Taliban use 'honey trap' boys to kill Afghan police

(Hat tip: KimR) - The Taliban are using child sex slaves to mount crippling insider attacks on police in southern Afghanistan, exploiting the pervasive practice of "bacha bazi" -- paedophilic boy play -- to infiltrate security ranks, multiple officials and survivors of such assaults told AFP.
Read more at Yahoo News Read More......

May 16: Nationwide movie debut of "Abolitionists" on child trafficking - Be inspired to do something!

Visit The "Abolitionists" movie website to see what Tim Ballard is doing to end child trafficking. Watch the trailer and buy tickets for a special one-night event in cinemas nationwide. "Abolitionists" is playing in Salem and Eugene on May 16th. Get information at The Abolitionists. Read More......

American College of Pediatricians: Gender Ideology Harms Children

(Hat tip: KimR) - The American College of Pediatricians issued a position statement last month entitled “Gender Ideology Harms Children,” which will be followed by a peer-reviewed statement on the subject that’s expected to be released by summer, the college told CNSNews.com. --“The American College of Pediatricians urges educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex,” the statement issued on Feb. 2 stated. “Facts – not ideology – determine reality.” Read more at CNS News Read More......

Muslim men having '20 children each' because of polygamy, peer claims

Muslim men in some communities are having up to 20 children each because of polygomy and the rise of "religiously sanctioned gender discrimination" under Sharia Law, peers have warned. Baroness Cox, a cross-bench peer, highlighted a series of "shocking" examples of the impact of Sharia law on Muslim women in Britain as she called for them to be given greater protection under equality legislation.

Read more at the UK Telegraph
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Boys that Reject ISIS Suffer Gruesome Mutilation

While Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) continues its documented rampage on Christian girls turning them into sex slaves, new reporting has uncovered the fate of teenage boys. The radical Islamic jihadis force captured teenaged boys onto the battlefield to face death, or become a suicide bomber or face amputations before screaming crowds. The targeting of children dates back centuries, but the latest grisly storyline emerges from NBC’ Richard Engel reporting highlights just how brutal Middle East war is for non-Muslim teenage boys captured by the ISIS terror network. ISIS also follows the “take no prisoner” approach by terrorizing all who oppose them if they do not embraced the barbaric acts completely devoid of any respect for human life.

Read more at San Diego 6
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

UK: ‘Sex Groomed’ Children Preferable to Backlash Against ‘Multiculturalism’

Not only do recent revelations concerning the endemic sexual grooming of British girls by Muslim men demonstrate how crippling political correctness is, but they show how political correctness complements the most abusive elements of Islamic law, or Sharia.
According to a June 24 report by the Birmingham Mail, as far back as March 2010, West Midlands Police knew that Muslim grooming gangs “were targeting children outside schools across the city—but failed to make the threat public.”

Read more at Human Events
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

How Christianity invented children

(DEBROCKE/Corbis)

We have forgotten just how deep a cultural revolution Christianity wrought. In fact, we forget about it precisely because of how deep it was: There are many ideas that we simply take for granted as natural and obvious, when in fact they didn't exist until the arrival of Christianity changed things completely. Take, for instance, the idea of children. --Today, it is simply taken for granted that the innocence and vulnerability of children makes them beings of particular value, and entitled to particular care. We also romanticize children — their beauty, their joy, their liveliness. Our culture encourages us to let ourselves fall prey to our gooey feelings whenever we look at baby pictures. What could be more natural? --In fact, this view of children is a historical oddity. If you disagree, just go back to the view of children that prevailed in Europe's ancient pagan world.

Read more at The Week
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Second Wave of Illegal Alien Minors Now Crossing Border

Despite past claims by the administration that it has resolved the crisis of unaccompanied alien minors (UACs) streaming across the border, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) records show that a second surge of minors crossing the border is now underway. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) records indicate that the Border Patrol has seized over 12,000 UACs so far in fiscal year 2015 (Oct. 1, 2014- Feb. 28, 2015) and over 10,000 aliens traveling in family units. The Border Patrol is transferring these aliens to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at an average of 2,000 UACs a month, meaning that the Border Patrol is returning only one in six of these apprehended minors to their home countries.

Read more at WCBM.com Read More......

We Are ‘Synthetic Children’ And We Agree With Dolce & Gabbana

This past week has seen the outrage generated by parents of donor and invitro-fertilization children following a now-infamous Panorama magazine interview conducted with the fashion designers Dolce & Gabbana, wherein Domenico Dolce proclaimed, “You are born to a mother and a father — or at least that’s how it should be. I call children of chemistry, synthetic children.” Immediately, Elton John advocated a boycott of the designers’ products in retaliation for the perceived offense against his two sons, who were conceived via an egg donor and surrogate mother.  Speaking as two donor-conceived young women—alive because of reproductive technologies—we felt an urgent need to respond…in support of Dolce and Gabbana.

Read more at the Federalist
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Feds: Kids ‘entitled’ to U.S. education, no matter immigration status

The Department of Education said in a recently released fact sheet that it doesn’t matter if children are illegally in the country — they’re entitled to the same taxpayer-funded public education as everyone else. The declaration comes as states and localities around the nation have sought clarification from the federal agency about what to do with the scores of illegal immigrant youths who’ve crossed the border in recent months, insofar as schooling goes. “All children in the United States are entitled to equal access to a public elementary and secondary education, regardless of their or their parents’ actual or perceived national origin, citizenship or immigration status,” the fact sheet states. “This includes recently arrived unaccompanied children who are in immigration proceedings while residing in local communities with a parent, family member or other appropriate adult sponsor.” Read more at Washington Times. Read More......

Concha: Two Huge Int’l Crises Can’t Alter Busy Schedule of Fundraiser-in-Chief

Jon Stewart was exactly right during the open of his Monday show this week: The world really has gone mad.  Actually, Monday now looks in retrospect downright tranquil compared to what we’re seeing on our television sets and on our phones this afternoon. A commercial airliner with 295 people on board — including reportedly 23 Americans — are killed after a plane is shot down in Ukraine. Who exactly is responsible (pro-Russian separatists are suspected) has not been confirmed. More importantly, the State Department hasn’t confirmed any Americans were on the flight.  As if this wasn’t enough, a few hours later, reports of an Israeli ground offensive being launched in Gaza broke as well.

Read more at Mediaite Read More......

The Best Argument for Marriage I’ve Ever Heard

Testifying before the Indiana House Judiciary Committee on Jan. 13, Ryan T. Anderson, the William E. Simon Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, argued to a room full of policymakers:  “If the biggest social problem we face right now in the United States is absentee dads,” he paused, “How will we insist that dads are essential when the law redefines marriage to make fathers optional?”

Read more at Encourage & Teach
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

House Republicans Work Immigration Behind Scenes

AP - Immigration overhaul legislation has been dormant in the House for months, but a few Republicans are working behind the scenes to advance it at a time the Capitol is immersed in a partisan brawl over government spending and President Barack Obama's health care law. ✧ The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, has been discussing possible legal status for the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. He's also been working with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a fellow Virginia Republican, on a bill offering citizenship to immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as children. ✧ Reps. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, and Ted Poe, R-Texas, are working on a plan to create a visa program allowing more lower-skilled workers into the country. Read more at ABC News...

Comments are interesting. --bc Read More......

Gunman dead after killing 20 children, 6 adults at Connecticut elementary school

A man killed his mother at home and then opened fire Friday inside a Connecticut elementary school, massacring 26 people, including 20 young children, as youngsters cowered in their classrooms and trembled helplessly to the sound of gunfire reverberating through the building. ✧ The shooter, who sources identified as Adam Lanza, 20, shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, in the face at their home in Newtown, Conn., then went to nearby Sandy Hook Elementary School where she taught and gunned down her entire class, bringing the death toll to 28, according to sources. ✧ Lanza was found dead inside the school, according to officials. Eighteen of the children and six more adults were dead at the school and two more children died later, according to Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance. Read more at Fox News...

Prayers for the little children and those whose lives were taken today in CT. Prayers also for their families who were forced to deal with unimaginable grief and the most painful loss. So many prayers from our nation. Read More......

WT: Feds bow to pressure, kill child farm-labor rules

[...] While labor officials said their goal was to reduce the fatality rate for child farmworkers, the proposal had become a popular political target for Republicans, who called it an impractical, heavy-handed regulation that ignored the reality of small farms. ✧ “It’s good the Labor Department rethought the ridiculous regulations it was going to stick on farmers and their families,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican. “To even propose such regulations defies common sense, and shows a real lack of understanding as to how the family farm works.” Read more at the Washington Times... Read More......

Glenn Beck's 'Liberty Treehouse' for Children

Liberty Treehouse Drive-Thru History: Monday marked the first episode of Liberty Treehouse, the GBTV Plus program designed specifically for kids. Check out this free segment from the first episode [shown below]. The new program airs weekdays from 4-5pm ET and is also available on demand only on GBTV.

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WSJ: How to Raise an Entrepreneur

WALL STREET JOURNAL, by Barbara Haislip - Tips on putting your kids on the path to running their own businesses

The classic answer, of course, is the lemonade stand: Encourage your kids to start a homespun business instead of just bugging you for money. But entrepreneurs and educators say the real solution goes much deeper than that. There are crucial psychological traits an entrepreneur needs to succeed, they say, and parents should help kids develop them at every opportunity. ∴ Here's a look at those attributes—and how to foster them. Read more at WSJ...

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Multi-National Force - Iraq

Visit the official website of the Multi-National Force-Iraq for a glimpse of what is being accomplished in Iraq. Then go to Flickr for photos. Enjoy. Read More......

SCHIP Wreck

Oregon voters send a message on HillaryCare.
Opinion Journal REVIEW & OUTLOOK, November 8, 2007 (Hat tip: Maureen)

Oregon voters passed judgment Tuesday on a plan that would have made their state children's health insurance program "universal." Sound familiar?

It should, because Oregon reproduced the current Schip fracas in D.C. on the state level--and the referendum took a major shellacking, with voters siding three to two against. Oregon's expansion was almost identical to the one backed by Congressional Democrats, so let's conduct a post-mortem, which may also be a portent.

Like Beltway Democrats, Governor Ted Kulongoski and his legislature wanted to broaden eligibility for Oregon's "Healthy Kids" Schip program to 300% of the federal poverty level. They would also allow all families to opt in, regardless of income, though higher earners wouldn't get subsidies. Again like Congress, Salem intended to pay for the expansion with cigarette taxes, which would increase to $2.02 from $1.18 a pack. That would be one of the highest state tobacco levies in the nation.

Democrats couldn't dredge up the three-fifths approval required for a tax increase in the legislature, so they kicked the expansion over to the ballot. And already, Measure 50's defeat is being blamed on $12 million in advertising by Big Tobacco. "What happened was, the tobacco industry bought the election," Governor Kulongoski declared yesterday.

We're surprised the Governor thinks voters in his left-leaning state are so easily gulled--especially in a contest between "healthy kids" and cigarettes. More persuasive is the notion that voters didn't want to pass a state tax increase to finance a health-care expansion that Congress might soon pass, along with buckets of federal dollars. But most likely, voters understood that a tax increase on cigarettes is still a tax increase, and a highly regressive one at that. Only about 20% of Oregonians smoke, and most of those are lower income.

They may also have figured that to the extent tobacco taxes reduce smoking, they will soon not yield enough revenue to pay for ever-growing health costs. An analysis by William Conerly, a member of Governor Kulongoski's own Council of Economic Advisors, found that a straight Schip expansion funded by a tobacco tax was unsustainable, with costs exceeding revenues by $115 million by 2017.

Counting "crowd out"--the migration to public from private insurance--Mr. Conerly predicted a $638 million deficit within the decade. Oregon tried a similar universal health experiment in the 1990s, only to see it raise havoc, and voters may not have been eager for a low-budget sequel.

There are political lessons here, in case anyone in Washington is paying attention. Voters are rightly concerned about health care and would like everyone to have insurance, but they realize that government programs are very expensive. Americans also don't seem to want to pay for health-care reforms directly through higher taxes. That accounts for the reliance by politicians on the easier sell of tobacco taxes, and it also explains why Congress has disguised the real cost of its Schip contraption with a $30 billion budget gimmick. (No thanks to GOP Senators Orrin Hatch and Chuck Grassley.)

As for state-level reforms beyond Schip, California may be the next overhyped reform to fail. The last, best hope for Arnold Schwarzenegger's foundering "universal" plan is to imitate Oregon by passing a legislative blueprint and then dumping funding responsibility onto the voters via a referendum. Tuesday's vote doesn't bode well for that prospect.

As for 2008, most of the national press corps has already assumed "universal" coverage will both carry Hillary Clinton to the White House and march easily into law. The message from the Oregon trail is--not so fast, especially if her Republican opponent advances a credible free-market alternative. Read More......