A Preventive Care Roadmap for IBD

Hello. I’m Dr David Johnson, professor of medicine and chief of gastroenterology at Eastern Virginia Medical School and Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. 

I wanted to highlight a valuable new resource published in the July issue of the American Journal of Gastroenterology. It’s an update on the preventive care of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Kudos to the American College of Gastroenterology for assembling this panel of IBD experts, led by Dr Francis Farraye, to update the prior guidelines. 

This is essential reading for primary care physicians, gastrointestinal (GI) specialists, or anyone caring for patients with IBD. The guideline also includes a wonderful visual summary that can be used as a wall chart in your office, intake area, or clinical exam rooms, which I think you’ll find invaluable. 

I’ll touch on a few foundational points around vaccines, general screening and risk considerations, and then highlight the individual vaccine recommendations. 

General Vaccine Recommendations

The first foundational concept is that inactivated vaccines should be used for any patients with IBD who are on immune-modifying therapy or immunosuppressants. These vaccines often require multiple doses, such as the influenza vaccine, which should be administered annually. 

Second, vaccination history is key and should be part of your baseline intake for any patient newly diagnosed with IBD. This is important not only for the patient but also for their household contacts. 

Third, co-administration is both easy to perform and effective. For example, if a patient comes in for their annual influenza shot and hasn’t yet received their updated polyvalent pneumococcal vaccine, the two can be co-administered. Evidence shows compliance improves when these vaccines are administered in the GI office, although this may not always be possible. 

Risks and Screening Concerns

Patients with IBD have several notable baseline risks that must be considered. 

Infection risk increases with IBD, and we see mucosal disruptions rising when we initiate therapies, such as immunosuppressant steroids and biologics. Dysplasia related to either intestinal or colon disease is not discussed in this guideline, but they do delve into other key areas that really are deserving of our focus. 

Since cervical cancer is associated with human papillomavirus (HPV), the guidelines recommend that women who are 9-26 years of age should receive the HPV vaccine. For women with IBD on immune-modifying therapies, cytologic assessment for HPV should be initiated within a year of the beginning of sexual activity and if younger than 30 years. It should be repeated yearly for 3 years and then every 3 years thereafter, typically under the care of an obstetrician/gynecologist.

Skin cancer is another important concern. Melanoma is increased by approximately 35%-40% in this population, independent of the use of biologics or immunosuppressants. Although melanomas account for only about 1% of skin cancer diagnoses (the majority are squamous or basal cell carcinomas), they cause a disproportionately high number of deaths. 

Non-melanoma skin cancers are not related primarily to IBD but are associated with thiopurine use. This risk can persist even years after thiopurine discontinuation. 

All our patients with IBD should be counseled on skin cancer prevention. This should include yearly examinations by a dermatologist, including a total body inspection. Recommend the use of SPF clothing, including hats, and sunscreen, as well as modulating sun exposure. 

Patients with IBD may be at an increased risk for osteoporosis or osteopenia. The cytokines that drive IBD (ie, tumor necrosis factor alpha, IL-6, IL-1) increase osteoclastic activity and impede osteoblastic maturation. Patients also may be at an increased risk for vitamin D deficiency. Baseline screening for osteopenia is recommended, and then sequentially as the risk increases over time.

Screening for anxiety and depression should be incorporated. This is something that’s new to these guidelines, as research has shown it is more prevalent in those with IBD than the average population in the United States. Validated intake tools for identifying anxiety and depression are available. 

Sexual history is something not mentioned by this guideline but is worth our attention. Sexual disruption is significantly increased in this population, and making relevant referrals may be valuable. 

And of course, smoking cessation should be encouraged, particularly among patients with Crohn’s disease.

Individual Vaccines

The influenza vaccine is recommended for all patients with IBD, although the intranasal form should be avoided in patients who are on biologics or immunosuppressants. However, even if they’re on any of those immune-modulation therapies, they should receive the influenza vaccine annually.

It is also recommended that they be vaccinated against COVID-19, per the current recommendations from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Pneumococcal vaccination is recommended for all patients older than age 50 and also for those 14-49 years of age who are on any type of immunologic therapy, as pulmonary infections tend to be more severe in patients with IBD.

While respiratory syncytial virus vaccination is recommended for patients with IBD if they’re older than 75 years or are receiving immune therapy, this guideline basically says all eligible patients with IBD should receive it.

Herpes zoster vaccination is recommended for all patients 19 years or older who are on immunomodulators and for all patients older than 50 years of age with IBD. Because this is an inactive vaccine, patients who are immunocompromised do not need to wait 6 months for their second vaccine. The interval can now be shortened to 1-2 months after the first dose. 

Adults with IBD should be evaluated for varicella infection (chickenpox). Immune testing is not recommended due to the high false-negative rates. If they have a well-documented history of chickenpox, you can still prescribe the vaccine. You do not have to wait if they are on immunomodulators.

The guidelines recommend that children with in-utero exposure to biologic therapy be offered a live rotavirus vaccine within the first 8 months of delivery. Patients who are immunologically suppressed should avoid direct contact. All contacts should thoroughly wash their hands after changing the diapers of infants who received the vaccine. This is because shedding may occur for at least a month after the last dose.

Other standard vaccines, including hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and tetanus, are also recommended. 

All adults with IBD should receive Tdap vaccination. Pregnant women should receive Tdap between the 27th and 36th week of each pregnancy. This is because the passive maternal antibody produced by vaccination is important to the fetus, protecting against pertussis in the first 0-2 months of life. 

Optimized Care

These preventive care measures should become a standard part of your IBD assessment. They should be a part of your routine questions, not only for patients but also for their household contacts. 

Take advantage of the helpful wall chart included with your mailed copy of the American Journal of Gastroenterology. Put it up in your office, where it can serve as an invaluable resource.

Most importantly, review this guideline in detail. It’s critical reading that will allow you to take steps forward in optimizing the care of your patients with IBD. 

I’m Dr David Johnson. Thanks for listening.

David A. Johnson, MD, a regular contributor to Medscape, is professor of medicine and chief of gastroenterology at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia, and a past president of the American College of Gastroenterology. His primary focus is the clinical practice of gastroenterology. He has published extensively in the internal medicine/gastroenterology literature, with principal research interests in esophageal and colon disease, and more recently in sleep and microbiome effects on gastrointestinal health and disease.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/preventive-care-roadmap-ibd-2025a1000nkr

“Prove me Wrong”: Charlie Kirk’s Final Challenge on Free Speech

 Yesterday, the United States entered a new and chilling stage of what I have called the “age of rage.” After two attempted assassinations of President Donald Trump, leading conservative leader Charlie Kirk, father of two, was gunned down at a campus event at Utah Valley University. I learned the news while I was in Prague to speak on my book,“The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” and the growing attacks on free speech around the world. I never imagined that I would be speaking about Charlie’s murder and what it represents for free speech.

I cannot claim to have been a close friend of Charlie Kirk, but I knew him and respected him. In his relatively short life, Charlie energized a generation of conservative college students at a time of intense liberal orthodoxy and intolerance.

Kirk came up with the brilliant idea of challenging liberals to simply debate issues from abortion to immigration.  His group would go to campuses and invite debate with signs reading “prove me wrong” and encourage liberals to engage in dialogue rather than violence.

The left had particular reason to hate Kirk.  Campuses have long been the bastions of the left, reinforced by faculties which now have few, if any, conservatives or Republicans. Higher education has long been an incubator for intolerance; shaping a generation of speech phobics who shout down or attack those with opposing views.

Kirk struck at the heart of that power base. Polls show that most students do not feel comfortable speaking about their values in our universities and many conservatives hide their views to avoid retaliation from faculty and students.

Kirk was changing that but showing students that they could be open and bold about their views. He told them that they did not have to yield to orthodoxy and the groupthink. Now he’s dead.

What is most chilling about the murder of Charlie Kirk is that it was not in the least surprising. Not anymore.

The response to TPUSA was all too often rage and violence. Liberals and anti-free speech groups like Antifa would trash their tables and threaten the students. Recently, at UC Davis, police simply watched as a TPUSA tent was torn apart and the tent carried off.

Violent speech has long been acceptable on campuses so long as it targets conservatives. Teachers have called for others to “take out” Trump supporters and for the Secret Service to assassinate him.

University of Wisconsin Professor José Felipe Alvergue, head of the English Department, turned over the table of College Republicans supporting a conservative for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. He reportedly declared, “The time for this is over!”

At universities, professors have called for “detonating white people,” denouncing police, calling for Republicans to suffer,  strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservative protesters, and supporting the  attempted assassination of President Trump. One professor who declared that there is “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence as killing conservatives was actually promoted.

At Hunter College in New York, Professor Shellyne Rodríguez trashed a pro-life display of students, telling the students that “This is bulls–t. This is violent. You’re triggering my students.”

When the students tried to engage the professor and apologized for upsetting her, Rodríguez yelled, “No you’re not — because you can’t even have a f–king baby. So you don’t even know what that is. Get this s–t the f–k out of here.” In an Instagram post, she is then shown trashing the table.

Hunter College, however, did not consider this unhinged attack on students to be sufficient to terminate Rodríguez. It only fired her after she later chased reporters with a machete. She was then hired by another college. She was shown in a later rally exciting the group with references to “slitting the master’s throat.”

At the University of California Santa Barbara, they did not even bother to fire a professor who pleaded guilty to assaulting pro-life students on campus.  Professors actually rallied around feminist studies associate professor Mireille Miller-Young. She was later honored as a model for women advocates at the University of Oregon.

In my book, I detail prior “ages of rage,” including periods of political violence by anarchists, socialists, and other groups. I previously warned that we were not only following this same trajectory, but it was accelerating. The reason is the curious nature of rage:

“What few today want to admit is that they like it. They like the freedom that it affords, the ability to hate and harass without a sense of responsibility. It is evident all around us as people engage in language and conduct that they repudiate in others. We have become a nation of rage addicts; flailing against anyone or anything that stands in opposition to our own truths.

Like all addictions, there is not only a dependency on rage but an intolerance for opposing views. The difference between rage and reason is often one’s own views. If one agrees with the underlying grievance, rage is viewed as passion or justified fury at injustice. If one disagrees with those views, it takes on a more threatening and unhinged quality. We seem to spend much of our time today raging at each other. Despite the amplification of views on both sides, there is also an increasing intolerance for opposing views. Those views are treated as simply harmful and offensive—and, therefore, intolerable. Indeed, to voice free speech principles in a time of rage is to invite the rage of the mob.”

That addiction to rage has now claimed another victim who had the audacity to speak boldly and openly about his conservative views. What will follow will be the usual perfunctory expressions of sympathy and denouncing of violence by the very politicians who have fueled the rage.

In recent months, some of us have warned Democratic politicians about their violent rhetoric. House Minority Leader Hakeem  Jeffries (D., N.Y.) has called for people to take to the streets to save democracy and posted a picture brandishing a baseball bat.

Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison, now the Minnesota attorney general, once said Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump. Liberal sites sell Antifa items to celebrate the violent group.

California Governor Gavin Newsom declared, “I’m going to punch these sons of bitches in the mouth.” It follows other violent rhetoric from Democratic leaders.

One House member explained to Axios, “Some of [our supporters] have suggested … what we really need to do is be willing to get shot.” Yet another admitted that constituents have told them to prepare for “violence … to fight to protect our democracy.” Others reported that liberals are talking about the need “to storm the White House and stuff like that.”

In one encounter, a lawmaker recounted that “I actually said in a meeting, ‘When they light a fire, my thought is to grab an extinguisher’. And someone at the table said, ‘Have you tried gasoline?’”

Some have. Protesters are burning cars, dealerships, and even lawyers and reporters on the left are throwing Molotov cocktails at police. We have also seen a massive increase in attacks on ICE officers, who are now covering their faces to avoid doxxing or retaliation against themselves or their families. The left has rolled out guillotines and chanted “We got the guillotine, you better run.”

Just before he was shot at Utah Valley University, Kirk rallied the group with its signature chant of “prove me wrong.” The response was to kill Charlie Kirk.

His death could succeed in forcing the thousands of conservative and libertarian students back into the shadows of our campuses and classrooms. We cannot allow that to happen. Charlie Kirk challenged not just the left to debate but the right to be heard in higher education.

Yes, this is an age of rage. However, amidst the rage and the violence, there are a special few who have defied the threats and the attacks. The writer George Bernard Shaw once said that unreasonable people expect the world to conform to them. He then added that that was why all history is made by unreasonable people.

Kirk was one of those wonderfully unreasonable people who refused to yield; refused to be silenced. Despite unrelenting attacks by the media and the establishment, he remained undeterred and unbowed. Students need to remember not how Kirk died, but why he died. His loss is Charlie’s final challenge to all those today wringing their hands and muttering the usual expressions of shocked regret. Kirk would likely say, “prove it.” Speak. Defy those who spend their time silencing others rather than speaking themselves. If you want to honor Charlie Kirk, speak out, speak boldly on both the right and the left. Prove them wrong.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of the best-selling “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

https://jonathanturley.org/2025/09/11/prove-me-wrong-charlie-kirks-final-challenge-on-free-speech/

The Blow by Blow: Kennedy Ambushed in a Game of Dirty Politics

 by Maryanne Demasi

Last Thursday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr entered, the Senate Finance Committee hearing knowing what to expect. Democrats had declared war before he’d even sat down.

On the eve of his testimony, they issued a “report card” cataloguing every alleged misstep during his 203 days as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).

From his shake-up at the CDC to the fact that he once wore jeans on a hike in the blazing Arizona sun — supposedly defying CDC advice to “wear loose, lightweight clothing” in extreme heat — nothing was too trivial to mention.

And, if that wasn’t enough, more than a thousand current and former HHS employees had signed a petition demanding his resignation.

For just under three hours, Senators from both parties shouted, interrupted, hurled insults and staged “gotcha” moments…it was an ambush.

The Opening Trap

Operation Warp Speed dominated the early exchanges. Senators pressed Kennedy on whether Donald Trump deserved a Nobel Prize for pushing vaccines out at record speed.

“Absolutely,” Kennedy said. “It was an unprecedented achievement.”

Then, hoping to catch Kennedy in a contradiction, they challenged him on whether the vaccines saved “millions of lives.”

Kennedy refused to put a number on it. “I don’t think anybody knows that because of the data,” he said, pointing out that the figures were based on modelling, not clinical trials.

The panel accused him of being evasive.

Demands without Data

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) came out swinging, alleging Kennedy had broken his promise not to “take vaccines away from anyone” by narrowing Covid booster recommendations to high-risk groups.

Kennedy held firm. “It’s not recommended for healthy people.”

“You are effectively denying people vaccines,” Warren snapped.

“I’m not taking them away from anybody,” Kennedy shot back. “You want me to indicate a product for which there is no clinical data? Is that what you want?”

Warren lost her composure. “You clearly are taking away vaccines. You’re putting America’s babies’ health at risk, America’s seniors’ health at risk, all Americans’ health at risk, and you should resign.”

The exchange exposed the mindset in the room…Senators spoke of vaccines with a kind of zealotry and religiosity that was deeply unnerving.

They were openly demanding that people be injected with a product lacking safety data, and calling it “science.”

Further, framing it as a matter of “denying access” to Covid vaccines was not only misleading but conniving. The vaccines remain available off-label to anyone who wants them.

Kennedy refused to yield. Recommending products without evidence, he said, is politics, not science.

Across Europe and Australia, governments have already pulled back, limiting use of the shots in under-18s without controversy. In the US, unfortunately, alarmism continues to drown out reason.

Many countries already restrict Covid-19 vaccination to select groups DOI: 10.1056/NEJMsb2506929

The Insults Fly

As tempers escalated, so did the insults. Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) flatly accused Kennedy of spreading “lies.”

Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) sneered, calling him a “charlatan” after cancelling $500 million in mRNA contracts.

Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) branded Kennedy “a hazard to the health of the American people,” demanding his resignation.

And Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) warned that Kennedy was “dead set on making it harder for children to get vaccines and that kids are going to die because of it.”

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) thundered that professional associations like the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, all agreed that vaccines were “safe and effective.” How dare Kennedy doubt them.

Kennedy shot back, “There’s a big difference, Senator, between established science and the scientific establishment, which has been co-opted by the pharmaceutical industry.”

He reminded Sanders that his advisers included Marty Makary, Vinay Prasad, Jay Bhattacharya and Dr Oz — scientists willing to challenge orthodoxy.

But Sanders scoffed at his “few advisers,” insisting the consensus from big associations carried more weight.

That gave Kennedy his opening. “Senator, you’ve sat in that chair for how long? Twenty, twenty-five years, while the chronic disease in our children went up to 76 percent, and you said nothing. You never asked the question why it’s happening.”

Kennedy had turned the accusation back on the Senate itself…guardians of institutions who had watched chronic disease spiral while doing nothing.

The Monarez Dispute

Much of the drama circled back to Susan Monarez, the ousted CDC director who claimed in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that Kennedy pressured her to “preapprove” the recommendations of his newly overhauled vaccine advisory panel (ACIP).

“No, I did not,” Kennedy insisted.

Asked outright if Monarez was lying, Kennedy replied: “Yes.”

He added: “These changes were absolutely necessary adjustments to restore the agency to its role as the world’s gold standard public health agency.”

Monarez resisted firing senior officials who opposed the new Terms of Reference for ACIP’s Covid vaccine work group — including Dr Demetre Daskalakis, who openly acknowledged in his resignation letter that he would not sign off on them.

ACIP in the Crosshairs

Another flashpoint was Kennedy’s June decision to fire all 17 members of ACIP, the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee.

Democrats accused him of stacking the panel with “antivaxxers,” “conspiracy theorists” and “non-experts,” claiming it had “lost scientific credibility.”

Asked why he appointed Dr Robert Malone, who had publicly raised questions about the safety of mRNA vaccines, Kennedy replied: “Dr Malone is one of the inventors of the mRNA vaccine.”

Senators pressed Kennedy about MIT professor Retsef Levi, who chairs the new Covid vaccine work group and has argued that “evidence is mounting and indisputable that mRNA vaccines cause serious harm, including death, especially among young people.”

Kennedy backed Levi. “I think that’s true, yes.”

He argued that ACIP had long been riddled with conflicts of interest. “What we did is we got rid of the conflicts,” he explained. “We depoliticised it and put great scientists on it from a very diverse group.”

He reminded senators that Harvard epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff, now chair of the new ACIP, had been removed during Covid after opposing mandates and questioning boosters. That, Kennedy said, was the real politicisation.

The Protocols Farce

The hearing tipped into absurdity when Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) zeroed in on the forthcoming autism study, fixating on the “protocols” (the standardised plans scientists make public before a study begins).

“Will you commit to sharing the protocols?” Luján demanded.

“They’re public,” Kennedy replied.

“Will you commit to giving them to this committee by the end of the week?” Luján pressed.

“That’s not the way it works…You don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Kennedy shot back, visibly frustrated.

But Luján wouldn’t let go.

“Will you commit to sharing those protocols by the end of the month?” he asked again.

“Anybody can get a hold of the protocol,” Kennedy repeated. “It’s published with the study.”

By now, the spectacle had turned embarrassing. Luján, blinded by his contempt pushed further still — calling on the chairman to subpoena the very documents Kennedy had just explained were already public.

Fortunately, Chairman Mike Crapo (R-ID) shut Luján down with a firm “no.”

The exchange was excruciating. It was a textbook example of a Senator desperately seeking a “gotcha” moment, and only succeeding in embarrassing himself.

Kennedy Fights Back

When Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) asked whether Covid had been politicised, Kennedy didn’t hesitate.

“Yeah, the whole process was politicised,” he said. “We were lied to about everything. We were lied to about natural immunity. We were told again and again the vaccines would prevent transmission, they prevent infection [but] it wasn’t true. They knew it from the start.”

At one point he declared that the CDC “is the most corrupt agency in HHS.”

Kennedy added that the CDC let the teachers’ union dictate school closures, pretending it was “science-based,” while Americans suffered the fallout.

It was a sharp reminder of just how much the establishment had got wrong, and how little accountability there had been.

The Battle Lines

By the close, even with a handful of Republicans backing him, Democrats pressed relentlessly for Kennedy’s resignation.

But Kennedy did not buckle. He defended his firings as essential to root out corruption. He stood by his advisers and insisted he would not recommend products without evidence.

What the hearing revealed was not Kennedy’s weakness but the desperation of his critics — Senators clinging to captured institutions, hurling insults and posturing for the cameras.

I watched in disbelief, exasperated by the childishness and the sheer dishonesty on display. For all the talk of “science,” what unfolded was politics at its dirtiest.

https://brownstone.org/articles/savages-in-the-senate-kennedy-ambushed-in-a-game-of-dirty-politics/

The 9/11 Nightmare Never Ends

 

By J.B. Shurk

One of the nightmares that periodically jolt me awake is the image of an American jumping from the inferno-ravaged upper stories of New York’s World Trade Center into the dust-plumed streets below.  He is tormented and maybe praying and then gone.  More than anything else, that horror from 9/11 haunts me.  

In the first few years after the Islamic terror attack, news programs would replay some of those desperate moments caught on video, when workers trapped between floors of fire were forced to make a final decision about how they would die.  Many of the videos showed pairs (co-workers, friends, strangers?) holding hands as they leaped from billowing smoke into the bright sunlight of that Tuesday morning, their bodies clearly visible against the blue sky before vanishing into the grayness below.

As the years went by, those videos disappeared.  Even during the annual memorials for 9/11, the sight of Americans falling from the sky was gradually obscured in the historical record.  When I finally noticed those erasures, I realized that the significance of the Islamic attacks on the United States was being rewritten in real time.  People who had the means to shape public “narratives” no longer wanted Americans to relive the agony of 9/11.  They did not want us to reflect upon the horror of Americans being forced to choose between dying from flames or a thousand foot drop onto city streets.  They wanted us to forget.

I was in favor of the post-9/11 wars because I naïvely believed that Western civilization was finally prepared to defend itself from the barbarians at the gate.  After 9/11, Americans generally agreed about two things: (1) We were in a civilizational war, and (2) militant Islamists were our enemies.  President Bush defined America’s military response to the attack as a “crusade.”  For a while, it felt as if Western civilization would fight for survival.

That feeling did not last.  In hindsight, even our government’s designation of the conflict as a “Global War on Terrorism” indicated early on that American leaders were not prepared to defend Western civilization from Islamic jihad.  “Terrorism” is a nebulous and dangerous word.  It is nebulous because almost anything can be described as an act of terrorism.  It is dangerous because almost anyone can be described as someone else’s terrorist.  

During the Obama and Biden presidencies, the federal government redirected resources from the “war on terrorism” abroad to target political conservatives here at home.  After the January 6, 2021, protest against election fraud at the U.S. Capitol, the federal government and the entire corporate news media described Trump supporters as “domestic terrorists.”  I would argue that broadcast news anchors used more pointed rhetoric to attack MAGA voters than they did to describe Osama bin Laden’s followers after 9/11.  

Ultimately, the “Global War on Terrorism” — at first painted as an operation to preserve Western civilization and eliminate Islamic supremacists — transformed into an operation to strengthen Islamic civilization’s grip on institutions of power inside the West and to eliminate defenders of Western civilization by defaming them as bigots.  Men and women who fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Levant, and parts of Africa went to war for many reasons.  However, the vast majority were dedicated to defending Western civilization, not surrendering it.

It was astonishing how quickly the defense of Western civilization collapsed after 9/11.  Before President Bush even left office, government and cultural institutions had already transitioned from actively encouraging American citizens to be vigilant against potential acts of Islamic terrorism to actively condemning American citizens for being “Islamophobic.”  

During the Democrat primaries leading up to the 2008 general election, Barack Obama regularly attacked Hillary Clinton for her vote in favor of the Iraq War.  By the time Obama took office, the corporate news media had already begun framing U.S. military engagements overseas as imperial occupations carried out by American “oppressors” against “oppressed” adherents of Islam. 

Once again, the Marxist dialectic was in full force: Americans bad; everyone else good.  Or more generally: Western civilization bad; multiculturalism good.  The election of Barack Hussein Obama two years after the execution of Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity marked a watershed in the GWOT.  Obama wasn’t elected just because he appeared to be the anti-Bush.  He was elected because his very name repudiated the civilizational defense of the West that had begun after 9/11.  Following the rise of Obama and the emergence of a politically correct war on “Islamophobia,” warriors wondered aloud, “What the hell are we fighting and dying for?”

Those who clearly remember this transition in public policy will recall two events that occurred during the first decade after the 9/11 Islamic terror attacks.  

The first one involved an unknown and mediocre intellectual named Ward Churchill, who was a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder until his dismissal in 2007.  Churchill wrote an essay one day after 9/11 in which he argued that the Islamic attacks were justified.  Framing the murder of 3,000 Americans as a legitimate military operation against American imperialism and describing the Americans who had worked in the World Trade Center as “little Eichmanns” who deserved their fate, Churchill blamed innocent Americans for the acts of Islamic murderers.  

When his work gained widespread attention a few years later, Americans were furious.  The backlash against Churchill was so intense that the University of Colorado Board of Regents publicly apologized and eventually fired Churchill for unrelated acts of academic misconduct.  Yet it is highly unlikely that he would have suffered any consequences today.

Another event worth remembering was the effort to build a mosque and Islamic community center just two blocks away from the World Trade Center.  The developers claimed to be interested in “interfaith dialogue,” but the construction of a mosque so near the 9/11 terror attacks in Lower Manhattan offended Americans across the country who saw it as a symbolic act of civilizational conquest.  Although public outrage forced investors to shelve the project’s original blueprints for a “Ground Zero Mosque,” plans for an Islamic cultural museum continue to this day.

With Muslim Zohran Mamdani most likely taking the mayor’s office in New York City in January, there is every reason to believe that developers will finally be able to implement more of their vision for the original “Ground Zero Mosque.”  When they are done, a building reflecting classic Islamic designs will cast its shadow near the mass gravesite of Americans murdered on 9/11.  When that happens, warriors who risked their lives all over the world to fight Islamic terrorism will be forced to swallow a hard pill: We came.  We saw.  They conquered.

A few years ago, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar minimized the significance of 9/11 and portrayed Muslims as the real victims.  “Far too long we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen,” she told the Council on American-Islamic Relations in 2019, “and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it…CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.”

In an America where a member of Congress describes 9/11 as a time when “some people did something,” it is clear that Ward Churchill would never be fired today.  He would probably be promoting his latest book on the evils of America.

Islamic mayors are winning elections all over Europe and America.  A Michigan police department recently designed a patch written in Arabic.  The World Economic Forum might as well revise its promise to Westerners: You will own nothing and become Muslims.  

The 9/11 nightmare never ends.  Western civilization is in retreat.  We must awaken from our sleep.  The West is worth saving.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/09/the_9_11_nightmare_never_ends.html

A few simple comparisons between how media and other Democrats report on Mamdani, Kirk, Trump

 

By Jack Hellner

For ten years, the media and other Democrats have called Trump, and by extension Charlie Kirk, a fascist, “Hitler,” a racist, a transphobe, and a dictator, no matter what he does. Almost everything Trump does is called “controversial,” no matter how normal and popular the policy is.

Mandami wants government control of almost everything, and yet the media and other Democrats do not call him a fascist, dictator, or compare him to Hitler, even though those are things that a fascist and dictator would do. Instead of referring to his views as controversial, they try to normalize them.

Trump and Kirk want the power, money, and freedom to reside in the private sector, not in the government’s grip. That is the opposite of what a fascist and dictator would do.

Mamdami believes that the government should control the money, not the private sector. He wants to limit wealth.

Trump and Kirk want everyone to have an opportunity to thrive because of capitalism.

Mamdani wants more people to depend on the government for survival. He wants to hold people down with socialism.

Trump and Kirk want a secure border by enforcing laws that Congress passed. That is not controversial and saves lots of people from death, reduces the power of evil cartels, and reduces the chance that children and women are trafficked, raped, and abused.

Mamdani supported the open border policies of Biden and as far as I can tell, like most of the media and other Democrats, never said a word about all the children lost, killed, or abused because of those open borders.

Trump and Kirk believe cities and states should comply with federal immigration laws. That should be considered common sense, not controversial.

Mamdami believes that federal laws are optional for sanctuary cities and states.

Trump and Kirk believe the way to keep streets safe is to keep career criminals and dangerous mentally ill people off the streets.

Mamdani believes in cashless bail and has supported laws, prosecutors, and judges who repeatedly release dangerous career criminals to terrorize and harm the rest of us.

Summary: The freedom and prosperity pushed by Trump and Kirk have made the U.S. the wealthiest country in the world, making it a dream destination for people all over the world. It wasn’t Mamdani’s socialism that made it this way. Yet, the media will lie and scheme and deceive, because they are co-conspirators with the Democrats in the plot against this great nation.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/09/a_few_simple_comparisons_between_how_the_media_and_other_democrats_report_on_zohran_mamdani_charlie_kirk_and_donald_trump.html