Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister announced on Tuesday that he was withdrawing from consideration to become President-elect Donald Trump‘s administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
“To have been nominated by President-Elect [Trump] to serve as Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration is the honor of a lifetime,” Chronister said in a statement posted to X.
To have been nominated by President-Elect @realDonaldTrump to serve as Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration is the honor of a lifetime. Over the past several days, as the gravity of this very important responsibility set in, I’ve concluded that I must respectfully… pic.twitter.com/bvNF8m9Bh4
“Over the past several days, as the gravity of this very important responsibility set in, I’ve concluded that I must respectfully withdraw from consideration,” he added. “There is more work to be done for the citizens of Hillsborough County and a lot of initiatives I am committed to fulfilling.”
Chronister concluded: “I sincerely appreciate the nomination, outpouring of support by the American people, and look forward to continuing my service as Sheriff of Hillsborough County.”
Trump announced on Saturday that he nominated Chronister, who was appointed by then-Florida Governor Rick Scott to be the top law enforcement officer in Hillsborough County in 2017, to become DEA administrator in a statement that lauded the sheriff for his awards and record of service.
“As DEA Administrator, Chad will work with our great Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to secure the Border, stop the flow of Fentanyl, and other Illegal Drugs, across the Southern Border, and SAVE LIVES,” Trump said in a statement. “Congratulations to Chad, his wife Nikki, and two wonderful sons!”
However, Chronister faced blowback from some conservatives over a number of issues, including the 2020 arrest of Florida pastor Rodney Howard-Browne for allegedly defying social distancing orders during the COVID pandemic, pressing his deputies get the jab, and releasing 164 inmates in a bid to reduce the risk of spreading COVID in jail.
“This sheriff ordered the arrest of a pastor for holding services during the COVID panic,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) said in a post to X. “He was tapped by Trump to head the DEA. Glad to see him withdraw from consideration. Next time politicians lose their ever-lovin minds, he can redeem himself by following the Constitution.”
Another of Trump’s picks, now-former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), withdrew from consideration to be U.S. attorney general last month amid some GOP pushback and the House Ethics Committee weighing the release of a report on alleged sexual misconduct. Gaetz has denied the claims. Trump then selected former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to take on the role.
DOGE, an outside advisory group led by Trump allies Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk, has expressed interest in abolishing Daylight Saving time in the United States as part of their broader crusade to cut government waste. Daylight Saving time (DST) is observed between the 2nd Sunday of March to the 1st Sunday of November – every year Americans move their clocks forward, then back, in an effort to maximize the number of waking daylight hours.
Advocates of DST have argued that it boosts economic efficiency by decreasing the need for artificial lighting and encouraging people to spend more time outdoors – however, a meta-analysis of several dozen studies conducted by Stanford University in 2021 found that DST only reduced energy consumption by ~0.34%. A 2008 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that DST might actually increase energy consumption by as much as 1%.
Meanwhile, the arbitrary shift forward or backward by an hour complicates international travel and can cause scheduling errors for travelers or businesses who aren’t used to observing the change.
The economic costs of disrupting American’s sleep schedules by moving the clock forward an hour could also be quite high – one study by Chmura Economics and Analytics linked the DST time change to a consistent increase in heart attacks, workplace injuries, and a drop in workplace productivity. The study estimated these side effects cost the American economy $434 million dollars every year.
Recently, Musk and Ramaswamy have both suggested that they would support getting rid of DST.
“Looks like the people want to abolish the annoying time changes!” Musk said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, in response to a user who requested the end of DST as a birthday present.
“It’s inefficient & easy to change.” Ramaswamy responded.
DST is a relatively recent phenomenon in the United States – while the U.S. briefly observed it during both World Wars in an effort to save power, moving the clocks forward and backward by an hour wasn’t standardized until 1966. Hawaii and most parts of Arizona already do not observe DST, and there have been mounting efforts to stop the annual time change in recent years.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), another Trump ally whom the President-Elect nominated to become Secretary of State, sponsored a bill to stop the regular time changes (“The Sunshine Protection Act”) in 2018, 2021, and 2023. More than a dozen senators from both parties co-sponsored the most recent edition of the bill.
“This ritual of changing time twice a year is stupid,” Rubio said. “Locking the clock has overwhelming bipartisan and popular support.”
Podcast giant Joe Rogan may have waited until the 11th hour to give his full-throated endorsement to President-elect Donald Trump, but he said on a recent episode that he had decided weeks earlier that he had to get involved.
Rogan explained to guests Shane Gillis, Ari Shaffir, and Mark Normand that even though his general assessment was that “politics are gross,” there was one thing that Vice President Kamala Harris did that convinced him he couldn’t simply sit the 2024 presidential election out.
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Joe Rogan got involved in the Presidential race because he was radicalized by Tim Walz:
“You’re telling me that you don’t care if someone is a liar? You don’t care if they lie about their military rank, where they served? You don’t care if they lie about being an assistant? You… pic.twitter.com/lb1EhyClgE
“I wanted to stay out of the presidential election s*** because it’s so gross,” Rogan began — but than he said that when Harris chose Governor Tim Walz (D-MN), he felt like he had to say something.
“This is so nuts. When that Tim Walz guy — it’s so nuts that guy was going to be the vice president. You’re telling me this whole thing is fake then. You’re telling me that you don’t care if someone is a liar? You don’t care if they lie about their military rank, where they served, you don’t care if they lie about being an assistant, you don’t care if they lie about Tiananmen Square? There are just too many things,” he said.
“This is so crazy. You would get fired if you were an assistant manager at a f***ing oil change company. Jiffy Lube would fire you!” Rogan continued.
Walz was accused of adding embellishing details to his military record — prompting Vice President-elect and Marine Corps veteran JD Vance to accuse him of “Stolen Valor” — as well as lying about where he was when students clashed with the Chinese government at Tiananmen Square. He also repeatedly suggested that he and his wife had relied on in vitro fertilization to have children when they had not, among other things.
Jack Johnson, the Republican Tennessee state Senate majority leader, told the New York Post that Matt Walsh’s investigation into Vanderbilt University Medical Center giving puberty blockers and hormones to children was the reason the state legislature passed a bill banning the life-altering procedures on minors.
The Tennessee law protecting children from puberty blockers and hormones is now before the Supreme Court with oral arguments beginning on Wednesday in the case United States v. Jonathan Skrmetti. Tennessee passed its ban on gender procedures on minors after Walsh revealed in 2022 that the pediatric transgender clinic at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) performed double mastectomies and chemical castrations on gender-confused children.
Johnson said he’s “cautiously optimistic” that the Supreme Court will rule in the state’s favor after the Sixth Circuit of Appealsupheld Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender procedures on minors.
“Tennessee’s law that I sponsored will effectively be the test case for the nation. So we’re very excited, humbled, and cautiously optimistic that the Supreme Court will see it as the Sixth Circuit did,” Johnson told the Post.
“By no means would I be so presumptuous as to predict what the Supreme Court will do. I have tremendous respect for the court,” he added. “What’s at stake is effectively the rights of states to regulate these types of medical procedures.”
Just before Tennessee’s law went into effect in July of 2023, the Biden administration secured a preliminary injunction from the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, which blocked the law.
“The science is unproven, it’s unsettled. The long-term ramifications of these types of procedures on kids is very unsettled, and in many cases, leads to very bad outcomes and potentially a lifetime of medical complications,” Johnson said.
Walshwill speak outside of the Supreme Court at a rally put on by Do No Harm on Wednesday as justices hear arguments on the monumental case. The Daily Wire host, who has led a nationwide movement to protect children from gender procedures, said that a win at the Supreme Court would be another step toward a bigger goal.
“What gender ideology lacks in logic, science and morality, it makes up for in left wing money, violent activism, educational indoctrination, and legacy media support,” Walsh said Monday. “But we won’t stop working to protect children from this barbaric ideology. Once the Biden administration and trans activists are exposed at the Supreme Court, the next step is a nationwide ban on child sex-changes.”
On Sunday evening, President Joe Biden decided to give a blanket pardon to his son Hunter for any and all activities since 2014.
In a scene in “The Three Musketeers,” Cardinal Richelieu decides to give one of his henchmen a prospective pardon for anything they are going to do at any point. The note starts by stating, “By my order and for the good of the state,” then finishes, “the bearer has done what has been done.”
That’s essentially what Joe Biden did with his son, Hunter, by writing him a pardon that allowed him any crime for about a decade, which is an amazingly broad pardon.
It’s almost unprecedented in American history. The only similar instance that has been this broad was the Gerald Ford pardon of Richard Nixon, which was basically designed to quiet any and all problems surrounding Watergate and any sort of ancillary legal issues that would have arisen therefrom with regard to Richard Nixon. The goal was to get that off the American people’s table and let them move on to the next thing.
That is not true with regard to Hunter Biden.
This is the president of the United States pardoning his son for any and all crimes, including those that were never charged. Why is he doing that? He believes the incoming Trump DOJ is going to look into Hunter Biden’s financial improprieties and the Biden family corruption — so it’s not just about Hunter. It is really about Joe.
In fact, it’s possible to conclude the Richard Nixon precedent might be the best precedent — because really, what is Joe Biden doing here?
He’s attempting to pardon himself.
He can’t overtly pardon himself because he has not been charged with any crimes. And he wants to pretend he is not guilty of any crimes. What he’s really doing is getting Hunter off the table to get himself off the table.
That is the goal. There’s really no other way to explain this.
Margaret Love, who was the United States pardon attorney from 1900 to 1997, stated, “It’s very broad. It does not pardon specific offenses, but rather takes a rather broad time span and pardons anything, any crime that may have been committed during that time span.”
Mark Osler, a pardon expert from the University of Saint Thomas, said, “This is very unusual. It’s unusual enough to grant clemency in a case where there hasn’t yet been a conviction. It’s rarer still to have the breadth of this one.”
This is correct. This is an insanely broad pardon, and it’s meant to cover everything from violations of the Foreign Agent Registration Act to further tax crimes to the possibility of bribery.
Joe Biden is not answering questions pertaining to any of this. He issued the pardon, and then he immediately went to Angola.
I do wonder at this point whether, as a transitional move, he resigns from the presidency because he clearly no longer cares about being president of the United States. He has not been invested in being president of the United States since he was ousted from the nomination for reelection.
This pardon is the kind of move you make when you’re saying “f*** you” to your own party and the American people.
And the Democrats are upset.
But they are not upset for the reasons you would think.
Let me explain.
Democrats have preemptively decided they’re going to use every option on the table rather than stick with any set of rules — which is one of the reasons that norms have actually declined in politics.
Democrats continue saying that Donald Trump has broken the norms.
After all, Joe Biden essentially said the reason he pardoned Hunter was that Trump is going to come in and prosecute Hunter.
However, we know Trump is actually not that kind of guy. Recall 2015 and 2016: When Trump was running for president of the United States, crowds chanted, “Lock her up!” — referring to Hillary Clinton. Then, during a debate, Trump openly said that if he were president, Hillary Clinton would probably be in jail.
But hedidn’t do any of that.
Trump’s DOJ was not activated in order to get his political opponent.
But who did do that? Joe Biden.
After the 2020 election, it was Joe Biden’s DOJ that decided to drill down on Donald Trump. And that was after four long years of career appointees inside the FBI and the DOJ drilling down on Trump.
So Democrats initiated this conflict, and now they are afraid of the blowback. They’re afraid Trump will do the same to them.
Thus, Joe Biden is now preemptively using the pardon power in a unique and unprecedented way in order to avoid this.
We have entered an era where that norm has been broken too. Now, you can imagine a situation in which every president, on his last day in office, has to pardon himself and all of his family members just to avoid a future in which the opposite party comes in and prosecutes everyone.
Is the next Democratic president going to prosecute Trump for something? I’d be shocked if they didn’t try.
Is the next Democratic president going to pledge to prosecute members of Donald Trump’s family? Hell, they basically did.
That is the world in which we now live. Democrats have been breaking precedents and norms for the last 15 years in American politics. In anticipation of Republicans doing the same, they break the next norm. They break the norm about not prosecuting their political opponents. Then, in order to prevent Republicans from prosecuting them in return, they’re issuing blanket pardons to people like Hunter Biden.
This is how norms get destroyed.
The true norm destroyers in the country are the Democrats.
The real reason some Democrats today are upset with Joe Biden is not because he pardoned Hunter. The real reason they’re upset about what Biden did is because, once again, a new rule has been set, and they know that rule is going to come back around. It’s going to swing back around and hammer them directly in the head.
Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) ripped into Joe Biden yesterday, saying, “President Biden’s decision put personal interest ahead of duty and further erodes Americans’ faith that the justice system is fair and equal for all.”
Claire McCaskill, former Missouri Democrat senator, made clear the reason she is upset is because the pardon would give ammunition to Trump. She’s not upset on principle at what Joe Biden did. If he could get away with it, she’d be fine with it. What she’s afraid of is that since the pardon power has been used this way, Trump will use the pardon power in the same manner.
This is the story of the Democratic Party over the course of my lifetime. They are not in favor of norms. They hate norms. They’re willing to destroy every norm from social institutions like churches to governmental institutions like the Senate and the Supreme Court.
That’s what’s happening here.
The Democrats are furious because Joe Biden made it obvious. He was too stupid to do it subtly the way Democrats would prefer.
The real reason Democrats are furious is because Joe Biden exposed the fact they are willing to use power in pursuit of their own agenda at the cost of any and all norms.
Outgoing Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) insisted on Monday that President Joe Biden’s oft-repeated promise not to pardon his embattled son Hunter Biden was not “a lie” — despite the fact that on Sunday, Biden issued just such a pardon.
Bowman, who aligns with the far-left “Squad” members like Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), was defeated in his 2024 Democratic primary and is best known for pulling a fire alarm — to stall a vote — and then lying about it.
He joined a CNN panel discussion on Monday evening to talk about Biden’s sweeping pardon — which covered any and all federal crimes, charged or not, that Hunter may have committed over an 11-year period.
Despite an NBC report suggesting that the pardon had always been part of the plan — as had Biden’s outward dishonesty — Bowman’s assessment of the situation was that the pardon had only come about because of a change in “context”: President-elect Donald Trump’s decisive victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.
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Rep. Jamaal Bowman repeats over and over that Biden didn't lie about pardoning Hunter because "the context has changed" since Trump won the election. pic.twitter.com/1kw9fRkEta
“Why are we saying he’s lying when the context has changed?” Bowman asked, referring to the 2024 election results, and others on the panel began talking at once. “This is — this is a new context.”
“President Trump — what do you mean, ‘so what?'” Bowman continued, throwing out Democrat buzzwords as others on the panel argued that Trump had nothing to do with whether or not Biden had lied. “Multiple times indicted, convicted, insurrectionist, wants to destroy the FBI, President Trump — that’s the new context.”
Former Rep. Scott Taylor (R-VA) noted that even the prosecutor in Hunter Biden’s case — which was brought by Joe Biden’s own Justice Department — said it was not a political prosecution as Biden had claimed.
According to NBC News’ initial report on the pardon, however, if there was a change in “context” that impacted the president’s decision, it was not Trump’s re-election, but Hunter’s conviction. That, as NBC reported, was also when the administration sanctioned a conscious effort on the parts of Biden and his media surrogates to lie to the people about it.
The president has discussed pardoning his son with some of his closest aides at least since Hunter Biden’s conviction in June, said two people with direct knowledge of the discussions about the matter. They said it was decided at the time that he would publicly say he would not pardon his son even though doing so remained on the table.
There’s a famous quote from a Hemingway novel that goes something like this. A character is asked, “How did you go bankrupt?” And his reply is: “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” You may have heard the same idea expressed like this: Often, things will start to occur slowly at first, and then they’ll happen all at once. A catalyst will take place. The slow burn begins. And eventually — suddenly — everything changes.
Starting around the turn of the century, it became clear that a catalyst had occurred in American culture, and in particular, American spiritual life. Church attendance — which had remained steady at around 70% of the population from the 1930s all the way to the 1990s — began to plummet. That was one of the clearest signs that Americans were turning away from scripture, and away from any belief in a higher power than themselves. Similar changes in church attendance were reported all over the West.
At the time, it wasn’t clear exactly what the consequences of this shift would be. After all, once a civilization abandons its most fundamental beliefs, it becomes pretty hard to predict what will happen next. But then, abruptly, the consequences became very apparent in our daily lives.
Gender ideology began teaching that people can determine whether they’re men or women, all on their own. There’s no need for God to have any role in the process. Virtually overnight, taxpayer-funded child castration made it into the platform of a major American political party.
The idea that people can assume divine powers and change their gender went from an absurdity to a core tenet of Left-wing political thought.
A similar reversal has taken place in the field of assisted suicide, which activists often call MAID — or “medical assistance in dying.” This is another area in which many Western governments, corporate press and activists have decided that humans should get to play god. And again, the reversal was rapid.
As recently as a decade ago, assisted suicide was illegal in many Western nations. In Canada, where it is now, incredibly, the fifth-leading cause of death, MAID wasn’t even legal as recently as 2015. Then, in just seven years, from 2016 to 2023, the use of assisted suicide in Canada increased by more than thirteen-fold.
If we were seeing these numbers in any other context — like a new strain of COVID or something — Canada’s media would call this what it is, which is a massive and unprecedented public health emergency. MAID has come out of nowhere to become one of the primary ways that Canadians die. But because MAID bails out Canada’s failing public health system by getting rid of expensive patients, Canada’s state media of course supports the practice. The same phenomenon is now happening overseas. When UK held a vote in 2015 on whether to legalize assisted suicide, the proposal was quickly shot down in parliament by more than 200 votes. But on Friday, there was a very different result. By a vote of 330 to 275, parliament approved a bill that will legalize euthanasia in certain cases. Watch:
The stated limitations in this bill are that, in order to kill themselves, people need to be at least 18-years-old. They need to have some kind of “terminal diagnosis” with less than six months to live (more on that in a moment). Two doctors, along with a judge, need to give their approval, and the drugs that end the person’s life need to be self-administered. So the doctor can set up all of the drugs that will kill you, but you have to press the button.
Before we get into the more substantive issues with this bill, it needs to be said that, in practical terms, these “limitations” are extremely superficial. They’re designed to make people think that euthanasia will only be administered in the most extreme cases, in which people are about to die anyway. But that’s not true. It never is.
As a conservative member of parliament named Danny Kruger pointed out during debate on the bill, it’s actually pretty easy to qualify as “terminally ill” under this legislation:
All you need to do to qualify for an assisted death, the definition of terminal illness under this Bill, is to refuse treatment – like insulin if you’re diabetic…. In the case of eating disorders you just need to refuse food and the evidence is, in jurisdictions around the world and in our own jurisprudence, that would be enough to qualify you for an assisted death.
In other words, this bill legalizes suicide by people who are not, in fact, terminally ill. You can make yourself “terminally ill” by refusing to take necessary medications — or by refusing to eat — and then you qualify. There’s no need for any kind of objective finding in this bill — like a brain tumor that shows up on a scan, or anything like that. So really, there are no guardrails at all, whatsoever.
Of course, even if guardrails did exist, they wouldn’t exist for very long. In every country where assisted suicide has been legalized, it’s started out with “restrictions.” And then those restrictions very quickly disappear. In Canada, for example, MAID began as assisted suicide for people with diagnosed terminal conditions. Within five years, it was expanded to anyone with “incurable” conditions, even if they’re not terminal. That includes any chronic condition that, for example, requires someone to use a wheelchair. It also includes cancer patients.
A woman undergoing life-saving cancer surgery in Canada was offered assisted suicide by doctors as she was about to enter the operating room. … The patient, a married [51-year old] grandmother from Nova Scotia, explained she was set to undergo a mastectomy operation for breast cancer when a physician asked her if she knew about medical assistance in dying. … Despite declining the offer of the MAID program, the woman was asked about assisted dying again before undergoing her second mastectomy nine months later, and she was spoken to a third time while recuperating in the recovery room after that procedure. .. She said the repeat offers made her feel like a burden to doctors and that people in her position were better off dead.
This is how MAID has expanded already in Canada, and of course the expansion is continuing. There’s now a push underway to allow the mentally ill to seek MAID, even if they have no other medical conditions. And this year, a committee in Canada’s parliament has determined that so-called “mature minors” should also be able to kill themselves. Of course, “mature minor” is a contradiction in terms. And even Canadians recognize that, in many different contexts. They don’t let children buy tobacco or alcohol, for example. But apparently, suicide is completely fine. Canadians went from banning assisted suicide entirely, to voting to allow children to kill themselves, in less than a decade.
If you’re a supporter of the assisted suicide bill that just passed in the UK, you might view all of these objections as “what-ifs.” You might say that the UK will defy the odds — and that it won’t end up like Canada, where they’re now killing as many people as possible. You might think that the UK will only euthanize a very small number of people, in keeping with their “restrictions.” But there are several different problems with that reasoning, even if we assume that the premise is true.
First of all, as a matter of principle, doctors should simply never kill their patients intentionally. This should be just about the least controversial statements that a person could possibly utter. There’s a reason that we have the principle “Do No Harm” from the Hippocratic Oath. Once doctors transition from a live-saving role to a life-ending role, then patients can no longer trust doctors to have their best interests in mind. That’s especially true when — as in Canada and the UK — the doctors are essentially employed by the government, which is going broke because of rising healthcare costs. And on top of that, a lot of these doctors are working closely with funeral homes now, too. So there are conflicts of interest all over the place.
Secondly, it’s not hard to see that assisted suicide — even if it’s not an explicit goal of the policy — is part of a broader effort to devalue life in the West. And in particular, it’s part of a broader effort to devalue certain demographic groups that have been devalued in many, many other ways already.
You can see the signs everywhere — as in, literally, you can see the signs.
For example, if you look at how the government in the UK is promoting assisted suicide, you’ll notice a striking lack of diversity in their posted advertising. Other than ads for divorce attorneys, this is one of the few areas where you’ll see mostly white people in the commercials in the UK. This is a video from Westminster station:
You can look at that and say, well, we can’t read too much into it. It’s just a couple of advertisements with an unusual number of white people in them. It’s just one data point that’s hardly conclusive.
But if you take a look at the statistics on who’s actually pursuing assisted suicide, you’ll notice another pretty striking data point. As one NPR member station in Sacramento reported with the headline, “California’s Aid In Dying Law Is Mostly Used By White People. Here’s Why”:
Roughly 88 percent of people using California’s physician-assisted death law are white, according to new data from the California Department of Public Health. That’s been the case every year since the law took effect in 2016.
And by the way, that’s white as in, white. It doesn’t include Asians, Hispanics, or black people. 88% of the people getting assisted suicide in California are white, even though the state is only around one-third white. That number is understandably surprising to researchers who have been looking at the data. One sociologist from Tufts University said she was expecting more diversity in the statistics:
Jill Weinberg, a sociologist at Tufts University, has been tracking the roll-out of aid-in-dying laws across the U.S. She notes that many of the states that have passed these policies so far, such as Oregon, Washington, and Vermont, are primarily white.
California is the first state in which we’re starting to expect to see more diversity,” she said. “And in fact, we’re not seeing that.
So this is another major issue with assisted suicide that, as far as I know, pretty much no one seems to be talking about. Governments that say white people are evil are also killing them at very disproportionate rates under the guise of “healthcare.” And the people who usually complain about “disproportionate” statistics are strangely silent about it — just like they’re quiet about the disproportionate rates of white men who die from overdoses. It’s almost as if they’re putting “decolonization” into action. (By the way, we don’t have a racial breakdown of MAID patients in Canada yet, although the government says it’s eventually going to release that data. They’ve stalled the release of these reports because they’re so politically damaging. But we can assume, based on Canada’s demographics, that most MAID patients are mostly white there, as well.)
These are the kind of figures that you’d think would trigger some outrage among the opposition party, at a minimum. But in Britain, many conservatives are just as silent as the liberals about what’s going on.
Leon Neal/Getty Images
Former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak put out a column calling the bill “compassionate.” Here was his argument:
I believe that, where possible, we should prevent suffering. I know from speaking and listening to many of you, that too many people have to go through painful, traumatic, drawn-out deaths. These moving, deeply personal stories have left a profound impression on me. This bill will make these ordeals, which are so traumatic for patients and their families, less frequent.
This is what passes for a “conservative” perspective in Britain. To restate his argument, he says: “Where possible, we should prevent suffering.” This is a principle that, if you take it to its logical conclusion, justifies the murder of all kinds of people. It doesn’t even require their consent, really. The idea is pretty simple: If someone is suffering enough, then it’s your right to kill them. It’s just like abortion — if the child is inconvenient, you can kill him or her. If you judge the child will the a life not worth living, that’s reason enough to take his life from him. That’s the ideology that underlies all of this. It’s an ideology that’s shared by both conservatives and liberals in the UK.
This is why, wherever assisted suicide is legalized with “restrictions,” it very quickly expands so that there are no restrictions anymore. That’s because at the center of this legislation or any legislation to legalize euthanasia is the idea that suffering, in all its forms, shouldn’t be a part of the human condition. It’s the idea that we should and can play god over our own lives. Just as easily as we can change a child’s gender, we can determine when our lives end.
This isn’t just a contradiction of biblical teachings. It’s a culmination of the narcissistic, self-absorbed mentality that, in many countries, has largely replaced religion in the public consciousness. Once it’s allowed to fester, it takes over very quickly. That’s what Canada has already discovered, as cancer patients and disabled athletes are told that they should really just kill themselves instead of getting any kind of treatment, instead of enduring any more suffering. The obliteration of their existence is preferable to experiencing pain. That’s the idea that’s being sold.
The truth is that life isn’t always easy or painless. In fact it never is. But it’s still life. Life has meaning, life has value, and life is sacred. Either you believe that or you don’t. Either your society treats life as something precious, something sanctified, or it doesn’t. It truly is an either/or choice. It is one or the other, it is black and white.
And what we know from experience — recent experience, and the entire history of human civilization — is that when a society chooses the latter, when it decides that life is inherently expendable or even undesirable, terrible things follow. Dystopian horrors beyond comprehension are what await you. Every time. Without exception. Guaranteed. That is what you choose when you embrace something like euthanasia.
It is a choice that you will always regret in the end. And the UK is about to learn that the hard way.
The hosts of ABC’s “The View” kicked off Tuesday’s broadcast with a continuation of Monday’s vigorous defense of President Joe Biden — and his decision to offer his embattled son, Hunter Biden, a sweeping pardon for any crimes he committed or may have committed over an 11-year span.
Even as they complained about the “internal firing squad” of Democrats who dared to criticize Biden for the historically unprecedented pardon, cohosts Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin joined said “firing squad” to lay down cover fire for the Bidens.
Goldberg began the discussion, complaining that Biden’s critics were the real problem and arguing that because Biden had the power to pardon anyone he wanted, no one should be allowed to question how he exercised that power.
“It is his right and he doesn’t have to explain to anybody,” Goldberg insisted, saying that it was “hurtful for the American people” that anyone would continue to question Biden’s decision.
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Whoopi claims Dems "take the moral ground all the time" and lashes out at Dems who are speaking out against Biden's abuse of power: "But you don't go out and chew up other Democrats. This is a big problem. I feel as a Democrat." pic.twitter.com/Ytkozh60hV
Goldberg went on to complain about the Democrats speaking out against the pardon, saying, “Democrats, you can’t have it both ways, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t let people tell you you’re not taking the moral ground when we take the moral ground all the time. We fight for migrant rights, for women’s rights, gay folks’ rights, trans rights, and every time we do, suddenly we’re being told, oh, you on the woke agenda.”
“Either we are this party and we fight for these things and you see what’s going on and you get why he’s decided to do this or you don’t,” Goldberg continued. “But you don’t go out and chew up other Democrats. This is a big problem, I feel, as a Democrat.”
Hostin joined in as well, saying that she also had a problem with the “internal firing squad” that saw Democrats pitting themselves against President Biden over this particular issue.
“It’s been really bothering me,” she said, and then pivoted to say that Biden wasn’t lying when he — along with a number of people in his administration — had repeatedly claimed that he would not pardon Hunter. Instead, she said his 180-degree reversal just showed that he “became the pragmatic president we always knew.”
WATCH:
Hostin then engages in whataboutism and starts shouting about how you're not allowed to call out Biden's lies because Trump has lied too: "So, if we want to talk about LYING, let's talk about THAT and stop this PEARL-CLUTCHING about Joe Biden lying!" pic.twitter.com/H8Xme2H8vb
Sports broadcaster/podcast host Stephen A. Smith told Democrats “nobody wants to hear what you have to say” after President Joe Biden’s sweeping pardon of son Hunter Biden.
During “The Stephen A. Smith Show” on Monday, the host said Biden’s reversal of course to pardon Hunter for any federal crimes he “committed or may have committed” over the span of 11 years has essentially neutered his party.
“You were intending to do this all along, which, again, is no problem. But it doesn’t make you any less full of it,” Smith told his audience. “Because when you look at Donald Trump and how the Democrats went after him, you do understand that the Democrats are no longer in a position to say anything, right?”
“You can talk till the cows come home,” he added. “You whistling it to the wind. Nobody wants to hear what you have to say right now. I’m not talking about you; I’m talking about your party. Because when you pardon your son, going back on your word, telling the American people there was no way that you were going to pardon him when everybody and their grandmamma knew you were lying, but then hold you accountable for it.”
“And now you’ve confirmed what people believe, that you’re probably going to be lying about that very thing that you said you wouldn’t do for your son,” Smith continued. “And as a result, now you have brought more skepticism in the direction of the Democratic Party.”
Stephen A Smith declares no one wants to hear from the Democrat party after witnessing the hypocrisy of Joe Biden pardoning Hunter Biden:
SAS: “You were intending to do this all along, which, again, is no problem. But it doesn’t make you any less full of it, because when you look… pic.twitter.com/nxgRTkXcP7
“He [Hunter] was singled out because he had an illegal gun and tax evasion charges, not because he was the president’s son. And I honestly don’t care. I just want Democrats to stop acting like they are on this moral high ground politically when they have shown us they’re not.”
“You know, whether it’s skipping the primary process when Biden stepped down and things like Biden pardoning his son,” he added. “Stop acting like y’all are the pure party and Republicans aren’t. And it also shows me elected officials can do whatever they want as long as they have the political will and courage to do it.”
Barstool founder Dave Portnoy echoed a similar sentiment, unleashing a rant on the Democrats — whom he said have completely lost the moral high ground they have attempted to tout for the last decade — after Biden pardoned his son.
“What the Democrats have done … have taken this moral high ground that ‘we’re the righteous party. The truth, honesty, integrity, and Trump is a threat to Democracy. He’s Hitler and he’s a Nazi,'” Portnoy said. “And then the Democrats, whether it’s the primary or whether it’s this [Hunter pardon], time and again, they’re worse than anything Trump’s ever done.”
The House Homeland Security Committee will interview the fired FEMA supervisor who ordered relief workers in Florida to skip homes with Trump flags or signs, a committee spokesman told The Daily Wire.
The committee on Tuesday will interview Marn’i Washington, who was fired last month by FEMA after The Daily Wire reported that she had ordered relief workers in Lake Placid to “avoid homes advertising Trump” as they canvassed after Hurricane Milton. Since the story broke, Washington has claimed that FEMA made her a scapegoat, and that it is agency policy to skip “politically hostile” homes.
Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-TN) requested Friday that Washington schedule a transcribed interview to discuss her accusations against FEMA and her guidance in Florida.
“While FEMA may maintain that this was an isolated incident, you suggested in a recent interview that this practice of discrimination was widespread throughout FEMA, including in disaster response efforts in North Carolina,” Green wrote. “Government discrimination against American citizens based on a political sign or flag promoting a particular candidate is not only an outrageous abuse of power and a serious betrayal of the public trust, but a direct violation of the First Amendment.”
Whistleblowers told The Daily Wire that at least 20 homes were skipped in Lake Placid due to Washington’s guidance. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell confirmed this number during congressional testimony and said that agency staff had visited the neglected homes to register survivors after the story broke.
Criswell told lawmakers that the incident was isolated, contradicting Washington’s comments in media interviews and allegations from other whistleblowers. One whistleblower told the House Oversight Committee that a FEMA supervisor in Georgia directed a family to remove Trump campaign signage from their home, saying it was not “looked kindly” on by the agency.
On Tuesday, lawmakers on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee revealed in a letter to Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari that they had heard whistleblower reports from North Carolina alleging whole neighborhoods had been skipped over if there were three or more Trump signs in them.
“In North Carolina, the Committee is aware of reports of FEMA employees skipping any home that displayed a ‘Make America Great Again,’ ‘Drain the Swamp,’ ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ or Trump campaign sign. If the FEMA field team encountered three or more of these signs, the field team could abandon the entire neighborhood without notifying hurricane victims of assistance available to them,” Committee Chair Sam Graves and Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) wrote.
FEMA has yet to respond to any of the follow up allegations, but maintain that they are still investigating Washington’s guidance.
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