tweeted that the U.S. created COVID-19, it took two months for Twitter to add a similar disclaimer. 

“How does a claim by Chinese communists that the U.S. military is to blame for COVID remain up for two months without a fact check, and the president’s tweet about the security of mail-in ballots gets labeled instantly?” 

Twitter’s Dorsey responded that he didn’t know exactly how long the Chinese tweet on COVID-19 remained up, but said Twitter’s gatekeepers decided that Trump’s tweet on mail-in ballots would misinform the public. 

Wicker also asked about tweets from Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that promised or advocated violence. 

“These tweets are still up, Mr. Dorsey. How is it that they are acceptable based on your policies at Twitter?” Wicker asked. 

Dorsey responded: “We believe it’s important for everyone to hear from global leaders.”

“We have policies around world leaders,” the Twitter CEO continued. “We want to make sure we are respecting their right to speak and to publish what they need. But, if there is a violation of our terms of service, we want to label it.” 

Wicker: “They are still up. Do they violate your terms of service?”

Dorsey: “We did not find those to violate our terms of service because we considered them saber rattling, which is part of the speech of world leaders in concert with other countries.”

Later in the hearing, Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., expressed caution about making changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. 

“I don’t like the idea of unelected elites in San Francisco or Silicon Valley deciding whether my speech is permissible on their platforms,” Gardner said, adding:

But I like even less the idea of unelected Washington, D.C., bureaucrats trying to enforce some kind of political neutral content moderation. We have to be very careful and not rush to legislate in ways that stifle speech. You can delete Facebook, turn off Twitter, and ditch Google. But you cannot unsubscribe from government censors.

Still, Gardner was tough on Dorsey, asking why the platform didn’t delete tweets by the Iranian leader that denied the Holocaust, yet flagged tweets by Trump. 

“It’s strange to me that you flagged the tweets from the president but haven’t hidden the ayatollah’s tweets on Holocaust denial or calls to wipe Israel off the map?”

Dorsey said it is a different type of misinformation. 

“We do have other policies around incitement to violence,” Dorsey said. “Some of the tweets that you mentioned are examples that might fall afoul of that.”

Gardner: “So, somebody who denies the Holocaust happened is not [spreading] misinformation?”

Dorsey: “It’s misleading information, but we don’t have a policy against that type of misleading information.”


WATCH: Ted Cruz Slams Jack Dorsey For Twitter Censorship And Election Interference

OCTOBER 28, 2020 By Jordan Davidson

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas slammed Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for his company’s censorship of the New York Post and the bombshell Hunter Biden story published two weeks ago.

“Mr. Dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear?” Cruz asked. “Why do you persist in behaving as a Democratic super PAC, silencing views to the contrary of your political views?”

Twitter previously blocked verified and unverified users from sharing the Post’s article link. Instead, users were met with a message stating that the Post’s story link “has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.”

Twitter also locked the New York Post’s account, which still is unable to post 14 daysafter they published their story.

Dorsey defended Twitter’s actions by continuing to echo the big tech company’s claims that the article violated their hacked materials policy. He then went on to claim that for the New York Post to regain access to posting from their account, they have to log in and delete their original content, saying that Twitter’s policy was reworked to avoid bad enforcement.

“Anyone can tweet, we are not blocking their post,” Dorsey claimed.

Cruz, however, continued to grill Dorsey about Twitter’s censorship, saying that “Twitter’s conduct is by far the most egregious” of all the big tech companies.

“The New York Post is not some random guy tweeting. It is the fourth-highest circulation of any newspaper in America. It is 200 years old and founded by Alexander Hamilton,” Cruz said. “And it is your position is that you can sit in Silicon Valley and demand of the media that you can tell them what stories they can publish and the American people what reporting they can hear, is that right?”

Cruz also pointed out that Twitter’s censorship of the New York Post was hypocritical and that their claims about “hacked material” were not applied to the New York Times’s story publishing President Donald Trump’s tax returns.

“They purported to publish federally published material. It’s a federal felony to distribute someone’s tax returns against their knowledge,” Cruz said. “So that material was based on something distributed in violation of federal law, and yet Twitter gleefully allowed people to circulate that.”

“But when an article was critical of Joe Biden, Twitter engaged in rampant censorship and silencing,” Cruz continued.

Cruz’s questioning comes as members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation questioned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Dorsey, and Alphabet Inc., Google CEO Sundar Pichai over the companies’ content moderation policies. The hearing entitled “Does Section 230’s sweeping immunity enable big tech bad behavior?” was called in response to repeated calls for Section 230 reform by members on both sides of the political aisle.

“The three witnesses we have before this committee collectively pose, I believe, the single greatest threat to free speech in America and the greatest threat we have to free and fair elections,” Cruz stated. Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.

2 years ago

today

Silicon Valley an ‘extremely left-leaning place,’ admits Zuckerberg

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reacts to a question about the hotel he stayed in last night as he testifies before a joint hearing of the Commerce and Judiciary Committees on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 10, 2018, about the use of Facebook data to target American voters in the 2016 election. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
 Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reacts to a question about the hotel he stayed in last night as he testifies before a joint hearing of the Commerce and Judiciary Committees on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 10, 2018, about the …

By Dan Boylan– The Washington Times – Tuesday, April 10, 2018 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that Silicon Valley is an “extremely left-leaning place” but said he tries to make sure his firm doesn’t “have bias in the work that we do.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, questioned the social-media mogul about a long-running concern conservatives have that Facebook and other Silicon Valley tech firms have a clear bias against users on the right side of the political spectrum.

“A great many Americans are deeply concerned Facebook and other tech companies are engaged in a pervasive pattern of bias and political censorship,” Mr. Cruz said.


TOP STORIES

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Appearing before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees to explore the massive social networking company’s recent failures protecting private data and inability to stop the spread of fake news during the 2016 presidential election — Mr. Zuckerbergcountered that Facebook was “a platform for all ideas.”

But Mr. Cruz interrupted and argued content from more conservative companies, including Chik-fil-A, had been removed whereas posts from Planned Parenthood and other progressive outfits, had not.

Mr. Zuckerberg replied that he was unaware of the deleted posts and explained that Facebookregularly removed content related to terrorism or hate speech or self harm.

Mr. Cruz, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, has argued in the past the Facebook has policies and algorithms that effectively “shadow ban” conservatives.

On Tuesday, the Texas Republican also grilled Mr. Zuckerberg over Facebook’s hiring policies, pressing the CEO to explain the firing of Palmer Luckey — a virtual-realty executive who supported Donald Trump.

Mr. Zuckerberg explained Mr. Luckey’s departure had nothing to do with politics and was a personnel matter.

“We don’t ask people their political affiliation when they are hired,” Mr. Zuckerberg told the hearing.https://www.google.com/amp/amp.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/10/zuckerberg-admits-silicon-valley-extremely-left-le/

By Adriana Cohen | Creators Syndicate

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/twitter-facebook-censorship-adriana-cohen

Adriana Cohen: Censorship of conservatives proves Twitter & Facebook are enemies of free speech, free press

Twitter is not keeping ‘all voices on the platform’ — far from it

Big Tech titans Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg better lawyer up.  These enemies of free speech and a free press will be hauled in to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain their brazen censorship of conservatives. The ever-growing list of those censored includes the president of the United States, his White House press secretary and the New York Post, whose account was locked for posting a credible story about Joe Biden and his son during an election.

In light of Twitter’s unprecedented and willful censorship, Jack Dorsey could also be facing charges for lying to Congress in 2018.

FACEBOOK’S ZUCKERBERG, TWITTER’S DORSEY TO VOLUNTARILY TESTIFY BEFORE SENATE ON ALLEGED CENSORSHIP

While testifying before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Dorsey told lawmakers: “Let me be clear about one important and foundational fact: Twitter does not use political ideology to make any decisions, whether related to ranking content on our service or how we enforce our rules.”

That’s an outright lie, given the overwhelming and well-documented evidence of the social network’s extreme bias and disproportionate censorship against conservatives over the years.

The Media Research Center, a watchdog group, released a study earlier this month that showed Twitter and Facebook have censored President Trump and his campaign 65 times. His political opponent, Joe Biden, hasn’t been censored once.       

Hardly impartial, wouldn’t you say?       

Yet, that’s not what Dorsey told Congress. He said: “We believe strongly in being impartial, and we strive to enforce our rules impartially. We do not shadow ban anyone based on political ideology. In fact, from a simple business perspective and to serve the public conversation, Twitter is incentivized to keep all voices on the platform.”       

Is that a joke?    

First off, scores of conservatives, including myself, are being shadow-banned on Twitter, something I testified about in 2018 before Congress alongside other leading conservative voices being wrongfully censored.     

So, no, Twitter is not keeping “all voices on the platform” — far from it. Recently it locked the White House press secretary’s Twitter account for simply posting a link to the New York Post’s verified story on Hunter Biden’s explosive emails.

Twitter locked the New York Post’s account for doing its job — reporting on a presidential candidate’s sketchy foreign business dealings and an alleged influence-peddling scheme. Amid other instances of censorship, Twitter also blocked the House Judiciary GOP from posting a link to the Post’s story to a government website.       

There’s nothing impartial about this un-American suppression of information, especially if one considers that Twitter and Facebook gave Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, legacy media outlets and scores of blue-check “journos” the green light to peddle stories about the fake dossier and Russia collusion hoax against President Trump and his administration the past four years. This five-alarm conspiracy theory has since been debunked by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and various congressional probes.       

Twitter permitted China’s mouthpiece, the World Health Organization, to tweet last January that the coronavirus wasn’t transmittable between humans —  false information that put millions of lives at risk worldwide. And yet it routinely silences right-leaning accounts such as Dr. Scott Atlas, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, for what it considers to be misleading information about the virus.  

Atlas, the former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center and a fellow at the Hoover Institution, was censored by the oligarchs at Twitter this month for simply questioning the efficacy of masks when data shows that infection rates soared in Japan, the Philippines, Hawaii, Miami and Los Angeles and elsewhere despite mask mandates.       

The frightening reality is the social media speech police won’t even allow health care medical experts, like Atlas, to question anything that strays from their narrow point of view. The rest of us must regurgitate the approved left-wing talking points or risk being silenced or deplatformed from these almighty digital monopolies.    

Congress must stop these rampant abuses once and for all.       

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Perhaps lawmakers will begin by holding Dorsey accountable by recommending perjury charges to the Department of Justice.       

Stay tuned.



Link

‘Plausible deniability’: Tony Bobulinski says Joe Biden knew about Hunter Biden’s China deal pursuits

By Jerry Dunleavy & Joseph SimonsonOctober 27, 2020 – 11:06 PM

Hunter Biden’s ex-business partner Tony Bobulinski claimed Joe Biden’s brother, Jim, said that he and Biden’s son were relying upon “plausible deniability” as they pursued a lucrative deal with a Chinese Communist Party-linked company. 

During an hour-long interview with Tucker Carlson of Fox News conducted exactly one week before Election Day, Bobulinski, a Navy veteran, insisted he had firsthand knowledge that the former vice president was aware of the Biden family’s Chinese endeavors, contrary to the 2020 Democratic nominee’s claims.

After meeting with Joe Biden the evening of May 2, 2017 at the Beverly Hills Hilton and then briefly again the following day after the former vice president spoke at the Milken Institute Global Conference, Bobulinski said on Tuesday that he had a two-hour conversation with Biden’s brother at the Peninsula Hotel. Bobulinksi said he thought to himself, “How are they doing this? I know Joe decided not to run in 2016, but what if he ran in the future? Aren’t they taking political risk or headline risk? … How are you guys doing this? Aren’t you concerned that you’re going to put your brother’s future presidential campaign at risk? You know, the Chinese, the stuff that you guys have been doing already in 2015 and 2016 around the world?” 

Bobulonski said he asked Jim Biden directly, “How are you guys getting away with this? Like, aren’t you concerned?”

“He looked at me and he laughed a little bit and said, ‘Plausible deniability.’ … Anyone watching this interview can look up what plausible deniability, what he means, and the definition is very distinct,” Bobulinski said. 

Newly released  texts from Bobulinski back up his claims that Joe Biden met with him in 2017. At the time, Hunter, James, and their associates were pursuing a lucrative deal with a Chinese tycoon, complicating claims from the former vice president that he never discussed business dealings with his son.

The texts are part of a trove of hundreds of documents from Bobulinski  obtained by the  Washington Examiner, including dozens of WhatsApp messages, emails, letters, and business proposals. The records show that James Biden  planned outreach to a host of Democratic politicians and world leaders as the group pursued business deals with China in 2017, and that Hunter Biden aimed to avoid having to register as a foreign agent. Bobulinski has provided the records to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and to the FBI. Bobulinski did a sit-down interview with the bureau on Friday. His records are separate from those purportedly on Hunter Biden’s laptop. 

“So I initially was sitting — because I got there a little earlier — was sitting with Jim Biden and Hunter Biden. And Joe came through the lobby with his security and Hunter basically said, ‘Hey, give me a second, I’ll go over and give me 10 minutes to brief my dad and read him in on things.’ And so then Hunter and his father and security came through the bar and I was just stood up out of respect to shake his hand,” Bobulinski said. “And Hunter introduced me as, ‘This is Tony, Dad, the individual I told you about that’s helping us with the business that we’re working on and the Chinese.’ … You know, we didn’t go into too much detail on business because prior to Joe showing up, Hunter and Jim had coached me. ‘Listen, we won’t go into too much detail here. This is just a high level discussion and meeting.’ So it’s not like I was drilling down with Joe about cap tables and details.”

Carlson asked if it was clear to him that the Biden family had told Joe Biden about his business, and Bobulinski replied, “Crystal clear.” 


In September 2019, after being pressed by Fox News, Joe Biden  said, “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.” 

Joe Biden denied during the final debate last week that he has been involved in any family business dealings or any overseas deals, saying, “I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life.” 

“Yeah, that’s a blatant lie,” Bobulinski said. “When he states that that is a blatant lie. Obviously, the world is aware that I attended the debate last Thursday. And in that debate, he made a specific statement around questions around this from the president. And I’ll be honest with you, I almost stood up and screamed liar and walked out because I was shocked that after four days or five days that they prep for this, that the Biden family is taking that position to the world.” 

Bobulinski, a former Navy lieutenant who has done business around the world, is listed as one of the recipients of a May 13, 2017, email detailing a business deal between a Chinese company and Hunter Biden.

“I am the CEO of Sinohawk Holdings, which was a partnership between the Chinese operating through CEFC/Chairman Ye and the Biden family. I was brought into the company to be the CEO by James Gilliar and Hunter Biden. The reference to ‘the Big Guy’ in the much-publicized May 13, 2017, email is, in fact, a reference to Joe Biden,” Bobulinski said on Thursday, adding, “Hunter Biden called his dad ‘the Big Guy’ or ‘my chairman’ and frequently referenced asking him for his sign-off or advice on various potential deals that we were discussing.” 

The “big guy”  email is from Gilliar to Hunter Biden and others, sent May 13, 2017, and it says, “We have discussed and agreed the following renumeration packages.” The email noted that Hunter Biden would receive “850” ($850,000) and lists him as “Chair/Vice Chair depending on agreement with CEFC” — the China Energy Fund Committee.

“Hunter and everyone was in town and they wanted to coordinate me meeting with Joe. And so it was set up for the night of May 2 at the Beverly Hilton,” Bobulinski said on Tuesday. “I met first met with Hunter Biden and Jim Biden and just had a light discussion where they briefed me that, ‘Listen, you know, my dad’s on the way and we won’t go into too much detail on the business front, but we’ll just spend time talking at a high level about you, your background, the Biden family. And then, you know, he’s got to get some rest because he’s speaking at the conference in the morning.’ … Because they were sort of wining and dining me and presenting the strength of the Biden family to get me more engaged and want to take on the CEO role. And, you know, develop SinoHawk both in the United States and around the world in partnership with CEFC.” 

Carlson pressed him for further details about the purpose behind that discussion.

“As you can imagine, I’ve been asked by one hundred people over the last month, you know, ‘Why would you be meeting with Joe Biden?’ And I sort of turn the question around to the people that asked me why at 10:30 on the night of May 2, would Joe Biden take time out of his schedule to sit down with me in a dark bar at the Beverly Hilton sort of positioned behind a column so people can’t see us to have a discussion about his family and my family and business at a very high level where Jim Biden sat and Hunter Biden participated?” Bobulinski said. “And I’m irrelevant in the story. They weren’t raising money from me. There was no other reason for me to be in that bar meeting Joe Biden other than to discuss what I was doing with his family’s name with the Chinese CEFC.” 

During a brief second meeting with Joe Biden after the former vice president’s speech at the conference, Bobulinski said Biden “just sort of asked me to keep an eye on his son and his brother.”

“Joe Biden has never even considered being involved in business with his family nor in any overseas business whatsoever,” Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates told the Washington Examiner last week. “He has never held stock in any such business arrangements nor has any family member or any other person ever held stock for him.” 

The former vice president has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing by him or his son and dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story as part of a “Russian plan.” Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe  said that “Hunter Biden’s laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign.”

ELECTIONSPublished October 19, 2020Last Update 13 hrs ago

Ratcliffe says Hunter Biden laptop, emails ‘not part of some Russian disinformation campaign’

‘There is no intelligence that supports that,’ Director of National Intelligence Ratcliffe says

Brooke Singman

 By Brooke Singman | Fox News

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on Monday said that Hunter Biden’s laptop “is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign,” amid claims from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff suggesting otherwise.

Ratcliffe, during an exclusive interview on FOX Business’ “Mornings with Maria,” was asked about the allegations from Schiff, D-Calif., who over the weekend said that the Hunter Biden emails suggesting Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden had knowledge of, and was allegedly involved in, his son’s foreign business dealings.

“It’s funny that some of the people who complain the most about intelligence being politicized are the ones politicizing the intelligence,” Ratcliffe said. “Unfortunately, it is Adam Schiff who said the intelligence community believes the Hunter Biden laptop and emails on it are part of a Russian disinformation campaign.”

He added: “Let me be clear: the intelligence community doesn’t believe that because there is no intelligence that supports that. And we have shared no intelligence with Adam Schiff, or any member of Congress.”

Ratcliffe went on to say that it is “simply not true.”

WFP USA Board Chair Hunter Biden introduces his father Vice President Joe Biden during the World Food Program USA's 2016 McGovern-Dole Leadership Award Ceremony at the Organization of American States on April 12, 2016, in Washington, D.C. (Kris Connor/WireImage)

WFP USA Board Chair Hunter Biden introduces his father Vice President Joe Biden during the World Food Program USA’s 2016 McGovern-Dole Leadership Award Ceremony at the Organization of American States on April 12, 2016, in Washington, D.C. (Kris Connor/WireImage)

“Hunter Biden’s laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign,” Ratcliffe said, adding again that “this is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign.”

Ratcliffe’s comments come after Schiff over the weekend described the emails as being part of a smear coming “from the Kremlin,” amid claims the revelations are part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

“We know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin,” Schiff said on CNN. “That’s been clear for well over a year now that they’ve been pushing this false narrative about this vice president and his son.”

A senior intelligence official backed up Ratcliffe’s assessment.

“Ratcliffe is 100% correct,” the senior intelligence official told Fox News. “There is no intelligence at this time to support Chairman Schiff’s statement that recent stories on Biden’s foreign business dealings are part of a smart campaign that ‘comes from the Kremlin.’ Numerous foreign adversaries are seeking to influence American politics, policies, and media narratives. They don’t need any help from politicians who spread false information under the guise of intelligence.”

Ratcliffe went on to say that the laptop is “in the jurisdiction of the FBI.”

“The FBI has had possession of this,” he said. “Without commenting on any investigation that they may or may not have, their investigation is not centered around Russian disinformation and the intelligence community is not playing any role with respect to that.”

He added: “The intelligence community has not been involved in Hunter Biden’s laptop.”

A senior Trump administration official, however, told Fox News that the FBI was not investigating the emails as Russian disinformation.

The FBI declined to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation, as is standard practice.

Meanwhile, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is investigating Hunter Biden’s emails which reveal that he introduced his father, the former vice president, to a top executive at Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings in 2015.

Ratcliffe went on to say that his role as director of National Intelligence, which he assumed earlier this year, is “to not allow people to leverage the intelligence community for a political narrative that’s not true.”

“In this case, Adam Schiff saying this is part of a disinformation campaign and that the intelligence community has assessed and believes that — that is simply not true,” he said. “Whether its Republicans or Democrats, if they try to leverage the intelligence community for political gain, I won’t allow it.”

Meanwhile, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is investigating Hunter Biden’s emails. 

The emails in question were first obtained by the New York Post and, in part, revealed that Hunter Biden introduced the then-vice president to a top executive at Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings less than a year before he pressured government officials in Ukraine to fire prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who was investigating the company.

“We regularly speak with individuals who email the committee’s whistleblower account to determine whether we can validate their claims,” Johnson told Fox News. “Although we consider those communications to be confidential, because the individual in this instance spoke with the media about his contact with the committee, we can confirm receipt of his email complaint, have been in contact with the whistleblower, and are in the process of validating the information he provided.”

The Post report revealed that Biden, at Hunter’s request, met with Vadym Pozharskyi in April 2015 in Washington, D.C.

The meeting was mentioned in an email of appreciation, according to the Post, that Pozharskyi sent to Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015 — a year after Hunter took on his lucrative position on the board of Burisma.

“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the email read.

But Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates last week hit back against the New York Post story, saying: “Investigations by the press, during impeachment, and even by two Republican-led Senate committees whose work was decried as ‘not legitimate’ and political by a GOP colleague have all reached the same conclusion: that Joe Biden carried out official U.S. policy toward Ukraine and engaged in no wrongdoing. Trump administration officials have attested to these facts under oath.”

“The New York Post never asked the Biden campaign about the critical elements of this story. They certainly never raised that Rudy Giuliani—whose discredited conspiracy theories and alliance with figures connected to Russian intelligence have been widely reported—claimed to have such materials,” Bates continued. “Moreover, we have reviewed Joe Biden’s official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place.”

The Biden campaign also told Fox News Sunday that the former vice president “never had a meeting” with Pozharskyi.

Biden, prior to the emails surfacing, repeatedly has claimed he’s “never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.”

Hunter Biden’s business dealings, and role on the board of Burisma, emerged during the Trump impeachment inquiry in 2019.

Biden once famously boasted on camera that when he was vice president and spearheading the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy, he successfully pressured Ukraine to fire Shokin, who was the top prosecutor at the time. He had been investigating the founder of Burisma.

“I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,” Biden infamously said to the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018.

“Well, son of a b—,” he continued. “He got fired.”

Biden and Biden allies have maintained, though, that his intervention prompting the firing of Shokin had nothing to do with his son, but rather was tied to corruption concerns.

Meanwhile, the Post reported Wednesday the emails were part of a trove of data recovered from a laptop which was dropped off at a repair shop in Delaware in April 2019.

The Post reported that other material turned up on the laptop, including a video, which they described as showing Hunter smoking crack while engaged in a sexual act with an unidentified woman, as well as other sexually explicit images.

The FBI reportedly seized the computer and hard drive in December 2019. The shop owner, though, said he made a copy of the hard drive and later gave it to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello.

The Post reported that the FBI referred questions about the hard drive and laptop to the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office, where a spokesperson told the outlet that the office “can neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation.”

A lawyer for Hunter Biden did not comment on specifics, but instead told the Post that Giuliani “has been pushing widely discredited conspiracy theories about the Biden family, openly relying on actors tied to Russian intelligence.”

Giuliani did not respond to Fox News’ requests for comment.

Another email, dated May 13, 2017, and obtained by Fox News, includes a discussion of “renumeration packages” for six people in a business deal with a Chinese energy firm. The email appeared to identify Hunter Biden as “Chair/ Vice Chair depending on an agreement with CEFC,” in an apparent reference to now-bankrupt CEFC China Energy Co.

The email includes a note that “Hunter has some office expectations he will elaborate.” A proposed equity split references “20” for “H” and “10 held by H for the big guy?” with no further details.

Fox News spoke to one of the people who was copied on the email, who confirmed its authenticity.

Sources also told Fox News that “the big guy” was a reference to the former vice president. The New York Post initially published the emails, and others, that Fox News has also obtained.

While Biden has not commented on that email, or his alleged involvement in any deals with the Chinese Energy firm, his campaign said it released the former vice president’s tax documents and returns, which do not reflect any involvement with Chinese investments.

Fox News also obtained an email last week that revealed an adviser of Burisma Holdings, Vadym Pozharskyi, wrote an email to Hunter Biden on May 12, 2014, requesting “advice” on how he could use his “influence to convey a message” to “stop” what the company considers to be “politically motivated actions.”

“We urgently need your advice on how you could use your influence to convey a message / signal, etc .to stop what we consider to be politically motivated actions,”  Pozharskyi wrote.

The email, part of a longer email chain obtained by Fox News, appeared to be referencing the firm’s founder, Mykola Zlochevsky, being under investigation.

Brooke Singman is a Politics Reporter for Fox News. Follow her on Twitter at @BrookeSingman.https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/politics/ratcliffe-hunter-biden-laptop-emails-not-russian-disinformation-campaign.amp

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Tucker Carlson: New emails reveal exactly what Burisma wanted from Joe Biden

Did Joe Biden subvert American foreign policy to enrich his own family?

Tucker Carlson

 By Tucker Carlson | Fox News

Editor’s Note: This article was adapted from Tucker Carlson’s opening commentary on the Oct. 15, 2020 edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

Tom Cotton said it best below:

We knew Joe Biden’s son Hunter pocketed $50,000 a month for a job with a Ukrainian gas company. Joe Biden allowed his son to make millions in Ukraine and China while Joe was Vice President. 

Now, the New York Post is reporting that Vice President Biden may have been introduced to some of the corrupt Ukrainian businessmen paying Hunter… at the same time Vice President Biden was supposed to be overseeing our policy towards Ukraine.

Not everything you hear is untrue and not every story is complex. At the heart of the growing Biden-Ukrainescandal, for example, is a very straightforward question: Did Joe Biden subvert American foreign policy in order to enrich his own family?

In 2015, Joe Biden was the sitting vice president of the United States. Included in his portfolio were U.S. relations with the nation of Ukraine. At that moment, Vice President Joe Biden had more influence over the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian economy than any other person on the globe outside of Eastern Europe.

Biden’s younger son, Hunter, knew that and hoped to get rich from his father’s influence. Emails published Wednesday by The New York Post, documents apparently taken directly from Hunter Biden’s own laptop, tell some of that story.

“Tucker Carlson Tonight” have obtained another batch of emails, some exclusively. We believe they also came from Hunter Biden’s laptop. We can’t prove that they did, we haven’t examined that computer. But every detail that we could check, including Hunter Biden’s personal email address at the time, suggests they are authentic.

TUCKER CARLSON: THE JOE BIDEN STORY FACEBOOK AND TWITTER DON’T WANT YOU TO READ

If these emails are fake, this is the most complex and sophisticated hoax in history. It almost seems beyond human capacity. The Biden campaign clearly believes these emails are real. They have not said otherwise. We sent the body of them to Hunter Biden’s attorney and never heard back. So with that in mind, here’s what we have learned.

On Nov. 2, 2015, at 4:36 p.m., a Burisma executive called Vadym Pozharskyi emailed Hunter Biden and his business partner, Devon Archer. The purpose of the email, Pozharskyi explains, is to “be on the same page re our final goals … including, but not limited to: a concrete course of actions.”

So what did Burisma want, exactly? Well, good PR, for starters. Pozharskyi wanted “high-ranking US [sic] officials” to express their “positive opinion” of Burisma, and then he wanted the administration to act on Burisma’s behalf.

“The scope of work should also include organization of a visit of a number of widely recognized and influential current and/or former US [sic] policy-makers to Ukraine in November, aiming to conduct meetings with and bring positive signal/message and support” to Burisma.

The goal, Pozharskyi explained, was to “close down for [sic] any cases/pursuits” against the head of Burisma in Ukraine.

BIDEN CAMP HITS BACK AT HUNTER BIDEN EMAIL REPORT

It couldn’t be clearer what they wanted. Burisma wanted Huter Biden’s father to get their company out of legal trouble with the Ukrainian government. And that’s exactly what happened. One month later to the day, on Dec. 2, 2015, Hunter Biden received a notice from a Washington PR firm called Blue Star Strategies, which apparently had been hired to lobby the Obama administration on Ukraine. “Tucker Carlson Tonight” have exclusively obtained that email.

“Hello all …” it began. “This morning, the White House hosted a conference call regarding the Vice President’s upcoming trip to Ukraine. Attached is a memo from the Blue Star Strategies team with the minutes of the call, which outlined the trip’s agenda and addressed several questions regarding U.S. policy toward Ukraine.”

So here you have a PR firm involved in an official White House foreign policy call. How could that happen? Good question. But it worked.

Days later, Joe Biden flew to Ukraine and did exactly what his son wanted. The vice president gave a speech slamming the very Ukrainian law enforcement official who was tormenting Burisma. If the Ukrainian government didn’t fire its top prosecutor, a man called Viktor Shokin, Biden explained, the administration would withhold a billion dollars in American aid. Now, Ukraine is a poor country, so they had no choice but to obey. Biden’s bullying worked. He bragged about it later.

The obvious question: Why was the vice president of the United States threatening a tiny country like Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor? That doesn’t seem like a vice president’s role. Well, now we know why.

Viktor Shokin has signed an affidavit affirming that he was, in fact, investigating Burisma at the moment Joe Biden had him removed. Shokin said that before he was fired, administration officials pressured him to drop the case against Burisma. He would not do that, so Joe Biden canned him

That’s how things really work in Washington. Your son’s got a lucrative consulting deal with a Ukrainian energy company, you tailor American foreign policy — our foreign policy– to help make him rich.  Even at the State Department, possibly the most cynical agency in government, this seemed shockingly brazen.

During the impeachment proceedings last fall, a State Department official named George Kent said it was widely known in Washington that the Bidens were up to something sleazy in Ukraine. 

“I was on a call with somebody on the vice president’s staff and … I raised my concerns that I had heard that Hunter Biden was on the board” of Burisma, Kent recalled. This, he noted, could create a perception of a conflict of interest.

So how did the vice president’s office respond to this concern? According to George Kent, “The message that I recall hearing back was that the vice president’s son, Beau, was dying of cancer and there was no further bandwidth to deal with family-related issues at the time.”

Family-related issues? This was America’s foreign policy being tailored to Joe Biden’s son. Five years later, Joe Biden still has not been forced to explain why he fired Ukraine’s top prosecutor at precisely the moment his son was being paid to get him to fire Ukraine’s top prosecutor, nor has Joe Biden addressed whether or not he personally benefited from the Burisma contract.

But there are tantalizing hints. On Wednesday, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani published what he said was yet another email from Hunter Biden’s laptop. It’s a note to one of his children. At the end of the email, there’s this quote: “But dont [sic] worry unlike Pop I won’t make you give me half your salary.”

WHILE CENSORING HUNTER BIDEN STORY, TWITTER ALLOWS CHINA, IRAN STATE MEDIA

What does that mean, exactly? Well, we don’t know. There may be more detail on the laptop, but unfortunately, we don’t have access to that. But the question remains, how has Joe Biden lived in extravagance all these years on a government salary? No one has ever answered that question. And the tech monopolies are working hard to make certain no one ever does.

Thursday morning, the New York Post published another story based on the emails. This one describes a business venture Hunter Biden was working on in China. One email describes a “provisional agreement that the equity will be distributed as follows … 10 held by H for the big guy?” 

The big guy? Is the big guy Joe Biden? If so, how much did Joe Biden get and how much of that came from the Communist Chinese government? Those are real questions, this man could be elected president in three weeks. But Twitter doesn’t want you to wonder. It won’t allow you to ask those questions. Twitter restricted the New York Post story as “unsafe,” like it was a lawn dart or a defective circular saw. And that was enough for the Biden campaign.

All day Thursday, they deflected questions about Joe Biden’s subversion of our country’s foreign policy by invoking Twitter’s ban on the New York Post story. So the tech monopoly censors information to help their candidate, that candidate uses that censorship to dismiss the story. One hand washes the other. 

It doesn’t matter who you plan to vote for Nov. 3, you should be terrified. Democracies cannot exist and never will be able to exist without the free flow of information. That is a prerequisite and without it, we’re done. But companies like Facebook and Google and Twitter do not care because they don’t believe in democracy. They worship power and they don’t need to be consistent. Melania Trump’s private phone conversations, the president’s stolen tax returns, they were happy to publish all of that. But if you criticize the Democratic candidate, their candidate, you are banned.

“Facebook and Twitter have policies to not spread things that are utterly unreliable, that have been debunked, and where their origin is untrustworthy,” Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said Thursday. “They’re practicing their own internal controls, as I wish they had over the past four years … An active Russian disinformation campaign in 2016 had an influence on that election. They are trying even harder in this election. I’m glad that they are managing the content on their own websites.” 

Chris Coons is a liar.

Not one word of this story has been debunked, not one word in those emails has been “debunked.” And if it is debunked, we’ll be the first to report it because we’re not liars. But did you catch the phrase he wanted you to hear: “Russian disinformation”? That’s what they’re claiming these emails are. And it’s all over the Internet, in fact-free, conspiracy-laden conjecture crazier than anything the QAnon people ever thought of.

But none of their garbage, their lunatic lies about Russia is ever censored by the tech monopolies. It’s not “unsafe” because it helps Joe Biden. Therefore, you can read it.

And where are the real journalists, now that we need them more than ever? They’re gone. They’re cowering. They’re afraid. They don’t want to upset power. Jake Sherman of Politico, who claims to be a news reporter, actually apologized on Twitter for asking the Biden campaign about Hunter Biden’s emails. These people are craven. They have no standards. They have no self-respect. Like their masters in Silicon Valley, they worship power alone.


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Twitter, Facebook Suppress New York Post Report on Hunter Biden

Andrew Kerr4 hours ago

Twitter on Wednesday afternoon began blocking tweets from being posted that contained links to the New York Post’s report on alleged emails that purportedly show Hunter Biden offered to introduce then-Vice President Joe Biden to an executive of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma.

“We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful,” Twitter told users who attempted to post a tweet containing a link to the Post’s story.dailycallerlogo

A Twitter spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the platform took action to limit the spread of the Post’s report because of the lack of authoritative reporting on the origins of the materials cited by the outlet.

“In line with our Hacked Materials Policy, as well as our approach to blocking URLs, we are taking action to block any links to or images of the material in question on Twitter,” the spokesperson said.

There’s no evidence at the moment the Post relied on hacked materials for its report.

According to the Post, the email was part of a “massive trove of data recovered from a laptop computer” that was dropped off at a Delaware computer repair shop in April 2019. The owner of the repair shop said the customer never came back to pay for the service and retrieve the computer, the Post reported.

The Post uploaded an invoice signed by the customer that states that equipment left with the repair shop “after 90 days of notification of completed service will be treated as abandoned.”

The repair shop owner later alerted the FBI to the existence of the laptop and its hard drive after it went unclaimed, both of which were seized by federal authorities in December, according to a federal subpoena obtained by the Post.

Before the laptop was seized, however, the shop owner reportedly made a copy of its hard drive and turned it over to a lawyer for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who in turn provided a copy of the hard drive’s contents to the Post.

The Daily Caller News Foundation has not confirmed the authenticity of the emails reported by the Post, and the Biden campaign issued a statement on Wednesday denying that Biden met with the Burisma executive in 2015 as alleged in the Post’s report.

Link to New York Post story blocked by Twitter. (Screenshot: Andrew Kerr)

Also on Wednesday afternoon, Twitter began blocking any tweet from being posted that contained links to one of the two documents the Post uploaded to document sharing platform Scribd.

One of the documents depicts an alleged email sent by Hunter Biden in April 2014 to his former business partner Devon Archer, and the other is an alleged email that Vadym Pozharsky, an advisor to Burisma’s board of directors, sent to Hunter Biden and Archer in May 2014.

Link to New York Post Scribd document titled, “Email from Vadim Pozharskyi to Devon Archer and Hunter Biden” blocked by Twitter. (Screenshot: Andrew Kerr)

story.

https://d-3624628980887906306.ampproject.net/2010010034001/frame.html

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of this original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailysignal.com/2020/10/14/twitter-facebook-suppress-new-york-post-report-on-hunter-biden/amp/

Link to New York Post Scribd document titled, “Email from Robert Biden to Devon Archer” blocked by Twitter. (Screenshot:Andrew Kerr)

Facebook spokesman Andy Stone, a former staffer for the Democratic House Majority PAC and former California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, announced earlier Wednesday it would reduce the distribution of the Post’s report despite the lack of any fact-checks against the story.

6 Highlights From the Pence-Harris Debate

Fred Lucas @FredLucasWH / Jarrett Stepman @JarrettStepman / October 08, 2020 / 182 Comments

During the vice presidential debate Wednesday night, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Vice President Mike Pence sparred over a variety of policies, revealing significant differences on several issues.

The debate, which was moderated by USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page, featured the two contenders discussing issues ranging from climate change and COVID-19 to abortion and the Supreme Court. 

Here are six highlights from the debate:

1) COVID-19

Harris aggressively attacked the Trump administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. After the opening question, she laid out what could be called a prosecutor’s case. How are socialists deluding a whole generation? Learn more now >>

“The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country,” the California senator said. “And here are the facts: 210,000 dead people in our country in just the last several months, over 7 million people who have contracted this disease, 1 in 5 businesses closed. We are looking at frontline workers treated like sacrificial workers. We are looking at 30 million people who in the last several months had to file for unemployment.”

That was in response to a question from Page about what the Biden administration would have done differently than Trump to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Harris then went on to summarize the Biden-Harris plan. 

“Our plan is about what we need to do around a national strategy, for contact tracing, for testing, for administration of a vaccine, and make sure it’s free,” Harris said. 

Pence, who headed the White House coronavirus task force, defended the administration’s record. 

“I want the American people to know that from the very first day, President Donald Trump has put the health of America first,” the vice president said. “Before there were more than five cases in the United States—all people who had returned from China—President Donald Trump did what no other American had ever done. That was, he suspended all travel from China, the second-largest economy in the world.”

Pence added: “Joe Biden opposed that decision.”

“He said it was xenophobic and hysterical. I can tell you, having led the White House coronavirus task force that decision alone by President Trump gave us invaluable time to set up the greatest mobilization since World War II,” Pence said. “I believe it saved hundreds of thousands of American lives.” 

As for the Biden plan, Pence said, the Trump administration was already doing much of what it recommends. He also took a shot at a Biden scandal that effectively ended his 1988 presidential bid. 

“The reality is, when you look at the Biden plan, it looks an awful lot like what President Trump and I and our task force have been doing every step of the way,” he said. “ … It looks a little bit like plagiarism, something Joe Biden knows a little bit about.” 

In September 1987, Biden came in for withering criticism for borrowing lines from a speech by then-British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock without attribution, knocking him out of the race when it was subsequently revealed to be part of a larger pattern of borrowing lines from other politicians without credit.

Asked about the race to develop a vaccine, Harris said she wouldn’t trust a Trump-endorsed vaccine, but would take one approved by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“If the public health professionals, if Dr. Fauci, if the doctors tell us that we should take it, I’ll be the first in line to take it. Absolutely,” Harris said. “But if Donald Trump tells us that we should take it, I’m not taking it.”

Pence fired back that the California senator was politicizing the vaccine. 

“The fact that you continue to undermine public confidence in a vaccine, if a vaccine emerges during the Trump administration, I think, is unconscionable,” the vice president said. “Senator, I just ask you, stop playing politics with people’s lives. The reality is, we will have a vaccine by the end of this year, and it will continue to save countless American lives.”

2) Taxes and the Economy

Harris and Pence sparred over the tax cuts passed by Congress in 2017 and debated Biden’s tax plan.

Harris said that the Biden administration would repeal the 2017 tax cuts “on Day One,” and that they were passed to benefit the “rich.”

“Joe Biden believes you measure the health and strength of America’s economy based on the health and strength of the American worker and the American family,” Harris said. “On the other hand, you have Donald Trump, who measures the strength of the economy based on how rich people are doing.”

Pence defended the tax cuts and said: “Joe Biden said twice in the debate last week that he’s going to repeal the Trump tax cuts,” Pence said. “That was tax cuts that gave the average working family $2,000 with a tax break.”

In 2017, Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which reduced federal income taxes and made various other changes to the U.S. tax code.

Following the tax cut, the American economy experienced record low unemployment, wage growth, and an overall increase in business investment, according to Adam Michel, a specialist on tax policy and the federal budget as a policy analyst in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Harris said that Biden’s tax plan would end tax breaks for the wealthy but wouldn’t raise taxes on American making under $400,000.

“He has been very clear about that,” Harris said, adding, “Joe Biden is the one who, during the Great Recession, was responsible for the Recovery Act that brought America back, and now the Trump and Pence administration wants to take credit for Joe Biden’s success for the economy that they had at the beginning of their term.”

According to The Washington Post, “most Americans received a tax” cut in 2017, not just the rich.

Biden’s tax proposal would raise taxes about $3 trillion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.

“… The Biden tax plan would reduce [gross domestic product] by 1.47 percent over the long term,” according to the Tax Foundation’s General Equilibrium Model. “On a conventional basis, the Biden tax plan by 2030 would lead to about 6.5 percent less after-tax income for the top 1 percent of taxpayers and about a 1.7 percent decline in after-tax income for all taxpayers on average.”

According to the left-leaning Tax Policy Center, Biden’s proposal “would increase taxes on average on all income groups, but the highest-income households would see substantially larger increases, both in dollar amounts and as a share of their incomes.”

3) Climate Change and Fracking 

Harris said a Biden administration would grow the economy through green energy, but she also denied past support for banning fracking. 

“Joe Biden will not ban fracking. That is a fact. I will repeat that Joe Biden has been very clear that he thinks about growing jobs,” Harris said, adding, “Part of those jobs that will be created by Joe Biden are going to be about clean energy and renewable energy, because Joe understands that the West Coast of our country is burning, including my home state of California.”

Harris also spoke about climate-related problems in the Southeast and in the Midwest. 

“Joe sees what is happening in the Gulf states, which are being battered by storms. Joe has seen and talked with the farmers in Iowa, whose entire crops have been destroyed because of floods,” she said. “So, Joe believes again in science. … We have seen a pattern with this administration, which is, they don’t believe in science. Joe’s plan is about saying we are going to deal with it, but we are going to create jobs.” 

Pence addressed the issue of climate change, but also attacked the Biden campaign’s promises for the environment. 

“As I said, Susan, the climate is changing. We’ll follow the science,” he said. 

“With regard to banning fracking, I just recommend people look at the record. You yourself said repeatedly you would ban fracking,” Pence said of Harris. “You were the first Senate co-sponsor of the Green New Deal. 

“While Joe Biden denied support for the Green New Deal, Susan, thank you for pointing out the Green New Deal is on [the Biden-Harris] website. As USA Today said, it’s essentially the same plan as you co-sponsored with AOC.”

That was a reference to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., the main sponsor of the Green New Deal in the House. 

“You just heard the senator say she was going to resubmit America to the Paris Climate Accord. The American people have always cherished our environment, and we’ll continue to cherish it,” Pence said. “We’ve made great progress reducing [carbon dioxide] emissions through American innovation and the development of natural gas through fracking. 

“We don’t need a massive $2 trillion Green New Deal that would impose all new mandates on American businesses and American families. … It makes no sense. It will cost jobs.”

4) China

Pence and Harris sparred over U.S. relations with China, including its role in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“China and the World Health Organization did not play straight with the American people,” Pence said. “They did not let our personnel into China … until the middle of February.”

The vice president defended the administration’s aggressive trade policy with Beijing. “But China has been taking advantage of the United States for decades, in the wake of Biden cheerleading for China,” he said.

Harris said that the Trump administration had “lost” the trade war with China. “What ended up happening because of a so-called “trade war” with China? America lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs,” she said.

Pence countered that a Biden administration would go soft on the communist country.

“Joe Biden has been a cheerleader for communist China over the last several decades,” he said. 

The vice president criticized the record of the administration of Biden’s boss, President Barack Obama, saying that it had dismissed the idea that manufacturing jobs could ever come back to America.

“In our first three years, this administration saw 500,000 manufacturing jobs created, and that’s the type of growth we’re going to see,” Pence said.

5) Supreme Court and Abortion

With the nomination of federal appeals court Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Page asked both candidates what they would want their respective states of Indiana and California to do if the high court were to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide and sent the matter back to the states to decide for themselves.

Neither candidate directly addressed the question, but both spoke of the abortion issue in the context of the Supreme Court. 

“The issues before us couldn’t be more serious,” Harris said. “There is the issue of choice, and I will always fight for a woman’s right to make a decision about her own body. It should be her decision and not that of Donald Trump and the vice president, Michael Pence.”

Pence reiterated his pro-life stance, and called out the Biden-Harris ticket. 

“I couldn’t be more proud to serve as vice president to a president who stands unapologetically for the sanctity of human life. I will not apologize for it,” he said. “This is another one of those cases where there is such a dramatic contrast. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris support taxpayer funding of abortion all the way up to the moment of birth, late-term abortion.” 

Pence asked Harris at one point if she would support packing the courts, meaning increasing the number of Supreme Court justices to 10 or more, and then he accused her of not answering the question.

“Once again you gave a non-answer, Joe Biden gave a non-answer,” Pence said. “The American people deserve a straight answer.”

In his remarks, Pence noted the Supreme Court has had nine justices for the past 150 years.

6) Race Relations

The vice presidential candidates also had a heated exchange on race relations amid social unrest in major American cities. 

Harris called out Trump for what she claimed was his reluctance to condemn white supremacists, referring to last week’s presidential debate between Trump and Biden. 

“Last week, the president of the United States took a debate stage in front of 70 million Americans and refused to condemn white supremacists,” Harris said. “It wasn’t like he wasn’t given a chance. He didn’t do it, and then he doubled down. Then he said, when pressed, ‘Stand back, stand by.’ This is part of a pattern with Donald Trump.” 

She also cited the deadly 2017 Charlottesville, Va., Unite the Right rally. 

Pence countered by citing Trump’s comments regarding the Charlottesville violence. 

“This is one of the things that makes people dislike the media so much in this country, that you selectively edit so much,” Pence said, arguing that the media had distorted what Trump had said about there being “very fine people” on both sides in Charlottesville.

“After President Trump made comments about people on either side of the debate over monuments, he condemned the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists,” the vice president said. 

“He has done so repeatedly. Your concern that he doesn’t condemn neo-Nazis, President Trump has Jewish grandchildren. His daughter and son-in-law are Jewish. This is a president who respects and cherishes all of the American people.”

Pence then went on offense about Harris’ prosecution record as a district attorney in San Francisco.  

“When you were D.A. in San Francisco, African Americans were 19 times more likely to be prosecuted for minor drug offenses than whites and Hispanics,” Pence said to Harris. “You increased the disproportionate incarceration. You did nothing on criminal justice reform in California. You didn’t lift a finger to pass the First Step Act on Capitol Hill.” 

The First Step Act is a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill signed into law by Trump in December 2018.

Harris didn’t directly defend her record as district attorney of San Francisco, but pivoted to her record as California attorney general. 

“Having served as the attorney general of California, the work I did is a model of what our nation needs to do and what we will be able to do,” she said, adding, “I was the first statewide officer to institute a requirement that my agents would wear body cameras and keep them on full time. We were the first to initiate that there would be training for law enforcement on implicit bias.”

——

I grew up and went to EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN SCHOOL in Memphis and ran some of our track meets at RHODES COLLEGE and I know that campus well and I even was contacted by a official at Rhodes with some recruiting material after a good performance in my sophomore year in my mile run there in 1978. Also during the late 1970’s I helped my friends Byron Tyler and David Rogers in a Christian Rock Saturday morning show on Rhodes’s radio station!!! My brother-in-law graduated from Rhodes but I graduated from University of Memphis in 1982.

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Amy Coney Barrett: A View from Rhodes College

By Tim H.

 | September 23, 202027 COMMENTS

President Trump is going to announce his nomination for the Supreme Court later this week, and all the talk is about Amy Coney Barrett, currently a Notre Dame professor of law and a judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. As it happens, Amy was a classmate of mine at Rhodes College, a small (1,400 students at the time) liberal-arts school in Memphis. I didn’t know her well, but she was a friend of other friends, and we were acquainted a bit through being in a club together.

I can tell you a few things about her, though. For one thing, she did not have a wild reputation, so I think that if she’s nominated, the Senate hearings will have to find something else to complain about. She was an English major and served on the Honor Council, a student body that enforced our honor code against lying and cheating (a great feature of academics at Rhodes that allowed us take-home tests in many classes). We were both in Mortar Board, an honor society. She wasn’t a political activist and was never a member of the College Republicans (I was, and we had a much larger membership than the College Democrats).Amy at the homecoming game senior year

Popular, as far as I knew, and by our senior year, she shows up in the yearbook’s candid photos taken around campus.Candid photo in the social room (the ironing board refers to another picture)

I hadn’t thought about her for a long time, until three years ago when friends were pointing out she’d been nominated for the Seventh Circuit, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein grilled her over her religion, proclaiming that “the dogma lives loudly within you.” At the time, I thought that was a rough Senate hearing.

My daughter was a Notre Dame student, and two years ago, I stopped by to visit Amy at her home in South Bend and catch up. She had been listed as being on the president’s shortlist for a Supreme Court seat, and Kavanaugh was going through his own nomination process at that time.L to R: Me, Amy Barrett, and my daughter

My daughter had been treating the accusations against him as probably true by default and took an unconcerned view towards the behavior of the press. Amy knows Kavanaugh, spoke well of him, and described what it was like seeing the press contacting her and digging through rumors about him. That changed my daughter’s opinion of how these things go, she told me. I meant to ask her if she were named to the Supreme Court if she’d be willing to go through all of the hatred and attacks on her reputation that would surely be a part of it. But I can’t remember if I did. I reckon we’ll all find out soon enough, though.

As a footnote, if Amy is confirmed to the court, she would be the second Supreme Court justice to come from Rhodes. Our first was Abe Fortas (class of 1930), who was named by President Johnson in 1965. Fortas resigned in 1969 after a series of ethics scandals, but the college gives out the Abe Fortas Award for Excellence in Legal Studies each year. Quite understandable; we’re a small school, and we should still be proud one of our own was elevated to the Supreme Court. May Amy Barrett bring us more honor.Published in LawTags: SCOTUS; SUPREME COURT; Amy Coney Barrett

Amy Coney Barrett (born January 28, 1972)[1][2] is an American lawyer, jurist, and academic who serves as a circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Barrett considers herself a public-meaning originalist; her judicial philosophy has been likened to that of her mentor and former boss, Antonin Scalia.[3] Barrett’s scholarship focuses on originalism.

Amy Coney Barrett
Barrett in 2018
Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Incumbent
Assumed office 
November 2, 2017
Appointed byDonald Trump
Preceded byJohn Daniel Tinder
Personal details
BornJanuary 28, 1972(age 48)
New OrleansLouisiana, U.S.
Spouse(s)Jesse Barrett
EducationRhodes College (BA)
University of Notre Dame(JD)
Academic background
Academic work
DisciplineJurisprudence
InstitutionsNotre Dame Law School
WebsiteNotre Dame Law Biography

Barrett was nominated to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals by President Donald Trump on May 8, 2017 and confirmed by the Senate on October 31, 2017. While serving on the federal bench, she was a professor of law at Notre Dame Law School, where she has taught civil procedure, constitutional law, and statutory interpretation.[4][2][5][6] Shortly after her confirmation to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017, Barrett was added to President Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees.[7]Trump reportedly intends to nominate her to succeed Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the United States Supreme Court.[8]

Early life and education

Barrett was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1972.[2] She is the eldest of seven children, with five sisters and a brother. Her father Michael Coney worked as an attorney for Shell Oil Company, and her mother Linda was a homemaker. Barrett grew up in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans, and graduated from St. Mary’s Dominican High School in 1990.[9]

Barrett studied English literature at Rhodes College, graduating in 1994 with a Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa membership.[10] She then studied law at Notre Dame Law School on a full-tuition scholarship. She served as an executive editor of the Notre Dame Law Review[11] and graduated first in her class in 1997 with a Juris Doctor summa cum laude.[12]

Career

Clerkships and private practice

After law school Barrett spent two years as a judicial law clerk, first for Judge Laurence Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1997 to 1998,[13] then for Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1998 to 1999.[13]

From 1999 to 2002, she practiced law at Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin in Washington, D.C.[11][14]

Teaching and scholarship

Barrett served as a visiting associate professor and John M. Olin Fellow in Law at George Washington University Law School for a year before returning to her alma mater, Notre Dame Law School in 2002.[15]At Notre Dame she taught federal courts, constitutional law, and statutory interpretation. Barrett was named a Professor of Law in 2010, and from 2014 to 2017 held the Diane and M.O. Miller Research Chair of Law.[16] Her scholarship focuses on constitutional law, originalism, statutory interpretation, and stare decisis.[12] Her academic work has been published in journals such as the ColumbiaCornellVirginiaNotre Dame, and TexasLaw Reviews.[15] Some of her most significant publications are Suspension and Delegation, 99 Cornell L. Rev. 251 (2014), Precedent and Jurisprudential Disagreement, 91 Tex. L. Rev. 1711 (2013), The Supervisory Power of the Supreme Court, 106 Colum. L. Rev. 101 (2006), and Stare Decisis and Due Process, 74 U. Colo. L. Rev. 1011 (2003).

At Notre Dame, Barrett received the “Distinguished Professor of the Year” award three times.[15] She taught Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure, Evidence, Federal Courts, Constitutional Theory Seminar, and Statutory Interpretation Seminar.[15] Barrett has continued to teach seminars as a sitting judge.[17]

Federal judicial service

Nomination and confirmation

President Donald Trump nominated Barrett on May 8, 2017, to serve as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, to the seat vacated by Judge John Daniel Tinder, who took senior status on February 18, 2015.[18][19]Judge Laurence Silberman, for whom Barrett first clerked after law school, swearing her in at her investiture as a judge on the Seventh Circuit.

A hearing on Barrett’s nomination before the Senate Judiciary Committee was held on September 6, 2017.[20] During the hearing, Senator Dianne Feinstein questioned Barrett about a law review article Barrett co-wrote in 1998 with Professor John H. Garvey in which she argued that Catholic judges should in some cases recuse themselves from death penalty cases due to their moral objections to the death penalty. The article concluded that the trial judge should recuse herself instead of entering the order. Asked to “elaborate on the statements and discuss how you view the issue of faith versus fulfilling the responsibility as a judge today,” Barrett said that she had participated in many death-penalty appeals while serving as law clerk to Scalia, adding, “My personal church affiliation or my religious belief would not bear on the discharge of my duties as a judge”[21][22] and “It is never appropriate for a judge to impose that judge’s personal convictions, whether they arise from faith or anywhere else, on the law.”[23] Worried that Barrett would not uphold Roe v. Wade given her Catholic beliefs, Feinstein followed Barrett’s response by saying, “the dogma lives loudly within you, and that is a concern.”[24][25][26] The hearing made Barrett popular with religious conservatives,[11] and in response, the conservative Judicial Crisis Network began to sell mugs with Barrett’s photo and Feinstein’s “dogma” remark.[27]Feinstein’s and other senators’ questioning was criticized by some Republicans and other observers, such as university presidents John I. Jenkins and Christopher Eisgruber, as improper inquiry into a nominee’s religious belief that employed an unconstitutional “religious test” for office;[23][28][29]others, such as Nan Aron, defended Feinstein’s line of questioning.[29]

Lambda Legal, an LGBT civil rights organization, co-signed a letter with 26 other gay rights organizations opposing Barrett’s nomination. The letter expressed doubts about her ability to separate faith from her rulings on LGBT matters.[30][31] During her Senate confirmation hearing, Barrett was questioned about landmark LGBTQ legal precedents such as Obergefell v. HodgesUnited States v. Windsor, and Lawrence v. Texas. Barrett said these cases are “binding precedents” that she intended to “faithfully follow if confirmed” to the appeals court, as required by law.[30] The letter co-signed by Lambda Legal said “Simply repeating that she would be bound by Supreme Court precedent does not illuminate—indeed, it obfuscates—how Professor Barrett would interpret and apply precedent when faced with the sorts of dilemmas that, in her view, ‘put Catholic judges in a bind.'”[30] Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network later said that warnings from LGBT advocacy groups about shortlisted nominees to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, including Barrett, were “very much overblown” and called them “mostly scare tactics.”[30]

In 2015, Barrett signed a letter in support of the Ordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family that endorsed the Catholic Church’s teachings on human sexuality and its definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. When asked about the letter, she testified that the Church’s definition of marriage is legally irrelevant.[32][33]

Barrett’s nomination was supported by every law clerk she had worked with and all of her 49 faculty colleagues at Notre Dame Law school. 450 former students signed a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee supporting Barrett’s nomination.[34][35]

On October 5, 2017, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11–9 on party lines to recommend Barrett and report her nomination to the full Senate.[36][37] On October 30, the Senate invoked cloture by a vote of 54–42.[38] It confirmed her by a vote of 55–43 on October 31, with three Democrats—Joe DonnellyTim Kaine, and Joe Manchin—voting for her.[10] She received her commission two days later.[2] Barrett is the first and to date only woman to occupy an Indiana seat on the Seventh Circuit.[39]

Notable cases

Title IX

In Doe v. Purdue University, 928 F.3d 652 (7th Cir. 2019), the court, in a unanimous decision written by Barrett, reinstated a suit brought by a male Purdue University student (John Doe) who had been found guilty of sexual assault by Purdue University, which resulted in a one-year suspension, loss of his Navy ROTC scholarship, and expulsion from the ROTC affecting his ability to pursue his chosen career in the Navy.[40] Doe alleged the school’s Advisory Committee on Equity discriminated against him on the basis of his sex and violated his rights to due process by not interviewing the alleged victim, not allowing him to present evidence in his defense, including an erroneous statement that he confessed to some of the alleged assault, and appearing to believe the victim instead of the accused without hearing from either party or having even read the investigation report. The court found that Doe had adequately alleged that the university deprived him of his occupational liberty without due process in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and had violated his Title IX rights “by imposing a punishment infected by sex bias,” and remanded to the District Court for further proceedings.[41][42][43]

Title VII

In EEOC v. AutoZone, the Seventh Circuit considered the federal government’s appeal from a ruling in a suit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against AutoZone; the EEOC argued that the retailer’s assignment of employees to different stores based on race (e.g., “sending African American employees to stores in heavily African American neighborhoods”) violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The panel, which did not include Barrett, ruled in favor of AutoZone. An unsuccessful petition for rehearing en banc was filed. Three judges—Chief Judge Diane Wood and Judges Ilana Rovner and David Hamilton—voted to grant rehearing, and criticized the panel decision as upholding a “separate-but-equal arrangement”; Barrett and four other judges voted to deny rehearing.[11]

Immigration

In Cook County v. Wolf, 962 F.3d 208 (7th Cir. 2020), Barrett wrote a 40-page dissent from the majority’s decision to uphold a preliminary injunction on the Trump administration’s controversial “public charge rule“, which heightened the standard for obtaining a green card. In her dissent, she argued that any noncitizens who disenrolled from government benefits because of the rule did so due to confusion about the rule itself rather than from its application, writing that the vast majority of the people subject to the rule are not eligible for government benefits in the first place. On the merits, Barrett departed from her colleagues Wood and Rovner, who held that DHS’s interpretation of that provision was unreasonable under Chevron Step Two. Barrett would have held that the new rule fell within the broad scope of discretion granted to the Executive by Congress through the Immigration and Nationality Act.[44][45][46] The public charge issue is the subject of a circuit split.[44][46][47]

In Yafai v. Pompeo, 924 F.3d 969 (7th Cir. 2019), the court considered a case brought by a Yemeni citizen, Ahmad, and her husband, a U.S. citizen, who challenged a consular officer’s decision to twice deny Ahmad’s visa application under the Immigration and Nationality Act. Yafai, the U.S. citizen, argued that the denial of his wife’s visa application violated his constitutional right to live in the United States with his spouse.[48] In an 2-1 majority opinion authored by Barrett, the court held that the plaintiff’s claim was properly dismissed under the doctrine of consular nonreviewability. She declined to address whether Yafai had been denied a constitutional right (or whether a constitutional right to live in the United States with his spouse existed) because even if a constitutional right was implicated, the court lacked authority to disturb the consular officer’s decision to deny Ahmad’s visa application because that decision was facially legitimate and bona fide. Following the panel’s decision, Yafai filed a petition for rehearing en banc; the petition was denied, with eight judges voting against rehearing and three in favor, Wood, Rovner and Hamilton. Barrett and Judge Joel Flaumconcurred in the denial of rehearing.[48][49]

Second Amendment

In Kanter v. Barr, 919 F.3d 437 (7th Cir. 2019), Barrett dissented when the court upheld a law prohibiting convicted nonviolent felons from possessing firearms. The plaintiffs had been convicted of mail fraud. The majority upheld the felony dispossession statutes as “substantially related to an important government interest in preventing gun violence.” In her dissent, Barrett argued that while the government has a legitimate interest in denying gun possession to felons convicted of violent crimes, there is no evidence that denying guns to nonviolent felons promotes this interest, and that the law violates the Second Amendment.[50][51]

Fourth Amendment

In Rainsberger v. Benner, 913 F.3d 640 (7th Cir. 2019), the panel, in an opinion by Barrett, affirmed the district court’s ruling denying the defendant’s motion for summary judgment and qualified immunity in a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 case. The defendant, Benner, was a police detective who knowingly provided false and misleading information in a probable cause affidavit that was used to obtain an arrest warrant against Rainsberger. (The charges were later dropped and Rainsberger was released.) The court found the defendant’s lies and omissions violated “clearly established law” and thus Benner was not shielded by qualified immunity.[52]

The case United States v. Watson, 900 F.3d 892 (7th Cir. 2018) involved police responding to an anonymous tip that people were “playing with guns” in a parking lot. The police arrived and searched the defendant’s vehicle, taking possession of two firearms; the defendant was later charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. The district court denied the defendant’s motion to suppress. On appeal, the Seventh Circuit, in a decision by Barrett, vacated and remanded, determining that the police lacked probable cause to search the vehicle based solely upon the tip, when no crime was alleged. Barrett distinguished Navarette v. California and wrote, “the police were right to respond to the anonymous call by coming to the parking lot to determine what was happening. But determining what was happening and immediately seizing people upon arrival are two different things, and the latter was premature…Watson’s case presents a close call. But this one falls on the wrong side of the Fourth Amendment.”[53]

In a 2013 Texas Law Review article, Barrett included as one of only seven Supreme Court “superprecedents“, Mapp vs Ohio (1961); the seminal case where the court found through the doctrine of selective incorporation that the 4th Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures was binding on state and local authorities in the same way it historically applied to the federal government.

Civil procedure and standing

In Casillas v. Madison Ave. Associates, Inc., 926 F.3d 329 (7th Cir. 2019), the plaintiff brought a class-action lawsuit against Madison Avenue, alleging that the company violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) when it sent her a debt-collection letter that described the FDCPA process for verifying a debt but failed to specify that she was required to respond in writing to trigger the FDCPA protections. Casillas did not allege that she had tried to verify her debt and trigger the statutory protections under the FDCPA, or that the amount owed was in any doubt. In a decision written by Barrett, the panel, citing the Supreme Court’s decision in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, found that the plaintiff’s allegation of receiving incorrect or incomplete information was a “bare procedural violation” that was insufficiently concrete to satisfy the Article III‘s injury-in-fact requirement. Wood dissented from the denial of rehearing en banc. The issue created a circuit split.[54][55][56]

Judicial philosophy and political views

Barrett considers herself an originalist. She is a constitutional scholar with expertise in statutory interpretation.[10] Reuters described Barrett as a “a favorite among religious conservatives,” and said that she has supported expansive gun rights and voted in favor of one of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies.[57]

Barrett was one of Justice Antonin Scalia‘s law clerks. She has spoken and written of her admiration of his close attention to the text of statutes. She has also praised his adherence to originalism.[58]

In 2013, Barrett wrote a Texas Law Review article on the doctrine of stare decisis wherein she listed seven cases that should be considered “superprecedents”—cases that the court would never consider overturning. The list included Brown v. Board of Education but specifically excluded Roe v. Wade. In explaining why it was not included, Barrett referenced scholarship agreeing that in order to qualify as “superprecedent” a decision must enjoy widespread support from not only jurists but politicians and the public at large to the extent of becoming immune to reversal or challenge. She argued the people must trust the validity of a ruling to such an extent the matter has been taken “off of the court’s agenda,” with lower courts no longer taking challenges to them seriously. Barrett pointed to Planned Parenthood v. Casey as specific evidence Roe had not yet attained this status.[59] The article did not include any pro-Second Amendment or pro-LGBT cases as “Super-Precedent”.[30][31] When asked during her confirmation hearings why she did not include any pro-LGBT cases as “superprecedent”, Barrett explained that the list contained in the article was collected from other scholars and not a product of her own independent analysis on the subject.[32][33]

Barrett has never ruled directly on a case pertaining to abortion rights, but she did vote to rehear a successful challenge to Indiana’s parental notification law in 2019. In 2018, Barrett voted against striking down another Indiana law requiring burial or cremation of fetal remains. In both cases, Barrett voted with the minority. The Supreme Court later reinstated the fetal remains law and in July 2020 it ordered a rehearing in the parental notification case.[57] At a 2013 event reflecting on the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, she described the decision—in Notre Dame Magazine‘s paraphrase—as “creating through judicial fiat a framework of abortion on demand.”[60][61] She also remarked that it was “very unlikely” the court would overturn the core of Roe v. Wade: “The fundamental element, that the woman has a right to choose abortion, will probably stand. The controversy right now is about funding. It’s a question of whether abortions will be publicly or privately funded.”[62][63] NPR said that those statements were made before the election of Donald Trump and the changing composition of the Supreme Court to the right subsequent to his election, which could make Barrett’s vote pivotal in overturning Roe v. Wade.[64]

Barrett was critical of Chief Justice John Roberts’opinion in the 5–4 decision that upheld the constitutionality of the central provision in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) in NFIB vs. Sebelius. Roberts’s opinion defended the constitutionality of the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act by characterizing it as a “tax.” Barrett disapproved of this approach, saying Roberts pushed the ACA “beyond it’s plausible limit to save it.”[64][65][66][67] She criticized the Obama administration for providing employees of religious institutions the option of obtaining birth controlwithout having the religious institutions pay for it.[65]

Potential Supreme Court nomination

Barrett has been on President Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees since 2017, almost immediately after her court of appeals confirmation. In July 2018, after Anthony Kennedy‘s retirement announcement, she was reportedly one of three finalists Trump considered, along with Judge Raymond Kethledge and Judge Brett Kavanaugh.[16][68] Trump chose Kavanaugh.[69]Reportedly, although Trump liked Barrett, he was concerned about her lack of experience on the bench.[70] In the Republican Party, Barrett was favored by social conservatives.[70]

After Kavanaugh’s selection, Barrett was viewed as a possible Trump nominee for a future Supreme Court vacancy.[71] Trump was reportedly “saving” Ruth Bader Ginsburg‘s seat for Barrett if Ginsburg retired or died during his presidency.[72] Ginsburg died on September 18, 2020, and Barrett has been widely mentioned as the front-runner to succeed her.[73][74][75][76]

Personal life

Judge Barrett with her husband, Jesse

Since 1999, Barrett has been married to fellow Notre Dame Law graduate Jesse M. Barrett, a partner at SouthBank Legal in South BendIndiana. Previously, Jesse Barrett worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorneyfor the Northern District of Indiana for 13 years.[77][78][79] They live in South Bend and have seven children, ranging in age from 8-19.[80] Two of the Barrett children are adopted from Haiti. Their youngest biological child has special needs.[79][2][81]Barrett is a practicing Catholic.[82][83]

In September 2017, The New York Times reported that Barrett was an active member of a small, tightly knit Charismatic Christian group called People of Praise.[84][85] Founded in South Bend, the group is associated with the Catholic Charismatic Renewalmovement; it is ecumenical and not formally affiliated with the Catholic Church, but about 90% of its members are Catholic.[85][86]

Affiliations and recognition

From 2010 to 2016, Barrett served by appointment of the Chief Justice on the Advisory Committee for the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure.[15]

Barrett was a member of the Federalist Society from 2005 to 2006 and from 2014 to 2017.[25][10][11] She is a member of the American Law Institute.[87]

Selected publications

See also

References

—-

​Amy Coney Barrett was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in November 2017. She serves on the faculty of the Notre Dame Law School, teaching on constitutional law, federal courts, and statutory interpretation, and previously served on the Advisory Committee for the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Rhodes College in 1994 and her J.D. from Notre Dame Law School in 1997. Following law school, Barrett clerked for Judge Laurence Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. She also practiced law with Washington, D.C. law firm Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin.

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I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control  and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis SchaefferProlife | Edit | Comments (3)

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part E “Moral absolutes and abortion” Francis Schaeffer Quotes part 5(includes the film SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS) (editorial cartoon)

April 7, 2013 – 6:25 am

I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control  and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis SchaefferProlife | Edit | Comments (2)

“Sanctity of Life Saturday” Abortion supporters lying in order to further their clause? Window to the Womb (includes video ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE)

April 6, 2013 – 12:01 am

It is truly sad to me that liberals will lie in order to attack good Christian people like state senator Jason Rapert of Conway, Arkansas because he headed a group of pro-life senators that got a pro-life bill through the Arkansas State Senate the last week of January in 2013. I have gone back and […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas TimesFrancis SchaefferMax BrantleyProlife | Edit | Comments (0)

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part D “If you can’t afford a child can you abort?”Francis Schaeffer Quotes part 4 includes the film ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE) (editorial cartoon)

April 5, 2013 – 6:30 am

I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control  and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis SchaefferProlife | Edit | Comments (0)

Happy 111th Birthday, Milton Friedman, Your Wish Has Come True

Happy 111th Birthday, Milton Friedman, Your Wish Has Come True

Jay Greene  @jaypgreene / Jason Bedrick  /@JasonBedrick / July 30, 2023

Milton and Rose Friedman

On Milton Friedman’s 111th birthday, we celebrate the growth of a free market in education he promoted and also heed his warning that those benefits can only be enjoyed if we avoid racial preferences, too. Pictured: Milton and Rose Friedman February 21, 1981. (Photo: Roger Ressmeyer, CORBIS, VCG/Getty Images)

COMMENTARY BY

Jay Greene@jaypgreene

Jay Greene is a senior research fellow in the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation.

Jason Bedrick@JasonBedrick

Jason Bedrick is a research fellow with The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy.

On the occasion of his “eleventy-first” birthday, the hobbit Bilbo Baggins famously disappeared. On July 31, we celebrate what would have been the 111th birthday of another man who was diminutive in size but larger than life in spirit: Milton Friedman. Were he to reappear today, he would likely marvel at how much progress has been made on issues about which he cared so deeply.

In particular, Friedman would likely be amazed at the expansion of education freedom over the last year as well as the landmark Supreme Court decision to eliminate racial preferences in education.

In the past three years alone, more than 20 states have enacted new education choice policies or expanded existing ones, including eight states that are in the process of implementing Friedman’s vision of universal school choice.

And last month, the Supreme Court decided jointly in two cases brought by Students for Fair Admissions against Harvard and the University of North Carolina that the equal protection clause prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, including in college admissions.

For Friedman, these two issues were closely connected. He was convinced that black Americans could not obtain equality of opportunity unless they had access to school choice. But he also understood that if those educational opportunities were allocated with racial preferences, that system might help a few but would inevitably undermine access to quality options for most black Americans.

Friedman once remarked, “If you think that there is a way out of this by getting government to pass laws especially to benefit [black Americans] you are kidding yourself. That isn’t going to happen.”

The problem, he astutely observed, is that majorities pass laws and black Americans are a relatively small minority. It is unreasonable, he argued, to expect majorities to pass laws that would undermine their own interests while advancing the interests of a minority. As he put it:

Temporarily … affirmative action may benefit some blacks, some low-income people, but if you believe that Supreme Court decisions are going to be able to stop a majority of the population, which is prejudiced, from using this power to benefit themselves rather than the people who are disadvantaged, you’re kidding yourself. That’s not the way out.

Affirmative action may have elevated select members of minority groups, but it did so at the expense of others, particularly Asian Americans. According to author Kenny Xu:

In the case of Harvard, race is not simply used as a tiebreaker in admissions. A 2013 internal Harvard study revealed by the [Students for Fair Admissions] lawsuit showed that had Harvard only considered academics, Asians would make up 43% of Harvard’s student body. Adding legacy, athlete recruitment, “extracurriculars,” and a “personal” score lowered Asians to 26%. Finally, in the years the internal Harvard study looked at, Asians actually made up only 19% of the student body.

Even the supposed beneficiaries of racial preferences in college admissions are harmed by them in at least three ways. First, artificially advancing some applicants undermines incentives for achievement within their racial communities, as it detaches accomplishments from rewards.

Second, as the great economist Thomas Sowell (a former student of Friedman) observed, racial preferences lead to a “mismatch effect” that leaves “many blacks and Hispanics who likely would have excelled at less elite schools … in a position where underperformance is all but inevitable because they are less academically prepared than the white and Asian students with whom they must compete.” 

And third, as Justice Clarence Thomas has argued, racial preferences “stamp [their beneficiaries] with a badge of inferiority” that “taints the accomplishments of all those who are admitted as a result of racial discrimination” as well as “all those who are the same race as those admitted as a result of racial discrimination” because “no one can distinguish those students from the ones whose race played a role in their admission.”

Friedman was very clear that meaningful progress depended on abolishing both racial discrimination and racial preferences:

We want a society in which people can celebrate their own special ethnic background. But that’s a very different thing from a society which somehow takes ethnic characteristics as a criterion for preference or lack of preference, from a society which moves away from the doctrine of color-blindedness to the doctrine of so-called affirmative action. That’s the problem.

There are many advocates within the school choice movement who agree with Friedman on the benefits of expanding educational freedom but somehow ignore his message about the harms of racial preferences. They favor private school choice, but only for urban school districts with large minority populations or only when programs are targeted toward low-income families. They favor charter schools, but only those that focus on minority students with “culturally responsive” models. They believe that students learn the most from teachers who share the same skin pigmentation and they seek preferential funding, training, and hiring of black teachers to accomplish this.

Friedman would be thrilled to see that all students, regardless of class, color, or creed, are now eligible for private school choice in eight states. But he would be aghast that some claiming to favor school choice would prefer that these opportunities be allocated with racial preferences.

Friedman had no objection to people maintaining strong racial and ethnic identities: “I believe it’s highly desirable for people to be able to pursue their own values, to have whatever ethnic values they want, provided they do it voluntarily and do not interfere with the freedom of others to do it also. We want a society of variety and diversity.”

But he would have objected vigorously to the idea that government policies, such as critical race theory in public school curriculum, matching the race of students to teachers, or racial targeting of education opportunities, were necessary to cultivate those group identities and achieve progress for members of those communities.

Friedman was once asked directly about this issue: “Don’t you think it’s through ethnic solidarity that many minority groups were able to make advances in the American society?”

To which Friedman replied, “Not in the slightest. If you look at the way in which ethnic minorities made advances, it was not through ethnic solidarity. It was through the free market.”

On Milton Friedman’s 111th birthday, we should celebrate the remarkable growth toward a free market in education that we have seen in recent years. But we should also heed Friedman’s warning that those benefits of freedom can only be enjoyed if we avoid the coercion of racial preferences.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com, and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.


Milton Friedman – Public Schools / Voucher System – Failures in Educatio…

Milton Friedman – Educational Vouchers

School Choice and Civil Rights, Part II

In Part I of this series, I made the simple point that school choice should be a civil rights issue.

This is because government schools do a scandalously bad job of educating children from poor communities and choice would give families the ability to escape that failing system.

And the people I cited in that column also made very good points about better K-12 schooling being the right way of preparing more minority children to successfully advance to the next level, especially if they want to attend elite colleges.

Which is a good reason to now look at a series of essays in the New York Times on “How to Fix College Admissions Now.”

Professor Roland Fryer, an economics professor at Harvard, easily has the best piece. Here’s some of what he proposed.

…selective schools are planning to respond to its widely anticipated decision to end affirmative action…in part, by watering down their admissions standards, through policies like reducing or eliminating the role of standardized tests. …But this is precisely backward. Instead of making the admissions process shallow, elite colleges should deepen the applicant pool.The simplest, most direct way to do that is for these schools to found and fund schools that educate disadvantaged students. …They could fix the problem if they truly wanted to. Elite colleges could operate a network of, say, 100 feeder middle and high schools — academies that are open to promising students who otherwise lack access to a high-quality secondary education, in cities where such children are common because of high poverty rates and underperforming public schools. …he cost would be about $4 billion — about 2 percent of the League’s total endowments. This cost could be offset by fundraising specifically for the academies. One could even add three years of middle school without getting close to the $10 billion mark, if we believe intervention must start sooner.

Professor Fryer is correct on many levels.

But what’s especially enjoyable about his column is that he’s asking elite colleges to put up or shut up. If they really care about better schooling and more diversity, they can take a small slice of their endowments to make it happen.

Given the rampant hypocrisy on the left, I won’t be holding my breath waiting for this to happen.

Censorship, School Libraries, Democracy, and Choice

A big advantage of living in a constitutional republicis that individual rights are protected from “tyranny of the majority.”

  • Assuming courts are doing their job, it doesn’t matterif 90 percent of voters support restrictions on free speech.
  • Assuming courts are doing their job, it doesn’t matter if 90 percent of voters support gun confiscation.
  • Assuming courts are doing their job, it doesn’t matter if 90 percent of voters support warrantless searches.

That being said, a constitutional republic is a democratic form of government. And if government is staying within proper boundaries, political decisions should be based on majority rule, as expressed through elections.

In some cases, that will lead to decisions I don’t like. For instance, the (tragic) 16th Amendment gives the federal government the authority to impose an income tax and voters repeatedly have elected politicians who have opted to exercise that authority.

Needless to say, I will continue my efforts to educate voters and lawmakers in hopes that eventually there will be majorities that choose a different approach. That’s how things should work in a properly functioning democracy.

But not everyone agrees.

report in the New York Times, authored by Elizabeth Harris and Alexandra Alter, discusses the controversy over which books should be in the libraries of government schools.

The Keller Independent School District, just outside of Dallas, passed a new rule in November: It banned books from its libraries that include the concept of gender fluidity. …recently, the issue has been supercharged by a rapidly growing and increasingly influential constellation of conservative groups.The organizations frequently describe themselves as defending parental rights. …“This is not about banning books, it’s about protecting the innocence of our children,” said Keith Flaugh, one of the founders of Florida Citizens Alliance, a conservative group focused on education… The restrictions, said Emerson Sykes, a First Amendment litigator for the American Civil Liberties Union, infringe on students’ “right to access a broad range of material without political censorship.” …In Florida, parents who oppose book banning formed the Freedom to Read Project.

As indicated by the excerpt, some people are very sloppy with language.

If a school decides not to buy a certain book for its library, that is not a “book ban.” Censorship only exists when the government uses coercion to prevent people from buying books with their own money.

As I wrote earlier this year, “The fight is not over which books to ban. It’s about which books to buy.”

And this brings us back to the issue of democracy.

School libraries obviously don’t have the space or funds to stock every book ever published, so somebody has to make choices. And voters have the ultimate power to make those choices since they elect school boards.

I’ll close by noting that democracy does not please everyone. Left-leaning parents in Alabama probably don’t always like the decisions of their school boards,just like right-leaning parents in Vermont presumably don’t always like the decisions of their school boards.

And the same thing happens with other contentious issues, such as teaching critical race theory.

Which is why school choice is the best outcome. Then, regardless of ideology, parents can choose schools that have the curriculum (and books) that they think will be best for their children.

P.S. If you want to peruse a genuine example of censorship, click here.


More Academic Evidence for School Choice

Since teacher unions care more about lining their pockets and protecting their privileges rather than improving education, I’ll never feel any empathy for bosses like Randi Weingarten.

That being said, the past couple of years have been bad news for Ms Weingarten and her cronies.

Not only is school choice spreading – especially in states such as Arizona and West Virginia, but we also are getting more and more evidence that competition produces better results for schoolkids.

In a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Professors David N. Figlio, Cassandra M.D. Hart & Krzysztof Karbownikfound that school choice led to benefits even for kids who remained stuck in government schools.

They enjoyed better academic outcomes, which is somewhat surprising, but even I was pleasantly shocked to see improved behavioral outcomes as well.

School choice programs have been growing in the United States and worldwide over the past two decades, and thus there is considerable interest in how these policies affect students remaining in public schools. …the evidence on the effects of these programs as they scale up is virtually non-existent. Here, we investigate this question using data from the state of Florida where, over the course of our sample period, the voucher program participation increased nearly seven-fold.We find consistent evidence that as the program grows in size, students in public schools that faced higher competitive pressure levels see greater gains from the program expansion than do those in locations with less competitive pressure. Importantly, we find that these positive externalities extend to behavioral outcomes— absenteeism and suspensions—that have not been well-explored in prior literature on school choice from either voucher or charter programs. Our preferred competition measure, the Competitive Pressure Index, produces estimates implying that a 10 percent increase in the number of students participating in the voucher program increases test scores by 0.3 to 0.7 percent of a standard deviation and reduces behavioral problems by 0.6 to 0.9 percent. …Finally, we find that public school students who are most positively affected come from comparatively lower socioeconomic background, which is the set of students that schools should be most concerned about losing under the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program.

It’s good news that competition from the private sector produces better results in government schools.

But it’s great news that those from disadvantaged backgrounds disproportionately benefit when there is more school choice.

Wonkier readers will enjoy Figure A2, which shows the benefits to regular kids on the right and disadvantaged kids on the left.

Since the study looked at results in Florida, I’ll close by observing that Florida is ranked #1 for education freedom and ranked #3 for school choice.

P.S. Here’s a video explaining the benefits of school choice.

P.P.S. There’s international evidence from SwedenChileCanada, and the Netherlands, all of which shows superior results when competition replaces government education monopolies.

———-

Portrait of Milton Friedman.jpg

Milton Friedman chose the emphasis on school choice and school vouchers as his greatest legacy and hopefully the Supreme Court will help that dream see a chance!

Educational Choice, the Supreme Court, and a Level Playing Field for Religious Schools

The case for school choice is very straightforward.

The good news is that there was a lot of pro-choice reform in 2021.

West Virginia adopted a statewide system that is based on parental choice. And many other states expanded choice-based programs.

But 2022 may be a good year as well. That’s because the Supreme Court is considering whether to strike down state laws that restrict choice by discriminating against religious schools.

Michael Bindas of the Institute for Justice and Walter Womack of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference make the case for a level playing field in a column for the New York Times.

In 2002, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution allows school choice programs to include schools that provide religious instruction, so long as the voucher program also offers secular options. The question now before the court is whether a state may nevertheless exclude schools that provide religious instruction. The case, Carson v. Makin, …concerns Maine’s tuition assistance program. In that large and sparsely populated state, over half of the school districts have no public high schools. If a student lives in such a district, and it does not contract with another high school to educate its students, then the district must pay tuition for the student to attend the school of her or his parents’ choice. …But one type of school is off limits: a school that provides religious instruction. That may seem unconstitutional, and we argue that it is. Only last year, the Supreme Court, citing the free exercise clause of the Constitution, held that states cannot bar students in a school choice program from selecting religious schools when it allows them to choose other private schools. …The outcome will be enormously consequential for families in public schools that are failing them and will go a long way toward determining whether the most disadvantaged families can exercise the same control over the education of their children as wealthier citizens.

The Wall Street Journal editorialized on this issue earlier this week.

Maine has one of the country’s oldest educational choice systems, a tuition program for students who live in areas that don’t run schools of their own. Instead these families get to pick a school, and public funds go toward enrollment. Religious schools are excluded, however, and on Wednesday the Supreme Court will hear from parents who have closely read the First Amendment.…Maine argues it isn’t denying funds based on the religious “status” of any school… The state claims, rather, that it is merely refusing to allocate money for a “religious use,” specifically, “an education designed to proselytize and inculcate children with a particular faith.” In practice, this distinction between “status” and “use” falls apart. Think about it: Maine is happy to fund tuition at an evangelical school, as long as nothing evangelical is taught. Hmmm. …A state can’t subsidize tuition only for private schools with government-approved values, and trying to define the product as “secular education” gives away the game. …America’s Founders knew what they were doing when they wrote the First Amendment to protect religious “free exercise.”

What does the other side say?

Rachel Laser, head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, doesn’t want religious schools to be treated equally under school choice programs.

Here’s some of her column in the Washington Post.

…two sets of parents in Maine claim that the Constitution’s promise of religious freedom actually requires the state to fund religious education at private schools with taxpayer dollars — as a substitute for public education. This interpretation flips the meaning of religious freedom on its head and threatens both true religious freedom and public education.…The problem here is even bigger than public funds paying for praying, as wrong as that is. Unlike public schools, private religious schools often do not honor civil rights protections, especially for LGBTQ people, women, students with disabilities, religious minorities and the nonreligious. …If the court were to agree with the parents, it would also be rejecting the will of three-quarters of the states, which long ago enacted clauses in their state constitutions and passed statutes specifically prohibiting public funding of religious education. …It is up to parents and religious communities to educate their children in their faith. Publicly funded schools should never serve that purpose.

These arguments are not persuasive.

The fact that many state constitutions include so-called Blaine amendments actually undermines her argument since those provisions were motivated by a desire to discriminate against parochial schools that provided education to Catholic immigrants.

And it’s definitely not clear why school choice shouldn’t include religious schools that follow religious teachings, unless she also wants to argue that student grants and loans shouldn’t go to students at Notre Dame, Brigham Young, Liberty, and other religiously affiliated colleges.

The good news is that Ms. Laser’s arguments don’t seem to be winning. Based on this report from yesterday’s Washington Post, authored by Robert Barnes, there are reasons to believe the Justices will make the right decision.

Conservatives on the Supreme Court seemed…critical of a Maine tuition program that does not allow public funds to go to schools that promote religious instruction. The case involves an unusual program in a small state that affects only a few thousand students. But it could have greater implications… The oral argument went on for nearly two hours and featured an array of hypotheticals. …But the session ended as most suspected it would, with the three liberal justices expressing support for Maine and the six conservatives skeptical that it protected religious parents from unconstitutional discrimination.

I can’t resist sharing this additional excerpt about President Biden deciding to side with teacher unions instead of students.

The Justice Department switched its position in the case after President Biden was inaugurated and now supports Maine.

But let’s not dwell on Biden’s hackery (especially since that’s a common affliction on the left).

Instead, let’s close with some uplifting thoughts about what might happen if we get a good decision from the Supreme Court when decisions are announced next year.

Maybe I’m overly optimistic, but I think we’re getting close to a tipping point. As more and more states and communities shift to choice, we will have more and more evidence that it’s a win-win for both families and taxpayers.

Which will lead to more choice programs, which will produce more helpful data.

Lather, rinse, repeat. No wonder the (hypocriticalteacher unionsare so desperate to stop progress.

P.S. There’s strong evidence for school choice from nations such as SwedenChile, and the Netherlands.

Free To Choose 1980 – Vol. 06 What’s Wrong with Our Schools? – Full Video
https://youtu.be/tA9jALkw9_Q



Why Milton Friedman Saw School Choice as a First Step, Not a Final One

On his birthday, let’s celebrate Milton Friedman’s vision of enabling parents, not government, to be in control of a child’s education.

Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Kerry McDonald
Kerry McDonald

EducationMilton FriedmanSchool ChoiceSchooling

Libertarians and others are often torn about school choice. They may wish to see the government schooling monopoly weakened, but they may resist supporting choice mechanisms, like vouchers and education savings accounts, because they don’t go far enough. Indeed, most current choice programs continue to rely on taxpayer funding of education and don’t address the underlying compulsory nature of elementary and secondary schooling.

Skeptics may also have legitimate fears that taxpayer-funded education choice programs will lead to over-regulation of previously independent and parochial schooling options, making all schooling mirror compulsory mass schooling, with no substantive variation.

Milton Friedman had these same concerns. The Nobel prize-winning economist is widely considered to be the one to popularize the idea of vouchers and school choice beginning with his 1955 paper, “The Role of Government in Education.” His vision continues to be realized through the important work of EdChoice, formerly the Friedman Foundation for Education Choice, that Friedman and his economist wife, Rose, founded in 1996.

July 31 is Milton Friedman’s birthday. He died in 2006 at the age of 94, but his ideas continue to have an impact, particularly in education policy.

Friedman saw vouchers and other choice programs as half-measures. He recognized the larger problems of taxpayer funding and compulsion, but saw vouchers as an important starting point in allowing parents to regain control of their children’s education. In their popular book, Free To Choose, first published in 1980, the Friedmans wrote:

We regard the voucher plan as a partial solution because it affects neither the financing of schooling nor the compulsory attendance laws. We favor going much farther. (p.161)

They continued:

The compulsory attendance laws are the justification for government control over the standards of private schools. But it is far from clear that there is any justification for the compulsory attendance laws themselves. (p. 162)

The Friedmans admitted that their “own views on this have changed over time,” as they realized that “compulsory attendance at schools is not necessary to achieve that minimum standard of literacy and knowledge,” and that “schooling was well-nigh universal in the United States before either compulsory attendance or government financing of schooling existed. Like most laws, compulsory attendance laws have costs as well as benefits. We no longer believe the benefits justify the costs.” (pp. 162-3)

Still, they felt that vouchers would be the essential starting point toward chipping away at monopoly mass schooling by putting parents back in charge. School choice, in other words, would be a necessary but not sufficient policy approach toward addressing the underlying issue of government control of education.

In their book, the Friedmans presented the potential outcomes of their proposed voucher plan, which would give parents access to some or all of the average per-pupil expenditures of a child enrolled in public school. They believed that vouchers would help create a more competitive education market, encouraging education entrepreneurship. They felt that parents would be more empowered with greater control over their children’s education and have a stronger desire to contribute some of their own money toward education. They asserted that in many places “the public school has fostered residential stratification, by tying the kind and cost of schooling to residential location” and suggested that voucher programs would lead to increased integration and heterogeneity. (pp. 166-7)

To the critics who said, and still say, that school choice programs would destroy the public schools, the Friedmans replied that these critics fail to

explain why, if the public school system is doing such a splendid job, it needs to fear competition from nongovernmental, competitive schools or, if it isn’t, why anyone should object to its “destruction.” (p. 170)

What I appreciate most about the Friedmans discussion of vouchers and the promise of school choice is their unrelenting support of parents. They believed that parents, not government bureaucrats and intellectuals, know what is best for their children’s education and well-being and are fully capable of choosing wisely for their children—when they have the opportunity to do so.

They wrote:

Parents generally have both greater interest in their children’s schooling and more intimate knowledge of their capacities and needs than anyone else. Social reformers, and educational reformers in particular, often self-righteously take for granted that parents, especially those who are poor and have little education themselves, have little interest in their children’s education and no competence to choose for them. That is a gratuitous insult. Such parents have frequently had limited opportunity to choose. However, U.S. history has demonstrated that, given the opportunity, they have often been willing to sacrifice a great deal, and have done so wisely, for their children’s welfare. (p. 160).

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Today, school voucher programs exist in 15 states plus the District of Columbia. These programs have consistently shown that when parents are given the choice to opt-out of an assigned district school, many will take advantage of the opportunity. In Washington, D.C., low-income parents who win a voucher lottery send their children to private schools.

The most recent three-year federal evaluationof voucher program participants found that while student academic achievement was comparable to achievement for non-voucher students remaining in public schools, there were statistically significant improvements in other important areas. For instance, voucher participants had lower rates of chronic absenteeism than the control groups, as well as higher student satisfaction scores. There were also tremendous cost-savings.

In Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program has served over 28,000 low-income students attending 129 participating private schools.

According to Corey DeAngelis, Director of School Choice at the Reason Foundation and a prolific researcher on the topic, the recent analysis of the D.C. voucher program “reveals that private schools produce the same academic outcomes for only a third of the cost of the public schools. In other words, school choice is a great investment.”

In Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program was created in 1990 and is the nation’s oldest voucher program. It currently serves over 28,000 low-income students attending 129 participating private schools. Like the D.C. voucher program, data on test scores of Milwaukee voucher students show similar results to public school students, but non-academic results are promising.

Recent research found voucher recipients had lower crime rates and lower incidences of unplanned pregnancies in young adulthood. On his birthday, let’s celebrate Milton Friedman’s vision of enabling parents, not government, to be in control of a child’s education.

According to Howard Fuller, an education professor at Marquette University, founder of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, and one of the developers of the Milwaukee voucher program, the key is parent empowerment—particularly for low-income minority families.

In an interview with NPR, Fuller said: “What I’m saying to you is that there are thousands of black children whose lives are much better today because of the Milwaukee parental choice program,” he says. 
“They were able to access better schools than they would have without a voucher.”

Putting parents back in charge of their child’s education through school choice measures was Milton Friedman’s goal. It was not his ultimate goal, as it would not fully address the funding and compulsion components of government schooling; but it was, and remains, an important first step. As the Friedmans wrote in Free To Choose:

The strong American tradition of voluntary action has provided many excellent examples that demonstrate what can be done when parents have greater choice. (p. 159).

On his birthday, let’s celebrate Milton Friedman’s vision of enabling parents, not government, to be in control of a child’s education.

Kerry McDonald

Milton Friedman

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“Friedman Friday” (“Free to Choose” episode 1 – Power of the Market. part 3 of 7)

February 17, 2012 – 12:12 am

  _________________________   Pt3  Nowadays there’s a considerable amount of traffic at this border. People cross a little more freely than they use to. Many people from Hong Kong trade in China and the market has helped bring the two countries closer together, but the barriers between them are still very real. On this side […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)

“Friedman Friday” (“Free to Choose” episode 1 – Power of the Market. part 2 of 7)

February 10, 2012 – 12:09 am

  Aside from its harbor, the only other important resource of Hong Kong is people __ over 4_ million of them. Like America a century ago, Hong Kong in the past few decades has been a haven for people who sought the freedom to make the most of their own abilities. Many of them are […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)

“Friedman Friday” (“Free to Choose” episode 1 – Power of the Market. part 1of 7)

February 3, 2012 – 12:07 am

“FREE TO CHOOSE” 1: The Power of the Market (Milton Friedman) Free to Choose ^ | 1980 | Milton Friedman Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 4:20:46 PM by Choose Ye This Day FREE TO CHOOSE: The Power of the Market Friedman: Once all of this was a swamp, covered with forest. The Canarce Indians […]

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 1-5

Debate on Milton Friedman’s cure for inflation

September 29, 2011 – 7:24 am

If you would like to see the first three episodes on inflation in Milton Friedman’s film series “Free to Choose” then go to a previous post I did. Ep. 9 – How to Cure Inflation [4/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980) Uploaded by investbligurucom on Jun 16, 2010 While many people have a fairly […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Current Events | Tagged dr friedman, expansion history, income tax brackets, political courage, www youtube | Edit | Comments (0)

“Friedman Friday” Milton Friedman believed in liberty (Interview by Charlie Rose of Milton Friedman part 1)

April 19, 2013 – 1:14 am

Charlie Rose interview of Milton Friedman My favorite economist: Milton Friedman : A Great Champion of Liberty  by V. Sundaram   Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who advocated an unfettered free market and had the ear of three US Presidents – Nixon, Ford and Reagan – died last Thursday (16 November, 2006 ) in San Francisco […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)

What were the main proposals of Milton Friedman?

February 21, 2013 – 1:01 am

Stearns Speaks on House Floor in Support of Balanced Budget Amendment Uploaded by RepCliffStearns on Nov 18, 2011 Speaking on House floor in support of Balanced Budget Resolution, 11/18/2011 ___________ Below are some of the main proposals of Milton Friedman. I highly respected his work. David J. Theroux said this about Milton Friedman’s view concerning […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)

“Friedman Friday,” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 1)

December 7, 2012 – 5:55 am

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton FriedmanPresident Obama | Edit | Comments (1)

Defending Milton Friedman

July 31, 2012 – 6:45 am

What a great defense of Milton Friedman!!!!   Defaming Milton Friedman by Johan Norberg This article appeared in Reason Online on September 26, 2008  PRINT PAGE  CITE THIS      Sans Serif      Serif Share with your friends: ShareThis In the future, if you tell a student or a journalist that you favor free markets and limited government, there is […]

“Music Monday” The Beatles albums ranked Part 11 “Beatles For Sale” (1964)

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The Beatles albums ranked

December 23, 2022

The Beatles discography ranked

It’s difficult to have the albums created by the most important band in the history of music ranked from worst to best. After all, it’s unlikely that you’ll find any band or musical artist unwilling to share their admiration for the Fab Four. Their fingerprints are over everything created in popular music.

The Liverpool quartet recorded albums at a significant pace between 1963 and 1970. Many of these are classics that redefined what pop-rock could be. Most of these are tremendously experimental, adventurous affairs.

Still, which one’s the best? Is there any one album worth avoiding?

I’ve looked at the evidence and listened to the whole discography once more, and I think that I have an answer or two.

For simplicity’s sake, I have only included official UK releases. That means that the early US-released records aren’t on here. Neither are compilations such as “Anthology,” “Rarities,” or “Hey Jude.” “Yellow Submarine” is included as it included mostly unreleased material and was crafted as a studio album.

With this in mind, here’s a quick initiation into the musical world created by John, Paul, George, and Ringo, The Beatles albums ranked.

11. “Beatles For Sale” (1964)

“Beatles for Sale” is the fourth studio album by The Beatles, and it’s definitely a keeper! This album is chock-full of catchy, upbeat, and highly hummable tracks.

The standout track on the album is “Eight Days a Week,” an upbeat rocker. It features some seriously catchy hooks and infectious energy.

Another highlight on the album is “I’ll Follow the Sun,” a sweet, upbeat ballad that showcases Paul McCartney’s evolving songwriting skills. This song is a perfect example of the band’s ability to write catchy, melodic songs.

It should be mentioned that Lennon and McCartney had decided to add both their names to the credits of songs written by one or the other. This would help quiet potential issues of jealousy between the main songwriters.

It would, however, result in other issues further down the line. One of them was the fact that George Harrison’s writing would rarely benefit from contributions from either John or Paul.

But it’s not all upbeat rockers and sweet ballads on this album. “No Reply” is a moody, introspective track. It shows the band’s interest in writing more serious, emotionally-charged songs. This song is a testament to the band’s versatility and songwriting skills.

Much more, and arguably better work, was just on the horizon. However, in terms of pure, ear-pleasing pop-rock, this is a great album.

Together – John Lennon (Live In New York City)

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A commentary below notes: “They were all prepared or desiring to move in different directions; they all really kind of wanted their own thing. A fitting, if depressing ending song. It’s about selfishness…” That is my analysis too of the following song:

Lyrics
All through the day
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
All through the night
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
Now they’re frightened of leaving it
Everyone’s weaving it
Coming on strong all the time
All through the day
I me mine
I me me mine
I me me mine
I me me mine
I me me mine
All I can hear
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
Even those tears
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
No-one’s frightened of playing it
Everyone’s saying it
Flowing more freely than wine
All through the day
I me mine
I me me mine
I me me mine
I me me mine
I me me mine
All I can hear
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
Even those tears
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
No-one’s frightened of playing it
Everyone’s saying it
Flowing more freely than wine
All through your life
I me mine
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: George Harrison
I Me Mine lyrics © Westminster Music

  • General CommentI think it’s commentary on the breaking up of the band more than anything. Sure, it applies to Paul, but it really applies to each of them. They were all prepared or desiring to move in different directions; they all really kind of wanted their own thing. A fitting, if depressing ending song. It’s about selfishness and how it can build things (Desire for wealth and fame makes many bands) but destroys them just as well (Major fame makes them think each is the reason they rock, so they want their own gigs).

    DavimusKon July 24, 2007   Link

I Me Mine” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1970 album Let It Be. Written by George Harrison, it was the last new track recorded by the band before their break-up in April 1970. The song originated from their January 1969 rehearsals at Twickenham Film Studios when they were considering making a return to live performance. Written at a time of acrimony within the group, the lyrics lament humankind’s propensity for self-centredness and serve as a comment on the discord that led to Harrison temporarily leaving the Beatles. The musical arrangement alternates between waltz-time verses and choruses played in the hard rockstyle.

“I Me Mine”
"I Me Mine" sheet music cover.jpg

Cover of the original Hansen Publishing sheet music
Song by the Beatles
from the album Let It Be
Released 8 May 1970
Recorded 3 January and 1 April 1970
Studio EMI, London
Genre Rock
Length 2:25
Label Apple
Songwriter(s) George Harrison
Producer(s) Phil Spector

The song reflects Harrison’s absorption in Hindu texts such as the Bhagavad Gita and their denouncement of ego in favour of universal consciousness. When Harrison presented “I Me Mine” at Twickenham, John Lennon showed little interest and instead waltzed with Yoko Ono while the other Beatles rehearsed the song. Footage of the couple dancing was included in the Let It Bedocumentary film. In January 1970, by which point Lennon had privately left the group, the three remaining members formally recorded the song at EMI Studios in London for the Let It Be album. When preparing the album for release, producer Phil Spector extended the track by repeating the chorus and second verse, in addition to adding orchestration and a female choir.

Among music critics, several writers have identified “I Me Mine” as a powerful final performance by the Beatles and an apt statement from Harrison. The song has been referenced by some religious scholars in their commentary on egoism. Harrison titled his 1980 autobiography I, Me, Mine after the track. The original recording, lasting just 1:34, appeared on the Beatles’ 1996 outtakes compilation Anthology 3, introduced by a mock announcement from Harrison referring to Lennon’s departure.

Background and inspirationEdit

I kept coming across the words I, me and mine in books about yoga and stuff … [about the difference between] the real you and the you that people mistake their identity to be … I, me and mine is all ego orientation. But it is something which is used all the time … “No one’s frightened of saying it, everyone’s playing it, coming on strong all the time. All through your life, I me mine.”[1]

– George Harrison, 1997

George Harrison wrote “I Me Mine” on 7 January 1969, during the second week of the Beatles‘ filmed rehearsals at Twickenham Film Studios in west London.[2] The film project – which became known as Get Back and eventually Let It Be[3][4] – formed part of the Beatles’ proposed return to live performance for the first time since 1966.[5]Harrison recalled that after spending two months in the United States in late 1968, he was “quite optimistic” about the new project, but the situation within the group “was just the same as it had been when we were last in the studio … There was a lot of trivia and games being played.”[6] For Harrison, the power struggle between John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and the constant presence of Lennon’s girlfriend, avant-garde artist Yoko Ono,[7] created an atmosphere that contrasted sharply with the creative freedom and camaraderie he had recently enjoyed with Bob Dylan and the Band in upstate New York.[8]

When writing the song, Harrison drew inspiration from the divisive atmosphere in the band.[2] The 7 January rehearsal was marked by acrimony, as the Beatles argued over the direction of the project.[9]Hours were given over to rehearsing McCartney’s “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” with little improvement,[10] and McCartney confronted Lennon over his lack of new songs, drawing a sarcastic response from Lennon.[11][nb 1] Since the start of the project, Harrison had presented several new songs for consideration,[16][17] only to see them given laborious treatment by the band or overlooked entirely.[18] That day, he confronted his bandmates about their attitude to his songs;[19] he later complained that due to their greater experience as songwriters, Lennon and McCartney viewed their own material as the priority and “I’d have to wait through ten of their songs before they’d even listen to one of mine.”[20] In their study of the tapes from the Get Back project, authors Doug Sulpy and Ray Schweighardt write that Lennon and McCartney regularly overlooked Harrison’s compositions, even when his songs were “far better than their own”.[7]

The song’s message was partly inspired by the teachings of Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda.

When discussing “I Me Mine”, Harrison said he was addressing the “eternal problem” of egoism[21][22]and that his perspective was informed by his past experiences with the hallucinogenic drug LSD.[1][23]He said the concept was in keeping with Swami Vivekananda‘s teaching that an individual’s goal in life was to realise their divine qualities by transcending ego concerns, which Harrison called “the little ‘i'”, and seeing themselves as part of “the big ‘I’; i.e. OM, the complete whole, universal consciousness that is devoid of duality and ego”.[21]Author Jonathan Gould describes the song as a “commentary on the selfishness” of Lennon and McCartney,[24] while musicologist Walter Everettsays that after Harrison had written “Not Guilty” in 1968 as a “defense against the tyranny of his songwriting comrades”, “I Me Mine” was his “mocking complaint about their stifling egos”.[25]Harrison wrote the song at home that night.[26] The melody was inspired by the incidental music on a BBC television programme he watched, Europa – The Titled and the Untitled,[19] played by an Austrian brass band.[25]

CompositionEdit

The verses of “I Me Mine” are in the key of A minorwhile the chorus is in A major.[27] This technique of parallel minor/major contrast is common in the Beatles’ songwriting and had been employed by Harrison in his 1968 songs “While My Guitar Gently Weeps[27] and “Savoy Truffle“.[28][nb 2] Everett likens the melody of the verses to the European folk music typified by Mary Hopkin‘s debut single for the Beatles’ Apple record label, “Those Were the Days“.[25] He views this folk aspect as “well suited” to Harrison’s use of the same “F-against-E7 sound” he first adopted in “I Want to Tell You“.[25][nb 3] The composition originally included a flamenco-style instrumental passage[30] but Harrison subsequently replaced this section with a chorus repeating the line “I me-me mine”.[31] In its final form, the structure comprises an intro, two combinations of verse and chorus, followed by a verse.[32] The verse and chorus are also differentiated by their time signature: the former is in 3/4 time while the latter is in 4/4.[32]

Musicologist Alan Pollack describes the song as “an interesting folk/blues stylistic hybrid with more than just a touch of the hard rocking waltz beat”.[32] The verse begins with two repeated phrases, each consisting of a shift from the i minor (Am) chord to a IV (D7), emphasising the Dorian mode,[33] followed by ♭VII (G), V7 (E7) and i minor chords.[32] The verse continues with a minor iv (Dm) chord for two bars[32]before shifting to V7 (E7), after which a ♭9 (F natural) melody note results in what musicologist Dominic Pedler terms the “dark drama” of an E7♭9 chord and an example of the Beatles’ employment of an “exotic intensifier”.[34] There then follows a chromatically descending bass line over the i minor chord, leading to VI (F7) and the transition into the 4/4 chorus.[32] The latter presents as a heavy rock[35] 12-bar blues but is abbreviated to 10 bars since the V chord functions as a re-transition to the verse.[32] Pedler also comments on the unusual aspect of the song concluding on an ♭VI (Fmaj7) chord in A minor key.[36]

The set of pronouns that form the song’s title are a conventional way of referring to the ego in Hinduand Buddhist philosophy.[37] The lyrics reference the Bhagavad Gita 2:71-72,[38] part of which advocates a life “devoid of any sense of mineness or egotism”.[39][nb 4] According to spiritual biographer Gary Tillery, the song targets McCartney and Lennon “for being so fixated on their own interests” but also laments all of humankind’s propensity for egocentricity.[8] The lyrics state that this self-centredness is constant and in all actions and desires.[41] Tillery says that the message is both ironic and tragic from a Hindu perspective, which contends that ego is merely an illusion; egocentricity is therefore akin to a single drop of water focusing on its own course at the expense of the ocean surrounding it.[8]

(Francis Schaeffer pictured below spent a lot of time in the 1960’s analyzing the Beatles’ words and music and below he sums up the Beatles search for meaning and values in a letter that I mailed to Paul McCartney on March 20, 2016.)

March 20, 2016

Paul McCartney

Dear Paul,

I love the song THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD for several reasons. I hope you put it in your set list for Little Rock on April 30, 2016. Wikipedia noted: 

The Long and Winding Road” is a ballad written by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon–McCartney) from the Beatles‘ album Let It Be. It became the group’s 20th and last number-one song in the United States in June 1970,[1] and was the last single released by the quartet.

While the released version of the song was very successful, the post-production modifications by producer Phil Spector angered McCartney to the point that when he made his case in court for breaking up the Beatles as a legal entity, he cited the treatment of “The Long and Winding Road” as one of six reasons for doing so. New versions of the song with simpler instrumentation were subsequently released by both the Beatles and McCartney.

In 2011, Rolling Stone ranked “The Long and Winding Road” number 90 on their list of 100 greatest Beatles songs of all time.[2]

During your time in the Beatles you obviously were searching for satisfaction in several different places and it seemed you returned to the romantic vision of love providing the big answers to life. 
The long and winding road that leads to your door
Will never disappear
I’ve seen that road before it always leads me here
Leads me to your door
The wild and windy night that the rain washed away
Has left a pool of tears crying for the day
Why leave me standing here, let me know the way
Many times I’ve been alone and many times I’ve cried
Anyway you’ll never know the many ways I’ve tried
And still they lead me back to the long and winding road
Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984) was a Christian and a philosopher who also took a deep interest in the trends in culture in the 1960’s and he spent a lot of time analyzing the Beatles search for meaning and values in life. Here is a summary statement he had on the Beatles:
The Beatles have showed us what has occurred [in the last years of the 1960’s in the culture.] The Beatles with Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band which incidentally was a very good piece of total art in the sense that it was an unit, they had many songs on this album but the songs all made one message and the whole album was an unit, and the way the songs were arranged. It all formed an unit of infiltration  of the message of modern man and of the drug culture. In fact, it could be said the  drug culture and the mentality that went with it had it’s own vehicle that crossed the frontiers of the world which were otherwise almost impassible by other means of communication. This record,  Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings. 

(Below Francis Schaeffer holding up  Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Album in his film HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE? Episode 7 which can be seen on Vimeo:

Francis Schaeffer – How Should We then Live – 07.The Age of Non Reason

from CaptanFunkyFresh6 years ago

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Image result for francis schaeffer beatles sergeant pepper's lonely hearts album

Later came psychedelic rock, an attempt to find this experience without drugs. The younger people and the older ones tried drug taking but then turned to the eastern religions. Both drugs and the eastern religions seek truth inside one’s own head, a negation of reason. The central reason of the popularity of eastern religions in the west is a hope for a nonrational meaning to life and values….

Beatles in India

Image result for beatles in india

Then the Beatles gradually came home. The last thing we find them doing is the YELLOW SUBMARINE. I am sure a lot of parents thought this is much better than the old hard rock, but I thought it was a very sad thing because it really wasn’t a children’s story at all, but what it was in fact was a romantic statement and the fact is that is all there is. Just the same as [Ingmar] Bergman after he makes the movie SILENCE [1963] then he makes a comedy [ALL THESE WOMEN in 1964]. It is the same as Picasso when he pictures his child as a clown [Paul in a Clown Suit, 1924]. So we find the Beatles making the YELLOW SUBMARINE, but there is something more to it than this because Erich Segal made his reputation by writing the script for the movie version of YELLOW SUBMARINE and then he went on and wrote LOVE STORY. So what we have done is we have come around in a big circle. There was the destruction of the romantic. Students in the 1960’s said we are tired of the romantic of giving us optimistic statements with no sufficient base.

[Paul in a Clown Suit, 1924 by Picasso].

Paul in a Clown Suit, 1924, 1903 by Pablo Picasso

LOVE STORY

So the Beatles destroyed that and then they went through these various trips into non-reason but when they came out they had nothing left but the romantic. This is the tragedy of the young people starting with Berkeley in 1964. How right they were in saying we have largely a plastic culture.    This is something the church should have been saying. These students said give us reality. Then the students tried those trips and they weren’t trips based on reality but they were separated from reason. It was trying to find answers in one’s own head whether it was the drug  trip or the Eastern Religion trip. Then they came around in a big circle and what do we find–we end up with Segal’s LOVE STORY, just the romantic thing as one can imagine but with no adequate base at all, yet giving us a lovely romantic answer, which just like the YELLOW SUBMARINE is very, very sad because the Beatles and young people were giving up the search and just accepting something like this. 

(Joan Baez sings at Free Speech Movement rally in Berkeley. November 20, 1964)

YELLOW SUBMARINE

Image result for beatles yellow submarine

If we are going to understand the line of despair we must understand that it is an unit saying that reason is not going to take us anywhere. After Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Søren Kierkegaard and the German philosophers Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and Immanuel Kant there was an unity that bound all these fields of expressions together. First, it was the philosopher expressing this. Second, it was the artist. Third, it was the musician and lastly it was expressed in general culture. The giving up of hope that on the basis of reason one is going to have optimistic answers is the mark of our age. Any kind of answers to the purpose in life, love morals have nothing to do with reason for modern man. It can be expressed in John Cage’s music or in certain forms of rock music.

Chance is the king of our age and John Cage’s music best demonstrates where chance has brought us

You scientists out there who say man is only the atom but a big more complex then you come home to your wife and you say, “I love you.” You want something more than merely sex. Those of you who look to your children with some tenderness and those of you who believe in some morals but you have never settled your score with Marquis de Sade  who said it so well WHAT IS IS RIGHT.

Modern man lives in a dichotomy. Downstairs there is reason which leads to man only being a machine and upstairs there is a some kind of hope against all reason. That great high boast coming out of the Enlightenment that man beginning from himself would gather enough particulars to make his own universal to give adequate answers for life, but it has failed.

de Sade portrayed in recent movie

Karl Popper seen below

Alfred Kinsey seen below

Image result for alfred kinsey

Rationalism fails because man is finite and limited. Karl Popper in England can falsify a few things but he can’t verify anything. Alfred Kinsey tells us that all sexual behavior just comes down to sociological statistics. There is not going to be an answer for modern man unless there is something more than modern man beginning from himself, namely that there is a God there and He is not silent.

In another place Francis Schaeffer has correctly argued:

The universe was created by an infinite personal God and He brought it into existence by spoken word and made man in His own image. When man tries to reduce [philosophically in a materialistic point of view] himself to less than this [less than being made in the image of God] he will always fail and he will always be willing to make these impossible leaps into the area of nonreason even though they don’t give an answer simply because that isn’t what he is. He himself testifies that this infinite personal God, the God of the Old and New Testament is there. 

Instead of making a leap into the area of nonreason the better choice would be to investigate the claims that the Bible is a historically accurate book and that God created the universe and reached out to humankind with the Bible. Below is a piece of that evidence given by Francis Schaeffer concerning the accuracy of the Bible.

TRUTH AND HISTORY (chapter 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?, under footnote #94)

Consider, too, the threat in the entire Middle East from the power of Assyria. In 853 B.C. King Shalmaneser III of Assyria came west from the region of the Euphrates River, only to be successfully repulsed by a determined alliance of all the states in that area of the Battle of Qarqar. Shalmaneser’s record gives details of the alliance. In these he includes Ahab, who he tells us put 2000 chariots and 10,000 infantry into the battle. However, after Ahab’s death, Samaria was no longer strong enough to retain control, and Moab under King Mesha declared its independence, as II Kings 3:4,5 makes clear:

Now Mesha king of Moab was a sheep breeder, and he had to deliver to the king of Israel 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams. But when Ahab died, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel.

The famous Moabite (Mesha) Stone, now in the Louvre, bears an inscription which testifies to Mesha’s reality and of his success in throwing off the yoke of Israel. This is an inscribed black basalt stela, about four feet high, two feet wide, and several inches thick.

Moabite (Mesha) Stone seen below

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Actually the answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted. Here are some of the posts I have done in the past on the subject and if you like you could just google these subjects: 1. The Babylonian Chronicleof Nebuchadnezzars Siege of Jerusalem, 2. Hezekiah’s Siloam Tunnel Inscription.13. The Pilate Inscription14. Caiaphas Ossuary14 B Pontius Pilate Part 214c. Three greatest American Archaeologists moved to accept Bible’s accuracy through archaeology.

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221

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Featured artist is Charles Lutyens

Contemporary Christian Art – The Rt Revd Lord Harries of Pentregarth

Image result for charles lutyens artist

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Published on Apr 10, 2012

Contrary to much opinion, the current scene of faith-related art is very much alive. There are new commissions for churches and cathedrals, a number of artists pursue their work on the basis of a deeply convinced faith, and other artists often resonate with traditional Christian themes, albeit in a highly untraditional way. The challenge for the artist, stated in the introduction to the course of lectures above, is still very much there: how to retain artistic integrity whilst doing justice to received themes.

This lecture is part of Lord Harries’ series on ‘Christian Faith and Modern Art’. The last century has seen changes in artistic style that have been both rapid and radical. This has presented a particular problem to artists who have wished to express Christian themes.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and…

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website.
http://www.gresham.ac.uk

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Charles Lutyens, 1933

Fire Angel Mosaic, 1968

Image result for charles lutyens artist Fire Angel Mosaic

Charles Lutyens studied at the Chelsea, Slade, St Martin’s and CentralSchools of Art in London and later in Paris. Though mainly a painter he has worked in a range of media and has exhibited widely. From 1963 to 1968 he worked on a commission to produce a mosaic mural of “Angels of the Heavenly Host” on the four long panels high above and surrounding the congregation and altar of St Paul’s Bow, with light flooding down from the large lantern on top. At 800 square feet it is almost certainly the largest contemporary mural in the British Isles. Lutyens was commissioned by the architects of the church because they thought his work consistently revealed “a feeling for states of mind or spirit.” They thought that as we do not know what angels look like it was important that the work be not to too representational and as they put it, they thought the work had achieved just the right balance “between the figurative and the abstract, between severity and empathy, between assertiveness and recession.”[1] Mainly a portrait and landscape painter, Lutyens has turned to Christian themes from time to time as in this recently exhibited The Mocking, 1968. What is interesting about this is the way the tormentors hide behind a great sheet as though they do not want to see what they are doing.

 

Outraged Christ

Image result for charles lutyens artist Outraged Christ

The highlight of a recent exhibition, however, was a work which has also just been completed and was on view for the first time. This is the much larger than life, in fact 15’ Outraged Christ, made of carved and recycled timber shaped in the form of slats. The first Christians liked to show Christ victorious on the cross. The Mediaeval period focussed on his suffering for the sins of the world. The 20th century too focussed almost exclusively on the suffering of Christ but more often than not as a paradigm of the suffering of a terrible century with its innumerable victims.

 

The Outraged Christ.

The depiction of an outraged Christ is, so far as I know, a fresh addition to Christian iconography. It is a moving, impressive work. Instead of Christ being shown battered or anguished, it depicts him with mouth open, slightly to one side, with his knees pushing forward from the cross, in rage. But here is rage, indeed fury, not just at what is being inflicted on him but at what we humans do to one another.

[1] Charles Lutyens: Being in the World, paintings, drawings, sculptures, mosaic info@charleslutyens.co.uk, 2011,p.64

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From his website:

Profile

Born in 1933, Charles Lutyens has been an artist all his life. He grew up during the war living in Berkshire and discovered his enjoyment to paint when he was seven years old whilst at school in Shropshire. During his time at Bryanston School in Dorset he realised his commitment to being an artist and would use his academic assignment periods to work in the art room. Through later training at the Slade, St. Martin’s and Central Schools of Art, he developed his skills in oil painting and sculpture.

Lutyens’ work is diverse and has always taken an individual direction using a variety of materials including clay, wood, stone, mosaic, as well as drawn and painted images on paper, board and canvas. His images emerge out of his own experience of life, looking inwardly, with a focus on the condition of “Man’s being in the World”.

Between 1958 and 1964, Lutyens lived in London working in his Fulham studio developing his own personal approach to painting. A body of images then painted were exhibited at the Wildenstein Gallery in New York, where critics compared his work to expressionists, Munch and Ensor.

From 1963 to 1968, Lutyens worked on a commission to produce a tesserae mosaic mural of “Angels of the Heavenly Host” at the newly consecrated church of St. Paul’s, Bow Common, E3.

Charles moved to Oxford with his family in 1978, where together with other commitments, teaching and running related workshops he continued to explore his studio painting and sculpting as well as his landscape work.

Throughout his artistic life he has exhibited in his studio, partaken in mixed exhibitions and has held one-man shows at St. Martin’s Gallery in London and Hollerhaus Gallery, near Munich.

His work is in private collections in England, Germany, Austria, France, Ireland, Spain and USA.

He has recently moved with his wife to Hampshire and is currently working on a 15ft wooden sculpture, a Crucifixion of an “Outraged Christ”.

Related posts:

Image result for sergent peppers album cover

Francis Schaeffer’s favorite album was SGT. PEPPER”S and he said of the album “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.”  (at the 14 minute point in episode 7 of HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE? ) 

Image result for francis schaeffer how should we then live

How Should We Then Live – Episode Seven – 07 – Portuguese Subtitles

Francis Schaeffer

Image result for francis schaeffer

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Today I am going to look at Paramhansa Yogananda who appeared on the cover of SGT. PEPPERS because the Beatles were at the time interested in what Eastern Religions had to offer. One of the problems with Hinduism is that has no way to explain the existence of evil in the world today. However, Christianity explains […]

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  _ The song ELEANOR RIGBY was a huge hit because it connected so well with “all the lonely people.” The line that probably best summed up how many people felt was: “All the lonely people, Where do they all come from? All the lonely people, Where do they all belong?” Francis Schaeffer believed in engaging the secular […]

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In 1967 the Beatles had honored Stockhausen by putting his photo on the cover of their Sergeant Pepper [sic] album. When John Lennon was murdered in December 1980, Stockhausen said in a telephone interview: “Lennon often used to phone me. He was particularly fond of my Hymnen and Gesang der Jünglinge, and got many things […]

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Have you ever had the chance to contrast the music of Bach with that of the song Revolution 9 by the Beatles? Francis Schaeffer pointed out, “Bach as a Christian believed that there was resolution for the individual and for history. As the music that came out of the Biblical teaching of the Reformation was […]

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I wondered why J. Robert Oppenheimer never won a Nobel Prize, but it is true that many of his students and associates did and some of them took ideas that he got them started on in order to get them headed in the right direction which eventually led to their Nobel Prize. HERE IS THE LIST OF 31 WINNERS OF NOTE!!!


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I am currently reading the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the 2005 biography of the theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the Manhattan Project that produced first nuclear weapons, written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin over a period of twenty-five years.  

I wondered why J. Robert Oppenheimer never won a Nobel Prize, but it is true that many of his students and associates did and some of them took ideas that he got them started on in order to get them headed in the right direction which eventually led to their Nobel Prize.

Francis Schaeffer talked extensively about Oppenheimer in 1963 and I have blogged about many of his comments on Oppenheimer in several blog posts dealing with Oppenheimer’s 1962 article “On Science and Culture” by J. Robert Oppenheimer, which it appeared in Encounter (Magazine) October 1962 issue,  In this article Oppenheimer discusses scientists and their attitudes towards evidence versus their presuppositions and specifically he mentions : Sir Isaac Newton FRS (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27), Charles Darwin  12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882),  Niels Bohr (Danish: [ˈne̝ls ˈpoɐ̯ˀ]; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962)

Isaac Newton

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Charles Darwin

Three quarter length studio photo showing Darwin's characteristic large forehead and bushy eyebrows with deep set eyes, pug nose and mouth set in a determined look. He is bald on top, with dark hair and long side whiskers but no beard or moustache. His jacket is dark, with very wide lapels, and his trousers are a light check pattern. His shirt has an upright wing collar, and his cravat is tucked into his waistcoat which is a light fine checked pattern.

——-

Niels Bohr

Photograph showing the head and shoulders of a man in a suit and tie

Oppenheimer never won a Nobel Prize, but these 31 scientists with ties to the Manhattan Project did

Jenny McGrath 

Jul 24, 2023, 7:44 PM ET


Nobel Prize winners Ernest Lawrence Enrico Fermi, and Isidor Isaac Rabi stand together talking in the late 1930s
Ernest Lawrence, Enrico Fermi, and Isidor Rabi all won the Nobel Prize and contributed to the Manhattan Project. 
  • Officials on the Manhattan Project recruited top scientists to research and develop the atomic bomb.
  • Some of them were already Nobel Prize winners, but others received theirs as late as 2005.
  • Most won the physics award, but there were a few for chemistry, medicine, and the Peace Prize.

Despite his early work on what would later become known as black holes, J. Robert Oppenheimer never won a Nobel Prize. In part, it may have been because the “father of the atomic bomb” lacked the focus of some of his colleagues and constantly moved from topic to topic.

Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the eponymous prize for those who “conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.”

Over two dozen Nobel Prize winners worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II. Most won for breakthroughs in physics, but a few received the award for chemistry or medicine. Joseph Rotblat, a Polish physicist who was the only scientist to leave the project for moral reasons, won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Since the first prize was awarded in 1901, 959 people have won a Nobel Prize, so they didn’t all work on the Manhattan Project. Most notably, the US Army intelligence office refused to grant Albert Einstein security clearance. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.

Here’s what the 31 scientists with ties to the Manhattan Project won their Nobel Prizes for, and how they contributed to the research depicted in Christopher Nolan’s latest movie, “Oppenheimer.”

Niels Bohr, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1922

Niels Bohr, physicist from Denmark, is seen, Nov. 11, 1957.
Niels Bohr, physicist from Denmark, photographed in 1957.

Nobel Prize: Niels Bohr was a Copenhagen-born physicist who incorporated quantum mechanics when describing how electrons behave in atoms. Electrons move closer to or farther from the nucleus at specific intervals, based on whether the atom radiated or absorbed energy.

Manhattan Project: After a harrowing escapefrom Nazi-occupied Denmark in 1943, Bohr began consulting on the Manhattan Project. Due to his fame, Bohr traveled under an alias, Nicholas Baker. He split his time between London, Washington, DC, and Los Alamos, where many of the scientists referred to him as “Uncle Nick.”

James Franck, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1925

Nobel Prize winner James Franck stands wearing a white coat in his laboratory full of equipment circa 1925
Professor James Franck, a German-born physicist, in his laboratory in Germany, circa 1925.

Nobel Prize: James Franck and his co-winner Gustav Ludwig Hertz performed an experimentthat supported Niels Bohr’s theory of atomic structure. They showed that applying a certain energy level caused bound electrons to jump to a higher-energy orbit.

Manhattan Project: Franck served as director of the chemistry division at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory. He was also the author of the Franck Report, which recommended openly demonstrating the power of the atomic bomb in a remote area before dropping it on Japan.

Arthur Compton, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1927

Nobel Prize winner Arthur Compton sits near a piece of laboratory equipment cirica 1932.
Arthur Compton in a laboratory circa 1932.

Nobel Prize: When a photon interacts with a charged particle, like an electron, the resulting decrease in energy is known as the Compton effect or Compton scattering. Compton discovered the effect in 1922 during an experiment with X-ray photons. 

Manhattan Project: Compton was the Chicago Met Lab’s project director and later wrote“Atomic Quest,” a book about his time working on the bomb and the ways science and religion influence each other.

Harold Urey, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1934

Nobel Prize winner Harold Urey wearing a bow tie and holding a fossil while sitting at a desk in 1951
Harold Urey inspects a Belemnite “fossilized thermometer” in 1951.

Nobel Prize: Harold Urey distilled liquid hydrogen in 1932 in order to extract a hydrogen isotope. The resulting isotope, known as deuterium, is twice as heavy as regular hydrogen.

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HOME  SCIENCE 

Oppenheimer never won a Nobel Prize, but these 31 scientists with ties to the Manhattan Project did

Jenny McGrath 

Jul 24, 2023, 7:44 PM ET 

Download the app 

Nobel Prize winners Ernest Lawrence Enrico Fermi, and Isidor Isaac Rabi stand together talking in the late 1930s
Ernest Lawrence, Enrico Fermi, and Isidor Rabi all won the Nobel Prize and contributed to the Manhattan Project. 
  • Officials on the Manhattan Project recruited top scientists to research and develop the atomic bomb.
  • Some of them were already Nobel Prize winners, but others received theirs as late as 2005.
  • Most won the physics award, but there were a few for chemistry, medicine, and the Peace Prize.

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Despite his early work on what would later become known as black holes, J. Robert Oppenheimer never won a Nobel Prize. In part, it may have been because the “father of the atomic bomb” lacked the focus of some of his colleagues and constantly moved from topic to topic.

Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the eponymous prize for those who “conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.”

Over two dozen Nobel Prize winners worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II. Most won for breakthroughs in physics, but a few received the award for chemistry or medicine. Joseph Rotblat, a Polish physicist who was the only scientist to leave the project for moral reasons, won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Since the first prize was awarded in 1901, 959 people have won a Nobel Prize, so they didn’t all work on the Manhattan Project. Most notably, the US Army intelligence office refused to grant Albert Einstein security clearance. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Here’s what the 31 scientists with ties to the Manhattan Project won their Nobel Prizes for, and how they contributed to the research depicted in Christopher Nolan’s latest movie, “Oppenheimer.”

Niels Bohr, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1922

Niels Bohr, physicist from Denmark, is seen, Nov. 11, 1957.
Niels Bohr, physicist from Denmark, photographed in 1957.

Nobel Prize: Niels Bohr was a Copenhagen-born physicist who incorporated quantum mechanics when describing how electrons behave in atoms. Electrons move closer to or farther from the nucleus at specific intervals, based on whether the atom radiated or absorbed energy.

Manhattan Project: After a harrowing escapefrom Nazi-occupied Denmark in 1943, Bohr began consulting on the Manhattan Project. Due to his fame, Bohr traveled under an alias, Nicholas Baker. He split his time between London, Washington, DC, and Los Alamos, where many of the scientists referred to him as “Uncle Nick.”

James Franck, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1925

Nobel Prize winner James Franck stands wearing a white coat in his laboratory full of equipment circa 1925
Professor James Franck, a German-born physicist, in his laboratory in Germany, circa 1925.

Nobel Prize: James Franck and his co-winner Gustav Ludwig Hertz performed an experimentthat supported Niels Bohr’s theory of atomic structure. They showed that applying a certain energy level caused bound electrons to jump to a higher-energy orbit.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: Franck served as director of the chemistry division at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory. He was also the author of the Franck Report, which recommended openly demonstrating the power of the atomic bomb in a remote area before dropping it on Japan.

Arthur Compton, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1927

Nobel Prize winner Arthur Compton sits near a piece of laboratory equipment cirica 1932.
Arthur Compton in a laboratory circa 1932.

Nobel Prize: When a photon interacts with a charged particle, like an electron, the resulting decrease in energy is known as the Compton effect or Compton scattering. Compton discovered the effect in 1922 during an experiment with X-ray photons. 

Manhattan Project: Compton was the Chicago Met Lab’s project director and later wrote“Atomic Quest,” a book about his time working on the bomb and the ways science and religion influence each other.

Harold Urey, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1934

Nobel Prize winner Harold Urey wearing a bow tie and holding a fossil while sitting at a desk in 1951
Harold Urey inspects a Belemnite “fossilized thermometer” in 1951.

Nobel Prize: Harold Urey distilled liquid hydrogen in 1932 in order to extract a hydrogen isotope. The resulting isotope, known as deuterium, is twice as heavy as regular hydrogen.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: During the war, Urey contributed to the creation of the gaseous diffusion method for separating uranium-235 from uranium-238, though the Oak Ridge lab ended up using an electromagnetic separation technique instead. He also headed the Substitute Alloy Materials Laboratory at Columbia.

James Chadwick, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1935

Nobel Prize winner James Chadwick wearing a suit and tie in the 1930s.
British physicist James Chadwick in the 1930s.

Nobel Prize: Atoms contain positively charged protons and negatively charged electrons. In 1932, James Chadwick showed that, in addition to protons, atomic nuclei contain other non-charged particles, called neutrons.

Manhattan Project: Chadwick led the Manhattan Project’s British Mission, made up of many European refugees. His position gave him unique access to both American and British plans and information regarding the project. He lived briefly in Los Alamos before moving to Washington, DC.

Enrico Fermi, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1938

Enrico Fermi at a lab at Columbia University
Enrico Fermi inspecting equipment at a Columbia University laboratory.

Nobel Prize: In the 1930s, Enrico Fermi discovered how to create radioactive isotopes by bombarding atoms with neutrons and developed theories on how to change this radioactivity by slowing down neutrons.

Manhattan Project: Fermi built an experimental reactor pile at the University of Chicago. When it went critical, it became the world’s first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear reaction. Later, he went to Los Alamos and was present for the Trinity Test, where he jokingly took bets on whether the atmosphere would ignite.

Ernest Lawrence, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1939

Nobel Prize winner Ernest Lawrence stands smiling, wearing a suit and glasses, in 1939
Ernest Lawrence spent much of his career at the University of California, Berkeley.

Nobel Prize: A cyclotron is a device that uses electromagnetic fields to speed up protons so they can effectively bombard atomic nuclei and produce isotopes. Ernest Lawrence won the Nobel Prize for inventing this early particle accelerator.

Manhattan Project: Cyclotrons were crucial for enriching uranium, as were calutrons, also created by Lawrence, which were used at the Oak Ridge, Tennessee, facility. Lawrence spent time at both Oak Ridge and Berkeley and also witnessed the Trinity Test. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are both named after him.

Isidor Isaac Rabi, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1944

Nobel Prize winner Isidor Isaac Rabi sits in front of a desk and a window wearing black framed eyeglasses and a tweed jacket.
Isidor Isaac Rabi in 1982.

Nobel Prize: Isidor Isaac Rabi created a technique using molecular beams to study the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei, which formed the basis of nuclear magnetic resonance.

Manhattan Project: Though he turned down Oppenheimer’s offer of the deputy director position, Rabi still consulted on the project. While much of his war research concerned radar, he also spent time at Los Alamos, including during the Trinity Test. Along with Fermi, he was a vocal opponent of the hydrogen bomb.

Hermann Muller, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1946

Nobel Prize winner Hermann Muller, wearing glasses and short-sleeve shirt, experiments using bottled fruit flies and atomic rays.
Hermann Muller at work experimenting on fruit flies.

Nobel Prize: After exposing fruit flies to X-rays, Hermann Muller found that genetic mutations increased with higher doses.

Manhattan Project: Between 1943 and 1944, Muller was a civilian advisor for the Manhattan Project, consulting on experiments studying the effects of radiation.

Edwin McMillan, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1951

Nobel Prize winner Edwin McMillan at the University of California laboratory in front of a large periodic table of elements
Edwin McMillan at the University of California in 1951.

Nobel Prize: With Glenn SeaborgEdwin McMillan won the Nobel Prize for their work creating new elements by bombarding uranium. McMillan produced element 93, neptunium, in 1940. 

Manhattan Project: At Los Alamos, McMillan worked on implosion research. His wife, Elsie McMillan, wrote a memoir, “The Atom and Eve,” which included details about their time in New Mexico.

Glenn Seaborg, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1951

Nobel Prize winner Glenn Seaborg stands in front of a large periodic table of elements in 1951.
Glenn Seaborg at the University of California in 1951.

Nobel Prize: Seaborg built upon his co-winner’s work to isolate element 94, plutonium, in 1940.

Manhattan Project: Seaborg worked in the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory, figuring out how to extract plutonium from uranium. Based on his research, the process was industrialized for the Hanford, Washington, site. He served as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1961 to 1971.

Felix Bloch, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1952

Nobel Prize winner Felix Bloch looks at laboratory equipment in 1952.
Felix Bloch in 1952.

Nobel Prize: Both Felix Bloch and Edward Purcell shared the prize because both developed methods that expanded on Rabi’s Nobel Prize-winning work, eventually leading to the widespread application of nuclear magnetic resonance.

Manhattan Project: Working on both theoretical problems with Hans Bethe and on implosion, Bloch was a versatile figure at Los Alamos. But he left to work on radar at Harvard University, preferring a less militarized culture.

Edward Purcell, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1952

Nobel Prize winner Edward Purcell wears glasses and a bowtie in a laboratory circa 1951.
Edward Purcell circa 1951.

Nobel Prize: Working separately, Purcell and Bloch developed similar methods of measuring the response of changes in the magnetic response of nuclei in atoms, leading to their shared Prize.

Manhattan Project: Mostly involved with microwave radiation research at the MIT Rad Lab during the war, Purcell also assisted in some work for the Trinity Test bomb.

Emilio Segrè, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1959

Nobel Prize winner Emilio Segrè stands outside wearing a suit with a corsage on the lapel in 1959
Emilio Segrè in 1959.

Nobel Prize: Co-winners Emilio Segrè and Owen Chamberlain used a particle accelerator in 1955 to confirm the existence of antiprotons, the antiparticles of protons that have the same mass but the opposite charge.

Manhattan Project: As head of the radioactivity group at Los Alamos, Segrèmeasured the radioactivity of fission products and the gamma radiation after the test bomb exploded at the Trinity site.

Owen Chamberlain, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1959

Nobel Prize winner Owen Chamberlain wears a suit and glasses and smokes a pipe circa 1950
Owen Chamberlain circa 1950.

Nobel Prize: Chamberlain and Segrè won for their joint work on antiprotons. 

Manhattan Project: Still in graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, during World War II, Chamberlain joined the Manhattan Project and worked under Segrè. In the 1980s, he visited the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima to offer his apologies for the bombings.

Willard Libby, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1960

Nobel Prize winner Willard Libby and his wife, Dr. Leona Libby, stand in front of their Boulder, Colorado, home in the late 1960s
Willard Libby and his wife, Leona Libby, who also worked on the Manhattan Project, in the late 1960s.

Nobel Prize: Carbon-14 is radioactive and decays at a fixed rate. Willard Libby created a method for using that rate to approximate the age of fossils and archaeological finds.

Manhattan Project: At Columbia University, Libby developed the gaseous diffusion methodfor separating isotopes from uranium needed for the atomic bomb. In the 1950s, he opposed a petition from fellow Nobel winner Linus Pauling that called for a ban on nuclear weapons testing. After the war, he marriedLeona Woods Marshall Libby, a physicist who also worked on the Manhattan Project.

Eugene Wigner, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1963

Eugene P. Wigner wears a suit against a dark backgorund circa 1955
Eugene Wigner circa 1955.

Nobel Prize: When protons and neutrons are far apart, the cohesive force that binds them is weak and gets stronger when they are closer together. Eugene Wigner discovered the correlation in 1933.

Manhattan Project: Wigner offered input on Leo Szilard’s 1939 letter, signed by Einstein, urging President Franklin D. Roosevelt to invest in uranium research. Wigner worked at the Chicago Met Lab designing production nuclear reactors for converting uranium into plutonium.

Maria Goeppert Mayer, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1963

A portrait of Maria Goeppert Mayer standing in front of a chalkboard.
Maria Goeppert Mayer worked on the Manhattan Project and later won the Nobel Prize in physics.

Nobel Prize: Maria Goeppert Mayer and J. Hans Jensen were joint winners for their separate neutron shell work. Goeppert Mayer created a model showing that protons and neutrons in a nucleus are arranged in layers, with neutrons and protons orbiting the nucleus at each level. How the spins and orbits align or oppose each other determines the particle’s energy and demarcates each layer’s limits.


HOME
  SCIENCE 

Oppenheimer never won a Nobel Prize, but these 31 scientists with ties to the Manhattan Project did

Jenny McGrath 

Jul 24, 2023, 7:44 PM ET 

Download the app 

Nobel Prize winners Ernest Lawrence Enrico Fermi, and Isidor Isaac Rabi stand together talking in the late 1930s
Ernest Lawrence, Enrico Fermi, and Isidor Rabi all won the Nobel Prize and contributed to the Manhattan Project. 
  • Officials on the Manhattan Project recruited top scientists to research and develop the atomic bomb.
  • Some of them were already Nobel Prize winners, but others received theirs as late as 2005.
  • Most won the physics award, but there were a few for chemistry, medicine, and the Peace Prize.

Get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in business, from Wall Street to Silicon Valley — delivered daily.

By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policyhttps://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Despite his early work on what would later become known as black holes, J. Robert Oppenheimer never won a Nobel Prize. In part, it may have been because the “father of the atomic bomb” lacked the focus of some of his colleagues and constantly moved from topic to topic.

Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the eponymous prize for those who “conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.”

Over two dozen Nobel Prize winners worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II. Most won for breakthroughs in physics, but a few received the award for chemistry or medicine. Joseph Rotblat, a Polish physicist who was the only scientist to leave the project for moral reasons, won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Since the first prize was awarded in 1901, 959 people have won a Nobel Prize, so they didn’t all work on the Manhattan Project. Most notably, the US Army intelligence office refused to grant Albert Einstein security clearance. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Here’s what the 31 scientists with ties to the Manhattan Project won their Nobel Prizes for, and how they contributed to the research depicted in Christopher Nolan’s latest movie, “Oppenheimer.”

Niels Bohr, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1922

Niels Bohr, physicist from Denmark, is seen, Nov. 11, 1957.
Niels Bohr, physicist from Denmark, photographed in 1957.

Nobel Prize: Niels Bohr was a Copenhagen-born physicist who incorporated quantum mechanics when describing how electrons behave in atoms. Electrons move closer to or farther from the nucleus at specific intervals, based on whether the atom radiated or absorbed energy.

Manhattan Project: After a harrowing escapefrom Nazi-occupied Denmark in 1943, Bohr began consulting on the Manhattan Project. Due to his fame, Bohr traveled under an alias, Nicholas Baker. He split his time between London, Washington, DC, and Los Alamos, where many of the scientists referred to him as “Uncle Nick.”

James Franck, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1925

Nobel Prize winner James Franck stands wearing a white coat in his laboratory full of equipment circa 1925
Professor James Franck, a German-born physicist, in his laboratory in Germany, circa 1925.

Nobel Prize: James Franck and his co-winner Gustav Ludwig Hertz performed an experimentthat supported Niels Bohr’s theory of atomic structure. They showed that applying a certain energy level caused bound electrons to jump to a higher-energy orbit.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: Franck served as director of the chemistry division at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory. He was also the author of the Franck Report, which recommended openly demonstrating the power of the atomic bomb in a remote area before dropping it on Japan.

Arthur Compton, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1927

Nobel Prize winner Arthur Compton sits near a piece of laboratory equipment cirica 1932.
Arthur Compton in a laboratory circa 1932.

Nobel Prize: When a photon interacts with a charged particle, like an electron, the resulting decrease in energy is known as the Compton effect or Compton scattering. Compton discovered the effect in 1922 during an experiment with X-ray photons. 

Manhattan Project: Compton was the Chicago Met Lab’s project director and later wrote“Atomic Quest,” a book about his time working on the bomb and the ways science and religion influence each other.

Harold Urey, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1934

Nobel Prize winner Harold Urey wearing a bow tie and holding a fossil while sitting at a desk in 1951
Harold Urey inspects a Belemnite “fossilized thermometer” in 1951.

Nobel Prize: Harold Urey distilled liquid hydrogen in 1932 in order to extract a hydrogen isotope. The resulting isotope, known as deuterium, is twice as heavy as regular hydrogen.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: During the war, Urey contributed to the creation of the gaseous diffusion method for separating uranium-235 from uranium-238, though the Oak Ridge lab ended up using an electromagnetic separation technique instead. He also headed the Substitute Alloy Materials Laboratory at Columbia.

James Chadwick, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1935

Nobel Prize winner James Chadwick wearing a suit and tie in the 1930s.
British physicist James Chadwick in the 1930s.

Nobel Prize: Atoms contain positively charged protons and negatively charged electrons. In 1932, James Chadwick showed that, in addition to protons, atomic nuclei contain other non-charged particles, called neutrons.

Manhattan Project: Chadwick led the Manhattan Project’s British Mission, made up of many European refugees. His position gave him unique access to both American and British plans and information regarding the project. He lived briefly in Los Alamos before moving to Washington, DC.

Enrico Fermi, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1938

Enrico Fermi at a lab at Columbia University
Enrico Fermi inspecting equipment at a Columbia University laboratory.

Nobel Prize: In the 1930s, Enrico Fermi discovered how to create radioactive isotopes by bombarding atoms with neutrons and developed theories on how to change this radioactivity by slowing down neutrons.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: Fermi built an experimental reactor pile at the University of Chicago. When it went critical, it became the world’s first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear reaction. Later, he went to Los Alamos and was present for the Trinity Test, where he jokingly took bets on whether the atmosphere would ignite.

Ernest Lawrence, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1939

Nobel Prize winner Ernest Lawrence stands smiling, wearing a suit and glasses, in 1939
Ernest Lawrence spent much of his career at the University of California, Berkeley.

Nobel Prize: A cyclotron is a device that uses electromagnetic fields to speed up protons so they can effectively bombard atomic nuclei and produce isotopes. Ernest Lawrence won the Nobel Prize for inventing this early particle accelerator.

Manhattan Project: Cyclotrons were crucial for enriching uranium, as were calutrons, also created by Lawrence, which were used at the Oak Ridge, Tennessee, facility. Lawrence spent time at both Oak Ridge and Berkeley and also witnessed the Trinity Test. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are both named after him.

Isidor Isaac Rabi, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1944

Nobel Prize winner Isidor Isaac Rabi sits in front of a desk and a window wearing black framed eyeglasses and a tweed jacket.
Isidor Isaac Rabi in 1982.

Nobel Prize: Isidor Isaac Rabi created a technique using molecular beams to study the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei, which formed the basis of nuclear magnetic resonance.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: Though he turned down Oppenheimer’s offer of the deputy director position, Rabi still consulted on the project. While much of his war research concerned radar, he also spent time at Los Alamos, including during the Trinity Test. Along with Fermi, he was a vocal opponent of the hydrogen bomb.

Hermann Muller, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1946

Nobel Prize winner Hermann Muller, wearing glasses and short-sleeve shirt, experiments using bottled fruit flies and atomic rays.
Hermann Muller at work experimenting on fruit flies.

Nobel Prize: After exposing fruit flies to X-rays, Hermann Muller found that genetic mutations increased with higher doses.

Manhattan Project: Between 1943 and 1944, Muller was a civilian advisor for the Manhattan Project, consulting on experiments studying the effects of radiation.

Edwin McMillan, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1951

Nobel Prize winner Edwin McMillan at the University of California laboratory in front of a large periodic table of elements
Edwin McMillan at the University of California in 1951.

Nobel Prize: With Glenn SeaborgEdwin McMillan won the Nobel Prize for their work creating new elements by bombarding uranium. McMillan produced element 93, neptunium, in 1940. https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: At Los Alamos, McMillan worked on implosion research. His wife, Elsie McMillan, wrote a memoir, “The Atom and Eve,” which included details about their time in New Mexico.

Glenn Seaborg, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1951

Nobel Prize winner Glenn Seaborg stands in front of a large periodic table of elements in 1951.
Glenn Seaborg at the University of California in 1951.

Nobel Prize: Seaborg built upon his co-winner’s work to isolate element 94, plutonium, in 1940.

Manhattan Project: Seaborg worked in the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory, figuring out how to extract plutonium from uranium. Based on his research, the process was industrialized for the Hanford, Washington, site. He served as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1961 to 1971.

Felix Bloch, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1952

Nobel Prize winner Felix Bloch looks at laboratory equipment in 1952.
Felix Bloch in 1952.

Nobel Prize: Both Felix Bloch and Edward Purcell shared the prize because both developed methods that expanded on Rabi’s Nobel Prize-winning work, eventually leading to the widespread application of nuclear magnetic resonance.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: Working on both theoretical problems with Hans Bethe and on implosion, Bloch was a versatile figure at Los Alamos. But he left to work on radar at Harvard University, preferring a less militarized culture.

Edward Purcell, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1952

Nobel Prize winner Edward Purcell wears glasses and a bowtie in a laboratory circa 1951.
Edward Purcell circa 1951.

Nobel Prize: Working separately, Purcell and Bloch developed similar methods of measuring the response of changes in the magnetic response of nuclei in atoms, leading to their shared Prize.

Manhattan Project: Mostly involved with microwave radiation research at the MIT Rad Lab during the war, Purcell also assisted in some work for the Trinity Test bomb.

Emilio Segrè, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1959

Nobel Prize winner Emilio Segrè stands outside wearing a suit with a corsage on the lapel in 1959
Emilio Segrè in 1959.

Nobel Prize: Co-winners Emilio Segrè and Owen Chamberlain used a particle accelerator in 1955 to confirm the existence of antiprotons, the antiparticles of protons that have the same mass but the opposite charge.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: As head of the radioactivity group at Los Alamos, Segrèmeasured the radioactivity of fission products and the gamma radiation after the test bomb exploded at the Trinity site.

Owen Chamberlain, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1959

Nobel Prize winner Owen Chamberlain wears a suit and glasses and smokes a pipe circa 1950
Owen Chamberlain circa 1950.

Nobel Prize: Chamberlain and Segrè won for their joint work on antiprotons. 

Manhattan Project: Still in graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, during World War II, Chamberlain joined the Manhattan Project and worked under Segrè. In the 1980s, he visited the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima to offer his apologies for the bombings.

Willard Libby, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1960

Nobel Prize winner Willard Libby and his wife, Dr. Leona Libby, stand in front of their Boulder, Colorado, home in the late 1960s
Willard Libby and his wife, Leona Libby, who also worked on the Manhattan Project, in the late 1960s.

Nobel Prize: Carbon-14 is radioactive and decays at a fixed rate. Willard Libby created a method for using that rate to approximate the age of fossils and archaeological finds.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: At Columbia University, Libby developed the gaseous diffusion methodfor separating isotopes from uranium needed for the atomic bomb. In the 1950s, he opposed a petition from fellow Nobel winner Linus Pauling that called for a ban on nuclear weapons testing. After the war, he marriedLeona Woods Marshall Libby, a physicist who also worked on the Manhattan Project.

Eugene Wigner, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1963

Eugene P. Wigner wears a suit against a dark backgorund circa 1955
Eugene Wigner circa 1955.

Nobel Prize: When protons and neutrons are far apart, the cohesive force that binds them is weak and gets stronger when they are closer together. Eugene Wigner discovered the correlation in 1933.

Manhattan Project: Wigner offered input on Leo Szilard’s 1939 letter, signed by Einstein, urging President Franklin D. Roosevelt to invest in uranium research. Wigner worked at the Chicago Met Lab designing production nuclear reactors for converting uranium into plutonium.

Maria Goeppert Mayer, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1963

A portrait of Maria Goeppert Mayer standing in front of a chalkboard.
Maria Goeppert Mayer worked on the Manhattan Project and later won the Nobel Prize in physics.

Nobel Prize: Maria Goeppert Mayer and J. Hans Jensen were joint winners for their separate neutron shell work. Goeppert Mayer created a model showing that protons and neutrons in a nucleus are arranged in layers, with neutrons and protons orbiting the nucleus at each level. How the spins and orbits align or oppose each other determines the particle’s energy and demarcates each layer’s limits.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: Working for Harold Urey at Columbia University’s Substitute Alloy Materials Laboratory, Goeppert Mayer studied uranium hexafluoride and researched photochemical reactions for separating isotopes. She later joined the Los Alamos lab to assist Teller with his hydrogen bomb research. For much of her career, Goeppert Mayer was stymied by nepotism rules that wouldn’t allow her to work at the same university as her husband, but she became a full professor at the University of California, San Diego, in 1960 at age 58.

Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1965

Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman wears a suit against a light background in 1954
Richard Feynman in 1954.

Nobel Prize: Quantum electrodynamics describes the way matter particles interact with light and with each other. Richard Feynmancame up with diagrams for visualizing the complex behavior of quantum particles. He shared the prize with Sin-Itiro Tomonaga and Julian Schwinger for their own quantum electrodynamics contributions.

Manhattan Project: At 24, Fenynman had only recently completed his PhD when he arrived at Los Alamos. He worked in Hans Bethe’s theoretical division. Eschewing the dark glasses everyone else wore to protect their eyes, Feynmwan watched the Trinity bomb explode from behind a truck windshield, counting on the glass to filter out the ultraviolet light.

Julian Schwinger, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1965

Nobel Prize winner Julian Schwinger wears a suit against a light background in the 1960s
Julian Schwinger in the 1960s.

Nobel Prize: The same year that Feynman won, Schwinger also received the Nobel Prize for reconciling quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity, leading to the new quantum electrodynamics.

Manhattan Project: After a short stint at Chicago Met Lab, Schwinger focused on radar at the Radiation Laboratory at MIT. Four of his students went on to win their own Nobel Prizes.

Robert Mulliken, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1966

Nobel Prize Robert S. Mulliken holds a pipette in laboratory in 1966.
Robert Mulliken in a laboratory in 1966.

Nobel Prize: When he won the prize in 1966, Robert Mulliken called his description of molecular orbitals “unavoidably technical.” Using quantum mechanics, he created models of the way electrons move within a molecule that were more complex than Niels Bohr’s atomic model.

Manhattan Project: Mulliken was a director at the University of Chicago’s Met Lab and signed the Szilard Petition. Because of his contributions to molecular orbital theory, he was known as “Mr. Molecule.” 

Hans Bethe, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1967

An undated photo of Dr. Hans A. Bethe.
An undated photo of Hans A. Bethe.

Nobel Prize: When light nuclei fuse to form heavier ones, it releases a large amount of energy, a process known as fusion. In 1938, Hans Bethe theorized that hydrogen nuclei and helium nuclei combining results in the incredible amount of energy that stars emit.

Manhattan Project: Oppenheimer recruitedBethe to head Los Alamos’ theoretical division, which was responsible for solving complicated problems involving implosion, critical mass, and initiation. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Bethe was one of the most senior members of the Manhattan Project still living and used his position to urge scientists all over the world to stop the development and manufacture of new weapons of mass destruction. 

Luis Alvarez, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1968

Nobel Prize winner Luis Alvarez in a laboratory with a Geiger counter in 1946
Luis Alvarez in a laboratory in 1946.

Nobel Prize: In the 1950s, Luis Alvarez helped spur the discovery of new particles with his technique for filling bubble chambers with liquid hydrogen. The electrically charged particles left a path of tiny bubbles that were then photographed. Alvarez also improved methods of scanning and transferring the images to computers. 

Manhattan Project: Moving from radar research to the Manhattan Project, Alvarez worked in a number of areas in both Chicago and Los Alamos. He studied the effects of shock waves with a series of implosion tests at Bayo Canyon. When the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, he rode in a separate plane that was recording data. In 1980 Alvarez and his son, geologist Walter Alvarez, proposed that an asteroid hit the earth and led to the dinosaurs’ extinction after discovering unusually high levels of iridium in sedimentary layers.

James Rainwater, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1975

Nobel Prize winnner James Rainwater in 1975 in front of a blackboard at Columbia University
James Rainwater at Columbia University in 1975.

Nobel Prize: Early models of atomic nuclei depicted them as spheres. James Rainwaterproposed that nucleons interacting on the inner and outer parts create centrifugal pressure that distorts the nucleus’ shape. Aage Bohrindependently came up with the same theory and verified it with Ben Mottelson, and all three jointly won. 

Manhattan Project: Rainwater was a Columbia University graduate student who used the SAM lab’s cyclotron alongside experimental physicist Chien-Shiung Wu. He had to wait to receive his PhD until 1946 when his thesis was declassified.

Aage Bohr, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1975

Aage Niels Bohr on a bike in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1975
Aage Niels Bohr in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1975.

Nobel Prize: About a month after Rainwater’s paper was published, Aage Bohr submitted his own on the same topic. A few years later, Aage Bohr and Mottelson jointly published their experimental work on nuclei shape.

Manhattan Project: Working as an assistant to his father, Niels Bohr, Aage Bohr proved instrumental in interpreting for some members of the Manhattan Project. Both Feynman and Segrè complained that the elder physicist mumbled.

Val Fitch, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1980

Nobel Prize winner Val L. Fitch in front of a blackboard in 1980 at Princeton University
Val Fitch at Princeton University in 1980.

Nobel Prize: Val Fitch and James Croninperformed experiments in 1964 on the decay of an elementary particle, the neutral K-meson. While it should decay into half matter and half antimatter to obey the laws of symmetry, they found instead that it decayed in a “forbidden manner,” asymmetrically. Thus, they found that reactions going backward in time, decaying, behave differently from those progressing forward in time.

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Oppenheimer never won a Nobel Prize, but these 31 scientists with ties to the Manhattan Project did

Jenny McGrath 

Jul 24, 2023, 7:44 PM ET 

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Nobel Prize winners Ernest Lawrence Enrico Fermi, and Isidor Isaac Rabi stand together talking in the late 1930s
Ernest Lawrence, Enrico Fermi, and Isidor Rabi all won the Nobel Prize and contributed to the Manhattan Project. 
  • Officials on the Manhattan Project recruited top scientists to research and develop the atomic bomb.
  • Some of them were already Nobel Prize winners, but others received theirs as late as 2005.
  • Most won the physics award, but there were a few for chemistry, medicine, and the Peace Prize.

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Despite his early work on what would later become known as black holes, J. Robert Oppenheimer never won a Nobel Prize. In part, it may have been because the “father of the atomic bomb” lacked the focus of some of his colleagues and constantly moved from topic to topic.

Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the eponymous prize for those who “conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.”

Over two dozen Nobel Prize winners worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II. Most won for breakthroughs in physics, but a few received the award for chemistry or medicine. Joseph Rotblat, a Polish physicist who was the only scientist to leave the project for moral reasons, won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Since the first prize was awarded in 1901, 959 people have won a Nobel Prize, so they didn’t all work on the Manhattan Project. Most notably, the US Army intelligence office refused to grant Albert Einstein security clearance. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Here’s what the 31 scientists with ties to the Manhattan Project won their Nobel Prizes for, and how they contributed to the research depicted in Christopher Nolan’s latest movie, “Oppenheimer.”

Niels Bohr, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1922

Niels Bohr, physicist from Denmark, is seen, Nov. 11, 1957.
Niels Bohr, physicist from Denmark, photographed in 1957.

Nobel Prize: Niels Bohr was a Copenhagen-born physicist who incorporated quantum mechanics when describing how electrons behave in atoms. Electrons move closer to or farther from the nucleus at specific intervals, based on whether the atom radiated or absorbed energy.

Manhattan Project: After a harrowing escapefrom Nazi-occupied Denmark in 1943, Bohr began consulting on the Manhattan Project. Due to his fame, Bohr traveled under an alias, Nicholas Baker. He split his time between London, Washington, DC, and Los Alamos, where many of the scientists referred to him as “Uncle Nick.”

James Franck, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1925

Nobel Prize winner James Franck stands wearing a white coat in his laboratory full of equipment circa 1925
Professor James Franck, a German-born physicist, in his laboratory in Germany, circa 1925.

Nobel Prize: James Franck and his co-winner Gustav Ludwig Hertz performed an experimentthat supported Niels Bohr’s theory of atomic structure. They showed that applying a certain energy level caused bound electrons to jump to a higher-energy orbit.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: Franck served as director of the chemistry division at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory. He was also the author of the Franck Report, which recommended openly demonstrating the power of the atomic bomb in a remote area before dropping it on Japan.

Arthur Compton, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1927

Nobel Prize winner Arthur Compton sits near a piece of laboratory equipment cirica 1932.
Arthur Compton in a laboratory circa 1932.

Nobel Prize: When a photon interacts with a charged particle, like an electron, the resulting decrease in energy is known as the Compton effect or Compton scattering. Compton discovered the effect in 1922 during an experiment with X-ray photons. 

Manhattan Project: Compton was the Chicago Met Lab’s project director and later wrote“Atomic Quest,” a book about his time working on the bomb and the ways science and religion influence each other.

Harold Urey, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1934

Nobel Prize winner Harold Urey wearing a bow tie and holding a fossil while sitting at a desk in 1951
Harold Urey inspects a Belemnite “fossilized thermometer” in 1951.

Nobel Prize: Harold Urey distilled liquid hydrogen in 1932 in order to extract a hydrogen isotope. The resulting isotope, known as deuterium, is twice as heavy as regular hydrogen.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: During the war, Urey contributed to the creation of the gaseous diffusion method for separating uranium-235 from uranium-238, though the Oak Ridge lab ended up using an electromagnetic separation technique instead. He also headed the Substitute Alloy Materials Laboratory at Columbia.

James Chadwick, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1935

Nobel Prize winner James Chadwick wearing a suit and tie in the 1930s.
British physicist James Chadwick in the 1930s.

Nobel Prize: Atoms contain positively charged protons and negatively charged electrons. In 1932, James Chadwick showed that, in addition to protons, atomic nuclei contain other non-charged particles, called neutrons.

Manhattan Project: Chadwick led the Manhattan Project’s British Mission, made up of many European refugees. His position gave him unique access to both American and British plans and information regarding the project. He lived briefly in Los Alamos before moving to Washington, DC.

Enrico Fermi, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1938

Enrico Fermi at a lab at Columbia University
Enrico Fermi inspecting equipment at a Columbia University laboratory.

Nobel Prize: In the 1930s, Enrico Fermi discovered how to create radioactive isotopes by bombarding atoms with neutrons and developed theories on how to change this radioactivity by slowing down neutrons.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: Fermi built an experimental reactor pile at the University of Chicago. When it went critical, it became the world’s first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear reaction. Later, he went to Los Alamos and was present for the Trinity Test, where he jokingly took bets on whether the atmosphere would ignite.

Ernest Lawrence, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1939

Nobel Prize winner Ernest Lawrence stands smiling, wearing a suit and glasses, in 1939
Ernest Lawrence spent much of his career at the University of California, Berkeley.

Nobel Prize: A cyclotron is a device that uses electromagnetic fields to speed up protons so they can effectively bombard atomic nuclei and produce isotopes. Ernest Lawrence won the Nobel Prize for inventing this early particle accelerator.

Manhattan Project: Cyclotrons were crucial for enriching uranium, as were calutrons, also created by Lawrence, which were used at the Oak Ridge, Tennessee, facility. Lawrence spent time at both Oak Ridge and Berkeley and also witnessed the Trinity Test. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are both named after him.

Isidor Isaac Rabi, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1944

Nobel Prize winner Isidor Isaac Rabi sits in front of a desk and a window wearing black framed eyeglasses and a tweed jacket.
Isidor Isaac Rabi in 1982.

Nobel Prize: Isidor Isaac Rabi created a technique using molecular beams to study the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei, which formed the basis of nuclear magnetic resonance.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: Though he turned down Oppenheimer’s offer of the deputy director position, Rabi still consulted on the project. While much of his war research concerned radar, he also spent time at Los Alamos, including during the Trinity Test. Along with Fermi, he was a vocal opponent of the hydrogen bomb.

Hermann Muller, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1946

Nobel Prize winner Hermann Muller, wearing glasses and short-sleeve shirt, experiments using bottled fruit flies and atomic rays.
Hermann Muller at work experimenting on fruit flies.

Nobel Prize: After exposing fruit flies to X-rays, Hermann Muller found that genetic mutations increased with higher doses.

Manhattan Project: Between 1943 and 1944, Muller was a civilian advisor for the Manhattan Project, consulting on experiments studying the effects of radiation.

Edwin McMillan, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1951

Nobel Prize winner Edwin McMillan at the University of California laboratory in front of a large periodic table of elements
Edwin McMillan at the University of California in 1951.

Nobel Prize: With Glenn SeaborgEdwin McMillan won the Nobel Prize for their work creating new elements by bombarding uranium. McMillan produced element 93, neptunium, in 1940. https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: At Los Alamos, McMillan worked on implosion research. His wife, Elsie McMillan, wrote a memoir, “The Atom and Eve,” which included details about their time in New Mexico.

Glenn Seaborg, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1951

Nobel Prize winner Glenn Seaborg stands in front of a large periodic table of elements in 1951.
Glenn Seaborg at the University of California in 1951.

Nobel Prize: Seaborg built upon his co-winner’s work to isolate element 94, plutonium, in 1940.

Manhattan Project: Seaborg worked in the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory, figuring out how to extract plutonium from uranium. Based on his research, the process was industrialized for the Hanford, Washington, site. He served as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1961 to 1971.

Felix Bloch, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1952

Nobel Prize winner Felix Bloch looks at laboratory equipment in 1952.
Felix Bloch in 1952.

Nobel Prize: Both Felix Bloch and Edward Purcell shared the prize because both developed methods that expanded on Rabi’s Nobel Prize-winning work, eventually leading to the widespread application of nuclear magnetic resonance.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: Working on both theoretical problems with Hans Bethe and on implosion, Bloch was a versatile figure at Los Alamos. But he left to work on radar at Harvard University, preferring a less militarized culture.

Edward Purcell, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1952

Nobel Prize winner Edward Purcell wears glasses and a bowtie in a laboratory circa 1951.
Edward Purcell circa 1951.

Nobel Prize: Working separately, Purcell and Bloch developed similar methods of measuring the response of changes in the magnetic response of nuclei in atoms, leading to their shared Prize.

Manhattan Project: Mostly involved with microwave radiation research at the MIT Rad Lab during the war, Purcell also assisted in some work for the Trinity Test bomb.

Emilio Segrè, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1959

Nobel Prize winner Emilio Segrè stands outside wearing a suit with a corsage on the lapel in 1959
Emilio Segrè in 1959.

Nobel Prize: Co-winners Emilio Segrè and Owen Chamberlain used a particle accelerator in 1955 to confirm the existence of antiprotons, the antiparticles of protons that have the same mass but the opposite charge.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: As head of the radioactivity group at Los Alamos, Segrèmeasured the radioactivity of fission products and the gamma radiation after the test bomb exploded at the Trinity site.

Owen Chamberlain, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1959

Nobel Prize winner Owen Chamberlain wears a suit and glasses and smokes a pipe circa 1950
Owen Chamberlain circa 1950.

Nobel Prize: Chamberlain and Segrè won for their joint work on antiprotons. 

Manhattan Project: Still in graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, during World War II, Chamberlain joined the Manhattan Project and worked under Segrè. In the 1980s, he visited the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima to offer his apologies for the bombings.

Willard Libby, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1960

Nobel Prize winner Willard Libby and his wife, Dr. Leona Libby, stand in front of their Boulder, Colorado, home in the late 1960s
Willard Libby and his wife, Leona Libby, who also worked on the Manhattan Project, in the late 1960s.

Nobel Prize: Carbon-14 is radioactive and decays at a fixed rate. Willard Libby created a method for using that rate to approximate the age of fossils and archaeological finds.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: At Columbia University, Libby developed the gaseous diffusion methodfor separating isotopes from uranium needed for the atomic bomb. In the 1950s, he opposed a petition from fellow Nobel winner Linus Pauling that called for a ban on nuclear weapons testing. After the war, he marriedLeona Woods Marshall Libby, a physicist who also worked on the Manhattan Project.

Eugene Wigner, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1963

Eugene P. Wigner wears a suit against a dark backgorund circa 1955
Eugene Wigner circa 1955.

Nobel Prize: When protons and neutrons are far apart, the cohesive force that binds them is weak and gets stronger when they are closer together. Eugene Wigner discovered the correlation in 1933.

Manhattan Project: Wigner offered input on Leo Szilard’s 1939 letter, signed by Einstein, urging President Franklin D. Roosevelt to invest in uranium research. Wigner worked at the Chicago Met Lab designing production nuclear reactors for converting uranium into plutonium.

Maria Goeppert Mayer, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1963

A portrait of Maria Goeppert Mayer standing in front of a chalkboard.
Maria Goeppert Mayer worked on the Manhattan Project and later won the Nobel Prize in physics.

Nobel Prize: Maria Goeppert Mayer and J. Hans Jensen were joint winners for their separate neutron shell work. Goeppert Mayer created a model showing that protons and neutrons in a nucleus are arranged in layers, with neutrons and protons orbiting the nucleus at each level. How the spins and orbits align or oppose each other determines the particle’s energy and demarcates each layer’s limits.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: Working for Harold Urey at Columbia University’s Substitute Alloy Materials Laboratory, Goeppert Mayer studied uranium hexafluoride and researched photochemical reactions for separating isotopes. She later joined the Los Alamos lab to assist Teller with his hydrogen bomb research. For much of her career, Goeppert Mayer was stymied by nepotism rules that wouldn’t allow her to work at the same university as her husband, but she became a full professor at the University of California, San Diego, in 1960 at age 58.

Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1965

Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman wears a suit against a light background in 1954
Richard Feynman in 1954.

Nobel Prize: Quantum electrodynamics describes the way matter particles interact with light and with each other. Richard Feynmancame up with diagrams for visualizing the complex behavior of quantum particles. He shared the prize with Sin-Itiro Tomonaga and Julian Schwinger for their own quantum electrodynamics contributions.

Manhattan Project: At 24, Fenynman had only recently completed his PhD when he arrived at Los Alamos. He worked in Hans Bethe’s theoretical division. Eschewing the dark glasses everyone else wore to protect their eyes, Feynmwan watched the Trinity bomb explode from behind a truck windshield, counting on the glass to filter out the ultraviolet light.

Julian Schwinger, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1965

Nobel Prize winner Julian Schwinger wears a suit against a light background in the 1960s
Julian Schwinger in the 1960s.

Nobel Prize: The same year that Feynman won, Schwinger also received the Nobel Prize for reconciling quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity, leading to the new quantum electrodynamics.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: After a short stint at Chicago Met Lab, Schwinger focused on radar at the Radiation Laboratory at MIT. Four of his students went on to win their own Nobel Prizes.

Robert Mulliken, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1966

Nobel Prize Robert S. Mulliken holds a pipette in laboratory in 1966.
Robert Mulliken in a laboratory in 1966.

Nobel Prize: When he won the prize in 1966, Robert Mulliken called his description of molecular orbitals “unavoidably technical.” Using quantum mechanics, he created models of the way electrons move within a molecule that were more complex than Niels Bohr’s atomic model.

Manhattan Project: Mulliken was a director at the University of Chicago’s Met Lab and signed the Szilard Petition. Because of his contributions to molecular orbital theory, he was known as “Mr. Molecule.” 

Hans Bethe, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1967

An undated photo of Dr. Hans A. Bethe.
An undated photo of Hans A. Bethe.

Nobel Prize: When light nuclei fuse to form heavier ones, it releases a large amount of energy, a process known as fusion. In 1938, Hans Bethe theorized that hydrogen nuclei and helium nuclei combining results in the incredible amount of energy that stars emit.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: Oppenheimer recruitedBethe to head Los Alamos’ theoretical division, which was responsible for solving complicated problems involving implosion, critical mass, and initiation. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Bethe was one of the most senior members of the Manhattan Project still living and used his position to urge scientists all over the world to stop the development and manufacture of new weapons of mass destruction. 

Luis Alvarez, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1968

Nobel Prize winner Luis Alvarez in a laboratory with a Geiger counter in 1946
Luis Alvarez in a laboratory in 1946.

Nobel Prize: In the 1950s, Luis Alvarez helped spur the discovery of new particles with his technique for filling bubble chambers with liquid hydrogen. The electrically charged particles left a path of tiny bubbles that were then photographed. Alvarez also improved methods of scanning and transferring the images to computers. 

Manhattan Project: Moving from radar research to the Manhattan Project, Alvarez worked in a number of areas in both Chicago and Los Alamos. He studied the effects of shock waves with a series of implosion tests at Bayo Canyon. When the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, he rode in a separate plane that was recording data. In 1980 Alvarez and his son, geologist Walter Alvarez, proposed that an asteroid hit the earth and led to the dinosaurs’ extinction after discovering unusually high levels of iridium in sedimentary layers.

James Rainwater, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1975

Nobel Prize winnner James Rainwater in 1975 in front of a blackboard at Columbia University
James Rainwater at Columbia University in 1975.

Nobel Prize: Early models of atomic nuclei depicted them as spheres. James Rainwaterproposed that nucleons interacting on the inner and outer parts create centrifugal pressure that distorts the nucleus’ shape. Aage Bohrindependently came up with the same theory and verified it with Ben Mottelson, and all three jointly won. https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: Rainwater was a Columbia University graduate student who used the SAM lab’s cyclotron alongside experimental physicist Chien-Shiung Wu. He had to wait to receive his PhD until 1946 when his thesis was declassified.

Aage Bohr, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1975

Aage Niels Bohr on a bike in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1975
Aage Niels Bohr in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1975.

Nobel Prize: About a month after Rainwater’s paper was published, Aage Bohr submitted his own on the same topic. A few years later, Aage Bohr and Mottelson jointly published their experimental work on nuclei shape.

Manhattan Project: Working as an assistant to his father, Niels Bohr, Aage Bohr proved instrumental in interpreting for some members of the Manhattan Project. Both Feynman and Segrè complained that the elder physicist mumbled.

Val Fitch, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1980

Nobel Prize winner Val L. Fitch in front of a blackboard in 1980 at Princeton University
Val Fitch at Princeton University in 1980.

Nobel Prize: Val Fitch and James Croninperformed experiments in 1964 on the decay of an elementary particle, the neutral K-meson. While it should decay into half matter and half antimatter to obey the laws of symmetry, they found instead that it decayed in a “forbidden manner,” asymmetrically. Thus, they found that reactions going backward in time, decaying, behave differently from those progressing forward in time.https://265d11d6ae03bea07a72d7cb6780102b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Manhattan Project: Fitch was just 21 years old when he was drafted into the Army’s Special Engineer Detachment. He became a member of the Trinity Test detonation team and helped design the timing apparatus.

Jerome Karle, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1985

Isabelle Karle and Nobel Prize winner Jerome Karle stand next to each other at the Naval Research Lab in 1998
Isabelle and Jerome Karle at the Naval Research Lab in 1998.

Nobel Prize: The X-ray crystallography technique directs X-rays at crystals, and the resulting scattered radiation is measured. Initially, some guesswork was needed about the crystal’s structure. Joint winners Jerome Karleand Herbert Hauptman came up with a method for determining crystal structure from experimental results without the guesswork in the 1950s. Their breakthrough made studying the structure of molecules more efficient.

Manhattan Project: Researching plutonium chemistry, Karle worked alongside his wife, fellow physical chemist Isabella Karle, at the University of Chicago. When the war ended, the two continued their X-ray crystallography work at US Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC.

Norman Ramsey, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1989

Nobel Prize winner Norman Ramsey and his wife, Ellie Welch-Ramsey, hold luggage as they leave their home in 1989
Norman Ramsey and his wife, Ellie Welch-Ramsey, leaving their home in 1989 to attend the Nobel Prize ceremony.

Nobel Prize: An atomic clock defines a second as the time it takes for a cesium atom to make over 9 billion radiation cycles. Some modern versions are only off by 1/15,000,000,000 of a second each year. Norman Ramsey‘s Nobel work made the extremely accurate clock possible. Taking Rabi’s resonance method and passing a beam of atoms through two oscillating fields instead of one, he demonstrated how to create more precise interference patterns, allowing for a better understanding of the structures of atoms.

Manhattan Project: Joining the Los Alamos lab in 1943, Ramsey investigated ways to deliver the bomb to its target, realizing the B-29 was the only US aircraft that could carry it internally. He also assisted in assembling the bombs on Tinian Island.

Joseph Rotblat, Nobel Peace Prize, 1995

Nobel Peace Prize winner Joseph Rotblat surrounded by books and papers while wearing a suit in 1995
Joseph Rotblat at his office in 1995.

Nobel Prize: Shortly after its discovery, Joseph Rotblat worked on nuclear fission. In the 1950s, he began researching ways to use his nuclear physics expertise in the medical field instead of on bombs. He founded the nuclear disarmament organization, the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, and both he and the organization were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for advocating for nuclear disarmament.

Manhattan Project: After briefly working with James Chadwick in Los Alamos, Rotblat left the Manhattan Project in late 1944. He later said it was for moral reasons because it was clear that the Germans didn’t have the capability to build a nuclear weapon at that point. In 1955, he signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. Written by philosopher Bertrand Russell and signed by Enstinen shortly before his death, it warned that a war fought with hydrogen bombs “might possibly put an end to the human race.”

Frederick Reines, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1995

Nobel Prize Winner Frederick Reines standsi n front of a purple sunset in 2001
Frederick Reines in 2001.

Nobel Prize: Beta decay converts a neutron into a proton and produces an electron. Because of the law of conservation of energy, it seemed like another particle, a neutrino, must also form. But for decades their existence was only theoretical. In the 1950s, Frederick Reines conducted nuclear reactor experiments that proved neutrinos exist.


Manhattan Project: Reines received his physics PhD in 1944. Feynman brought him into his group within the theoretical division at Los Alamos. After the war, Reines remained at the Los Alamos National Laboratory for several years, including while he conducted his neutrino research.

Roy Glauber, Nobel Prize in Physics, 2005

Nobel Prize winner Roy J. Glauber stands in behind a podium and in front of a Harvard banner at Harvard University on October 4, 2005
Roy Glauber at Harvard University on October 4, 2005.

Nobel Prize: Light has properties of both waves and particles. In 1963, Roy Glauber applied quantum theory to describe the characteristics of different light sources, including lasers, contributing to the foundation of quantum optics.

Manhattan Project: At 18, Glauber was still a student at Harvard when he became one of the youngest scientists to join the Manhattan Project. With Feynman, he worked on the bomb’s critical mass calculations. Once Glauber earned his PhD, Oppenheimer offered him a position at the Institute for Advanced Study. During his long career as a professor at Harvard University, he participated in the Ig Nobel Prizes, which awards sillier scientific accomplishments.

At the 53:00 mark of the following 1963 talk by Francis Schaeffer on the 1962 paper by J. Robert Oppenheimer are these words:

Meaning is always
attained at the cost of leaving things out. …We have freedom of
choice, but we have no escape from the fact
that doing some things must leave out others.
In practical terms, this means, of course, that
our knowledge is finite and never all-encompassing. 

Oppenheimer

Matt Zoller Seitz July 19, 2023

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For all the pre-release speculation about how analog epic-maker Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” would re-create the explosion of the first atomic bomb, the film’s most spectacular attraction turns out to be something else: the human face. 

This three-plus hour biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) is a film about faces. They talk, a lot. They listen. They react to good and bad news. And sometimes they get lost in their own heads—none more so than the title character, the supervisor of the nuclear weapons team at Los Alamos whose apocalyptic contribution to science earned him the nickname The American Prometheus (as per the title of Nolan’s primary source, the biography by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherman). Nolan and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema use the large-format IMAX film system not merely to capture the splendor of New Mexico’s desert panoramas but contrast the external coolness and internal turmoil of Oppenheimer, a brilliant mathematician and low-key showman and leader whose impulsive nature and insatiable sexual appetites made his private life a disaster, and whose greatest contribution to civilization was a weapon that could destroy it. Close-up after close-up shows star Cillian Murphy’s face staring into the middle distance, off-screen, and sometimes directly into the lens, while Oppenheimer dissociates from unpleasant interactions, or gets lost inside memories, fantasies, and waking nightmares. “Oppenheimer” rediscovers the power of huge closeups of people’s faces as they grapple with who they are, and who other people have decided that they are, and what they’ve done to themselves and others. 

Sometimes the close-ups of people’s faces are interrupted by flash-cuts of events that haven’t happened, or already happened. There are recurring images of flame, debris, and smaller chain-reaction explosions that resemble strings of firecrackers, as well as non-incendiary images that evoke other awful, personal disasters. (There are a lot of gradually expanding flashbacks in this film, where you see a glimpse of something first, then a bit more of it, and then finally the entire thing.) But these don’t just relate to the big bomb that Oppenheimer’s team hopes to detonate in the desert, or the little ones that are constantly detonating in Oppenheimer’s life, sometimes because he personally pushed the big red button in a moment of anger, pride or lust, and other times because he made a naive or thoughtless mistake that pissed somebody off long ago, and the wronged person retaliated with the equivalent of a time-delayed bomb. The “fissile” cutting, to borrow a physics word, is also a metaphor for the domino effect caused by individual decisions, and the chain reaction that makes other things happen as a result. This principle is also visualized by repeated images of ripples in water, starting with the opening closeup of raindrops setting off expanding circles on the surface that foreshadow both the ending of Oppenheimer’s career as a government advisor and public figure and the explosion of the first nuke at Los Alamos (which observers see, then hear, then finally feel, in all its awful impact). 

The weight of the film’s interests and meanings are carried by faces—not just Oppenheimer’s, but those of other significant characters, including General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon), Los Alamos’ military supervisor; Robert’s suffering wife Kitty Oppenheimer (Emily Blunt), whose tactical mind could have averted a lot of disasters if her husband would have only listened; and Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey, Jr.), the Atomic Energy Commission chair who despised Oppenheimer for a lot of reasons, including his decision to distance himself from his Jewish roots, and who spent several years trying to derail Oppenheimer’s post-Los Alamos career. The latter constitutes its own adjacent full-length story about pettiness, mediocrity, and jealousy. Strauss is Salieri to Oppenheimer’s Mozart, regularly and often pathetically reminding others that he studied physics, too, back in the day, and that he’s a good person, unlike Oppenheimer the adulterer and communist sympathizer. (This film asserts that Strauss leaked the FBI file on his progressive and communist associations to a third party who then wrote to the bureau’s director, J. Edgar Hoover.)

The film speaks quite often of one of the principles of quantum physics, which holds that observing quantum phenomena by a detector or an instrument can change the results of this experiment. The editing illustrates it by constantly re-framing our perception of an event to change its meaning, and the script does it by adding new information that undermines, contradicts, or expands our sense of why a character did something, or whether they even knew why they did it. 

That, I believe, is really what “Oppenheimer” is about, much more so than the atom bomb itself, or even its impact on the war and the Japanese civilian population, which is talked about but never shown. The film does show what the atom bomb does to human flesh, but it’s not recreations of the actual attacks on Japan: the agonized Oppenheimer imagines Americans going through it. This filmmaking decision is likely to antagonize both viewers who wanted a more direct reckoning with the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and those who have bought into the arguments advanced by Strauss and others that the bombs had to be dropped because Japan never would have surrendered otherwise. The movie doesn’t indicate whether it thinks that interpretation is true or if it sides more with Oppenheimer and others who insisted that Japan was on its knees by that point in World War II and would have eventually given up without atomic attacks that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. No, this is a film that permits itself the freedoms and indulgences of novelists, poets, and opera composers. It does what we expect it to do: Dramatize the life of Oppenheimer and other historically significant people in his orbit in an aesthetically daring way while also letting all of the characters and all of the events be used metaphorically and symbolically as well, so that they become pointillistic elements in a much larger canvas that’s about the mysteries of the human personality and the unforeseen impact of decisions made by individuals and societies.

This is another striking thing about “Oppenheimer.” It’s not entirely about Oppenheimer even though Murphy’s baleful face and haunting yet opaque eyes dominate the movie. It’s also about the effect of Oppenheimer’s personality and decisions on other people, from the other strong-willed members of his atom bomb development team (including Benny Safdie’s Edwin Teller, who wanted to skip ahead to create the much more powerful hydrogen bomb, and eventually did) to the beleaguered Kitty; Oppenheimer’s mistress Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh, who has some of Gloria Grahame’s self-immolating smolder); General Groves, who likes Oppenheimer in spite of his arrogance but isn’t going to side with him over the United States government; and even Harry Truman, the US president who ordered the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (played in a marvelous cameo by Gary Oldman) and who derides Oppenheimer as a naive and narcissistic “crybaby” who sees history mainly in terms of his own feelings.

Jennifer Lame’s editing is prismatic and relentless, often in a faintly Terrence Malick-y way, skipping between three or more time periods within seconds. It’s wedded to virtually nonstop music by Ludwig Göransson that fuses with the equally relentless dialogue and monologues to create an odd but distinctive sort of scientifically expository aria that’s probably what it would feel like to read American Prometheus while listening to a playlist of Philip Glass film scores. Non-linear movies like this one do a better job of capturing the pinball-machine motions of human consciousness than linear movies do, and they also capture what it’s like to read a third-person omniscient book (or a biography that permits itself to imagine what its subjects might have been thinking or feeling). It also paradoxically captures the mental process of reading a text and responding to it emotionally and viscerally as well as intellectually. The mind stays anchored to the text. But it also jumps outside of it, connecting the text to other texts, to external knowledge, and to one’s own experience and imaginings.

This review hasn’t delved into the plot of the film or the real-world history that inspired it, not because it isn’t important (of course it is) but because—as is always the case with Nolan—the main attraction is not the story, itself but how the filmmaker tells it. Nolan has been derided as less a dramatist than half showman, half mathematician, making bombastic, overcomplicated, but ultimately muddled and simplistic blockbusters that are as much puzzles as stories. But whether that characterization was ever entirely true (and I’m increasingly convinced that it never was) it seems beside the point when you see how thoughtfully and rewardingly it’s been applied to a biography of a real person. It seems possible that “Oppenheimer” could retrospectively seem like a turning point in the director’s filmography, when he takes all of the stylistic and technical practices that he’d been honing for the previous twenty years in intellectualized pulp blockbusters and turns them inward, using them to explore the innermost recesses of the mind and heart, not just to move human pieces around on a series of interlinked, multi-dimensional storytelling boards.

The movie is an academic-psychedelic biography in the vein of those 1990s Oliver Stone films that were edited within an inch of their lives (at times it’s as if the park bench scene in “JFK” had been expanded to three hours). There’s also a strain of pitch-black humor, in a Stanley Kubrick mode, as when top government officials meet to go over a list of possible Japanese cities to bomb, and the man reading the list says that he just made an executive decision to delete Kyoto from it because he and his wife honeymooned there. (The Kubrick connection is cemented further by the presence of “Full Metal Jacket” star Matthew Modine, who co-stars as American engineer and inventor Vannevar Bush.) As an example of top-of-the-line, studio-produced popular art with a dash of swagger, “Oppenheimer” draws on Michael Mann’s “The Insider,” late-period Terrence Malick, nonlinearly-edited art cinema touchstones like “Hiroshima Mon Amour,” “The Pawnbroker,” “All That Jazz” and “Picnic at Hanging Rock“; and, inevitably, “Citizen Kane” (there’s even a Rosebud-like mystery surrounding what Oppenheimer and his hero Albert Einstein, played by Tom Conti, talked about on the banks of a Princeton pond). Most of the performances have a bit of an “old movie” feeling, with the actors snapping off their lines and not moving their faces as much as they would in a more modern story. A lot of the dialogue is delivered quickly, producing a screwball comedy energy. This comes through most strongly in the arguments between Robert and Kitty about his sexual indiscretions and refusal to listen to her mostly superb advice; the more abstract debates about power and responsibility between Robert and General Groves, and the scenes between Strauss and a Senate aide (Alden Ehrenreich) who is advising him as he testifies before a committee that he hopes will approve him to serve in President Dwight Eisenhower’s cabinet.
But as a physical experience, “Oppenheimer” is something else entirely—it’s hard to say exactly what, and that’s what’s so fascinating about it. I’ve already heard complaints that the movie is “too long,” that it could’ve ended with the first bomb detonating, and could’ve done without the bits about Oppenheimer’s sex life and the enmity of Strauss, and that it’s perversely self-defeating to devote so much of the running time, including the most of the third hour, to a pair of governmental hearings: the one where Oppenheimer tries to get his security clearance renewed, and Strauss trying to get approved for Eisenhower’s cabinet. But the film’s furiously entropic tendencies complement the theoretical discussions of the how’s and why’s of the individual and collective personality. To greater and lesser degrees, all of the characters are appearing before a tribunal and bring called to account for their contradictions, hypocrisies, and sins. The tribunal is out there in the dark. We’ve been given the information but not told what to decide, which is as it should be.

————-

In ‘Oppenheimer,’ Christopher Nolan builds a thrilling, serious blockbuster for adults

Associated Press

ASSOCIATED PRESS  
Thursday, July 13, 2023 12:11 p.m.

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UNIVERSAL PICTURES VIA AP 

Cillian Murphy in a scene from “Oppenheimer.”

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UNIVERSAL PICTURES VIA AP 

Matt Damon as Gen. Leslie Groves, left, and Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer in a scene from “Oppenheimer.”

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UNIVERSAL PICTURES VIA AP 

Cillian Murphy, center, in a scene from “Oppenheimer.”

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UNIVERSAL PICTURES VIA AP 


On Science and Culture by J. Robert Oppenheimer, Encounter (Magazine) October 1962 issue, was the best article that he ever wrote and it touched on a lot of critical issues including the one that Francis Schaeffer discusses in this blog post!

(53:00)

OPPENHEIMER: 

Meaning is always
attained at the cost of leaving things out. …We have freedom of
choice, but we have no escape from the fact
that doing some things must leave out others.
In practical terms, this means, of course, that
our knowledge is finite and never all-encompassing. 

(53:12)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER: What he is saying here that we stand and confront the total thing that confronts us, objective reality and including man himself and because we are finite we always have to leave out something in our studies, we can’t study the whole, and this of course becomes more and more specialized. Can’t you see that now you can read it the other way: Only somebody who is infinite can start from his own starting point point and come to absolute knowledge. Oppenheimer is perfectly right. It is a tremendous article. Everything I study I got to exclude something else and this is because we are finite as he points out, consequently beginning with one’s self, one would have to be infinite to come to any absolute meanings. So it is no wonder that he says that science isn’t going to give us a conclusion. Science can’t give us a conclusion. In a sense since we are confronting by such a tremendous thing, the more you study the less of a conclusion you can have, because the more you study the more you have to exclude. Now this isn’t just foolishness this is one of the great scientists of our day, and he is absolutely right. 

You know more and more, but every time you choose a field, for instance, if you go from one area of physics to a narrower area of physics, and then a narrower area of physics, and then a narrower area of physics, and then a narrower area of physics, and in each case you exclude something and you exclude and exclude and consequently beginning with a point of finiteness you can never expect to come to the end of the search.  

(56:00)

I am not saying anything against the scientific method. I am all for it. I believe the edifice that science is building is valid. 

Now then is there a possibility of knowing something really though? We as Christians think there is. We think there is an infinite God that does know things really and who has ultimate meaning really and because of our relationship with God, He can tell us that which will have real meaning. But now what have I have I have said? 

Mr. Oppenheimer there is a solution to the dilemma, but in order to come to it you have to shift gears, and not shift gears from 320 to 321, but from one side of antithesis to the opposite of an antithesis. You are absolutely right Mr. Oppenheimer you are not going to arrive at real solutions concerning man. You are not come to this from a humanist starting point, because beginning from a finite viewpoint, never mind infinity, just face to face with the massive stuff you face, every time you make a choice to really study something in detail you have to reject the study of something’s else, so you never get off the ground in a sense. I am not saying anything against the scientific method. I am all for it. I believe the edifice that science is building is valid. 
As a Bible believing Christian who believes that God has made all things and all truth is one I am a friend of real science. 

Oppenheimer is pointing that you are not going to arrive to a final solution concerning man beginning with your own finite starting point. We as Christians agree, but we do believe though that there is one that does things absolutely because He is not limited and He is not finite and He didn’t begin facing a mass of stuff that He couldn’t comprehend and had to reject certain studies in order to grasp others. It is God. And because man is made in the image of God, this God if He wants to can tell us some things in communication that tells us the thing absolutely. Now there have been scientists that believe that. Who is one of them? Hooray it is Isaac Newton. And Newton didn’t fit in to the Newtonian concept. Remember (the liberal theologian) Richardson? Richardson said he was very appreciative of Newton but he rejected Newton’s cosmology and his view of history. This is exactly what Oppenheimer is touching on here when he said Newton was not Newtonian. So therefore Oppenheimer has a deep grasp of the dilemma, and now he is to the end. ON SCIENCE AND CULTURE is the article, but so far all he has told us is the dilemma from a purely scientific viewpoint. We can read on here: 

(59:46)

OPPENHEIMER: 

There is always much that we miss, much
that we cannot be aware of because the very act
of learning, of ordering, of finding unity and
meaning, the very power to talk about things
means that we leave out a great deal.


Ask the question: Would another civilisation
based on life on another planet very similar to
ours in its ability to sustain life have the same
physics? One has no idea whether they would
have the same physics or not. We might be
talking about quite different questions. This
makes ours an open world without end. 

(1:00:21)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER: Why? Because their physics might be on different choice they studied and what they left unstudied. In other words they might make an entirely different start and because our physics is not based on the totally reality but it is based on what we decided to study rather than what we have left unstudied. Of course in the terms of old classic physics this wouldn’t make sense, but Oppenheimer is taking about the physics we now understand. So he says you just can’t talk like this. 

So Oppenheimer only has a page left and he hasn’t given us the solution of culture yet. 

(1:01:24)

OPPENHEIMER: 
THE THINGS THAT MAKE US choose one set of
questions, one branch of enquiry rather than
another are embodied in scientific traditions. In
developed sciences each man has only a limited
sense of freedom to shape or alter them; but
they are not themselves wholly determined by
the findings of science. They are largely of an
~esthetic character. The words that we use: simplicity, elegance, beauty: indicate that what we
grope for is not only more knowledge, but
knowledge that has order and harmony in it,
and continuity with the past. 

(1:02:09)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER: Now what is he talking about in line with our lectures on the intellectual climate? He is saying that if you live downstairs you don’t find meaning because this isn’t just in the area just of knowledge. This is in the area of the esthetic. Now these words listen: esthetic character, elegance, beauty, order, harmony, on the basis of everything in the area of science that he has set forth or modern man has set forth in his downstairs so called scientific are, WHAT DO THESE WORDS MEAN? And the answer is absolutely nothing. Don’t you see what he has done. Here is J. Robert Oppenheimer with all his brilliance. He must be a fine man. I have known some men who have known him and they say he is a fine man. With all his brilliance and being a fine man he is really despite of all this really playing a trick under the table on us. He has talked about science, and now he hasn’t built any bridge between science and what he is talking about, he just jumps. That is all. I don’t mean he is dishonest at all. I imagine he is a very honest man, but there is no other way to think in his framework. There is no where else to go. The very words he uses are meaningless based on everything that has proceeded in this article. He says they are of an ecstatic character. In other words they are like a song. For instance, elegance and beauty, what do these words mean in the area he has been talking? Nothing absolutely nothing. Order and Harmony in these areas as he moves over into culture, the words are meaningless. Down a little further. 

(1:04:11)

OPPENHEIMER: 
I am not here thinking of the popular subject
of “mass culture.” In broaching that, it seems
to me one must be critical but one must, above
all, be human; one must not be a snob; one
must be rather tolerant and almost loving.

(1:04:23)

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER: What do these words mean? Nothing in the area he has given us. He hasn’t given us any framework for these words to have any meaning. Human, tolerant, almost loving, he has moved entirely into a new area. He has gone upstairs. Now we aren’t calling names. I have said I am sure he is a fine man, but on the basis of his own presuppositions he has nowhere else to go. This is the amazing factor. I am sure he is a man of goodwill, but with all his goodwill he has no where else to go. Down at the bottom of page 9 and running page 10. 

(1:05:09)

OPPENHEIMER: 

Rather, I think loosely of what we may call
the intellectual community: artists, philosophers,
statesmen, teachers, men of most professions,
prophets, scientists.

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER: It is interesting. It is prophets now not ministers you see. Prophets, prophets, it is a scary word. Here are the mediators coming. The mediators of the symbols, he doesn’t say this of course, but that is what scares me to death. 

(1:05:33)

OPPENHEIMER: 

This is an open group, with no sharp lines separating those that think themselves of it. It is a growing faction of all peoples.
In it is vested the great duty for enlarging,
preserving, and transmitting our knowledge and
skills, and indeed our understanding of the
interrelations, priorities, commitments, injunctions, that help men deal with their joys,
temptations and sorrows, their finiteness, their
beauty. Some of this has to do, as the sciences
so largely do, with propositional truth, with
propositions which say “If you do thus and so
you will see this and that”; these are objective
and can be checked and cross-checked; though it
is always wise from time to time to doubt, there
are ways to put an end to the doubt. This is
how it is with the sciences.


In this community there are other statements
which “emphasise a theme” rather than declare
a fact. They may be statements of connectedness
or relatedness or importance, or they may be in
one way or another statements of commitment.
For them the word “certitude,” which is a
natural norm to apply in the sciences, is not very
sensible–depth, firmness, universality, perhaps
more–but certitude, which applies really to
verification, is not the great criterion in most of
the work of a philosopher, a painter, a poet, or
a playwright. For these are not, in the sense I
have outlined, objective. Yet for any true community, for any society worthy of the name,
they must have an element of community of
being common, of being public, of being relevant and meaningful to man, not necessarily to
everybody, but surely not just to specialists.

(1:07:29) 

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER: Now here you see is the total dilemma. Emphasizing a theme

(1:12:40)

Oppenheimer

OPPENHEIMER and EINSTEIN

Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer, 1947: Flickr, James Vaughn

File:Francis Schaeffer.jpg

Francis Schaeffer above


Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – August 6 and 9, 1945


From left to right: Robertson, Wigner, Weyl, Gödel, Rabi, Einstein, Ladenburg, Oppenheimer, and Clemence

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May 19, 2011 – 10:30 am

In today’s news you will read about Kirk Cameron taking on the atheist Stephen Hawking over some recent assertions he made concerning the existence of heaven. Back in December of 1995 I had the opportunity to correspond with Carl Sagan about a year before his untimely death. Sarah Anne Hughes in her article,”Kirk Cameron criticizes […]

By Everette Hatcher III|Posted in Atheists Confronted|Edit|Comments (2)

My correspondence with George Wald and Antony Flew!!!

May 12, 2014 – 1:14 am

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FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 38 Woody Allen and Albert Camus “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide” (Feature on artist Hamish Fulton Photographer )

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FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE PART 486 My Correspondence with Edward O.Wilson from 1994 to 2021 In my 7-9-19 letter I quoted Richard Dawkins:I’ve come to meet Randal Keynes, Darwin’s great-great-grandson to try to understand Darwin’s frame of mind as he finished his book. (Randal Keynes) It was entirely real, um, and this is a very strange point about him. Through the years when he was steeling himself for publication, um, he was, at different times, enormously confident in it, and at other times, he was utterly uncertain. He had a deep fear, I think, that one species would be discovered that had some element of its make-up that could only have been designed! FEATURED ARTIST IS CONSTABLE

E.O. Wilson: Science, Not Philosophy, Will Explain the Meaning of Existence

The Social Conquest of Earth | Edward O. Wilson

I don’t know if he ever listened to the casette tapes I sent him.

 My second cassette tape that I sent to Antony Flew and EO Wilson and George Wald was Adrian Rogers’ sermon on evolution and here at this link you can watch that very sermon on You Tube  Carl Sagan also took time to correspond with me about a year before he died. 

(Francis Schaeffer’s books and films were introduced to me in the 1970’s by my high school teacher Mark Brink of EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN SCHOOL and  pictured below is Francis Schaeffer.

Adrian Rogers pictured below

I have posted on Adrian Rogers’ messages on Evolution beforebut here is a complete message on it.

Evolution: Fact of Fiction? By Adrian Rogers

1. Four Bridges that the Evolutionist Cannot Cross

Now, I said I rejected evolution. The first reason is for logical reasons. There are four bridges that the evolutionist cannot cross; and, I want to mention these, and this is all under the heading of logical reasons.

a. The Origin of Life
The first bridge the evolutionists cannot logically cross is the origin of life—the origin of life. Now, whence came life? Well, if you’re a Bible believer, you know what the Bible says, in Genesis 1, verse 24: “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so” (Genesis 1:24). What does the evolutionist say? Well, he’s reduced to guesses. From whence came life?

One theory is—and you won’t believe this, but it’s been advanced by men who are supposed to be men of science—that some germ of life from some distant place in space hijacked a meteor, or was carried by a meteor, to Earth; and, that’s how life originated on Earth. All that does is just move the question back: How did life originate somewhere out yonder in space?

Others talk about something called spontaneous generation. That is—the way they love to explain it sounds so scientific—a fortuitous concourse of atoms. Well, that means, “kind of a flash of lightning through gas vapors, or green scum, or something.” Here’s this original soup; and now, ipso facto, it somehow just comes together—bing, there’s life.

(George Wald  is pictured above and I had the opportunity to correspond with him)

Let me tell you something: Dr. George Wald–Professor Emeritus of Biology at Harvard University—he won the Nobel Prize in Biology in 1971—writing in Scientific American on the origin of life, has said this—and I want you to listen carefully:“There are only two possibilities as to how life arose: One is spontaneous generation arising to evolution. The other is a supernatural creative act of God. There is no third possibility.” And, we would all say amen. Either God did it, or it just happened accidentally. All right. But now, let’s go on. So far, he’s doing good. He said there’s no third possibility. “Spontaneous generation, that life arose from nonliving matter, was scientifically disproved 120 years ago”—that was 120 years from when he made this statement—“by Louis Pasteur and others. That leaves us with only one possible conclusion: that life arose as a supernatural creative act of God.” So far, so good. But now, tune your ears, and don’t miss this. I want you to hear what this Nobel Prize winning scientist, Professor Emeritus of Biology at Harvard, said. Now remember, he said there are only two possibilities: Either there’s a creative act of God, or it is spontaneous generation that arises or moves to evolution. He said—and I’m continuing to quote: “I will not accept that…”—what that is he referring to? That it is a supernatural creative act of God—“I will not accept that philosophically, because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe what I know is scientifically impossible: spontaneous generation arising to evolution.”Two theories: God did it; it just happened. “To say it just happened is impossible, but I believe it, because I don’t want to believe in God”—written in Scientific American.

Let me tell you, another evolutionist, Sir Arthur Keith, confessed this: “The only alternative to some form of evolution is special creation, which is unthinkable.” “That’s the only alternative,” he says, “that God did it.” He said, “Man, that’s just unthinkable.”

Scientist D. M. S. Watson displayed his prejudice when he wrote, “Evolution is a theory universally accepted—not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible.” “We accept it,” he says, “not because it can be proven, but to believe in God—oh no. So, we have to believe it.”

Now, what I want you to see is, therefore, that evolution is not truly science; it is philosophy. It is a bias against God. It is the next best guess of those who will not accept divine creation—the origin of life. For 2,000 years, man believed in spontaneous generation of life, because they did not know what Louis Pasteur discovered. And so, men would see some slimy water; and, after a while, there’d be wiggle tails in that water. They say, “Ah, life comes from that.” They would see some putrefaction on the ground; and, after a while, they would see maggots working in that putrefaction. “Ah, life comes out of putrefaction.” Or, they would see some rags—cheese rags, or whatever— and, after a while, mice would appear; and so, they said, “Look, that’s where life comes from. It comes spontaneously.”

But then, more than a century ago, Pasteur said that was impossible, and he proved spontaneous generation of life impossible. And, I want to tell you a basic axiom of biology: that life only arises from life. That is a basic axiom of biology. No biologist today would dare say that you can get life from anything other than life. They would say, scientifically, it is impossible to get life from nonliving matter. This law in science is called the law of biogenesis. It is a basic law of science. And, the evolutionist, without any proof—none, nada, none—would say it happened: “We know it’s impossible, but it had to happen, because we don’t believe in God.” No evolutionist—none—can show the origin of life. But, in order to prove evolution, friend, he’s got to start with the origin of life. He cannot cross that bridge.

(Louis Pasteur)

https://bidding-test.devops.iponweb.net/automattic/dio-passback.html

______________________________________________

(NOT PART OF SERMON BUT MY COMMENT IN PARAGRAPH BELOW)

This might interest you that good friend in Little Rock Craig Carney had an uncle named  Warren Carney and Warren was born in 1917 and he was the last living witness of the Scopes Monkey trial but he died in June of 2015. His father took him to the trial every day since they lived in Dayton and it was the biggest happening in the town’s history. Also I attended the funeral of Dr. Robert G. Lee (1886-1978) at Bellevue Baptist in Memphis and he is the minister who presided over William Jennings Bryan’s funeral in 1925. I have posted Dr. Lee’s mostfamous sermon PAYDAY SOME DAY on this blog and it continues to get lots of views everyday.

Edward O. Wilson The Meaning of Human Existence Audiobook


Professor E.O. Wilson in his office, at a table in front of a bookshelf, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

Harvard University Professor E.O. Wilson in his office at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. USACredit: Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty.


Francis A. Schaeffer
Founder of the L’Abri community

C. Everett Koop, 1980s.jpg


Francis Schaeffer mentioned Edward O. Wilson in his book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? co-authored by C.Everett Koop on pages 289-291 (ft note 6 0n page 504). That was when I was first introduced to Dr. Wilson’s work. Wikipedia notes, Edward Osborne Wilson (June 10, 1929 – December 26, 2021) was an American biologistnaturalist, and writer. His specialty was myrmecology, the study of ants, on which he was called the world’s leading expert,[3][4] and he was nicknamed Ant Man.[5][6][7][8]

I was honored to correspond with Dr. Wilson from 1994 to 2021!!

July 2, 2019

Dr. Edward O. Wilson, Museum of Comparative Zoology Faculty Emeritus
Pellegrino University Professor, Emeritus c/o Museum of Comparative Zoology
Harvard University
26 Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

Dear Dr. Wilson

On 12-14-05 you and James D. Watson appeared on the THE CHARLIE ROSE SHOW and you both praised Charles Darwin the whole time. You noted, “The man was always right. It`s exasperating to be an evolutionary biologist and try to develop something really new  and find out that Darwin had either said it or he had created …. had foresight to, you know, indicate it.” Did you know that Darwin had serious doubts about his theory even up till his dying day? More on that later.

I was honored that you took the time to correspond with me earlier and I have enjoyed reading your books over the years. Every new book has seemed to be better than the previous one!

I am coming to your state next week to tour it. Let me know if you have suggestions for restaurants or places our family should tour. We are very excited about this opportunity.

Since you are a Humanist, I wanted to ask you about this idea of Evolution by Chance.

  • Manifesto I: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process.
  • Manifesto II: Rather, science affirms that the human species is an emergence from natural evolutionary forces.
  • Manifesto III: Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change.

Did you know that Charles Darwin himself struggled until his his dying day with this idea of evolution by chance. (I am not referring to the now debunked deathbed confession spread by his wife.)

The Genius of Charles Darwin (A film that Richard Dawkinswrote and narrated.) Part 1 (37th min):

(Richard Dawkins) I’ve come to meet Randal Keynes, Darwin’s great-great-grandson to try to understand Darwin’s frame of mind as he finished his book.

(Randal Keynes) This is a book about geology by Mr Greenough. It has this wonderful inscription – “Charles Darwin, Buenos Aires,
October 1832.” So he’s on the Beagle, really getting into his stride as a geologist. This is a scrapbook,
a children’s scrapbook that belonged to Darwin’s daughter Annie.

(Richard Dawkins) Darwin was no aggressive polemicist. He didn’t take to the stage
to publicise his work, but sought to influence leading thinkers behind the scenes, by sending them proof copies of the book with apologetic letters attached.’ He would write things like,
“This vile rag of a theory of mine.” Was that genuine modesty or was there an element of false modesty about it?

(Randal Keynes) It was entirely real, um, and this is a very strange point about him. Through the years when he was steeling himself for publication, um, he was, at different times, enormously confident in it, and at other times, he was utterly uncertain. He had a deep fear, I think, that one species would be discovered that had some element of its make-up that could only have been designed. 

(Richard Dawkins) Doubts may have lingered in Darwin’s mind, but finally, 150 years ago, he set out his ideas on evolution and how it worked in The Origin Of Species. The book sold out its first run of 1,250 copies within two days. has never been out of print since. The Origin turned our world upside down…..

The case is clear that Darwin did turn the world upside down, but is also true that he had deep doubts about his theory throughout his whole life.

 In 1968, Francis Schaeffer (January 30, 1912 – May 15, 1984[1]got a hold of an unabridged autobiography of Darwin that Nora Barlow has edited. Wikipedia noted concerning Barlow:

Her first book as editor was a new edition of The Voyage of the Beagle (1933).

She published an unexpurgated version of The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, which had previously had personal and religious material removed by his son, Francis.

Here are Schaeffer’s comments on the autobiography:

Darwin in his autobiography  Darwin, Francis ed. 1892. Charles Darwin: his life told in an autobiographical chapter, and in a selected series of his published letters [abridged edition]. London: John Murray, and in his letters showed that all through his life he NEVER really came to a QUIETNESS concerning the possibility that chance really explained the situation of the biological world. You will find there is much material on this [from Darwin] extended over many many years that constantly he was wrestling with this problem. Darwin never came to a place of satisfaction. You have philosophically ONLY TWO possible beginnings. The first would be a PERSONAL beginning and the other would be an IMPERSONEL beginning plus time plus CHANCE. There is no other possible alternative except the alternative that everything comes out of nothing and that has to be a total nothing and that has to be a total nothing without mass, energy or motion existing. No one holds this last view because it is unthinkable. Darwin understood this and therefore until his death he was uncomfortable with the idea of CHANCE producing the biological variation. 

Darwin, C. R. to Graham, William 3 July 1881:

Nevertheless you have EXPRESSED MY INWARD CONVICTION, though far more vividly and clearly than I could have done, that the Universe is NOT THE RESULT OF CHANCE.* But THEN with me the HORRID DOUBT ALWAYS ARISES whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?

Francis Schaeffer comments:

Can you feel this man? He is in real agony. You can feel the whole of modern man in this tension with Darwin. My mind can’t accept that ultimate of chance, that the universe is a result of chance. He has said 3 or 4 times now that he can’t accept that it all happened by chance and then he will write someone else and say something different. How does he say this (about the mind of a monkey) and then put forth this grand theory? Wrong theory I feel but great just the same. Grand in the same way as when I look at many of the paintings today and I differ with their message but you must say the mark of the mannishness of man are one those paintings titanic-ally even though the message is wrong and this is the same with Darwin.  But how can he say you can’t think, you come from a monkey’s mind, and you can’t trust a monkey’s mind, and you can’t trust a monkey’s conviction, so how can you trust me? Trust me here, but not there is what Darwin is saying. In other words it is very selective. 

Do you think Darwin was right to spend so much time exploring his doubts on this issue of Evolution by Chance? 

The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted. The world is not a result of blind chance, but we all were put here for a purpose by God. If you want to investigate the evidence concerning the accuracy of the Bible then I suggest you read Psalms 22 which was written about a thousand years before the crucifixion events it described. Furthermore, when King David wrote those words the practice of stoning was the primary way of executing someone in Israel. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.comhttp://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221,

-PS: My family and grandkids and I will be touring Massachusetts the second week of July.Here are some of the restaurants we plan to visit during our trip.

  • Union Oyster House (reservation already made)
  • The Sail Loft (which is on the water)
  • Regina Pizzeria

We are planning on touring the following places on our trip to Massachusetts.

• Freedom Trail o Boston Commono Massachusetts State Houseo Park Street Churcho Granary Burying Groundo King’s Chapel & King’s Chapel Burying Groundo Boston Latin School Site/Benjamin Franklin Statueo Old Corner Bookstoreo Old South Meeting Houseo Old State Houseo Boston Massacre Siteo Faneuil Hallo Paul Revere Houseo Old North Churcho Copp’s Hill Burying Groundo USS Constitutiono Bunker Hill Monument•

Visit First Church of Boston located on opposite side of Boston Public Garden from Boston Common• Union Oyster House – •

Cambridge:o Harvard Square/Wadsworth Houseo Christ Churcho Cambridge Common Parko Longfellow House – Washington Hqtrs National Historic Site•

Lexington:o Hancock-Clark Houseo Lexington Visitor Centero Minuteman Statueo Preacher’s Stando The Belfryo Flagpole on Battle Greeno Parker Bouldero Buckman Taverno Memorial to the Lexington Minute Man of 1775o USS Lexington Memorialo Revolutionary War Monumento First Parish Churcho Ye Olde Burying Ground•

Concord:o Minuteman National Park Visitor Centero Meriam’s Cornero Old North Bridgeo Robbins Houseo The Old Manse•

Massachusetts State House tour at 10:00 am. Lasts approximately 45 minutes. • Boston Tea Party Museum OR Boston Museum of Fine Arts •

Potentially do JFK Library this afternoon if time permits after Tea Party Museum

• Plymoutho Plimoth Grist Millo Plymouth Rocko Pilgram Hallo Forefather’s Monument•

Adams National Historical Park Visitor Centero Must take guided tour to view the historical homes in the park

FEATURED ARTIST IS CONSTABLE

John Constable - 1800-1837

JOHN CONSTABLE (1776-1837)

John Constable (1776-1837) is, along with Turner, the great figure of English romanticism. But unlike his contemporary, he never left England, and he devoted all his time to represent the life and landscapes of his beloved England.

My Homage to the Late Harvard Biologist EO Wilson (THE SAAD TRUTH_1351)

How Should We Then Live | Season 1 | Episode 6 | The Scientific Age

How Did Writer & Biologist EO Wilson Die | The Life and Sad Ending Edwar…

Edward O Wilson has passed away 💔|| his last moment before death so touc…

Remembering the life of renowned biologist and Alabama native E.O. Wilson

How Should We Then Live (1977) | Full Movie | Francis Schaeffer | Edith …

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Carl Sagan v. Nancy Pearcey

March 18, 2013 – 9:11 am

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Review of Carl Sagan book (Part 4 of series on Evolution)

May 24, 2012 – 1:47 am

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Review of Carl Sagan book (Part 3 of series on Evolution)

May 23, 2012 – 1:43 am

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Carl Sagan versus RC Sproul

January 9, 2012 – 2:44 pm

At the end of this post is a message by RC Sproul in which he discusses Sagan. Over the years I have confronted many atheists. Here is one story below: I really believe Hebrews 4:12 when it asserts: For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the […]

By Everette Hatcher III|Posted in Adrian RogersAtheists ConfrontedCurrent EventsFrancis Schaeffer|Tagged Bill ElliffCarl SaganJodie FosterRC Sproul|Edit|Comments (0)

Review of Carl Sagan book (Part 4 of series on Evolution)jh68

November 8, 2011 – 12:01 am

Review of Carl Sagan book (Part 4 of series on Evolution) The Long War against God-Henry Morris, part 5 of 6 Uploaded by FLIPWORLDUPSIDEDOWN3 on Aug 30, 2010 http://www.icr.org/ http://store.icr.org/prodinfo.asp?number=BLOWA2http://store.icr.org/prodinfo.asp?number=BLOWASGhttp://www.fliptheworldupsidedown.com/blog _______________________ This is a review I did a few years ago. THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl […]

By Everette Hatcher III|Posted in Atheists ConfrontedCurrent Events|Edit|Comments (0)

Review of Carl Sagan book (Part 3 of series on Evolution)

November 4, 2011 – 12:57 am

Review of Carl Sagan book (Part 3 of series on Evolution) The Long War against God-Henry Morris, part 4 of 6 Uploaded by FLIPWORLDUPSIDEDOWN3 on Aug 30, 2010 http://www.icr.org/ http://store.icr.org/prodinfo.asp?number=BLOWA2http://store.icr.org/prodinfo.asp?number=BLOWASGhttp://www.fliptheworldupsidedown.com/blog______________________________________ I was really enjoyed this review of Carl Sagan’s book “Pale Blue Dot.” Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot by Larry Vardiman, Ph.D. […]

By Everette Hatcher III|Posted in Atheists ConfrontedCurrent Events|Edit|Comments (0)

Atheists confronted: How I confronted Carl Sagan the year before he died jh47

May 19, 2011 – 10:30 am

In today’s news you will read about Kirk Cameron taking on the atheist Stephen Hawking over some recent assertions he made concerning the existence of heaven. Back in December of 1995 I had the opportunity to correspond with Carl Sagan about a year before his untimely death. Sarah Anne Hughes in her article,”Kirk Cameron criticizes […]

By Everette Hatcher III|Posted in Atheists Confronted|Edit|Comments (2)

My correspondence with George Wald and Antony Flew!!!

May 12, 2014 – 1:14 am

January 8, 2015 – 5:23 am

January 1, 2015 – 4:14 am

December 25, 2014 – 5:04 am

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 38 Woody Allen and Albert Camus “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide” (Feature on artist Hamish Fulton Photographer )

December 18, 2014 – 4:30 am

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 37 Mahatma Gandhi and “Relieving the Tension in the East” (Feature on artist Luc Tuymans)

December 11, 2014 – 4:19 am

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 36 Julian Huxley:”God does not in fact exist, but act as if He does!” (Feature on artist Barry McGee)

December 4, 2014 – 4:10 am