Daily Headlines | Friday February 18, 2022

Good Morning! 

Dr. Jim Taylor from the University of San Francisco recently warned about the deleterious effect obsessive parents are placing on their children-athletes. He urges moms and dads to ignore results, and instead concentrate on developing kid’s physical, technical and mental skills:  

“We can’t change the sports culture. So, it’s up to us parents to shape our family’s sports culture and do the right thing for our young athletes.”  

On a related note, we begin with news of a psychological meltdown at last night’s Olympics: 

 

1. ‘I hate this sport!’: Rage,  teen tears and Olympic collapse 

From the Associated Press: 

The gold medalist said she felt empty. The silver medalist pledged never to skate again. The favorite left in tears without saying a word. 

After one of the most dramatic nights in their sport’s history, Russia’s trio of teenage figure skating stars each enter an uncertain future. 

Her Olympics and life turned upside down by a doping case, world record holder Kamila Valieva faces a possible ban and a coach whose first response to her disastrous skate Thursday was criticism. 

“Why did you let it go? Why did you stop fighting?” cameras caught Eteri Tutberidze — the notoriously strict coach who will be investigated over Valieva’s failed drug test — telling the 15-year-old after she fell twice and dropped out of medal contention. 

Runner-up Alexandra Trusova was also in despair after her history-making five quadruple jumps proved not enough to beat teammate Anna Shcherbakova to the gold medal. “I hate this sport,” she shouted at the side of the rink. “I won’t go onto the ice again.”  

 

2. Parents Fight Back as Sexually Explicit Content Spreads Coast to Coast in US Public Schools 

From CBN: 

Parents from coast to coast are fighting school districts on everything from Critical Race Theory to mask mandates in classrooms. Backlash is also growing over sexually explicit content now available to children as young as kindergarten.  

Parents who first started packing school board meetings to re-open schools are focusing on books with explicit and obscene content.   

“I think it’s been hidden from a lot of parents. The shutdown has allowed parents to actually see and hear some of the content that was being discussed in classrooms,” said Amy Jahr, a mother in Loudoun County, Virginia.  

RELATED: 

San Francisco Schools the Left 

Peggy Noonan writes in the Wall Street Journal: 

people have a way of seeing. If, during a pandemic lockdown, board members speak often and thoughtfully of the increased likelihood of the abuse of neglected children, one will get a sense of their motivation and heart. If instead they dilate on political issues that deflect, one will get a different, darker view of their motivation and heart. 

That’s why the three in San Francisco were fired. 

What happened shows again that there is a real parents movement going on, and it is going to make a difference in our politics. 

Democrats dismiss these issues as “culture-war distractions.” They are not; they are about life at its most real, concrete and immediate. That easy dismissal reveals the party’s distance from the lives of its own constituents. 

To think parents would sacrifice their children for your ideology, or an ideology coming from within your ranks that you refuse to stand up to, is political malpractice at a high level. 

Joe Biden received 85% of the vote in San Francisco in 2020. Those board members just lost their seats by more than 70%. A cultural rebellion within the Democratic Party has begun. 

 

RELATED: 

San Franciscans love their children too 

From the Washington Examiner: 

We could have told you this before San Francisco’s school board recall election, but it turns out that liberals love their children too. 

No, they are not just ideological automatons hell-bent on carrying water for teachers unions, whose candidates they just unceremoniously threw out of office. Many of them, as parents, actually have something at stake when it comes to the next generation. 

We could have told you this before San Francisco’s school board recall election, but it turns out that liberals love their children too. 

No, they are not just ideological automatons hell-bent on carrying water for teachers unions, whose candidates they just unceremoniously threw out of office. Many of them, as parents, actually have something at stake when it comes to the next generation. 

 

The pandemic’s mental health impact on teens is raising alarm, but there are answers 

From the Deseret News: 

The mental health of millions of American youth has become so fragile that U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murphy issued an urgent public health advisory in December. 

“The pandemic era’s unfathomable number of deaths, pervasive sense of fear, economic instability, and forced physical distancing from loved ones, friends, and communities have exacerbated the unprecedented stresses young people already faced,” Murphy wrote. 

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, cases of depression and anxiety doubled among young people. Emergency room visits for suspected suicide attempts were 51% higher for adolescent girls and 4% higher for adolescent boys compared to early 2019. 

 

Loudoun County Judge Blocks School District’s Mask Mandate

From The Daily Citizen: 

The nationwide parents’ rights movement against overreaching school boards continued apace this week, as parents in Loudoun County, Virginia, joined by the Virginia governor, the Virginia Attorney General’s office and the state Superintendent of Public Instruction, sought and received a preliminary injunction blocking the imposition of a mask mandate by the Loudoun County School District (LCSD). 

Circuit Court Judge James Fisher also denied LCSD’s request to delay the matter while the district examines a new state law empowering parents to opt out their children from any mask requirement while on school grounds. That law was passed recently after Governor Glenn Youngkin’s Executive Order 2 issued in January banning mask mandates was blocked by another Virginia court. 

 

Michigan county caves to secularist pressure over holding prayers before legislative meetings

From Fox News: 

A Michigan county board stopped holding prayers before legislative meetings last month, and a Christian conservative legal organization argued that the board caved under incomplete information from a secularist nonprofit, despite the Supreme Court’s repeated approvals of the longstanding practice.  

The Leelanau County Board of Commissioners voted 5-2 in January to remove the prayer portion of their meeting and replace it with a moment of silence after the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), which advocates for atheists, agnostics, and promotes the separation of church and state, sent them a letter in September urging them to end the practice. 

“And can I say ‘Amen’ to that?” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor said in a news release after the decision. “We commend the hard work of our local activists who fought for inclusivity and the wisdom of the Leelanau County Board for listening.”   

 

Virginia House Passes ‘Born-Alive’ Bill Protecting Babies After Failed Abortions

From The Daily Citizen:

In 2019, former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam made infanticidal comments on a radio station that were seared into the collective conscience of pro-life Americans. 

His cold, callous and calculated words discussed what would happen to an infant born alive after a failed third-trimester abortion. 

“If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen,” the governor began. “The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.” 

But the fight to protect newly born infants has largely moved to the states, including in former Governor Northam’s home state of Virginia, where House Bill 304 (HB 304) recently passed through the Virginia House of Delegates.   

The bill requires that abortionists who attempt to kill a preborn baby, but is then born alive, do two things: 

Exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of an infant who has been born alive following such attempt as a reasonably diligent and conscientious health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age. 

Take all reasonable steps to ensure the immediate transfer of the infant who has been born alive to a hospital for further medical care. 

 

Time is Showing Superman was Wrong – Placenta and Adult Stem Cells Provide Greatest Promise

From The Daily Citizen: 

Popular author and speaker Tony Robbins is out with a new book, released just last week, titled “Life Force: How New Breakthroughs in Precision Medicine Can Transform the Quality of Your Life and Those You Love.” 

Burdened by a painful shoulder and inspired to write the book after speaking with Dr. Robert Hariri, a renowned surgeon and biomedical scientist, Robbins recently relayed a portion of that first conversation with the pioneering physician.   

According to the author, Dr. Hariri suggested Robbins’ ailing and damaged shoulder might benefit from stem cell treatment. “I don’t want any fetal cells,” Robbins replied. The doctor quickly put him at ease.   

“Nobody does those anymore,” Dr. Hariri assured him. As it was, Hariri’s interest in an alternative way to approach the use of stem cells was predicated on his own opposition to the use of embryonic cells. 

 

8. LGBT Identification in U.S. Ticks Up to 7.1% 

From Gallup: 

The percentage of U.S. adults who self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual has increased to a new high of 7.1%, which is double the percentage from 2012, when Gallup first measured it. 

Gallup asks Americans whether they personally identify as straight or heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender as part of the demographic information it collects on all U.S. telephone surveys. Respondents can also volunteer any other sexual orientation or gender identity they prefer. In addition to the 7.1% of U.S. adults who consider themselves to be an LGBT identity, 86.3% say they are straight or heterosexual, and 6.6% do not offer an opinion. The results are based on aggregated 2021 data, encompassing interviews with more than 12,000 U.S. adults. 

 

What This Reporter in Canada With Truckers Is Seeing

From The Daily Signal: 

I got here late Sunday afternoon, got into Ottawa and settled Sunday evening. And I went out and just checked out the convoy that night. 

And things are a lot more crowded on the weekends than they are during the week, so I only caught the back end of the really crazy weekend, which is when you have thousands and thousands of protesters streaming into the city. But I’ve been there since then and I’ve been talking to a lot of the folks on the ground and it’s just the core group of truckers, which is still hundreds and hundreds of people. 

And it’s amazing, these people are, I think, patriots in the most authentic sense of the term. They’re weathering not just insane cold temperatures and sleeping in their trucks to fight for their freedoms, but also now a full-on frontal assault from their federal and provincial governments. 

So I have nothing but respect for these guys. They’re some of the kindest people that I’ve ever met. And I don’t say that just because of my ideological priors. I went into this supporting the cause, but thinking that maybe a lot of these guys were going to be kooks and crazies, and that’s not the case. These are really decent, fundamentally good people who are fighting for their basic freedoms and their rights and their way of life. And it’s a really wonderful thing. 

 

10. Why I Married in My 20s—and Don’t Regret It 

From the Gospel Coalition: 

We hear a lot in our culture about the importance of finding ourselves and knowing who we truly are, and it’s often framed as an individual pursuit. So even though we believe God has designed marriage for the mutual flourishing of both husband and wife, we may wonder if marrying young means missing out on the chance to establish our own identity. 

But sanctification, not self-exploration, is the believer’s process of finding herself. And sanctification can happen whether we’re single or married, young or old. As our sin is stripped away and the image of God is restored in us, we begin to understand our true identity in Christ and our part in his body. 

Looking back on myself at 22, I’m not sure I was considering questions about who I was and how God had designed me. I thought I had it all figured out. But again, God was gracious to shepherd me toward a path I wasn’t looking for and use it to accomplish his purposes for me. 

There were some hard seasons in the early years of our marriage. A lot of times it felt more like losing myself than finding myself as the Lord sanded down rough edges and shaped me more into his image. But I know much more today about who I am than I did 15 years ago. And more importantly, I know the Lord much more deeply.