THE SOCIAL MEDIA-INDUCED CIVILIZATION CRISIS – HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

Disruptors of society are often hard to see when they arrive. Thanks to my wife, I have steered well away from social media because she told me about 15 years ago that these groups were just trying to get your data and that what they were offering aren’t actually free.  Some years later,  I heard someone say: “When something is free, then you are the product”. Many of us have become products without knowing it, and our data is being used to manipulate us in various ways that we haven’t understood.

When Steve Jobs launched the iPhone on 9 January 2007, it was difficult to believe that this would completely change communication and family life. The clever gurus in Silicon Valley did understand it, and soon, there were many new apps to keep us occupied. The first I became aware of this was about ten years ago when some friends came for dinner. The husband had his phone on the table and was constantly interacting with his Facebook account while we attempted to have a conversation. I thought that this was simply rude, but now I realize that he was in the grip of an addiction.

Recent research from the Pew Centre has demonstrated that parents and teens understand that there is a serious problem with the amount of “screen time” and this becomes more evident when some surveys indicate that teens are spending the equivalent of a 40-hour week on their devices.

This week, I read Jonathan Haidt’s book The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. The book is one of the most important that I have read in recent years, and every parent should buy it to understand the revolution that has occurred in relation to what Dr. Haidt calls “the rewiring of childhood.”

I had heard snippets about Jonathan Haidt’s book when it was launched in March this year but hadn’t found the time to read it. However, I was stirred to understand the details of his argument when I came across a fascinating article, written by Decca Aitkenhead last weekend in the UK Sunday Times. Ms Aitkenhead, after interviewing Jonathan Haidt a few months ago, decided to do her own experiment. For one month, her two sons and various friends (ten in total) would lock their smartphone in a special safe, and they would have access to the phone for only one hour per day. It was difficult to recruit girls for the experiment, but finally, two girls signed up. To ensure that all the children could be contacted, they were given a Light Phone which is a basic phone that looks a bit like a Kindle. The important feature of the Light Phone for this experiment is that the phone has no apps and no Google. 

The boys didn’t seem to be really dependent on their smartphones, and the main app they used was Snapchat. Most of the boys came from happy family homes and played a lot of sport. Ms Aitkenhead writes: “Most didn’t get their first phone until the end of year 6 — so mostly aged 11 — and have always had screen-time limits. Several aren’t allowed TikTok, and Rowan, 13, can’t even have Snapchat. Only Joe, 13, confesses to feeling highly anxious about forgoing his phone. He was the youngest to get one, in year 4….Only one boy described himself as ‘addicted’”. The boys “expressed nonchalance about surrendering their smartphones”, and so Ms Aitkenhead wondered if the issues around smartphones were exaggerated.

Then she turned to the girls and it was a different story.

“I ask how much time they spend on their phones. In unison: “Too long.” Rose pulls out hers to show me. It is Saturday, and her week’s screen time has reached 41 hours and 48 minutes, of which almost 32 hours were on social media. Both have Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok. So they love social media? They look at me as if I must be mad.”

Their stories are salutary, and it is worthwhile reading the article in full. I will quote a section from the Times article where the girls indicate that they are caught in a Catch 22 situation.

‘ “It’s a trap,” Edie says. “You’re stuck, because if you do escape, you’re classed as a weirdo, and you’ll fall behind on trends, you won’t understand what people are talking about.” Rose jumps in, “But if you do watch TikTok, you’re going to get influenced. You know it’s all fake, but you still feel like it’s real. You still can’t help comparing yourself with everyone who looks pretty, and feeling bad about yourself. And you’re going to get addicted. It’s literally like a drug.”

Edie deleted TikTok once, “Because it steals all my time, and that makes me feel shit about myself.” She ended up re-downloading the app. “But then,” Rose adds, “if you follow every trend, you get called a basic bitch. And if you don’t, you’re a weirdo. There’s no escape, because your social popularity is totally linked to your social media. So if you don’t post, you get made fun of. But then if you lip-synch to the wrong song on TikTok, you get made fun of for the rest of the year.”….

“Edie feels less pressure than Rose. Her school is co-ed, banned phones, and devotes a lot of lesson time to phones and mental health — but the sisters also put it down to social media ensnaring Rose earlier. “Apps are targeting girls younger and younger,” both say, worriedly. “It’s sickening,” Edie glowers. “The people who own them are ruining children’s lives just to get money.”

“That is how we’ve grown up,” Rose says. “And then people are, like, ‘Why are children having all these mental health problems?’

“Because we’re on our phones,” Edie says. “But we don’t have a choice.”

The story captures the dilemma for teens because they can’t win and as Edie says, they “Don’t have a choice”. Strangers on the internet have taken over the lives of our children and most of us haven’t understood the danger. The smartphones and social media have trapped teenagers (and younger) into a digital world, or as Dr Haidt has assessed it, into “a great rewiring”.

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

Figure 1. Cover of Dr Jonathan Haidt’s book “The Anxious Generation”

Jonathan Haidt’s book is important because it examines the issue of generational change, particularly in the prevalence of mental illness and anxiety in today’s youth. The book presents validating data that demonstrate correlations between the changes that have occurred in parenting and the use of technology.

Dr. Haidt is a social psychologist who teaches at the Stern School of Business at New York University and has published a number of other important books: The Coddling of the American Mind, The Righteous Mind and The Happiness Hypothesis. He describes his work as follows: “My mission is to use research on moral psychology to help people understand each other and to help important social institutions work better.”

He commences The Anxious Generation with an interesting idea: what would you say if a visionary billionaire whom you had never met chose your ten-year-old daughter to join the first permanent human settlement on Mars?

In his story, it turns out that your daughter had signed up without permission because she loves outer space and also her friends are going. Dr Haidt then points out the risks: radiation and its impact on the body, higher risk of cancer, particularly for those who are growing, the impact of constant low gravity on the body, and the increased vulnerability of children. The planners appear to have taken none of these issues into account. Would you let your daughter go? Of course, you wouldn’t.

The analogy of your ten-year-old daughter signing up secretly for a mission to Mars provides the necessary shock to our thinking about social media and technology companies, that have gone on a secret mission and taken our children with them, without permission.

“The founders of these companies were hailed as heroes, geniuses, and global benefactors who, like Prometheus, brought gifts from the gods to humanity. But the tech industry wasn’t just transforming life for adults. It began transforming life for children too.” Haidt, Jonathan. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (p. 3). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The new technologies that were designed by Silicon Valley were “portable, personalized and engaging”. He writes:

“Parents discovered this truth early, as I did in 2008, when my two-year-old son mastered the touch-and-swipe interface of my first iPhone. Many parents were relieved to find that a smartphone or tablet could keep a child happily engaged and quiet for hours. Was this safe? Nobody knew, but because everyone else was doing it, everyone just assumed that it must be okay.” Haidt, Jonathan. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (p. 3). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

In his book, Dr Haidt demonstrates that these technologies were not safe and, in fact, have had a damaging impact on the minds of a generation that has grown up with smartphones since 2010. The technology companies strive for maximum “engagement.”

“Companies that strive to maximize “engagement” by using psychological tricks to keep young people clicking were the worst offenders. They hooked children during vulnerable developmental stages, while their brains were rapidly rewiring in response to incoming stimulation. This included social media companies, which inflicted their greatest damage on girls, and video game companies and pornography sites, which sank their hooks deepest into boys. By designing a firehose of addictive content that entered through kids’ eyes and ears, and by displacing physical play and in-person socializing, these companies have rewired childhood and changed human development on an almost unimaginable scale. The most intense period of this rewiring was 2010 to 2015,…” Haidt, Jonathan. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (pp. 3-4). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The problem that parents face regarding children and social media is exacerbated by the legislative system’s inability to enforce legal age restrictions. Data from 2021 demonstrate that despite having an age restriction of 13 years old, 40% of US children under 13, use Instagram. The percentage today is undoubtedly much higher. An article from Business Insider points out that this vulnerable age group then experiences abuse and sexual solicitation.

“Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) was the first generation in history to go through their teen years: “with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable, and—as I will show—unsuitable for children and adolescents. Succeeding socially in that universe required them to devote a large part of their consciousness—perpetually—to managing what became their online brand. This was now necessary to gain acceptance from peers, which is the oxygen of adolescence, and to avoid online shaming, which is the nightmare of adolescence.” Haidt, Jonathan. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (p. 6). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The end result is a radical new way of growing up, where children have moved from real-world physical interactions in small communities to virtual communities. Dr Haidt calls this “the great rewiring” because during a critical period of brain development, rewiring of the brain occurs and not in a beneficial way. He demonstrates with the data in his book that this shift into the “metaverse” and the world of social media has extraordinarily damaging effects on the mental health of many young people, particularly girls who are more likely to engage with social media. Because of peer pressure, children can find it impossible to resist engagement with social media, as demonstrated earlier in my post with the two teenage girls in the UK.

Parents are also caught in a trap because their children become so desperate to be part of the social media crowd that they will do anything to work around parents’ restrictions and monitoring. Dr Haidt has a shocking case study in the book involving a young teenage girl and her obsession with access to Instagram, and the way in which she was able to work around her parents’ restrictions. The end result was the destruction of her mental health and a long period of time in hospital with anorexia, before her recovery.

This trend with unrestricted access to social media is accompanied by another trend in today’s society which can be described as “helicopter parenting”. Parents continually hover around their children in an overprotective fashion and limit their ability to take risks in the real world. This overprotection to prevent children from physical injuries or being approached by strangers is accompanied by underprotection in the virtual world, of which parents have little understanding.

Dr Haidt demonstrates that “a phone-based childhood disrupts child development in many ways. I describe four foundational harms: sleep deprivation, social deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction. I then zoom in on girls[*] to show that social media use does not just correlate with mental illness; it causes it, and I lay out the empirical evidence showing multiple ways that it does so. I explain how boys came to their poor mental health by a slightly different route. I show how the Great Rewiring contributed to their rising rates of “failure to launch”—that is, to make the transition from adolescence to adulthood and its associated responsibilities.” Haidt, Jonathan. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (p. 11). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

I found The Anxious Generation a compelling book with well-researched information to support Dr Haidt’s contention that “social media use does not just correlate with mental illness; it causes it.” Most parents, who didn’t grow up using social media have failed to understand the risks. Worse, because their children are under the grip of an addiction, parents feel unable to impose strict boundaries on the use of the various technologies and apps. This is because children plead, harass, and ultimately find any way they can to feed their social media addiction. Meanwhile, children’s abilities to relate in the real world and their mental health go downhill at a rapid rate.

Dr Haidt, fortunately, has some solutions. He proposes four foundational keys to enable a healthier childhood:

“1. No smartphones before high school (usually around 14yo). Parents should delay children’s entry into round-the-clock internet access by giving only basic phones (phones with limited apps and no internet browser) before ninth grade (roughly age 14).

2. No social media before 16. Let kids get through the most vulnerable period of brain development before connecting them to a firehose of social comparison and algorithmically chosen influencers.

3. Phone-free schools. In all schools from elementary through high school, students should store their phones, smartwatches, and any other personal devices that can send or receive texts in phone lockers or locked pouches during the school day. That is the only way to free up their attention for each other and for their teachers.

4. Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence. That’s the way children naturally develop social skills, overcome anxiety, and become self-governing young adults. These four reforms are not hard to implement—if many of us do them at the same time. They cost almost nothing. They will work even if we never get help from our legislators. If most of the parents and schools in a community were to enact all four, I believe they would see substantial improvements in adolescent mental health within two years.” Haidt, Jonathan. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (p. 15). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The phenomenon of the constant smartphone presence together with 24/7 social media has resulted in a civilization crisis that few saw coming. Everyone is aware of the increasing prevalence of mental health issues, particularly in teenagers, but few of us realized that this is being caused by the ubiquitous machines in the hands of every child.

The clever (and likely socially dysfunctional) Silicon Valley software engineers have developed algorithms designed to induce “engagement”, particularly of teen and “tween” girls. This engagement has resulted in girls being harassed, bullied and spending many hours fixated on their online image, and they can see no way out. Boys are being drawn into pornography addiction which then can result in antisocial and violent behaviour toward girls.

This situation is not an accident and will not be solved by government legislation. Parents need to be aware of this and enforce non-negotiable rules for the use of smartphones and social media. Their children’s lives are at stake.

For readers who would like to hear an interview with Jonathan Haidt, there was an interesting one-hour overview of his research this week on the TRIGGERnometry podcast with UK presenters.

STORIES THAT  CAUGHT MY ATTENTION THIS WEEK

Biden is Out-of-Touch on a Beach, While the World Edges Toward War

There have been many commentators asking the question: who is in charge of the US, and who controls the nuclear codes? No one knows (except President Xi), but even the mainstream media is starting to wonder what is going on and there were headlines last weekend: Biden relaxes on beach as Syria attack sparks outrage.

Jake Wallis Symons wrote an opinion piece in the UK Telegraph this last week titled: Spineless Biden is edging us towards Word War III. I have included some of the key points made by Mr Symons:

“Over the weekend, while leaving church in Rehobeth Beach, Delaware, Biden was asked for his message to Tehran. “Don’t, ” he replied. Had he forgotten that he had told the Iranians the same thing back in April? You could almost hear Benjamin Netanyahu saying thanks for that. The last time Iran was rolling out warheads to its launching sites, that presidents “don't” precipitated a reign of hundreds of missiles and drones on the Jewish state.

On that occasion, The United states masterminded an international coalition that impressively defended Israeli skies, at once highlighting the threat from Iran and the West's military superiority…….

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Tehran is running rings around Washington. Indeed, it is difficult to ascertain whether the US has a coherent Iran strategy at all……… Biden has arrived at the twilight of his presidency by eclipsing his shameful Afghan withdrawal of 2021. The world is in turmoil, Russia and China are emboldened and America’s foremost ally in the Middle East is being left to enforce deterrents alone. The world's most malign, dangerous and oppressive theocracy - an ally of Moscow and Beijing - is fast advancing to become a regional nuclear superpower. Wouldn't it have been easier to have toughened up in the first place?”

It does seem that the absence of leadership and questionable authority in the White House has led to a more unstable world. There are five more months until Biden officially vacates the presidency and it seems likely that the US’ enemies will be hard at work to take action while there is a power vacuum. If the Republicans win in November, there is likely to be even greater instability in the few months before the presidential inauguration.

European Commission and UK Prime Minister “Lose the Plot” over Elon Musk

The widespread restriction of the freedom of speech in Europe and the United Kingdom, and the intrinsic authoritarian and dictatorial instincts of these regimes were on full show with warnings to Elon Musk by EU Commissioner, Thierry Breton. A letter was sent on Musk’s X platform and demonstrates how dangerous the EU is with its intent to prevent the free exchange of ideas. Mr Breton warned Mr Musk about what he hadn’t yet said in his proposed interview with Donald Trump! This was in connection with the draconian EU Digital Services Act.

Mr Breton wrote as an introduction to his letter posted on X “with great audience comes great responsibility”. His warning was: “ …in the context of recent events in the United Kingdom and in relation to your planned broadcast on your platform X of a live conversation between a US presidential candidate and yourself, which will also be accessible to users in the EU…. I am compelled to remind you of the due diligence obligations set out in the Digital Services Act (DSA). DSA obligations apply without exceptions or discrimination to the moderation of the whole user community and content of X (including yourself as a user with over 190 million followers) which is accessible to EU users and should be fulfilled in line with the risk-based approach of the DSA, which requires greater due diligence in case of a foreseeable increase of the risk profile".

This letter demonstrates all the hallmarks of EU bureacratise - you can’t understand what it means! I doubt Mr Musk made his way to the end of the letter. It is extraordinary that an EU Commissioner would seek to control (at that time), a broadcast on X in the US that had not yet occurred!

The intent of the EU and the UK is to prevent free speech. The UK increasingly charges and imprisons people for what is described as “hate speech” and has used the police and courts to charge hundreds following the recent riots. Sir Keir Starmer, the UK Prime Minister, has even threatened Mr Musk with “the full force of the law” (extradition to the UK to face hate speech charges?) because of a few posts on X.

The UK Online Safety Act, which seeks to censor speech was brought in by the Conservative Government and is part of a “nanny state” approach by both sides of politics in the UK. Undoubtedly, governments in the West will seek to further censor speech because of what is claimed as “misinformation” and “disinformation”. However, the biggest purveyors of misinformation and disinformation are governments themselves.

Things Just Got More Interesting in the Middle East and Ukraine

Michael Snyder, who recently wrote a book titled: Chaos, published a substack post this week that I thought had some valuable perspectives and insights in relation to the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. I have extracted below some of the most important assessment from his substack post:

“The Ukrainians have been slowly but surely losing ground in eastern Ukraine, and so they decided to do something dramatic to change the momentum of the war.

Nobody expected the Ukrainians to invade Russian territory, and so the Russians were completely surprised when that actually happened…

Ukraine’s shock incursion across the Russian border into Kursk Oblast may force important strategic decisions on Moscow as President Vladimir Putin’s troops are taken as prisoners of war and supply lines are threatened. The Ukrainian attack took Russian forces by surprise, according to one U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly.

According to the Institute for the Study of War, Ukraine’s cross-border gambit has allowed Kyiv to seize the battlefield initiative, long held by Russian forces who were able to dictate the time and place of fighting and force Ukrainian troops to expend manpower and equipment on defensive operations.…

The Ukrainians will not be able to hold Russian territory for long.

So why did they do this?

Personally, my opinion is that the Ukrainians are trying to get the Russians so angry that they will decide to use tactical nuclear weapons.

…………

If the Iranians attack, the U.S. will defend Israel.

A guided missile sub is being deployed to the Middle East, and the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group has been ordered to “sail more quickly to the area”…

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a guided missile submarine to the Middle East and told the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to sail more quickly to the area, as the U.S. said Monday it believes Iran or its proxies could launch a strike against Israel as soon as this week.

The moves, announced by the Defense Department Sunday, come as the U.S. and other allies push for Israel and Hamas to achieve a cease-fire agreement that could help calm soaring tensions in the region after the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut.

I will be watching the USS Abraham Lincoln very closely.

If all-out war erupts, it could become a prime target for either the Iranians or Hezbollah.”

For a contrasting opinion, the great Seymour Hersh has his ear to the ground and thinks that war may be avoided.

The Retaliation That Didn’t Happen (Yet!)

Seymour Hersh’s assessment of the state of play in the Middle East contrasted with that of many other commentators. Mr Hersh writes a fascinating substack, to which I subscribe. On his substack, he describes himself as follows:
“Seymour M. Hersh’s fearless reporting has earned him fame, front-page bylines, a staggering collection of awards, and no small amount of controversy. His story is one of fierce independence. Faced with pressure from corporate interests, the various muscular arms of government, and occasionally from outright criminals, Hersh has been relentless in his pursuit of truth and his belief in challenging the official narrative. He has navigated through cover-ups, deceit, and outright crimes against humanity in the morass of war, espionage, and politics….”

I enjoy and appreciate his writing. This week, he provides an assessment of why more widespread war hasn’t yet broken out in the Middle East.

Here are some extracts from his post:

“It’s been more than two weeks since an Israeli drone fired a barrage of missiles into a Beirut suburb and assassinated Fuad Shukr, a senior officer of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia headed by Hassan Nasrallah. Four others were killed in the July 30 attack, and eighty were injured, many seriously. Israel did it again a day later in Tehran, firing a missile—it was not a bomb as many have reported—into a government guest house that killed Ismail Haniyeh, a high-ranking official of Hamas who was involved in ceasefire talks with Israel. He was in Tehran to celebrate the inauguration of Masoud Pezeshkian……………

So what is going on? Why didn’t Nasrallah, now engaged in a brutal tit-for-tat war of missiles with Israel, immediately respond after one of his senior commanders and longtime associate was murdered while at work in his office? And why didn’t Pezeshkian seek to avenge the death of an ally assassinated on Iranian soil?

The new Iranian President is known to be eager to do more  business with the outside world, and  his determination to go ahead with his inauguration, in the face of grotesque murder, has brought him international attention and, more importantly, potential trading partners.

The assassination of Haniyeh eliminated a second key official of Hamas after an Israeli bombing strike in Gaza last month killed Mohammed Deif, who was the leader of Hamas’s military wing. The remaining senior leader, Yahya Sinwar, is living, perhaps on the run, somewhere in Hamas’s vast underground tunnel system. The remaining Hamas hostages, now bargaining chips, are reportedly under his control. How many have survived and their current conditions are not known. 

An American official told me that Netanyahu, reassured by the US armada and Iran’s reluctance so far to respond to the Haniyeh assassination, is said finally to be ready to agree to a ceasefire that, in various forms, has been on the table for months. The key element is the release by Hamas of all the Israeli hostages in return for a ceasefire of unspecified duration—and nothing else. There is no agreement on the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, as has been on the agenda since the talks began. ……... 

………..

The two assassinations triggered fears of a war in the Middle East. The White House opted for a show of force by the Navy. I was told by the American official that “war was not an option. The new guy in Tehran sees the future in terms of economics and more trade and was willing to deal with China and Russia.” ….

The official added: “We know that Hezbollah and Iran are going to connect in some way in the future” and try to take on Israel. “How will they do that? Seek a resurgence of Hamas in Gaza? If that happens, will we tell Israel we cannot support them? Neither one of the three—Israel, Iran or Hezbollah—will back down. They have put themselves into a strategic corner. 

I recommend subscribing to Mr Hersh’s substack. He not only has an interesting perspective but has access to many confidential sources. These sources led him to break the news in early 2023 that it was the US that blew up the Nord Stream pipeline.

Tim Walz, The Folksy, Radical Running Mate for Kamala Harris

Over the last week or so, I have read many articles and listened to a range of commentators who have provided great perspective on the dramatic shift to the Left represented by Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, as they seek to move the US to a socialist utopia, with a campaign promoting “joy” (as the US goes down the plughole).

Undoubtedly, they are the most radical duo in US history and to date, they have been able to avoid scrutiny of their records and political positions as they use social media to mount a “feel good” campaign. As of the time of writing, Kamala Harris has avoided any media questions for 26 days, without any serious pushback by the mainstream media. Their quest for power may be successful because the mainstream media is 150% on-side with these radicals.

Fortunately, a few journalists are examining some of the background of the two radicals and Breitbart News this week presented Walz’s signature piece of legislation to make Minnesota a “trans refuge”, even from their parents, in the article: “Incredibly Evil: Minnesota Democrat Gov. Tim Walz’s 2023 Executive Order Pushed Child Sex Charges”. Because of his close links to China, some are even calling him Tiananmen Tim! Sam Faddis wrote this week that: ”The Democratic propaganda machine is painting Tim Walz as a moderate, Midwestern Democrat. He is anything but. He is a radical extremist who believes Communist China is the model for the future of the United States.”

 World Affairs Brief this week reported on seven issues that Walz had supported in Minnesota and demonstrated his radical agenda:

“1) A June report from Minnesota’s legislative auditor found that Walz’s administration “failed miserably in its duty to properly oversee millions of federal dollars it administered to nonprofits to feed children.” The report said that Walz’s alleged incompetence “created opportunities for fraud.” Axios reported: “The report highlighted several ways in which the Walz administration failed to rein in the fraud, undercutting the governor’s longstanding claims that his agency staff deserve credit, not criticism, for their efforts to catch and stop it.”

2) Walz signed legislation to allow minors to get sex-change operations in Minnesota. He signed a bill to require schools to stock period products in boys’ bathrooms.

3) Walz allegedly failed to anticipate and react to riots in Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd. Even the liberal mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, slammed Walz’s response to the riots.

4) Under Walz’s leadership, Minnesota gives free college tuition to illegal immigrants.

5) Walz signed a bill into law that will give driver’s licenses to potentially 77,000 eligible illegal aliens.

6) Walz openly championed socialism last week during a “White Dudes” for Harris event.

7) Walz was also a radical member of the House of Representatives, with Heritage Action giving him a lifetime score of 13 percent.

But one of his worst statements was that, "There's no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy," he declared in 2022.

He also called Trump a “Fascist,” and a “Threat to Democracy” just weeks after the assassination attempt. Then, the Daily Mail put out a summary of Governor Walz’ love affair with China —just what this country needs as China is in active military preparations to strike the West in the future.

Tim Walz, Kamala Harris' running mate, has a deep affection for China after being one of the first government-sanctioned Americans to teach in the country. Walz, 60, went to China straight after college through a program set up by Harvard University and taught in Guangdong province, shortly after the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing in 1989.

He would later honeymoon in China with his wife Gwen, bringing a group of 60 young people with them. In the 1990s the couple set up a business which took high school students to China every summer for around a decade.

Walz has been to China dozens of times, including on trade missions, and has called his experiences there 'amazing'. His admiration for the country opens the door for him to be attacked by Donald Trump and Republicans as the U.S, and China enter a period of increasing economic and military rivalry.”

While the US elections are not until 5 November 2024, early voting starts in September, and there is little time for the Trump-Vance team to make Americans aware of the threat that these radicals pose. Harris and Walz are running on the “vibe” supported by TikTok videos. To-date the campaign is a policy-free zone and Harris has done a 180° turn on her previous positions (according to her campaign staff). By the time Americans wake up to the danger, it may be too late.

The Democratic Party National Convention will be held next week and so there will be further glowing tributes to a woman, who just a few months ago had an even lower approval rating than Joe Biden. Harris’ campaign staff have been masterful in keeping her away from public scrutiny, in much the same way that they hid Joe Biden in his basement, because of COVID, in 2020.

ABC News in the US is hosting the first (and perhaps only) presidential debate between Harris and Trump on September 10. The cards are always stacked against Trump because he is hated by all the mainstream media, who maintain that he is a “threat to democracy”. Now it has been revealed that one of Kamala Harris’ best friends is Dana Walden, one of the top executives at Disney, the company that owns ABC news. Trump will have to be very agile if he is to beat all the media and Kamala Harris.

The Secret to a Longer, Healthier Life (move to Australia!)

I wrote a few weeks ago that things were likely to be so miserable in the UK by December, that my UK readers should consider coming to Australia over the UK winter on a “study tour” (tax deductible). It now turns out that those in the UK should actually move to Australia.

The Times newspaper in the UK has just published an article this week titled: The secret to a longer, healthier life is……….move to Australia! The Times quotes from a study in the British Medical Journal which says that “‘strong public health efforts’ help to make it (Australia) ‘clearly the best-performing anglophone country’ over three decades”.

Eleanor Hayward, the Health Editor of the Times, writes:

“For decades, Britons have been lured to Australia by the promise of year-round sunshine and beautiful beaches. Now there is another tempting reason to move down under: the chance to live longer.

A study has found that Australians outlive their peers in wealthy English-speaking countries including the UK, America, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand.

Life expectancy in Australia is two years longer than in the UK and nearly five years longer than in America, which lags behind all the other English-speaking nations.”

The advantage that Australia has may not last long. The socialist government here is attempting to destroy the country and is now seeking to bring in Hamas sympathizers to settle in the country.

However, we still have great beaches and sun which keep us distracted while the abyss rushes towards us!