Lots of ‘Coincidences’ in Trump Assassination Attempts

posted by Grant Baker at American Thinker 

The U.S. Secret Service (USSS), which began protecting presidents after President McKinley's assassination, is playing an increasingly dangerous role in U.S. politics.  Assassination attempts on the life of former president Donald Trump, by Ryan Routh on September 15 and Thomas Crooks at Butler, Pennsylvania, raise the disturbing possibility of designed convergences of security lapses that give assassins the opportunity to kill. 

Trump’s protective detail was purposefully stretched thin

Details are still missing regarding Routh’s attempt, but he apparently camped out for approximately 12 hours waiting for Trump to appear at hole 6 of the Trump International Golf Club.  Trump was headed that way, teeing off at hole 5 when a Secret Service agent saw a rifle sticking through some shrubbery and flushed Routh out with a few shots.  There was no prior sweep done of the golf course.

Newly consolidated details on Trump’s Butler rally reveal a more sophisticated plot.  Jill Biden spontaneously decided to speak in Pittsburgh on July 13 at a small event, announced only a week prior.  Kamala Harris similarly joined a small event in Philadelphia the same day, confirmed as a speaker on July 10.  These last-minute additions to “The Schedule” diverted most of Trump’s regular protective detail and breached longstanding White House and USSS security protocols.

Trump’s tall, male USSS regulars were replaced by substantially shorter agents, many of whom were women, borrowed from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and whose training consisted of only a two-hour webinar.  One of these women cowered behind Trump as he was shot at by Crooks, positioned merely 130 yards away on the roof of building 6 (AGR 6) of the nearby AGR multi-building complex.

Butler security was a wreck.  The usual canine teams were missing, improper people were accessing backstage areas, and DHS officials failed to properly patrol the podium area or the “secure perimeter” near the AGR complex, a mistake repeated at Trump’s golf course.  Trump had been routinely denied security resources such as sniper teams and additional agents for the previous two years personally by USSS deputy director Ronald Rowe.  Rowe became USSS acting director after Kimberly Cheatle’s resignation, becoming responsible for investigating the failed USSS security plan and response to the assassination attempt. 

Rowe had personally made cuts to the Counter Surveillance Division (CSD), responsible for venue threat assessment.  The CSD had not conducted an evaluation for the Butler rally or even been present the day of.  Rowe personally retaliated against agents voicing security concerns leading up to Butler.  One whistleblower stated: “If personnel from CSD had been present at the rally, the gunman would have been handcuffed in the parking lot after being spotted with a rangefinder.”

Local resources were similarly stretched.  Police were consumed with traffic duty and told USSS they were unable even to station a patrol car in front of the AGR complex.  Only three local snipers from the Butler and Beaver County Emergency Services Units (ESU) were assigned to the entire AGR complex, guarding from the second-story window in AGR 7, and one had to leave before the rally. 

USSS was offered surveillance drones by the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) but turned the offer down.

Prior to the Butler rally, USSS leadership made preparations to defensively brace for Butler rally criticism

Whistleblowers told Congress that USSS leadership informally told agents not to request extra security specifically for the Butler rally.  This allowed USSS deputy director Rowe to testify to Congress that all security requests for Butler were approved, a dishonest statement that required preparations prior to the rally. 

After years of denying USSS snipers to Trump, USSS decided to send two teams to cover barn rooftops behind Trump, assigning them at the last minute and giving them almost no preparation time.  Missing was the customary third team, which would have prevented a fan of exposure.  Additional problems with their deployment suggest they were security props, approved to ward off suspicion post-assassination.

USSS assets were deployed such that they could not stop shooters

Foiling the September 15 assassination attempt was Ryan Routh’s mistake of poking his rifle barrel out onto the fairway.  USSS agents were deployed on the putting green instead of covering all points, allowing the plethora of trees and bushes to be used as cover.  Had Routh waited patiently to fire behind cover, agents would have been unable to pinpoint his location, leaving Trump caught in a hail of bullets.

At Butler, the two USSS sniper teams, Hercules 1 and 2, were similarly deployed not to respond to Crooks.  USSS posted them behind the protecteeinstead of overwatching concealed positions such as AGR.  Positioned on barns directly behind Trump, the northern team (Hercules 2) was not able to see a specific section of AGR 6 obscured by a tree, where Crooks assembled his weapon and shot Trump. 

Hercules 1 was farther away and, though not blocked by a tree, had limited vision of Crooks due to the gentle slope of the AGR 6 rooftop and six-inch ridge cap.  Without radio communication, Hercules could not assess in a timely way the real-time location of Crooks despite the latter being flagged, photographed, identified, trailed, chased, and flushed out of cover by local officials. 

In fact, real-time communications between local officials and USSS were designed to be impossible from the start.  USSS snipers relied on cell phone texts for threat updates, despite experiencing poor cellular reception earlier. 

These communications were passed through a pipeline with many single points of failure.  Communication from local officers to USSS required a radio transmission to a trailer, a phone call from the trailer to the local near USSS command, the local relaying verbally to USSS, which would text Hercules.  It is unclear if the local representative was even in the USSS command post shortly before the shooting.  PSP commissioner Paris testified that Butler was the first time he had seen such a pipeline.

Were USSS snipers told not to fire at Crooks prior to the shooting?  Rowe testified that Hercules killed Crooks as soon as they first saw him, but his testimony was undercut by video released the next day showing Crooks standing upright and running west to east on AGR 7 and transferring to AGR 6 in full view of the crowd, Trump, and USSS snipers. 

The most damning decision of all was USSS’s chosen “secure perimeter,” a chain link fence roughly 100 yards north of Trump, stopping just short of the AGR complex.  Even nearby rally attendees remarked before the shooting how insecure the site was, yet this choice of perimeter, apparently made by committee, sailed through the multiple stages of checks and reviews by the DHS and USSS.  This choice of perimeter allowed USSS to pass responsibility of securing the AGR complex to local Pennsylvania law enforcement.  USSS had assigned local SWAT to redundant positions in barns behind Trump, leaving only two local units available to cover the entire AGR complex.  These local snipers were not given real-time means to contact USSS, which had refused radios from locals enabling real-time communications. 

Contrary to Rowe’s testimony, USSS never told local officials to guard the AGR rooftop.

Mistakes regarding perimeter security, overwatch, aerial surveillance, sweeps, and threat assessment were repeated at Trump’s golf course.

X22, On the Fringe, and more- Sept 24

 

Democrats, the Media and Prostitutes – But I Repeat Myself

posted by Derek Hunter at Townhall 

What can you do when the enemy of your country is in your country? It’s a little late to keep them out, so what do you do? You have to defeat them, crush them, and get them the hell out of your house as quickly as possible in a way that there is no ambiguity about them never being welcome to return. That is what must be done to Democrats this November, as they are truly the enemy in our house.

It would’ve been easy to think I was talking about the border, Democrats have welcomed the invasion of the third world into our country, encouraging it and paying to fly many more in who can’t afford to walk in from Mexico. For that alone they should be impeached and tried for using government funds for their personal and professional gain. 

But that’s not the worst of it, not by a longshot. 

A week after a radical Democrat absolutely dedicated to dumping endless money into Ukraine plotted to murder Donald Trump, the Biden/Harris administration flew Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the swing state of Pennsylvania to “visit a weapons factory” so he could “thank” the workers there. 

There could be no clearer use of federal government resources for a presidential campaign than if Kamala Harris started renting out the Lincoln Bedroom like the Clintons did. Only in this case, both sides would be prostitutes. 

This is highly unethical and absolutely illegal, neither of which will matter to Democrats and their appendages in the media. They live by one simple rule: Does it help us politically? 

There is no concern about how it impacts the country. 

Remember how, during the Trump administration, every single day people like Mika and the gang of ladies on MSNBC would gasp and clutch their implants while what passes for men would pretend to be angry of the “norms” of old being swept aside by some tweet. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, in fact, were going to “restore the norms” Trump had destroyed with his refusing to conform to their wishes.

On this flying a US puppet to a swing state to campaign and complain about the Republican ticket: silence. 

Democrats impeached Trump for suggesting to Zelenskyy that if the Biden family were engaging in corrupt practices in Ukraine, we’d like to know about it in this country, but using him as a campaign tool is A-OK with the left.

Zelenskyy, likely reading talking points provided by the Harris campaign, complained to the New Yorker magazine about Trump and JD Vance, saying, “My feeling is that Trump doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how. With this war, oftentimes, the deeper you look at it the less you understand.” 

Somehow, the people who empowered Putin – who has endorsed Kamala Harris – to invade in the first place have a magical understanding of how to end the war, they just haven’t managed to come remotely close to doing it.

Zelenskyy, who has canceled his own country’s elections this year in an attempt to preserve “democracy” in Ukraine, has been pretty worthless as leader of his country. He’s had more than his country’s GDP dumped into his lap in the form of cash and weapons, yet he can’t repel a feeble Russian military so bloated and corrupt it can barely function. Were it not for their nuclear weapons, Russia could easily be ignored by the world. Were it not for the Biden/Harris administration empowering Putin through European energy cash (money we could have earned by providing energy to them, he Harris/Biden not crippled US production), Vlad wouldn’t have the money necessary to keep his hold on power. 

So, the Democratic campaign of the sitting Vice President uses taxpayer dollars to fly a foreign leader, who leads the most financially corrupt country on the planet – one that has paid the son of the sitting President millions (and God knows how many other family members of Democrats) – to the United States to complain about the Republican nominee in the all-important swing state of Pennsylvania and the Democrat media reports it like it’s normal. 

It might not quite technically be treason, but it’s certainly in the neighborhood. And it’s miles away from where all of these people claimed to be when they were so upset over mean tweets and the “norms” of old. 

The prostitutes Hunter Biden paid to humiliate and abuse, many of whom were likely trafficked, under age Ukrainians and other eastern Europeans, had about as much dignity individually as the Democrats Party and media have collectively. Which makes sense, if you think about it, considering they’re all in the same business. 

EXPLAINER: What Is UN’s ‘Pact for the Future’ Championed by Canadian Gov’t?

 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is championing a new United Nations-led blueprint for addressing global challenges called the “Pact for the Future” as world leaders gather at the U.N. for its annual assembly.

In making his points about the importance of the pact, Trudeau said in an address at the United Nations in New York on Sept. 22 that the world is at an “inflection point.” He said the foundations of the international order are being undermined by climate change, rising inequality, record levels of displacement, and “the erosion of women’s rights, LGBT+ rights, and indigenous rights.”

“We can bury our heads in the sand, eschewing multilateralism in favour of short-sighted self-interest, or we can recognize that, collectively, we have a responsibility to set our differences aside to confront the serious global challenges and to deliver on a Pact for the Future that builds a more peaceful world, but also one where everyone, every generation, has a real and fair shot,” he said.

The Summit of the Future, held from Sept. 22 to 23 ahead of the 78th meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, has the stated goal of reinvigorating multilateralism and ensuring the world is able to deal with current challenges. It also aims to “turbocharge” the completion of the pact’s sustainable development goals (SDGs), bridge the financing gap, and address the “threats and opportunities” of digital technologies.

Canada is committed to achieving the sustainable development goals across the globe, Trudeau said while virtually co-chairing a meeting of the U.N. SDGs Advocates group with Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley.

Trudeau met with Secretary-General of the U.N. António Guterres on Sept. 22, and congratulated him on the adoption of the Pact for the Future, according to a release from the prime minister’s office. The two then discussed progress on the U.N. SDGs and Trudeau “reaffirmed his commitment to championing global action toward” meeting them.

UN Pact for the Future

The Pact for the Future pledges a “new beginning in multilateralism” that involves strengthening the U.N. Charter to “keep pace with a changing world,” according to a U.N. document released on Sept. 20. The document says the current multilateral system is under “unprecedented strain,” and requires global governance to be strengthened.

The document outlines the pact’s numerous priorities, which include the eradication of poverty as part of the 2030 Agenda, achieving gender equality, strengthening actions to address climate change, promoting cooperation between member states to resolve conflicts, investing in the social and economic development of children, seizing the opportunities presented by science and technology “for the benefit of people and planet,” and advancing the goal of “a world free from nuclear weapons.”

The pact also outlines several steps to “transform global governance,” and ensure that progress across the three pillars of sustainable development, peace and security, and human rights are not threatened.

“We must renew trust in global institutions by making them more representative of and responsive to today’s world and more effective at delivering on the commitments that we have made to one another and our people,” the document says.

It also calls for the Security Council to be enlarged “in order to be more representative of the current United Nations membership and reflective of the realities of the contemporary world” and for the Security Council to better collaborate with the General Assembly.

The pact calls for the Economic and Social Council to be strengthened to accelerate sustainable development and promote global cooperation, for the Peacebuilding Commission to be reinforced to improve its role in peace efforts and national development, and for the United Nations to be strengthened to respond to “complex global shocks.”

Building on Agenda 2030

The Pact for the Future builds on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, an initiative launched by the U.N in 2015 to aims to address many global challenges. The 2030 Agenda involves 17 goals intended to be achieved by 2030, including ending poverty, achieving gender equality, promoting sustainable agriculture, ensuring access to affordable energy, and promoting sustainable economic growth.

The 17 goals are also associated with 169 “integrated and indivisible” targets, with each government setting its own national targets that are “guided by the global level of ambition” but take into account their own circumstances. Each country decided how the targets should be incorporated into their national planning processes.

The Pact for the Future presents itself as a way to “urgently accelerate progress towards” achieving the Agenda 2030 goals, including by mobilizing additional financing for sustainable development. “We reaffirm that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is our overarching road map for achieving sustainable development” the document says.

Canada’s 2024 annual report on the 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals said that while progress had been made with many of the goals and targets, it “is not proceeding at the pace needed to achieve this ambitious agenda.” It said too many Canadians continue to live in poverty despite economic growth and that low unemployment, higher energy costs, and climate change remain a challenge for the country.

According to the Sustainable Development Report 2024, Canada has met none of the 17 goals. The country faces “major” challenges in meeting three of them, “significant” challenges in reaching six, and continues to face “challenges” with seven others.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/explainer-what-is-uns-pact-for-the-future-championed-by-canadian-govt-5728535?&utm_source=MB_article_paid_o&utm_campaign=MB_article_2024-09-24-ca&utm_medium=email&est=aJ9J706BNy%2FEFwYOUrypb%2FiqNQjo2kTYipCjMb68vufpSSBuKxzXdMafzW2EyPD6uMZu&utm_content=highlight-news-1

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Déjà vu x 2 – Deep State Stenographer Moves to New York Times

Sundance reporting for Conservative Treehouse 

Hopefully everyone can see the assembly of datapoints that are creating the 2024 redux of 2016.  Previously we noted how Iran is the new cover story to justify investigative leaks and throw a legal bag over Trump surveillance. [SEE HERE].  Iran 2024 replaces Russia 2016.

Now we see another similar datapoint in advance of the IC’s next move.  Devlin Barrett moves from the Wall Street Journal/Washington Post to New York Times.

As the Trump-Russia script is replayed, Devlin Barrett replaces Ali Watkins as the IC leak recipient who joins the New York Times in advance of the October surprise launch against President Trump.

The reference points most people are familiar with here, is Ali Watkins moving to the New York Times after she received the leaked [and non-redacted] full Carter Page FISA warrant, on March 17, 2017 from SSCI Security Director James Wolfe.

Wolfe leaked the Carter Page FISA application to journalist Ali Watkins.   Despite Wolfe’s lawyer denials; and despite Ali Watkins denials; and despite Yahoo denials; and despite The Washington Post denials; and despite the New York Times denials; Wolfe DID leak the FISA application.

The reason the media needs to deny the leak is because these same media outlets were falsely reporting everything about the FISA application.  The biggest names in U.S. media (WaPo and NYT) had the full and unredacted FISA application in March of 2017, and spent the next 15 months lying about the content to support the fraudulent Trump-Russia narrative.   Heck, Ali Watkins was likely hired by the New York Times -from Buzzfeed- specifically because she had the FISA application.

The media had the full and unredacted FISA application in March 2017, two months before the Robert Mueller special counsel even started.  The FISA application was made public by the special counsel on July 21, 2018, partly because the media already had the FISA in circulation.   The media had the application for sixteen months before it was made public, by the special counsel, one month after James Wolfe was indicted. (more)

Moving to the New York Times brings in bigger institutional lawyers who can guide the exploitation of the classified documents. ie. how to write about them, shape the story to the best narrative against the adversary (in this example President Trump) and avoid legal jeopardy.

The NYT works in synergy with the DOJ-NSD, toward common political ends. After James Wolfe leaked the FISA application to Watkins, the NYT exploited the content, writing about it, shaping information to their journalistic allies, and seemingly pretending they do not have it (because it was illegal).

Devlin Barrett was the person used by Lisa Page, Peter Strock and Mike Kortan to leak DOJ/FBI information about the Steele Dossier investigation. Barrett works on the outside of the DOJ/FBI silos, sharing information that is shaped from inside the DOJ/FBI and in some cases DHS. He is a stenographer for their presentations to the public.

Barrett jumping from WSJ to NYT is proactive positioning in advance of Trump term-2. Nothing more. The IC likely has provided him direct information about ongoing operations, and the NYT will legally guide Barrett’s reporting on it.

If 2016 continues to be replayed, look for Devlin Barrett to be the vessel for the IC moves against President Donald Trump.

Iran 2024 replaces Russia 2016.

Barrett 2024 replaces Watkins 2016.

Next?

Keep watching….

University Suspends Law Professor for Inviting White Nationalist to Speak to Her Class

Jeff Charles reporting for RedState 

Just in case anyone is under the illusion that free speech is not under attack, this story is one of many showing that our right to freely express our views is in peril.

The University of Pennsylvania has decided to suspend law professor Amy Wax after a series of statements and actions the school’s leadership deemed to be controversial, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The university made the announcement on Monday, saying she will face a year-long suspension at half pay and lose her named chair position. The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back appears to be related to Wax’s decision to invite white nationalist Jared Taylor to speak to her class.

This follows controversies regarding comments Wax made about black students and Asian immigrants. During an interview with black conservative Brown University professor Glenn Loury, Wax claimed black students generally performed at levels lower than other Penn Law students. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Black student graduate in the top quarter of the class and rarely, rarely in the top half,” she said.

Loury pushed back, asking: “So you’re telling me that students of color who have served on law reviews are pretty much in the bottom half of their law classes at Penn?”

Law schools usually only invite students performing at high levels to be on the law review. Wax admitted she did not have evidence to support her argument and had never done a systematic study on the grades of black students.

During the same interview, Wax also suggested that America would be “better off” with fewer Asian immigrants.

It all started with the Dec. 20 episode of The Glenn Show, during which Wax discussed U.S. immigration, insisting that it’s difficult to welcome people into Western societies if they do not share the same values—an idea she also shared in a recent speech.

“It’s just harder to assimilate those people or to have confidence that our way of life will continue if we bring a lot of people in who are not familiar with it. These are not original ideas on the [political] right,” Wax told Loury. “This might result in a shift in the racial profile of people who come in. Obviously, we’ll have fewer people from Africa. We’ll have fewer people of some parts of Asia, and it’ll be more white—not that many white people want to come to the United States.”

Specifically, Wax referred to South Asian elites migrating to the U.S., whom she differentiated from migrants traveling from Latin America.

“[We] have to distinguish mass-immigration, which we’re getting from the Hispanics, south of the border, which I think poses different questions and challenges from the Asian elites that we’re getting,” she said. “It doesn’t mean that the influx of Asian elites is unproblematic. I actually think it’s problematic. …I think it’s because there’s this…danger of the dominance of an Asian elite in this country, and what does that mean? What is that going to mean to change the culture?

“Does the spirit of liberty beat in their breast?” she continued.

Wax also argued that “wokeness” is a dominant ideology and that “Asians tend to be more conformist to whatever the dominant ethos is.”

“As long as most Asians support Democrats and help to advance their positions, I think the United States is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration,” Wax said.

So far, it might seem to some that the university made the right call, right?

After all, Wax has clearly expressed some racist views, and she did invite one of the nation’s most prominent white nationalists to speak to her class. Her motivation for wanting Jared Taylor to address her students isn’t clear. But regardless of what prompted her to extend the invitation, the school’s decision will do more harm than good.

For starters, academia is supposed to equip students to think critically and debate ideas. Sheltering them from any ideas – even reprehensible ones – robs them of the opportunity to understand what reprehensible people believe. One cannot effectively refute these individuals if they do not understand their positions.

Moreover, stifling the views of folks like Taylor doesn’t get rid of them. It only pushes them further underground, where they can fester unopposed. This could lead to even more people embracing these viewpoints – and acting on them.

It is also worth noting that authoritarian leftists running these schools could, and will, expand the definition of what is unacceptable for students to hear. Yes, Jared Taylor is a bonafide white nationalist. But to folks on the left, you and I could easily be considered to be in the same realm as these people for espousing perspectives that conflict with progressivism.

Too many universities have become less about fostering robust dialogue and debate and more about enforcing a specific set of beliefs. It is not about opposing vile views; it is about selecting which vile views students are allowed to hear. If Wax had invited a Hamas supporter to her classroom, there likely would have been no fuss, right?

But that’s not even the scary part.

In the end, Penn’s decision not only does a disservice to its young students, it also instills the idea that authoritarianism is preferable to the free expression of ideas. Instead of showing students how to defeat bad ideas with better ideas, it teaches them to rely on authority to suppress disgusting opinions, which will inevitably translate to appealing to another authority, namely, the government, to suppress even mainstream ideas with which they disagree.

Of course, this is the point, isn’t it? Leftists running many of these institutions are not concerned with the idea of debating ideas that contradict theirs. Instead, they are hellbent on ensuring that progressive ideas maintain supremacy over public discourse. What better way to do this than to teach young Americans that suppression is more desirable than dialogue?

ClimateHysteria and the End of Hope

Climate Hysteria and the End of Hope

We are a civilization embracing suicide.

by Mark Tapson for 

Frontpagemag.com

Recently the reliably Left-wing rag The Los Angeles Times published an opinion piece that wrestled with a question no one in history ever thought to ask themselves until our own time, when it has become a common refrain among young generations: Is it morally right to bring children into a world so fraught with dangerous uncertainty?

“Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question” is an excerpt from a new book by Jade S. Sasser, an associate professor in the – wait for it – Department of Gender & Sexuality Studies at UC Riverside. The book is called Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question: Deciding Whether to Have Children in an Uncertain Future.

Yes, climate anxiety is a thing. Psychotherapist Natacha Duke describes it thusly: “Also known as ‘eco-anxiety,’ ‘eco-guilt’ and ‘eco-grief,’ climate anxiety is characterized by a chronic fear of environmental doom that’s often paralyzing and debilitating.” It is one of the most effective and widespread psyops of our time, having traumatized an entire couple of generations into believing that we must take immediate, radical action to completely dismantle the capitalist, systemically racist, heteronormative, fossil-fueled power structures and exploitative mentality that purportedly have driven us to the brink of planetary annihilation.

The Times excerpt centers on a series of interviews Sasser conducted in 2021 and 2022 with millennials and members of Generation Z, “all of them people of color. Some of them identify as queer… which shapes their sensitivity to discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.” All were college-educated, most having taken environmental studies classes. At least two of them have degrees in sustainability, whatever that means.

“American society feels more socially and politically polarized than ever,” Sasser begins, and it’s hard to argue with her. She wonders, “Is it right to bring another person into that?”

Among her interview subjects is Bobby, 22, whose degree in sustainability studies scored him a job in a restaurant where he is “unhappily employed.” He is open to adopting an already existing kid but not having one of his own. “The environment is really the deciding factor for me,” he tells Sasser.

Victoria, who also got a degree in sustainability, has “always questioned bringing people into an environment [where] so much is going on politically, socially, health-wise, all of that.” She worries about the future of healthcare access and “wealth inequality.”

A 22-year-old named Elena declares, “Me being interested in environmental policy cemented my decision to not have kids.” Her environmental studies classes prompted her to feel that “having kids is definitely not a sustainable thing to do… I don’t want them to grow up and have to leave their home because of sea level rise. Or be worried because of really weird weather patterns.”

She continues: “I know that things aren’t going to get better. So why would I want to put a child through that? Even when my sister gave birth to my nephew, I was like, Why? They’re gonna go through so much.”

Mexican American Juliana, 23, just graduated from art school. She and her friends – “mainly composed of queer and transgender, anti-establishment artists” – don’t want children. Again, environmental concerns are at the heart of their rejection of kids.

A Native American woman named Melanie, 26, wants children but “with all of the things we see going on in the world, it seems unfair to bring someone into all of this against their will.” She adds, “With climate change, we’re the driving force of things breaking down, but then also, the planet’s going to do what the planet’s going to do… So… it almost feels, like, kind of shameful to want to have children.”

A significant part of the damage done by the environmental hysteria cranked up in college classes and in our cultural messaging is this hopelessness, guilt, and anxiety it engenders in young people who have little real-world experience and who are especially susceptible to the gas-lighting of virtue-signaling celebrities and far-Left activists posing as educators. Climate-change fear-mongers like Al “The electricity to heat my Olympic-size swimming pool would power six homes for a year” Gore have been predicting imminent apocalypse for more than half a century.

This hysteria is part of a toxic “safetyism” infecting our culture. Safetyism, as defined in Lukianoff and Haidt’s book The Coddling of the American Mind, is “the cult of safety–an obsession with eliminating threats (both real and imagined) to the point at which people become unwilling to make reasonable trade-offs demanded by other practical and moral concerns.” Add to that the guilt that we are hurtling toward an environmental doom which we believe we brought on ourselves, and the tragic result is the end of hope, the loss of an optimism that the future will be better for our children, and the self-loathing sense that the planet can only be saved if our destructive species commits suicide.

Yes, the world is fraught with danger of innumerable kinds – but it always has been. People have always been at the mercy of natural disasters and harsh weather conditions, not to mention disease, famine, conquering armies, and just plain poverty, which was the dominant condition for humankind for all of history until our own time. In short, there has never been a time when things didn’t look bad.

Why did anyone bring children into those circumstances? Because prior to our own time, even if you were born into royalty, everyone accepted the reality that life was hard and dangerous and unfair and always would be. At the risk of romanticizing it too much: hope and faith made life worth living, and children generally were seen as a blessing; people didn’t agonize over whether their offspring would be bad for the planet or whether they might have to deal with “really weird weather patterns.” Life today is still hard and dangerous and unfair, but not nearly so much as even in the recent past. Thanks to technological and medical advances, as well as civilizational stability in the West, there has never been a safer time in history to have children than today.

No, today is different! panicked young people with sustainability degrees would argue. Things aren’t just normal-bad; they’re super-bad, and not in the James Brown way! We’re facing the manmade end of the world! Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Greta Thunberg say we have less than ten years left! Or is that “fewer” than ten years…? The point is, we don’t have much time! Bringing more children into that doomsday scenario is cruel to them and will only increase our carbon footprint and hasten the end!

This kind of panic is mushrooming into a human tragedy of enormous proportions in terms of the number of young people who will never become mothers and fathers. It is not just a personal tragedy, but a civilizational one, as the Western world – America included – is already suffering an unprecedented drop in the birth rate.

I firmly believe people who don’t want children shouldn’t have them, even though I also believe many of those people will end up regretting that choice. I was childless until unusually late in life; prior to that I was largely just thoughtlessly indifferent to the idea of kids and family. But I wised up just at the time I fortuitously met the woman who would become my wife, and realized that if I never had children I would regret it deeply. We now have five kids and it’s impossible to express what a joyful transformation they have wrought on my life, a transformation I could not have imagined beforehand. I believe also that in their small way, over the course of their lives my children will carry that joyful transformation to others and out into the world at large.

Do I worry about their future in this uncertain world? Of course. As the saying goes, having children is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. But if you want to make the world a better place, you cannot do better in the long run than to give birth to the next generation and raise it to be and to do better than yours.

Environmental alarmism is stealing that hope and optimism and joy from an entire generation.