TRANS DOCTOR WHO HELPS TEENS TRANSITION SAYS IT’S NOW ‘GONE TOO FAR’:

A transgender psychologist who has helped hundreds of teens transition has warned that it has “gone too far” – and fears many are making life-changing decisions because it’s “trendy” and pushed on social media. Erica Anderson, 71 – who is transgender herself – told the Los Angeles Times that she is horrified that even 13-year-old kids are now getting hormone treatment without even meeting with psychologists. “I think it’s gone too far,” said Anderson, who until recently led the U.S. professional society at the forefront of transgender care. “For a while, we were all happy that society was becoming more accepting and more families than ever were embracing children that were gender variant.” “Now it’s got to the point where there are kids presenting at clinics whose parents say, ‘This just doesn’t make sense,’” she said. Anderson is so concerned, in fact, she said she is considering ending her own pioneering work helping teens transition. “I have these private thoughts: ‘This has gone too far. It’s going to get worse. I don’t want any part of it,’” she said.

Before Charges in a Subway Attack, Decades of Disputes and Petty Offenses:

Frank R. James never seemed to stay in one place for very long. But as he drifted from the East Coast to the Midwest over the course of his adult life, trouble often followed, according to interviews and records from four states. In New York, he was arrested at least nine times – mostly on low-level charges, but also on suspicion of committing arson and reckless endangerment. In New Jersey, he was charged with making terroristic threats after calling and threatening people at a former workplace. And when he lived in Milwaukee, police records and interviews show, he was at odds with his neighbors in two locations, including at a rooming house that a former resident described as a regular stopover for people with mental health problems and convicted of sex offenses and other crimes. This week, the police said, James, 62, returned to New York City and committed the worst attack on the subway system in decades, opening fire on a crowded N train in Brooklyn and wounding 10 people. On Wednesday, James was charged in Federal District Court with carrying out a terrorist attack on a mass transit system. If convicted, he could face life in prison.

Fury as Wizz Air Charges Ukrainian Refugees for Luggage:

A woman hosting a Ukrainian refugee family fleeing the war has told of her shock that they were asked to pay for luggage by an airline providing free flights for those escaping. Agnese Edmonds, who is now housing the family of four, said they were asked to pay €130 (£108.49) for two suitcases when booking their tickets from Krakow, Poland to London Luton via Wizz Air. The flight itself was free, but the family was asked to pay for their bags. Edmonds, who is from Essex, is “gobsmacked” and finds that the charge “feels unfair and strange.” Speaking to LBC, she said: “Although they didn’t have too much luggage … the adults had one suitcase each, so they had to pay for that. So I’m not sure for those people who didn’t have any money, you know, how would they get through? Who would pay for them?” “I couldn’t believe (it), the family couldn’t believe, I was gobsmacked because I thought – well if you’re offering the flight, they’re already on the flight, well surely they can take their luggage with them?”

Examiner – Lens:

A 22-year-old mother who allegedly stabbed her own 3-year-old daughter to death and stashed the body in a trash bag told a Child Protective Services investigator that SpongeBob SquarePants ordered the murder. That’s according to Ryan Eberline, the CPS investigator who interviewed Justine Johnson in jail after the latter had been arrested on charges of felony murder and first-degree child abuse. Eberline testified in court Friday for a preliminary examination of Johnson, who is accused of killing her daughter, Sutton Mosser, on September 16, 2021 – just two days after her third birthday.

Netflix Shares Plunge as Subscribers Flee:

Elon Musk pinned a drop in Netflix’s share prices on the “woke mind virus” – which makes the streaming service “unwatchable.” Netflix reported that it lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022 while bracing for 2 million lost subscribers in the second quarter. Shares of the company dropped more than 20% in after-hours trading.

Examiner – 20 Years – A Look At 2002

The LBN Examiner was founded on June 1, 2002, an incredible 20 years ago. Let’s take a look back at what was going on in 2002:

** On April 21, at the 48th British Academy Television Awards, winners were “The Sketch Show” for Best Comedy, and “Cold Feet” for Best Drama.

** On April 23, Pope John Paul II met with U.S. Catholic Church leaders at the Vatican regarding sexual abuse of minors.

Wildly (Politically) Incorrect by George Vandeman:

Political Correctness Run Amok
** A top New York City health official refers to White women as “birthing people,” and then refers to Black and Hispanic women as “mothers.” I didn’t realize that there was this distinction. I guess I am still catching up.

** I saw this on Tucker Carlson’s show, but it was hard to believe. A University of Kentucky actual female swimmer tied the well-known Lia Thomas, who was born a male, in the female NCAA championships. The incredibly Woke NCAA gave the trans swimmer the trophy to hold, telling the actual female that she could stand with the next place trophy. Unfrickenbelievable.

Revenge Update
** A dish best served cold? No, revenge is a dish best served spicy! Woman who caught her boyfriend of two years cheating on her with her friend reveals that she injected chili oil into his condoms to punish him. Ouch!

Voting Reform Update
** Arizona will require voters to prove citizenship and residency. Makes sense, right? Guess what? This sparked anger among activists.

United Nations Update
** Do you know why the United Nations Security Council is powerless to punish Russia? Because 40% of the members are actively engaged in genocide.

Success Update
** No, not dress for success. Researchers have found that personality is not as important as intelligence when it comes to getting good grades and a well-paid job. This finding contradicts past research which found that personality was more important for success.

Jury Duty Update
** This is one for the books. A “Miss Bristol” was one of the people called to serve as a juror in the sentencing phase of the Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz. She told the Judge that she didn’t have time to serve because of her love life. Asked to clarify, she said, “I am married and I have my sugar daddy. I see him every day.” Plus her kids. The Judge was speechless. She later was excused as a juror.

January 6 Update
** As those who have seen the tapes will know that there is a winning Capital “riot” defense. Blame the cops! Matthew Martin was found not guilty of illegally entering the Capitol and engaging in disorderly conduct. He successfully argued that the Capital police waived him into the building.

Market Research Update
** In defense of Disney’s reaction to the Parental Rights law in Florida, Disney’s Head of Content says that “Gen Z is 30-40 percent queerer than other generations.” She said that her son had told her that. I wonder if her son is available for other such assignments.

IS IT TIME TO OPEN YOUR EYES TO THE TRUTH?

Do you have the guts to read the LBN Examiner? Do you? Do you? “Fearlessly independent” and “unbiased” news and information since 2002.

Now you can invite your friends and family to sign up for free (if they’ve got the guts): www.LBNExaminer.com

The Real Story by Sarah Garcia:

If you were ever walked into my father’s office 40 years ago and asked him if he wanted to leave the office early say 3:30 in the afternoon, to watch his son practice baseball after high school, he would have looked at you like a person with a mental health condition. And yet today, at 3:30 in the afternoon, many fathers sitting there watching their children practice and occasionally staring at their cell phones pretending to be working, or so it seems. It seems that people are less doing what they can and more doing what they want.

Examiner – Lens:

An engaged couple in Michigan is living life to the fullest. After getting engaged on the day after Christmas in 2020, Clay Slenk and Mariah Nelesen planned to tie the knot this summer. However, just after sending save-the-dates to their loved ones, the bride- and groom-to-be were both diagnosed with cancer within eight days of each other, KTLA reports. “We had a long engagement (and) were hoping to get married June 10 of this year,” Slenk, 24, told the outlet.

Examiner – (Notable) Remarks:

** The most prominent writer for The New York Times, Nikole Hannah-Jones, has been arguing all week that too much sympathy for Ukraine’s plight is just another sign of – what else? – white supremacy. Also, bizarrely, that Europe is not a continent. —- Bari Weiss

** Russia “is resorting to tactics reminiscent of medieval siege warfare, encircling cities, cutting off escape routes and pounding the civilian population with heavy ordnance,” —- Jonathan Gimblett, a London-based lawyer who represents the Ukrainian government

** Just when you think the far left can’t get any more far-out, along comes their hot take on Ukraine: Our reaction, and all media coverage, is racist. Yes, even Vladimir Putin’s genocidal invasion of a peaceful neighbor, and the evolving threat of World War III, must be viewed through America’s racist past. How perverse. How narcissistic. But this kind of virtue-signaling is always in the service of self-regard. —- Maureen Callahan, New York Post

** Carl von Clausewitz famously asserted that war is the continuation of politics by other means. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the continuation of identity politics by other means. I don’t know about you, but I’ve found the writings of conventional international relations experts to be not very helpful in understanding what this whole crisis is about. But I’ve found the writing of experts in social psychology to be enormously helpful. That’s because Vladimir Putin is not a conventional great power politician. He’s fundamentally an identity entrepreneur. His singular achievement has been to help Russians to recover from a psychic trauma – the aftermath of the Soviet Union – and to give them a collective identity so they can feel that they matter, that their life has dignity. The war in Ukraine is not primarily about land; it’s primarily about status. Putin invaded so Russians could feel they are a great nation once again and so Putin himself could feel that he’s a world historical figure along the lines of Peter the Great. —- David Brooks, New York Times

Examiner – Bookkeeping:

$20.8B: The total estimated amount Americans will spend on Easter-related items.

$504,375: The selling price for samples of lunar dust collected by Neil Armstrong.

460,000: The number of Toyota and Lexus vehicles recalled to fix a safety issue.

292: The number of times a man saw Spider-Man: No Way Home, winning a record.

$61.83: The average price of an Easter basket, up more than 22% from 2019 due to inflation.

Examiner – Readers Comment:

I can’t entirely agree with everything I read in the LBN Examiner each week, but I have tremendous respect for its fearless independence and unbiased news and information. I don’t want only to read things I completely agree with. Bravo to the Examiner. Reading it, I believe, makes me more thoughtful and a better thinker. —- Leslie W., Denver, Colorado

Examiner – Lens:

Rapper Doja Cat made the red carpet her moment at the 64th annual Grammy Awards in a truly memorable, head-turning link. Doja Cat wasn’t afraid to highlight her assets, and even playfully cupped her cleavage while posing for some red carpet photos before the awards show.

Examiner – Investigates:

** Avoid mattress sales traps. READ

** Carjacking has made a resurgence in the U.S. over the past two years. Many of those arrested are startlingly young. READ

** The Road to Pleasure – How an experimental drug addressing a symptom of depression called anhedonia – the inability to feel pleasure – could usher in a new era of precision medicine in psychiatry. READ

** Avocados in Gangland – A look at the history of Mexico’s multibillion-dollar avocado industry and how it found itself in the middle of a bloody cartel turf war. READ

** Broken Windows in your business? www.BrokenWindowsBook.com

** Dogs’ extraordinary sense of smell is partially due to the number of olfactory receptors in their noses: they can have up to 300 million receptors, compared to a mere six million in a human nose.

“Intel for Influencers” – Who Reads the LBN Examiner?

Popular French writer Gilles Paris along with 12 members of the White House staff, 3 Nobel Prize winners, over 100 Academy Award winners, 6 U.S. Senators, and over 300 Grammy Award winners.

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Humans Can Fight off Viruses Simply by Breathing:

How hard is it for people to fight off a virus? Scientists at Harvard University say it’s actually as easy as breathing, literally. Their study reveals that the act of breathing generates immune responses that kill invading pathogens. In experiments, a “lung chip” that mimics the mechanical forces of breathing killed flu bugs. The discovery could lead to developing better medications for respiratory diseases, including COVID. “This research demonstrates the importance of breathing motions for human lung function, including immune responses to infection, and shows that our Human Alveolus Chip can be used to model these responses in the deep portions of the lung, where infections are often more severe and lead to hospitalization and death,” says co-first author Dr. Haiqing Bai from Harvard’s Wyss Institute in a university release.

The Story of ‘Jake The Three Headed Snake’:

In 1775, during the American Revolution, a diamondback rattlesnake appeared on a yellow flag which bore the words, “DONT TREAD ON ME”. 250 years later, a descendant of that snake is back in the public eye.

Meet “Jake The Three Headed Snake,” a fiercely independent and patriotic, red, white and blue diamondback rattlesnake from Snakeville, USA. Jake is handsome, smart and well-traveled. In addition to being multi-colored, Jake is multi-lingual and multi-racial – a diverse, inclusive melting pot of a snake. Did we mention he has three heads?

Yes, three heads. In addition to his main head, Jake has a Blue donkey head and a Red elephant head sticking out each side of his neck. Jake’s life is charmed, until the two other heads “malfunction.” The ensuing battle with the rogue Blue and Red heads takes a toll on Jake, almost costing him his life.

Through it all, Jake lands on his feet … or belly. And the whole episode teaches him many lessons about the importance of freedom and the dangers of government overreach. And with all the crazy stuff happening politically and with the media of late, Jake has brought back the old “family slogan,” as a reminder of whose country this is after all.

Visit Jake’s online T-shirt store at JakeTheSnake.shop, the home Certified 100% Authentic “Don’t Tread On Me!” gear! Read Jake’s whole story. Buy a T-shirt. Wear it proudly. Make a statement. Vote your mind!

Examiner – Reader Question:

Should there be a maximum age limit for serving in Congress?

Send your reply to: LBNExaminer@TimeWire.net

Let Barbara Garro Be Your Guide on Your Jesus Journey to Salvation:

I invite you to journey with me to grow in your relationship with Jesus. When you seek out Jesus, you find Him warm and loving towards you. Life doesn’t get any better than that! What’s more, you deserve Jesus Joy in your life!

Barbara Garro’s Story: Based in Saratoga Springs, NY, the Author, Artist, and Radio Show Host has created the 5 Minutes with Jesus Show Sunday–Thursday at 7:25 a.m. on Alive Radio Network. The show airs in NY, VT & MA on 97.3, 97.5, 94.7 FM & 1330 AM and focuses on 33 of Jesus’s Parables, using her four books: From Jesus to Heaven with Love: A Parable Pilgrimage; The Comfort of the Shepherd: Parable Prayer & Meditation; Living the Call of God; and Is Jesus Serious?

She holds her Bachelor’s of Science and Master of Arts degrees from State University of New York in addition to receiving professional certifications in her fields. By advertising your business as a 5 Minutes with Jesus sponsor, send checks/money orders to Alive Radio Network, 30 Park Avenue, Cohoes, NY 12047 or call 518-237-1330. Buy Barbara’s books by sending checks/money orders to Barbara Garro, 205 Regent Street, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866. barbaragarro.com

Examiner – A Different View:…

LBN Examiner Disclaimer: 1.) The LBN Examiner accepts no liability for the content of this email, or for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided. The LBN Examiner is not associated with any commercial or political organization and is transmitted via the web for the sole benefit of its subscribers. 2.) Unfortunately, computer viruses can be transmitted via email. The recipient should check this mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses.

PREPARE FOR ‘MASS-OVERDOSE’ EVENTS FROM FENTANYL, DEA WARNS POLICE NATIONWIDE:

The leading U.S. drug enforcement agency issued an unprecedented warning to law enforcement nationwide to brace for a spike in “fentanyl-related mass-overdose” deaths as Mexican cartels push the drug into the United States. The Drug Enforcement Administration sent a letter to federal, state, and local law enforcement departments nationwide, alerting officials they should prepare not only for deaths caused by fentanyl to rise but also for mass-casualty events in which a group of people dies as a result of knowingly or unknowingly overdosing. “Fentanyl is killing Americans at an unprecedented rate,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram in a statement. “Already this year, numerous mass-overdose events have resulted in dozens of overdoses and deaths. Drug traffickers are driving addiction, and increasing their profits, by mixing fentanyl with other illicit drugs. Tragically, many overdose victims have no idea they are ingesting deadly fentanyl, until it’s too late.” A mass-overdose incident occurs when three or more people overdose at the same place and time. These types of incidents have occurred in Austin, Texas; Washington, D.C.; Omaha, Nebraska; and other cities this year.

Nine Mass Shootings:

Many crime experts define a mass shooting as an event in which four or more people are shot. Last weekend, there were a shocking number of them – at least nine – across the U.S. Murders have risen more than 30% since 2019, recent data suggests. They are still far below the levels of the 1970s, ’80s and early ’90s but have reached the highest point in more than two decades. “We can’t endure this anymore, we just simply can’t,” Dan Gelber, the mayor of Miami Beach, said after two shootings led the city to impose a midnight curfew.

What explains the crime wave? There is no fully satisfying answer, but experts point to several plausible partial explanations. They include: Social isolation and frustration caused by the pandemic. A sense of lawlessness stemming from police violence (like the murder of George Floyd). Police officers’ timidity in response to recent criticism of them. And a rise in gun sales during the pandemic. Yet the crime wave seems both too broad and too distinctly American for any one of these factors to be a tidy explanation.

Examiner – Lens:

The body of a soldier, without insignia, who the Ukrainian, military claims is a Russian army serviceman killed in fighting, lies on a road outside the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine, February 24.

Glimpses of Afterlife? ‘Near-death’ Experiences aren’t Hallucinations, Scientists Conclude:

What happens when we die? It’s a question people have been asking throughout time and the answer is still a mystery. Now, a review of research exploring what people experience when they’re close to death leads scientists to one important conclusion – “near-death experiences” are a real thing, even if we can’t explain them. Countless people have claimed that their life “flashed before their eyes” or that they actually left their body and traveled somewhere else while close to death. Critics have called these experiences hallucinations or illusions, but researchers from NYU Grossman School of Medicine say something else is actually happening. The team of scientists across several medical disciplines – including neurosciences, critical care, psychiatry, psychology, social sciences, and humanities – have come up with a number of scientific conclusions after reviewing unexplained lucid episodes which involve a heightened state of consciousness.

The main finding is that these events don’t have much in common with the experiences someone has if they’re hallucinating or using a psychedelic drug. Instead, people who have a near-death experience typically report five different events taking place:

• A separation from their body with a heightened, vast sense of consciousness and recognition that they’re dying
• They “travel” to a different location
• A meaningful and purposeful review of their life, involving a critical analysis of all their past actions – basically, their life flashes before their eyes
• Going to a place that feels like “home”
• Returning back to life

Researchers note that the near-death experience usually triggers a positive and long-term psychological transformation in the person. The team notes that people who had negative and distressing experiences while near-death did not experience these kinds of events.

New York Times Updates Twitter Policy for Reporters:

The New York Times is updating its policies for how its journalists use Twitter, and is emphasizing that use of the social media platform is optional given the dangers of online harassment. In a memo to employees, Dean Baquet, the newspaper’s top editor, announced what he called a “reset in our approach,” handing down new guidance dictating that “maintaining a presence on Twitter and social media is now purely optional for Times journalists.”

Examiner – 20 Years – A Look At 2002

The LBN Examiner was founded on June 1, 2002, an incredible 20 years ago. Let’s take a look back at what was going on in 2002:

** On April 13, the Rock for the Rainforest benefit concert was held at Carnegie Hall, NYC; performers included: Sting, Elton John, James Taylor, Nina Simone, Smokey Robinson, Lulu, Patti Labelle, Ravi Shankar, Anoushka Shankar, Jeff Beck, Wynonna Judd, and Rebecca Del Rio.

Examiner – Lens:

Caetano Veloso, Brazil’s most celebrated musician. “I’ve always noticed the singularity of Brazil,” Veloso said. “I perceived a mission for us to take to the world.”

Examiner – Commentary by Nellie Bowles:

** BLM may be the biggest nonprofit scam of our generation: For a while, the Black Lives Matter organization and its allies were very good at getting people to do their bidding. They could bully journalists into ignoring the organization’s issues (being called racist is terrifying and not worth the scoop). They could convince social media companies to happily block critical commentary and reporting on the organization’s financial improprieties. Now, slowly, the truth is leaking out. We already know BLM used funds to buy an $6.3 million party house in Toronto, called Wildseed Centre for Art and Activism, which lists no public events. This week, thanks to a dogged freelance investigative reporter named Sean Kevin Campbell, we now know that Black Lives Matter also used nearly $6 million in donated money to buy a Los Angeles mansion. That’s Part One of the scam. Part Two, broken by the New York Post: They bought it from a friend who paid $3.1 million for it six days earlier. So they got themselves a party house with donated funds and kicked nearly $3 million of donor funds to a buddy. Who knows how the fat thereafter was split up. From the house, they posted a video of the leadership crew having fancy outdoor brunches. One founder, Patrisse Cullors, began a YouTube cooking show in the expansive kitchen. (After the story on their property came out, they took both videos down.) They called the holding company used to buy the house 3726 Laurel Canyon LLC, an address that can be shared since it was bought with tax-deductible charitable dollars. Patrisse Cullors took to Instagram to slam Sean Kevin Campbell, who is black, and to slam the outlet that published his reporting, New York Magazine, calling the piece a “despicable abuse of a platform.” She added: “Journalism is supposed to mitigate harm and inform our communities.” She said the house, which has a pool and a sound stage, “was purchased to be a safe space for Black people in the community.” It’s important not to forget how BLM leaders like Cullors raised these tens of millions: It was by chanting the names and showing the photos of dead black children.

** California’s math wars: In San Francisco, eighth grade Algebra is a Forbidden Course. Separating kids by math ability in eighth grade too often meant that white and Asian students were in the Algebra course, while black and Latino kids were in pre-Algebra. So the thinking was: Slow it all down, keep kids together by keeping them all together in pre-Algebra, and stop making high school calculus the primary goal for any of them. The debate over this practice is heating up as the whole state considers emulating San Francisco. Meanwhile, eighth grade math scores across the state are now at fifth grade levels. Smart analysis here from Freddie deBoer that points out what’s already happened in San Francisco: “Rich kids can always get Algebra or Calculus.” Their parents just pay for tutors. All that banning 8th grade Algebra does is knee-cap kids from poor Asian families. But here again: That’s the point.

** Oberlin College still owes that $31 million for smearing local bakers as racist: When a small local bakery, run by one family for five generations, caught a shoplifter in 2016, Oberlin college officials went nuts. The shoplifter was an Oberlin student who had used a fake ID and tried to steal two bottles of wine. The son of the bakery owner chased after the kid and apprehended him before police could arrive. The kid was black. The next day, hundreds of students gathered to protest the bakery. The school cut ties with the bakery. The shoplifter pleaded guilty, but it didn’t matter. Among the protestors was the college’s dean of students, Meredith Raimondo, who handed out a stack of flyers accusing the Gibsons of a long history of racial profiling. Even after the student pled guilty, one administrator wrote to Raimondo: “I hope we rain fire and brimstone on that store.” Raimondo wrote about wanting to “unleash the students” on a critic. Turns out, it’s a good bakery and apparently not racist. A court rejected Oberlin’s appeal and upheld the $31 million judgment against the college. Two of the bakery’s patriarchs died before the final judgment could come, which is a shame, but their names are cleared. Congratulations to Gibson’s Bakery.

Examiner – Did You Know:

Did you know that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was an occasional reader of the LBN Examiner throughout the years and even wrote us a couple of notes over the last decade?

Now you can invite your friends and family to sign up for free (if they’ve got the guts): www.LBNExaminer.com

IRS Chief: 53% of Agents Work from Home Full Time:

In testimony to the Senate Finance Committee, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said that over half of the agency’s employees work full time from home. Rettig said: “53% of the employees are in a full-time telework capacity. The rest of the employees either have a blended capacity or they are onsite.”

Examiner – Lens:

After 50 years, Francis Ford Coppola still isn’t finished with The Godfather – and it isn’t finished with him, either. Coppola made his bones with that crime epic, which won three Academy Awards, including best picture, made untold millions of dollars for Paramount Pictures and influenced a half-century of filmmaking in the process. But times have changed. It’s not like the old days. And yet The Godfather continues to age like a satisfied don sitting blithely in his garden. In efforts to preserve The Godfather for future generations, Paramount, Coppola and his colleagues at American Zoetrope previously worked together on repaired and revitalized versions of the film as recently as 15 years ago, in what was then billed as “The Coppola Restoration.”

Examiner – (Notable) Remarks:

** It feels like we’re stumbling into a world that is hard and serious and maybe brutal – and that, at least in the West, we don’t have any leaders who feel up to that challenge. —- Bari Weiss

** With every passing day, the war in Ukraine becomes a bigger tragedy for the Ukrainian people but also a bigger threat to the future of Europe and the world at large. There is only one country that might have the power to stop it now, and it’s not the United States. It’s China. If China announced that, rather than staying neutral, it was joining the economic boycott of Russia – or even just strongly condemning its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and demanding that it withdraw – it might shake Vladimir Putin enough to stop this vicious war. At a minimum, it would give him pause, because he has no other significant ally aside from India in the world now. —- Thomas L. Friedman, N.Y. Times

** China and Russia share some major interests. They both would like American influence to wane, so that they have a freer hand to dominate their regions and exert global influence. These shared interests help explain why Xi Jinping and Putin released a joint statement last month, professing their countries’ friendship and harshly criticizing the U.S. “Both share in the belief that the United States is determined to hobble the ascent of their countries,” Amy Qin, who covers China for The Times, told me. “And they have signaled a desire to see a world order in which Washington’s influence is far diminished.” But the China-Russia relationship also has its limits and tensions. The two countries compete for influence, in Asia and elsewhere, and have fundamentally different diplomatic strategies. China is trying to shape and lead the existing world order. “It benefits enormously from international stability,” Fareed Zakaria, the foreign-policy journalist, has pointed out. As The Times’s Thomas Friedman wrote, “Peace has been very good for China.” —- David Leonhardt, N.Y. Times

** Companies aren’t just complying with government sanctions imposed on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine. In many cases they’re going beyond what’s required. Last Friday, Shell bought 100,000 metric tons of Russian crude oil at a record discount, a fantastic bargain that would ordinarily be cause for celebration at the company. Not with blood being shed in Ukraine, though. On Tuesday, Shell’s chief executive officer, Ben van Beurden, apologized, even though the purchase didn’t violate sanctions. “We are acutely aware that our decision last week to purchase a cargo of Russian crude oil to be refined into products like petrol and diesel – despite being made with security of supplies at the forefront of our thinking – was not the right one and we are sorry,” he wrote in an extraordinary mea culpa. It’s not just Shell. The Yale School of Management maintains a running count of companies that have fully or partly suspended business with Russia, including such giants as Amazon, Apple, Hyundai and Volkswagen. As of Wednesday more than 300 companies were on the list. Russia can get by without some of them, such as Norwegian Cruise Lines, but it’s severely hampered by the exit of others, such as Visa and Mastercard. —- Peter Coy, N.Y. Times

CUT THE CRAP – THINK FREELY – BE INDEPENDENT – Read LBN Examiner:

“Fearlessly Independent” and “Unbiased” news and information since 2002. Now you can invite your friends and family to sign up for free (if they’ve got the guts): www.LBNExaminer.com

Examiner – Bookkeeping:

~$17,000: The cost of first-class suites on Singapore Airlines.

85%: The percentage of Americans who are expected to travel this summer.

5: The additional number of women who will appear on US quarters next year.

Examiner – Readers Speak:

Should the U.S. impose penalties on China if it continues to trade with Russia?

Examiner readers from all 50 of the United States and 26 foreign countries have spoken.

Examiner – Lens:

Jessica Simpson celebrates wearing a bikini: “I Gained and Lost 100-Lb. 3 Times.”

Examiner – Investigates:

** Intelligence officials say Russian state-sponsored hackers had access to Defense Department contractors, retrieved sensitive technologies and intellectual property. READ

** Scientists uncover a key mechanism for how the brain organizes memory in time; progressions of experiences are encoded in neural networks in the hippocampus. READ

** Knowable | Bob Holmes. Neuroscientists are beginning to more fully understand the effects of oxytocin, the so-called love hormone – and it’s much more complicated than previously believed. READ

** The first-ever 911 call in the United States happened on February 16, 1968, in Haleyville, Alabama. It wasn’t until 1999 that Congress directed the FCC to make 911 the universal emergency number for the United States for all telephone services.

** New York City has the rudest Uber riders. READ

“Intel for Influencers” – Who Reads the LBN Examiner?

Film director John Waters along with 12 members of the White House staff, 3 Nobel Prize winners, over 100 Academy Award winners, 6 U.S. Senators, and over 300 Grammy Award winners.

Now you can invite your friends and family to sign up for free (if they’ve got the guts): www.LBNExaminer.com

Wildly (Politically) Incorrect by George Vandeman:

** A UCLA official wishes for Justice Clarence Thomas to die: “no one wants to openly admit it.” Can you guess which official made this statement? If you guessed UCLA’s Race and Equity Director, you win.

** A Washington state school district encourages teachers to consider students’ race when dishing out punishments. This is called “culturally responsive discipline” factors. Supporters claim that it is a way to reduce racial disparities in disciplinary measures. Critics say that the new policy will result in harsher punishment for white students. Ya think?

** Does anyone want to guess what is happening to the phrase “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls” at Disneyland’s fireworks show? Disney parks are axing the gendered language “boys and girls.” Disney’s diversity and inclusion manager now says the greetings must be “Hello, everyone” or “Hello, friends.” I wonder when these Woke executives at Disney and every other company that has them are going to run out of things to change.

Examiner – Reader Question:

Should mentally ill homeless people be institutionalized?

Send your reply to: LBNExaminer@TimeWire.net

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Examiner – A Different View:…

LBN Examiner Disclaimer: 1.) The LBN Examiner accepts no liability for the content of this email, or for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided. The LBN Examiner is not associated with any commercial or political organization and is transmitted via the web for the sole benefit of its subscribers. 2.) Unfortunately, computer viruses can be transmitted via email. The recipient should check this mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses.

‘IT WAS OUR HAPPY PLACE’: FAMILIES CANCEL DISNEY TRIPS, ABANDON DISNEY+ OVER COMPANY’S WOKE IDEOLOGY:

Forty-year-old Stephen Knittel has been a Disney fan “since diapers.” His parents took him to Disneyland as soon as he could walk, he says, and he used his season passes to Disneyland California to take his five-year-old and two-year-old to the theme parks before COVID-19 shut down the country. When Disney parted ways with actress Gina Carano, he began to reconsider supporting the company. He became even more skeptical when Disney announced the film Turning Red, a movie that touches on themes of sexual maturation and puberty. (Disclosure: The Daily Wire has announced plans for children’s entertainment content.) But it was Disney’s stance on Florida’s bill banning classroom conversations on gender and sexual orientation for young children that pushed Knittel over the edge. “It saddens me to think that the magic that was part of my life (and my wife’s too) will not be part of theirs,” the Orange County, California, resident said of his children in an email to The Daily Wire, “because the only way we can effectively voice our opinion to a company like Disney is to refuse to do business with them.” “For us that means canceling Disney+, canceling Disney Movie Club, deleting Disney Insiders memberships, and boycotting any and all creative works put forth by Disney,” he continued. “I’m not sorry for our decision and can’t even pity a company for making such a poor decision when they have enough clout to do whatever the hell they want and this is the direction they’ve decided upon.”

Traffic Safety Crisis Marked by Spike in Hit-And-Run Deaths:

U.S. roads saw the largest increase on record in deaths per mile traveled in 2020, including a 26% increase in hit-and-run fatalities that outpaced the increase in overall deaths. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released the data earlier this month. Hit-and-run deaths have grown steadily in the last 15 years as a share of traffic deaths. Victims of hit-and-runs are also increasingly pedestrians and cyclists. In 2020, 69.6% of hit-and-run deaths were either pedestrians or cyclists, compared with 61.1% in 2006. Roughly one in four pedestrian deaths in 2020 was a hit-and-run. “The [hit-and-run] statistics are bad. But it’s all part of the larger problem of pedestrian safety. That’s a crisis,” Julia Griswold, a traffic safety researcher focused on pedestrians and bicyclists at the University of California-Berkeley.

ICE Force-Installed Suicide-Prevention App on Employees’ Phones:

ICE automatically installed a suicide prevention app on employees’ government-issued smartphones this week, staffers told The Washington Times, calling it a grim sign of just how far morale has sunk at the immigration agency. The app poses a series of questions designed to spot troubling mental health and spur awareness. In an email to employees, the acting deputy director at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement urged employees to report any colleagues they believe are disposed to take their own lives.

Examiner – Lens:

Local residents sit on a bench near a destroyed apartment building in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, March 25.

Positive Drug Tests in the Workplace Have Surged:

More people are going to work with a buzz in the U.S. now than in the last two decades, according to new data that says worker shortages and loosening restrictions have driven the increase. Nearly 4% of more than 6 million workers who were randomly urine tested in 2020 for marijuana use tested positive, a 50% increase over 2017. The data, from Quest Diagnostics’ annual drug-testing index, may reflect the fact that 10 more states have legalized marijuana since then, when recreational use was legal in eight states. Many companies have stopped random testing for marijuana and some states where pot is legal are not allowed to use test results in hiring decisions.

1950 Census Data Unveiled:

The U.S. National Archives yesterday released a batch of census records from 1950, shedding light on the life of more than 150 million Americans at the midpoint of the 20th century and after World War II. The records were kept private under federal rules, restricting public access for 72 years. The 1950 census is one of the last of its kind, with more than 20 detailed questions asked of every person. The data spans 6.4 million digitized pages and include names, ages, addresses, as well as answers to questions about ancestry, the kinds of toilets and kitchen sinks families had, and more. Census forms from later decades were eventually changed to ask fewer questions, with the 2010 census asking 10 and the 2020 census asking only nine. The detailed questions give historians and genealogists an unprecedented look at the personal dynamics, relationships, and sentiments of society at the time. About 26 million Americans living in 1950 are still alive, according to online genealogy platform My Heritage.

Examiner – 20 Years – A Look At 2002

The LBN Examiner was founded on June 1, 2002, an incredible 20 years ago. Let’s take a look back at what was going on in 2002:

** On April 11, an attempted coup d’état took place in Venezuela against President Hugo Chávez.

** On April 13, Pedro Carmona, interim president of Venezuela, resigned one day after taking office.

Examiner – Lens:

Dean Baquet, Executive Editor of the New York Times.

Examiner – Commentary by Nellie Bowles

** City crime keeps rising (even I’m getting sick of this item): Many who would like to suggest that the rise in crime is just a figment of some hypersensitive people’s imagination sound a lot like those insisting that inflation is really just a spike in greed. Often, it’s the same people making those spurious arguments. But the statistics speak for themselves. In New York, the stats from this week mirror what’s happening across the country and they are appalling. Rape in New York is up 31% from a year ago. Robbery is up nearly 45%. Grand larceny auto is up 94%. It would be great for solutions to start and fast. Here’s a little slice of life (h/t Emily Yoffe): Harvey Marcelin murdered a girlfriend years ago. While out on parole, Marcelin murdered another girlfriend. While out on parole for that murder, our killer, now 83, dismembered a woman, according to police who this week arrested Marcelin, who seemed to be in possession of the murdered woman’s head. (Oh, and the murderer now identifies as transgender. Welcome to women’s prison!)

** Sex, kids, and Florida: Rage continues to grow against what the left is calling Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. This week, it passed the Florida senate. The right has fully lost the messaging battle here. The thing does not, in fact, ban people from saying “gay.” What it does ban is elementary school teachers in kindergarten through third grade discussing gender identity and sexual orientation during class. The chyrons on Fox News that insist liberals are somehow trying to “groom” children are offensive and harken back to the homophobia of decades ago that insisted all gay people were pedophiles. At the same time, it is understandable that parents would want to teach their very young children about sexuality and gender in ways that work for them. The left does itself no favors by introducing five-year-olds to the idea that they can be any gender they feel and then being shocked that some parents might be a little upset over this.

Examiner – Did You Know:

** DID YOU KNOW? The LBN Examiner is read in all 50 of the United States and 26 foreign countries by independent thinkers who choose not to be part of an intellectual mob. Fearlessly independent and unbiased news and information since 2002.

Now you can invite your friends and family to sign up for free (if they’ve got the guts): www.LBNExaminer.com

Examiner – Bookkeeping:

> 161,692: The estimated pounds of Skippy Peanut Butter recalled because some jars may contain stainless steel from a piece of manufacturing equipment.

> 170: The number of times a Japanese robot jumped rope in a minute. Ricoh, an imaging and electronics company, won the Guinness World Record for most skips by a robot in 60 seconds.

Examiner – Lens:

Is the cinematic sex scene on the decline? Paul Verhoeven thinks so. In an interview with Variety late last year, the 83-year-old director of kinky classics like Basic Instinct (1992) diagnosed a “general shift towards Puritanism” in the movies, not to mention in the culture at large. (If this is the case, Verhoeven is surely not to blame; his latest film, Benedetta, set in a seventeenth-century Italian convent, features a copious amount of nun-on-nun love.) Others agree. John Cameron Mitchell, whose 2006 movie Shortbus revelled in depictions of unsimulated sex, recently decried “a certain sex panic in the air”; in Playboy, the writer Kate Hagen reports that the percentage of feature-length films depicting sex is at its lowest point since the 1960s.

Examiner – (Notable) Remarks:

** Many Americans, even in liberal places, seem frustrated by what they consider a leftward lurch from parts of the Democratic Party and its allies. This frustration spans several issues, including education, crime and COVID-19. Consider these election results from last year, all in politically blue places: In Minneapolis, voters rejected a ballot measure to replace the city’s Police Department with an agency that would have focused less on law enforcement. In Seattle, voters elected Ann Davison – a lawyer who had recently quit the Democratic Party because she thought it had moved “so far left” – as the city’s top prosecutor. Davison beat a candidate who wanted to abolish the police. In New York, voters elected as their mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who revels in defying liberal orthodoxy. As a candidate, Adams promised to crack down on crime. Since taking office, he has signaled his frustration with Covid restrictions. In the Democratic-leaning suburbs of both New Jersey and Virginia, Republican candidates for governor did surprisingly well. Several postelection analyses – including one by aides to Phil Murphy, New Jersey’s Democratic governor, who narrowly survived – concluded that anger over Covid policies played a central role. —- David Leonhardt, N. Y. Times

** Democracy has been on the decline worldwide for more than 15 years. One major reason is the growing ruthlessness of authoritarian leaders, particularly Russian President Vladimir Putin. Today, I will walk through how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine fits into the broader geopolitical trends of the past decade and a half. Putin has spent more than two decades consolidating power, rebuilding Russia’s military and weakening his enemies. He has repeatedly undermined democratic movements and popular uprisings, including those in Syria and Belarus. He has meddled in Western elections. And he has deployed Russian troops to enforce his will, including in Georgia and Crimea. —- German Lopez, N.Y. Times

** There are two clashing arguments about whether the threat of economic sanctions can be effective now in deterring Russian aggression in Ukraine. One is that sanctions against Russia following the 2014 invasion of Ukraine didn’t prompt any improvement in behavior, nor did sanctions promote good behavior when imposed against Cuba, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Venezuela. So it’s unrealistic to expect sterner sanctions to work against Russia this time. The contrary view is that sanctions would be effective now because they could cause real economic pain. It’s the Russians themselves, oddly enough, who have expressed this view most prominently. In 2014, Alexei Kudrin, a former finance minister who is close to President Vladimir Putin, said that cutting off Russia’s access to Swift, a bank messaging network that proponents of sanctions have contemplated using as leverage, could cause Russian gross domestic product to fall 5%. In 2019, according to the Moscow-controlled broadcaster RT, the prime minister, Dmitri Medvedev, said that cutting off Swift access would be regarded as virtually a declaration of war. After poking around this question for a couple of days I’ve concluded that the predictions of harm to Russia from a Swift cutoff are overblown, but sanctions can be at least somewhat effective. And even though sanctions are far from a perfect solution, they’re the only alternative to either armed conflict or acquiescence to Russian aggression. A war in Ukraine could be the biggest in Europe since 1945. —– Peter Coy, N.Y. Times

** Not long ago, Jerry Seinfeld shared one of his secrets to developing great comedy. “It’s a very scientific thing to me,” he said. “You run the experiment, then the audience just dumps a bunch of data on you. … Then it’s back through the rewrite process.” Seinfeld is not alone. “In Think Again”, I covered striking evidence that learning to think like a scientist improves your ability to learn. You start to see your opinions as tentative hypotheses waiting to be tested, and your decisions as experiments without a control group. You get faster at recognizing when you’re wrong and iterating to improve on your mistakes. —- Adam Grant, Wharton University

** Switzerland yesterday said it was departing from its usual policy of neutrality and freezing Russian assets in its banks, which many oligarchs use. The Biden administration, similarly, said that it was freezing the Russian central bank’s assets in the U.S. “The move on the central bank is absolutely shocking in its sweeping wording,” Adam Tooze, the director of the European Institute at Columbia University, told The N.Y. Times. —- David Leonhardt, N.Y. Times

BE CURIOUS – THINK FREELY – BE INDEPENDENT – Read LBN Examiner:

“Fearlessly Independent” and “Unbiased” news and information since 2002. Now you can invite your friends and family to sign up for free (if they’ve got the guts): www.LBNExaminer.com

Inflation Hits Another 40-Year High as Consumer Prices Surge to 7.5%:

Inflation ran red-hot again in January, with consumer prices surging to a fresh four-decade high of 7.5%, the feds. The latest spike – which jumped past economists’ expectations for a 7.2% jump – marked the highest annual increase since February 1982 for the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index, a closely tracked inflation gauge that details the costs of goods and services such as food, gas and rent. “Increases in the indexes for food, electricity, and shelter were the largest contributors to the seasonally adjusted all items increase,” the Bureau of Labor Statistics said in a release. On a monthly basis, consumer prices increased 0.6% compared to December, according to the BLS. The core Consumer Price Index, which excludes volatile food and gas prices, rose 0.6% in January and 6% over the last 12 months. The latest figures will only heighten scrutiny of the Federal Reserve’s plan to tighten monetary policy following a lenient approach during the COVID-19 pandemic. The central bank is expected to enact its first interest rate hike in more than three years in March, with several more hikes expected throughout the year as the Fed seeks to curb inflation.

Examiner – Readers Speak:

Should racial diversity be considered in Supreme Court appointments?

Examiner readers from all 50 of the United States and 26 foreign countries have spoken.

Examiner – Lens:

In January, Billie Eilish’s music reached a billion streams on Spotify.

Examiner – Investigates:

** Clinical trials suggest pegcetacoplan, a drug used to treat a rare blood disease, may slow the onset of age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of vision loss in older adults. READ

** Charting the age at which mothers have their children. READ

** VR headsets are causing insurance claims to spike. READ

** Not every moment is Instagrammable. READ

** Nevada man donates kidney, gets billed $13K. READ

“Intel for Influencers” – Who Reads the LBN Examiner?

Prominent historian Erin L. Thompson along with 12 members of the White House staff, 3 Nobel Prize winners, over 100 Academy Award winners, 6 U.S. Senators, and over 300 Grammy Award winners.

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Wildly (Politically) Incorrect by George Vandeman:

** Police are forced to protect a conservative debater at a Yale Law School free speech event. The students were screaming profanities at the debater. After being removed, they began to stomp, shout, clap, sing and pound on the walls. The protesters claimed that their actions were free speech, despite violating Yale policies regarding free speech.

** A Stanford doctor found out that someone had fraudulently listed her house on Airbnb. When she reached out to have the listing removed, she was offered the option to rent her own home.

** The recent $1.5T spending bill has $3M for a Gandhi museum in Texas; $1.6M for Rhode Island shellfish “equity;” $800,000 for artists’ lofts in California; $600,000 for Schumer’s greenhouse; $10B dedicated to 5,000 pet projects across the country and $570,000 to remove “derelict” lobster pots in Connecticut.

Examiner – Reader Question:

Should the U.S. impose penalties on China if it continues to trade with Russia?

Send your reply to: LBNExaminer@TimeWire.net

Tell Your Story in the LBN Examiner:

“The Best Promotional Deal on the Web”

Now YOU can tell YOUR unique story in the world-famous LBN Examiner – www.LBNExaminer.com – and communicate directly with LBN readers in all 50 of the United States and 26 foreign countries.

Amazing coverage with YOUR story, YOUR headline, YOUR photo and YOUR website. And then, of course, you can share this LBN story on all YOUR Social Media! And it’s really easy to do. Simply send your story (not to exceed 250 words) including a photo and link to: LBNExaminer@TimeWire.net. We will approve and run.

The cost is a mere $250 payable via PayPal or credit card. This is (by far) one of the best deals in the world of digital promotion and only available to LBN subscribers.

Examiner – A Different View:…

LBN Examiner Disclaimer: 1.) The LBN Examiner accepts no liability for the content of this email, or for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided. The LBN Examiner is not associated with any commercial or political organization and is transmitted via the web for the sole benefit of its subscribers. 2.) Unfortunately, computer viruses can be transmitted via email. The recipient should check this mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses.