Who Is Nathan Chen?

            My VIP for this week is Nathan Chen who is Chinese American. He was born and reared in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Chinese parents. He did not defect from America to skate for China like other Americans have done. In addition, he did well in his performances.

According to Joe Coles, Chen led the USA figure skating team to a silver medal and has taken a “big step towards an individual medal.” He “set the world record in the short program with score of 113.97, more than two points ahead of Yuzuru Hanyu’s former world record score of 111.82, set in 2020. 

            Having “skated with fire and intensity in his eyes,” Chen showed that he “knew his program was great right when it ended” by “pumping his fist.” He is currently in first place with his “virtually flawless” performance and will skate his final event on Wednesday, the men’s individual free skate.

I was elated. Last Olympics, both short programs didn’t go the way I wanted. Finally getting the opportunity to skate the programs in the way that I wanted, it feels really great. It means a lot.

Every opportunity that I get at competitors is one that I should be grateful for, especially the Olympics – that’s a completely different story…. I’m just really happy to be here.

            I am boycotting the Olympics because I do not think that they should have been awarded to China. China is responsible for developing COVID-19 and allowing it to spread to the entire world. They should be penalized, not rewarded. However, I will celebrate great performances by Americans.

Is Joe Biden Compromised with China?

            The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns the Biden family relationship with Communist China. Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis) is asking questions about this relationship. He was part of an earlier investigation into Hunter Biden and his international business deals. He now says that Americans need to receive a “full accounting of Biden Inc.’s financial entanglements” with China.

            More information about the Biden family entanglement with China can be found in Peter Schweizer’s newly published book, Red Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win. In his book, Schweizer wrote that the Biden family made $31 million in five deals with China. Fred Lucas wrote the following about the connection between the investigations being done by Johnson and the one described in Schweizer’s new book. 

In September 2020, Johnson, then-chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, then chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, issued a joint report on Hunter Biden’s international business deals in China, Ukraine, and Russia.

Pages 71-83 of the Senate report detail some of the same China deals that Schweizer writes about in his new book, including Hunter Biden’s involvement with the Chinese investment fund Bohai Harvest and with CEFC China Energy executives Ye Jiaming and Patrick Ho. “Our report uncovered a number of these financial entanglements years ago,” Johnson told The Daily Signal in a written statement Thursday.

Johnson said the senators knew that more information likely would emerge about the president’s son’s deals with figures linked to the Chinese Communist Party. He said: When Senator Grassley and I released our report in September 2020 revealing these extensive financial transactions between the Biden family and individuals connected to the CCP [Chinese Communist Party], we knew that information was just the tip of the iceberg. While more information about Hunter Biden’s questionable financial arrangements have come to light since our report, a full accounting of Biden, Inc.’s financial entanglements with the CCP has yet to be uncovered.

The joint Senate committee report showed that the youngest Biden received millions of dollars in wire transfers from foreign companies that U.S. authorities flagged for possible criminal activity.

“The records acquired by the committees show that Hunter Biden and his family were involved in a vast financial network that connected them to foreign nationals and foreign governments across the globe,” the report said.

It later added: “These connections and the vast amount of money transferred among and between them don’t just raise conflicts of interest concerns, they raise criminal financial, counterintelligence and extortion concerns.”

            Lucas continued by explaining that the Senate report stated that Biden Inc. used “holding companies, shell companies, and law firms” in their deals with companies in both Ukraine and China as well as with a Russian billionaire.

            Johnson and Schweizer are not the only investigators looking at Hunter Biden’s business deals. Lucas reported that Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss has been investigating Hunter Biden’s financial deals and tax issue since 2018. No one has shown any proof that the investigators are wrong in their findings. Lucas has more information, but the real question is, do we have a compromised President of the United States? 

How Was the Flood a Blessing?

            My Come, Follow Me studies for this week took me to Genesis 6-11 and Moses 8. According to the Old Testament Come, Follow Me – For Individuals and Families, the story of Noah and the Flood has inspired generations of people. However, people who live in the latter days should pay special attention to it. As Jesus Christ was teaching His followers how to watch for His Second Coming, He said, “As it was in the days of Noah, so it shall be also at the coming of the Son of Man” (Joseph Smith – Mathew 1:41). The words used to describe the days of Noah are the same ones used to describe our day – words such as “corrupt” and “filled with violence” (Genesis 6:12-13; Moses 8:28). The same is true of the story about the Tower of Babel and its description of pride, confusion, and division.

            The manual continued by telling us that such “ancient accounts are valuable” for several reasons. They teach us that “wickedness repeats itself throughout history,” but they also teach us what we should do about it. Noah “found grace in the eyes of the Lord” (Moses 8:27) even though he was surrounded by wickedness. Jared, his brother, and their families and friends “turned to the Lord and were led away from the wickedness in Babel” (see Ether 1:33-43). These familiar stories in our studies this week can teach us how to keep ourselves and families safe.

            Through Joseph Smith and the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, we have more information about Noah than is found in the Old Testament. Joseph Smith was inspired to translate Genesis 6 (found in Moses 8), which tells us that Noah was a great prophet of God. “He was ordained and sent forth to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, he walked and talked with God, and he was chosen to reestablish God’s children on the earth after the Flood.” (See also Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith [2007], 104, 201.)

            The manual tells us that Noah’s day was similar to our day in several ways. For example, the people rejected God’s servants (Moses 8:18, 20-21, 23-24); they were complacent and worldly (Moses 8:21); they had evil imaginations and thoughts (Moses 8:22), and corruption and violence were widespread (Moses 8:28). Here are a few quotes about Noah from the prophets and apostles of the latter days.

From the days of Father Adam to the days of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his successors, whenever the priesthood has been on the earth, a major responsibility has been the preaching of the saving, eternal principles of the gospel – the plan of salvation. Father Adam taught these things to his own children. (Moses 5:12.) Consider Noah’s long years of missionary effort and the preaching of all the ancient prophets. (Moses 8:16-20.) Each in his day was commanded to carry the gospel message to the children of men and call them to repentance as the only means of escaping the pending judgments” (Ezra Taft Benson, “Missionary Work: A Major Responsibility,” Ensign, May 1974, 105, as quoted in Pearl of Great Price Student Manual [2017]).

Noah, who built the ark, was one of God’s greatest servants, chosen before he was born as were others of the prophets. He was no eccentric, as many have supposed. Neither was he a mythical figure created only in legend. Noah was real….

Let no one downgrade the life and mission of this great prophet. Noah was so near perfect in his day that he literally walked and talked with God….

Few men in any age were as great as Noah. In many respects he was like Adam, the first man. Both had served as ministering angels in the presence of God even after their mortal experience” (Mark E. Petersen, Noah and the Flood [1982], 1-2, as quoted in Pearl of Great Price Student Manual [2017]).

So the Lord commanded Noah to build an ark into which he was to take his family and the animals of the earth to preserve seed after the flood, and all flesh that was not in the ark perished according to the Lord’s decree. Of course this story is not believed by the wise and the great among the children of men, any more than was Noah’s story in his day (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, comp. Bruce R. McConkie [1956], 3:39, as quoted in Pearl of Great Price Student Manual [2017]).

God destroyed the wicked of that generation with a flood. Why did He destroy them? He destroyed them for their benefit, if you can comprehend it (John Taylor, “Discourse,” Deseret News, Nov. 7, 1883, 658; see also “Discourse,” Deseret News, Jan. 16, 1878, 787, for President Taylor’s view of the Flood as an act of love; as quoted in Pearl of Great Price Student Manual [2017]).

            The above quotes tell us that Noah was one of the greatest prophets of God, one who walked and talked with Him. Noah was chosen before his birth to be a prophet of God, and several prophets knew about him long before his birth. Just as every person living on earth today is a descendant of Adam, we are also descendants of Noah.

            President Taylor said that the people in Noah’s day were destroy “for their benefit.” I have not read his discourse, but I can understand why his words are true. The people were so wicked that they had passed the point of repentance. The Flood benefitted them because death stopped their sinning. Their spirits were sent to spirit prison where they waited until Jesus Christ visited the righteous in spirit paradise. From among the righteous spirits, Christ organized missionaries to carry His gospel to the people in spirit prison. Those who accept Jesus Christ can begin to advance in their eternal lives. Those who reject the gospel are still waiting in prison.

            The Flood also benefitted us and all the people who have lived on earth since the time of Noah. Because wickedness was destroyed off the face of the earth, we had the opportunity to learn of the gospel of Jesus Christ and choose whether we would accept it. This would not have been possible in a world totally corrupted by wickedness.

Are Government Policies Causing a Decline in Marriage?

             Children who live with their married biological parents have greater opportunities to thrive and be successful than in any other type of situation. However, many couples do not marry for fear that they will lose their government assistance.

            Two experts on marriage and family believe that they have an answer to this problem. Brad Wilcox is an American Enterprise Institute visiting scholar and director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. Erik Randolph is director of research at the Georgia Center for Opportunity and author of a three-part series on how to reform welfare to address welfare cliffs and marriage penalties. 

            The Institute for Family Studies and the Georgia Center for Opportunity convened a focus group to gain greater understanding about “major family issues facing working-class Americans.” One of the participants said, “I chose not to marry. For one, I get a lot of assistance. I have a disabled child. So being if I did marry or put any other type of income in, I would not qualify for anything.”

            In their article, Wilcox and Randolph stated that the above comments “are indicative of one of the major issues that emerged in our focus groups across the nation.” The wrote, “Many of the parents gathered in those groups indicated that either they or family and friends had steered clear of marriage for fear of losing their government benefits, from Medicaid to childcare subsidies.” They continued with their explanation.

They are not alone. More than 1 in 10 unmarried Americans whose income falls below the median reported they were not married for fear of losing “access to government benefits,” according to a recent Institute for Family Studies/Wheatley Institution survey. These marriage penalties tend to hit hardest the working-class couples with children and household incomes between about $28,000 and $55,000. The research indicates that the penalties can amount to between about 10% and 30% of household income for many families in this income bracket.

            The authors believe that Republican governors can take steps to help parents “work to eliminate or minimize the marriage penalties that keep all too many parents from marrying. This is important because children are much more likely to thrive – to avoid poverty, flourish in school and steer clear of prison, for instance – when they are raised by their own married parents.” [Emphasis added.]

            Wilcox and Randolph laid much of the blame on federal policymakers for “the way Congress set up tax and safety-net benefits over the last six decades.” Congress fixed “many of the marriage penalties hitting upper-income families in 2017, [but] they have left penalties hitting lower-income families in means-tested programs like Medicaid and child care.” Only Congress has authority and power to change “some of the marriage penalties embedded in our social welfare programs.” However, there are some steps that state legislatures and governors can take to help, according to the authors.

Take some funding from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, which is designed to help lower-income families, to address this issue. After all, TANF was specifically designed to promote marriage, reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies and assist with the formation and maintenance of two-parent families, goals that have all too often been ignored by both the federal government and the states.

Because TANF is a block grant, states control how the money is spent within the program’s broad parameters. Governors could take advantage of this flexibility to direct its funding at the marriage penalty problem….

One way TANF funds could be used to promote marriage would be to provide a bonus to low-income couples with children under 5 who wish to marry. This bonus could be pegged to remedying the actual penalty they would incur by tying the knot….

Another way would be to let newly married couples with children continue to receive welfare benefits even after they marry for a full two years after they marry – so long as their total family income is not above the state’s median family income (about $79,000 across the country) ….

Another way states could minimize marriage penalties is by reforming their child care policies. Federal block grants subsidize child care for low-income families. These child care programs have some of the largest marriage penalties. States could fix this by doubling the income threshold for child care subsidies for married families with your children.

            The important thing to remember is, “Poor and working-class parents should not have to choose between seeking government benefits for their children and giving their children the benefit of two married parents." Children and families thrive when parents are married, and thriving families strengthen communities and nations.

Will Governments and Organizations Pay Attention to Study Results?

            Soon after COVID-19 came to America, members of the government told us to stay home for two weeks to “flatten the curve.” Then the lockdown was extended in most areas of the nation, and governments at all levels are using mandates to force people to curtail their employment and other activities.

            Two years have passed since the virus came to our shores, and added information is coming out. In January, Johns Hopkins University released a meta-analysis showing that mortality from COVID-19 in the United States and across Europe was reduced by 0.2%.

According to Laurel Duggan, the researchers analyzed several types of “lockdown measures,” including “school closures, business closures, bans on international travel and internal movement, and other non-pharmaceutical government mandates such as mask mandates.” She summarized the study as finding that “shelter-in-place orders were ineffective” because they reduced “mortality by only 2.9%.” The following quote comes from the study. 

While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social cost…. In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.

Lockdowns have limited peoples’ access to safe (outdoor) places such as beaches, parks, and zoos, or included outdoor mask mandates or strict outdoor gathering restrictions, pushing people to meet at less safe (indoor) places…. We do find some evidence that limiting gatherings was counterproductive and increased COVID-19 mortality.

            John Hopkins University is one of the schools that had fully remote classes for the fall 2020 semester. They urged their students to stay out of Baltimore before holding “partially in-person model in the spring 2021 semester.”

Duggan wrote, “The school still imposes a mask mandate, requiring two masks or a surgical-grade mask, despite nearly universal vaccination of students and staff, a booster shot, and a twice-weekly testing requirement.” She continued, “COVID-19-related school closures, government-imposed mask mandates, and restrictions on travel are still prevalent in the U.S. and internationally.”

Can White People Be Victims?

             The big news of this week is how Whoopi Goldberg showed her lack of knowledge. She often makes wrong statement on “The View,” but her mistake this week was a big one. The ladies on “The View” were discussing how a school board in Tennessee decided to remove “Maus” from the Holocaust unit taught to eighth graders. Goldberg did not comment that the school board was removing a graphic novel that won a Pulitzer Prize. However, she insisted that the Holocaust was not about race.

            Goldberg insisted that the Holocaust was not about race because the Nazis were “white people doing it to white people” (Jews). Joy Behar tried to make a correction by saying, “They considered Jews a different race.” However, Goldberg doubled down, “It’s not about race. It’s not about race…. It’s about man’s inhumanity to man. That’s what it’s about.”

            Ana Navarro then tried to correct the conversation, “But it’s about white supremacy. It’s about going after Jews and Gypsies.” Goldberg insisted, “These are two white groups of people…. You’re missing the point. The minute you turn it into race, it goes down this alley. Let’s talk about it for what it is. It’s how people treat each other. It’s a problem. It doesn’t matter if you are black or white because black, white, Jews, Italians, everybody eats each other.” Ben Shapiro, a practicing Jew, wrote about Goldberg’s outrageous statement here. Whoopi Goldberg Says Holocaust Wasn't About Targeting Jews. Wrong. (dailysignal.com)

The asininity cannot be overstated here. It is absolutely clear that the Nazis targeted Jews as a race; Adolf Hitler wasn’t exactly hiding the ball when he stated in “Mein Kampf”: “Is not their very existence founded on one great lie, namely, that they are a religious community, whereas in reality they are a race?”

Hitler repeatedly referred to the Jews as a race of parasites, and targeted Jews on the basis of ethnicity rather than religious adherence.

The question must be asked, then: What, precisely, did Goldberg think she was doing? The answer is that she believed she was upholding the intersectional theory of race and racism. That theory holds that society is structured in a hierarchy of victimized and victimizing groups; that groups that are disproportionately successful are victimizers, and that groups that are disproportionately less successful are victimized.

Jews are disproportionately successful; thus, they are white. And, intersectional theory posits, racism is not defined as a belief that any other race is superior or inferior to another; instead, racism means – as the Anti-Defamation League recently defined it – “the marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people.”

            According to the statement from Anti-Defamation League, Jews cannot be a victimized minority because they are white and successful. Goldberg’s statement was blatant and showed her ignorance, but it was similar to statements made by other leftists who declare that only people of color can be victimized. Anyone who studies history knows that the holocaust was all about race even though both the Nazis and the Jews are white.

Could a Biological Male Become the Next “Black Woman” Justice?

            I have written several times about the follies presented by President Joe Biden’s promise to nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court. His promise is blatant discrimination. Such a promise clearly tells all men and any woman other than black women that they need not apply. Only black women will be considered. This is unconstitutional.

            Biden’s promise is also unfair. It is unfair to all Americans who deserve to have the nominee be the person with the best qualifications. It is unfair to all the people who are told that they need not apply. It is also unfair to the person who will be nominated. Biden’s promise plainly tells that person that they are not qualified for the position unless affirmative action is applied. In other words, Biden is telling black women that he does not see them as qualified unless he makes the playing field uneven.

            There may be another reason why Biden’s promise can be dangerous to all women who seek to break the glass ceiling. Biden is striving for complete “diversity and equity.” He also supports transgenderism. Mario Diaz pointed out, “At least theoretically, the first black woman Supreme Court justice could be a biological male who self-identifies as a woman.” Biden has shown that he believes that males can be women. Diaz reminded his readers of Biden’s words when he appointed Dr. Rachel Levine to her position. 

Recall that the Biden administration celebrated with great pride the appointment of Dr. Rachel Levine, a biological male who transitioned in order to appear as a woman, as the “first female four-star admiral of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.”

This administration has also promised to change the long-standing definition of “sex” as biological male-female distinctions under Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 – which prevents sex discrimination in any educational program receiving federal funding – thereby undoing 50 years of women’s progress in this, its anniversary year.

So, yes, in the eyes of the new woke White House, a person who is male biologically can be a woman if they want to be. Males can be females. Period. There is no distinction whatsoever. Unchangeable “XX” and “XY” chromosomes in every cell of a person’s body don’t matter.

            This means that a biologically black man who thinks he is a woman could be considered as the next justice for the Supreme Court. This would be insulting for all women no matter their color. It would also put a justice on the Supreme Court who was mentally ill because no mentally healthy male would claim to be a woman.