By Declan Leary

We have all been reminded innumerable times about the paramount importance of “learning the lessons” of COVID-19, with the frequency and shrillness steadily increasing as the bootheel slowly lifts. Some of it is harmless stuff—wash your hands often with soap and water—though we can, of course, object to the implicit suggestion (victim-blaming?) that anything we might have done could have prevented the catastrophe rained down by a few hubristic (U.S.-funded) bioscience researchers in Wuhan.

And yet, in spite of the now un-debunked theory that scientific arrogance lies at the root of the last year’s disaster, the next admonition of the media and the left is inevitably to “trust the scientists” (or “the experts”) with blind, unflinching faith while they dictate the precise ways that your life should be upturned in the name of scientific prudence. Now, I’ll wash my hands, sure. But trust scientists? Why? On my personal scale of trusted classes, scientists rank somewhere between used car salesmen and that guy running three-card monte on the corner of the street.

The United States Senate delivered a clear reminder of why we should not trust scientists and their cheerleaders last week, by voting down Sen. Mike Braun’s (R-Ind.) proposed amendment to the tech-booster Endless Frontier Act, which would have banned U.S. taxpayer funding of human chimera experiments—the creation of organisms with both human and non-human animal cells—anywhere in the world. Of the Senate’s 50 Republicans, 48 voted to pass the amendment. Two—Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and Thom Tillis (N.C.)—did not vote. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) likewise abstained, while all 49 other Senate Democrats united to kill the proposal. This is the third failed Republican attempt to legislate a federal ban, after the Human Chimera Prohibition Act introduced by Sen. Samuel Brownback (Kan.) in 2005, and the Human-Animal Chimera Prohibition Act of 2016 introduced by Rep. Christopher Smith (N.J.).

In introducing this most recent effort, Braun had argued that “human life is distinct and sacred, and research that creates an animal-human hybrid or transfers a human embryo into an animal womb or vice versa should be completely prohibited, and engaging in such unethical experiments should be a crime.” In saner times, this would be entirely uncontroversial.

We do not live in sane times. Lab-created chimeras have been an enduring element of cutting-edge bioscience for roughly half a century, and it was only a matter of time before the mingling of rats with mice and sheep with goats gave way to more arrogant, more sinister experimentation. One such endeavor made headlines recently, when a group of scientists led by Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte of the Salk Institute published a paper in the journal Cell this April claiming to have successfully produced chimeric human-monkey embryos.

The last surviving of the embryos was terminated after 19 days, which the scientists apparently think obviates any potential moral concerns that might have arisen if development had been allowed to continue further. It is, of course, worth noting that the moral assumption that underlies this line of thought—that …read more

Via:: American Conservative

By Victor Davis Hanson The COVID-19 pandemic is ending with mass vaccinations. So is the national quarantine. The rioting, looting and arson that began in the summer of 2020 is finally sputtering out. …read more

Via:: Fox Opines

By Janice Chance I come from a long line of service-oriented people. So, it came as no surprise to me when my son, Jesse, shared that he was joining the military. …read more

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By Callista Gingrich Throughout America’s history, our military men and women have bravely defended our God-given freedoms against the evils of religious persecution, slavery, foreign enemies, and radical terrorism. …read more

Via:: Fox Opines

By Tom Cotton On this sacred day of remembrance, we pay tribute to the fallen warriors who gave their dying breath in service to this exceptional nation. …read more

Via:: Fox Opines

By Douglas Macgregor

On the first of October 1939, just three days after the fall of Warsaw and Poland’s destruction at the hands of Soviet and German forces, Stalin summoned Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Mehmet Şükrü Saracoğlu, to a meeting in the Kremlin. For a brief period after the First World War the two states shared feelings of antipathy for the West. Stalin’s meeting with the Turkish minister changed this condition.

Was the British-French-Turkish Pact, Stalin asked, directed against the Soviet Union? Without waiting for an answer, Stalin reminded the Turkish foreign minister that Britain and France had not declared war on the Soviet Union even though he and the Germans had carved up Poland together. However, the British and French, Stalin warned, might still do so. In that case, roared Stalin, where would Turkey stand? Stalin, always the consummate bully, also noted ominously that, like Poland, Romania had too much territory.

Saracoğlu quickly reassured Stalin that Turkey could void the agreement with Britain and France in order to avoid war with Moscow. However, a week later, when the British military attaché inquired what Ankara would do if the British bombed the Baku oil fields, the British attaché reported that Turkey was begging for the chance to “settle scores with Stalin.”

Turkey’s scores with Russia were never settled. However, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s initial rapport with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was welcomed by many in Moscow as breaking the historic pattern of Turkish enmity toward Russia.

Predictably, Putin was listening when Erdogan told his NATO allies in Brussels that “Turkey is too big and too influential to surrender to a single axis.” Putin downplayed the Turkish shoot-down in Syria of a Russian aircraft and worked hard to sell Russia’s S-400 air defense system to Turkey. When Putin learned from his intelligence services of the plan to overthrow President Erdogan, Putin informed Erdogan.

Unfortunately for Moscow, Putin’s intervention in the Syrian civil war to protect Christians and other religious minorities, including Shiites and Druze, crushed Erdogan’s hopes of transforming Syria into a Sunni Islamist state under Turkish protection. Putin made a supreme effort to assist Erdogan to save face in Syria, offering Erdogan control of Northern Syria. But the strategic result transformed a local struggle with Ankara into a geopolitical rivalry that looks eerily similar to the centuries of Ottoman conflict with Tsarist Russia and the West.

Events in the Caucasus, the Balkans, and Ukraine are obviating the field of opportunity for cooperation between Moscow and Ankara. Ankara’s successful intervention to support Azerbaijan’s seizure of Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenian control has worsened the relationship. Armenia’s humiliation may shake the resolve of others allied with Moscow.

More important, across Turkic Muslim Central Asia and inside the Russian Federation millions of Turkic Tatars who speak the same language heard on the streets of Ankara are thrilled with the success of Turkish arms. Even worse, Azerbaijan is now openly an ally of Turkey and, despite …read more

Via:: American Conservative

By Rebecca Grant This Memorial Day, take a moment to remember the American women who died in combat. …read more

Via:: Fox Opines

By Newt Gingrich When we get to Memorial Day each year, I always think about my father, who was a career Army officer, and my mother, who as an Army wife and went wherever he went. …read more

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By Ken Starr College of the Ozarks – a Christian liberal arts college – proudly refers to itself as “Hard Work U.” Students don’t pay tuition, they work for it. Enter the Biden administration’s demand for religious schools to open residence halls, bathrooms and the like to members of the opposite sex. …read more

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By Dan Crenshaw She remembers now. And with that realization comes the gut-wrenching wave of grief that she is all too familiar with. Tears well up. …read more

Via:: Fox Opines