Fatty liver disease and death of liver tissue were also confirmed in rats fed regulatory permitted and thus presumed safe doses of the weedkiller

The primary mechanism of how glyphosate herbicides kill plants is by inhibiting an enzyme called EPSPS, which is part of a biochemical pathway known as the shikimate pathway. The shikimate pathway is responsible for the synthesis of certain aromatic amino acids that are vital for the production of proteins, the building blocks of life. Thus when the synthesis of the aromatic amino acids is blocked by glyphosate inhibition of EPSPS, the plant dies.

Trump wants anti-Semitism redefined. An executive order perhaps already signed is all about stifling legitimate criticism of Israel.

It’s about wanting the Jewish state absolved of occupation, colonialism, and apartheid crimes against humanity.

Trump wants anti-Semitism redefined. An executive order perhaps already signed is all about stifling legitimate criticism of Israel.

It’s about wanting the Jewish state absolved of occupation, colonialism, and apartheid crimes against humanity.

“Officials say the order will broaden the federal government’s definition of anti-Semitism and instruct it to be used in enforcing laws against discrimination on college campuses.”

Henceforth, will advocacy for Palestinian rights and wanting Israel held accountable for denying them be criminalized — and not just on college campuses.

According to the NYT, Trump’s order “will effectively interpret Judaism as a race or nationality, not just a religion.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday warned Iran of a "decisive" response if US interests are harmed in Iraq, after a series of rocket attacks on bases.

"We must... use this opportunity to remind Iran's leaders that any attacks by them, or their proxies of any identity, that harm Americans, our allies or our interests will be answered with a decisive US response," Pompeo said in a statement.

"Iran must respect the sovereignty of its neighbors and immediately cease its provision of lethal aid and support to third parties in Iraq and throughout the region," he said.

The United States has expressed mounting concern about the flurry of attacks on Iraqi bases used by US troops, several of which it has blamed on Iranian-backed Shiite paramilitary groups.

Two rocket attacks this week targeted a compound near Baghdad International Airport, which houses US troops, with an incident Monday wounding Iraqi troops.

If you think you actually own movies that you've purchased on iTunes, think again. The age of physical media is dying a slow, painful death, but the convenience offered by digital is simply far too great to be ignored by consumers. However, there are drawbacks to going digital. For one, as Twitter user Drandersgs recently discovered, Apple can delete movies that you own without warning.

Drandersgs recently posted about an unfortunate occurrence he experienced, whereby, Apple randomly deleted three movies he owned. After contacting customer support to figure out why this had happened, the answer he received was downright frustrating. Here's what Apple support had to say in response.

Writes the group: “The Hallmark Channel has always been known for its family friendly movies. Even its commercials are usually safe for family viewing. But unfortunately, that is not the case anymore. Recently, One Million Moms received concerns about Hallmark airing a commercial from Zola.com in which two lesbians are shown kissing at the end of their wedding ceremony. … Conservative viewers will be disappointed to learn that Hallmark has ideas of moving beyond airing only commercials with LGBT content and is open to producing LGBT movies in the future.”

“Shame on Hallmark for airing commercials with same-sex couples and even considering movies with LGBT content and lead characters,” they continue. “Now, parents can no longer trust Hallmark because Hallmark is no longer allowing parents to be the primary educators when it comes to sex and sexual morality.”

demonstrators since it began cracking down November 15.

The numbers are not much better from Israel’s violent response to the Gaza protests over the last 20 months. Human rights agencies have characterized Israel’s live-fire policy as a violation of humanitarian law. The United Nations found last March that Israel killed 183 civilians who posed no threat to Israel and wounded another 6000 people. Amnesty International said Israel was pursuing a deliberate policy of maiming civilians, causing untold physical and psychological damage, and called for a world-wide arms embargo on Israel. The casualties have included journalists and paramedics.

Those protests are aimed at breaking Israel’s 12 year siege of Gaza, which has rendered the strip unlivable, and granting Palestinians equal rights to Israeli Jews.

Internet users, including Press TV’s followers on social media platforms, have reacted with shock and dismay to Google’s most recent attack against the Iranian news network.

On Tuesday, the US tech giant blocked access to Press TV’s YouTube account for a fifth time since the network signed up with the video-sharing platform in 2009.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said during a press conference Tuesday that she "lost" her fight to remove a provision granting big tech companies expanded immunity in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) told Breitbart News that they still have significant reservations over the immunity's inclusion in the trade deal.

Breitbart News reported last week that Pelosi expressed concern over the USMCA inclusion of language that is even broader than Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The provision, Article 19.17, would grant greater legal immunity for big tech companies to censor, or moderate, any content compared to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki's new "harassment policy" bans "malicious insults" against "public officials" who are members of a "protected" class.

After the report was released on the Russia collusion investigation, it has become clear that FISA requests were approved by judges based on the Steele dossier -- a report funded for and written by anti-Trump hacks. Over the last few years, however, many journalists denied this to be the case. Oh no, they said time and again, the Steele dossier wasn't (much of) the basis of the FISA request(s) to spy on former Trump adviser Carter Page at all. No sir.

Twitter-user @Techno_Fog was so kind as to collect tweets from those journalists about the matter. To start with: the Washington Post's Shane Harris. On January 12, 2018, Harris wrote: "I am telling you the dossier was not used as the basis for a FISA warrant on Carter Page."

Techno Fog
@Techno_Fog
WaPo reporter @shaneharris has been lying to the public this whole time. https://twitter.com/shaneharris/status/951676252427038720 …

Shane Harris
?
@shaneharris
Replying to @jancisvaynrchuk @KimStrassel

Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hear from the Department of Justice’s Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, on the findings of his FISA report. After providing months of wall to wall impeachment coverage, CNN and MSNBC decided not to air the full hearings with Horowitz.

CNN and MSNBC stopped following the IG hearing after about 30 minutes, and both refused to cover the opening statements by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. The decision does not align with the recent live hearing coverage standard both networks have held for the last few months, giving endless air time to the impeachment hearings lead by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif, and Rep. Jerry Nadler.

As should be expected, the government is attempting to stage-manage the shooting at the Pensacola Naval Base. The Pentagon said sailors killed by a Saudi student reportedly angry over the serial murder of Muslims by the US government “showed exceptional heroism and bravery in the face of evil.”

The alleged shooter, Mohammed Alshamrani, shot dead by police, was a Saudi national said to be enrolled in pilot training the Florida naval base. It is the same naval base linked to the supposed 9/11 hijackers.

Sources told ABC News that investigators are working to determine if the shooter was acting out because of religious or ideological reasons or if there was some sort of problem or hostility that developed in the course of the training at Pensacola.

Of the 180 countries classified by Reporters Without Borders’ annual report on press freedom, seven Middle Eastern countries are listed at the bottom 10% category of the world’s worst violators.

In 2018, Israel, which often prides itself on being "the only democracy in the Middle East", ranked 88th, a hardly shocking realization, considering its constant targeting, killing, wounding and arresting of Palestinian journalists. The Palestinian Authority achieved an even worse rank, at 137th place. It is telling that not a single Middle Eastern country has made it to the top 30% rank.

In countries like Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen, where independent monitoring of government behavior is almost entirely absent, hundreds of journalists simply disappear in the black hole of brutal prison systems – malnourished, medically neglected, and routinely tortured.

Lawmakers, veterans and experts have expressed shock and resignation after a Washington Post report Monday unveiled 18 years of distortion by U.S. officials over the prosecution of the war in Afghanistan.

The documents involved — more than 2,000 pages of confidential notes and interviews from more than 400 people, from ambassadors to troops on the ground — exposed a constant parade of failures while three presidential administrations insisted the war was moving in the right direction.

We must end the vicious, lethal cycle of misinformation and unspecified, unsupported strategies,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in response, calling for public hearings with Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and other officials.

I have gotten so many calls and emails from desperate folks I can't list them here. One woman tearfully told me her mother was desperately ill in California, but she couldn't move to be with her because she was afraid of the effects of climate change in that state. Another woman called, terribly worried about fires in western Washington from global warming. A few others asked about where they should move to escape our local apocalyptical conditions.

So why are all these people so anxiety-ridden and desperate? I believe it is the unconscionable exaggeration, hype, and fear-mongering of our media, special interest groups, some activist scientists, and a number of politicians. And it is unethical, ungrounded in science, and hurting the most vulnerable among us.

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Law professor Jonathan Turley revealed that even his dog was violently threatened after he testified in favor of President Trump during the impeachment hearings.

Turley already spoke about death threats he received following his testimony last week, but went further in an interview with CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell.

“I know you received a lot of threats after what you did last week,” O’Donnell told the George Washington University law professor.

“And my wife and dog,” Turley responded.

“To be fair, you did talk about them during your testimony. You did bring up your wife and dog,” O’Donnell said.

“Who would shoot a Goldendoodle?” Turley asked in response.

“Maybe a Shih Tzu, but not a Goldendoodle. I don’t understand where the anger comes from. Although as an academic, the thought that you could talk about James Madison and that would be fighting words is something I haven’t seen outside of a law school.”

News / Syria
Russia warplanes intercept Israeli jets over southern Syria: Report
Monday, 09 December 2019 9:29 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 09 December 2019 10:19 AM ]
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) (L) talks with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) during a rally with fellow Democrats before voting on H.R. 1, or the People Act, on the East Steps of the US Capitol on March 08, 2019 in Washington, DC. (AFP photo)
A picture taken on October 3, 2015 shows a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 bomber taking off from the Hmeimim airbase in the Syrian province of Latakia. (Photo by AFP)
Russian fighter jets have intercepted Israeli warplanes that were flying over southern Syria, media reports say.

According to Russian publication Avia.Pro, Russia’s warplanes intercepted the Israeli warplanes that had been seeking to attack the T-4 Airbase in Syria's western province of Homs last week.

Google has targeted Iranian broadcasters Press TV and Hispan TV once again, blocking access to their official YouTube accounts without any prior notice.

Over the past years, the US tech giant has recurrently been opting for such measures against Iranian media outlets. It has taken on Press TV more than any other Iranian outlet given the expanse of its viewership and readership.

The most recent move came on Tuesday. Users shortly flooded both the networks with messages asking why the international networks' YouTube channels had been put out of service.

The two networks were last targeted in April, when Google similarly shut their YouTube and Gmail accounts.

The previous attack also denied the networks any advance notification, sufficing to cite a nebulous “violation of policies.”

To understand just how shoddy the FBI’s work was in securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant targeting the Trump campaign, you only need to read an obscure attachment to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report.

Appendix 1 identifies the total violations by the FBI of the so-called Woods Procedures, the process by which the bureau verifies information and assures the FISA court its evidence is true.

The Appendix identifies a total of 51 Woods procedure violations from the FISA application the FBI submitted to the court authorizing surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page starting in October 2016.

A whopping nine of those violations fell into the category called: “Supporting document shows that the factual assertion is
inaccurate.”

SOURCE: ZEROHEDGE
Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

A Newsweek journalist has resigned after the publication reportedly suppressed his story about the ever-growing OPCW scandal, the revelation of immensely significant plot holes in the establishment Syria narrative that you can update yourself on by watching this short seven-minute video or this more detailed video here.

“Yesterday I resigned from Newsweek after my attempts to publish newsworthy revelations about the leaked OPCW letter were refused for no valid reason,” journalist Tareq Haddad reported today via Twitter.

“I have collected evidence of how they suppressed the story in addition to evidence from another case where info inconvenient to US government was removed, though it was factually correct,” Haddad said.

A mass shooting that occurred in New Orleans, LA over the weekend is largely being ignored by the fake news media seemingly because the shooting was committed by an African-American male.

The gruesome footage of the vicious crime can be seen here:

There’s now video of the New Orleans shooting. No arrest announced yet. Media seems disinterested in a mass shooting with 11 shot. Why? They must not think it’ll fit their preferred narrative. If it did they’d be demanding a manhunt and covering this 24/7.

Aircraft maker Boeing is facing more than $3.9 million in penalties from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after the company allegedly neglected to adhere to its own quality assurance system before installing “nonconforming components” on some 133 aircraft.

The FAA announced Friday that Boeing’s negligence in airworthiness certification and installation of subpar aircraft equipment may result in a total of $3,916,871 in civil penalties from the federal government.

According to the administration, slat tracks processed by Southwest United Industries (SUI) on June 29, 2018, and shipped to Spirit AeroSystems Inc. were ultimately delivered to Boeing for installation on its 737-series aircraft, despite the components failing a strength test.

Daily Mail reveals some kinky stuff about Clinton & Epstein. More Daily Mail, and this is old stuff that the U.S. bought and paid for corporate lying hypocritical leftist/Marxist fake news media won’t talk about! Free Pressers update the story HERE. Of course anyone around in the 90’s was acutely aware of the “Bimbo Eruption” as it was termed regarding the multiple dalliances with women that Clinton had, and some of them violent and accusing him of rape.

James F. Tracy is a PhD from the University of Iowa. A former professor of communications at Boca Raton, Florida Atlantic University. He is one of many critical thinkers within the world of academia, and as result of presenting the following information that might spark some cognitive dissonance, he has been singled out due to his activism efforts.

For example, he was fired from his tenured professorship at Florida Atlantic University for questioning official narratives of terror events. Now, his Blog has been taken down by WordPress with no clear explanation.

US cable channel HBO on Thursday green-lit the production of a new limited series based on the Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon, starring Woody Harrelson and Justin Theroux.

The two actors -- HBO veterans -- will also executive produce "The White House Plumbers," which is to be written by Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck, who scripted the network's award-winning comedy "Veep."

The announcement comes as Washington is again in the throes of an impeachment inquiry against US President Donald Trump, some 45 years after Nixon resigned to avoid a certain trial before US lawmakers.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is keen to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, on the grounds that the US is going to let him do so. Israeli officials, particularly military officials, are warning against one of the primary targets, the Jordan Valley.

The Jordan Valley, which connects the West Bank to Jordan, is something the Israeli right has long wanted to annex, as it would mean the rest of the Palestinian West Bank would never have a border with any nation other than Israel.

Military officials are warning that the big problem would be with Jordan itself, and that this move would further damage Israel-Jordan ties, and might force the Jordanian government to take drastic steps.

How do Americans discern truth from fiction in this era of fake news?

By now, any American who doesn’t have their head in the sand should have lost any faith they ever had in the news media as the 4th estate of government, the de facto examiner and investigator of government.

One survey reveals 95% of those Americans polled are “troubled by fake news.” How can Americans find the truth when, according to a Pew Research Center study:

69% say the federal government withholds important information from the public
61% say the news media ignores important stories
58% of adults are not confident people can hold civil conversations with those who have different views
57% are not confident people will cast informed votes in elections

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has found evidence that an FBI lawyer manipulated a key investigative document related to the FBI's secretive surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser -- enough to change the substantive meaning of the document, according to multiple reports.

The show-stopping development comes as Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News that Horowitz's comprehensive report on allegations of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant abuse against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page will be released on Dec. 9. "That's locked," Graham said.

The new evidence concerning the altered document, which pertained to the FBI's FISA court warrant application to surveil Page, is expected to be outlined in Horowitz's upcoming report. CNN first reported the news, which was largely confirmed by The Washington Post.

With 18,000 troops, the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Congo is the largest in the world, and it has been in Congo for 20 years without protecting the people or the peace. A young protester in Beni told Aljazeera, “The UN is supposed to keep us safe, to keep peace in North Kivu, but we’ve never seen the peace. So we are so angry we don’t want them to stay here in North Kivu.”

Congolese Swiss historian Bénédicte Kumbi Njoko also spoke to Aljazeera:

“If we think about the UN and its presence, we need to go back to almost 59 years that the UN has been working in the Congo because there were problems in the country. And I think that if we take that into perspective, we can of course question the utility of this organization, because what we have seen the last 20 years now is that people are still dying and this war that is happening in the Congo has caused already more than 8 million deaths, so maybe the response that the UN is giving to that situation is not an appropriate one.”

The Washington Post reports that Attorney General William Barr's hand-picked prosecutor could not confirm that Russiagate figure Joseph Mifsud is a US intelligence asset - thus, according to the Post, the Russiagate counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign could not have been a setup.

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Dozens of elderly residents were forced to leave their apartments in an area of Stockholm after the block was closed, only to be re-opened again for migrants to replace them.

Residents at Dianagården were told they would have to leave because the toilets in the facility were 5cm too small to comply with regulations.

However, soon after the 48 apartments were emptied, they were filled with newly arrived migrants.

“It was later revealed that politicians planned that immigrants would instead move into the premises,” reports Fria Tider.

In 2015, Sweden accepted more refugees per capita than any other country, and despite worsening problems with sexual assaults, grenade attacks and violent crime, the inflow shows no sign of being seriously restricted.

Search “free speech” on Thinkspot – the new social media platform devised by best-selling Canadian self-help guru, vociferous foe of postmodernism and “cultural Marxism” and noted carnivore Jordan Peterson – and you’ll find there, among the results: “The Ten Commandments of Free Speech and Free Thought”, by Skeptic magazine founder Michael Shermer, a podcast titled “Free Speech Not Islamist Speech” by ex-Canadian naval intelligence officer Tom Quiggin, and several video lectures with titles like “Count Dankula on Free Speech,” “What Its [sic] Like to Be A Free Speech Warriors [sic]” and “Banned Lecture: Ethics and Free Speech”, that last one courtesy of Thinkspot’s free thinker in chief, Jordan B Peterson.

It has been over 7 years since the European Central Bank's key deposit facility rate was positive, and just a few weeks ago it was lowered to a record low of -50bps.

Source: Bloomberg

And during that time, European bank stocks have suffered greatly...

Source: Bloomberg

As Cornelius Riese, co-CEO of Frankfurt-based DZ Bank A.G. (Germany’s second-largest by assets), observed, negative rates indeed “have a huge impact on banks.” Riese ventured to offer some gentle criticism of Draghi & Co.’s grand policy experiment:

“Maybe at the end of the story, in three to five years, we will notice it was a historical mistake.”

Well, it appears we are about to reach the vinegar strokes of that 'historical mistake', as Bloomberg reports, German banks are breaking the last taboo: Charging retail clients for their savings starting with very first euro in the their accounts.

Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

The 1949 NATO Treaty never attempted to single out a specific enemy for the alliance to fight against, and while it was clear at the time the Soviet Union was the focus, the lack of specificity has meant numerous attempts in recent history to add enemies, or make up new things for the alliance to do.

During this week’s NATO meeting, they are going to officially add a new nation to the list of “challenges,” in the form of China, with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg saying NATO has to “tackle the issue” of China’s growing capabilities.

China is a major military and economic power, though not hostile to any NATO member nations. That China is a Pacific nation makes them a strange enemy for an alliance supposedly focused on the north Atlantic to single out.

NATO, however, is at a crossroads trying to figure out its identity and purpose, and China’s sheer size makes it an attractive target to justify NATO’s continued existence.

Update: Stanford University Professor Pamela Karlan apologized on Wednesday after receiving sharp rebuke for mentioning President Trump's 13-year-old son, Barron Trump.

No apology from an angry partisan would be complete, however, without a new attack in the same breath...

"I want to apologize for what I said earlier about the president's son. It was wrong of me to do that. I wish the president would apologize, obviously, for the things that he's done that's wrong, but I do regret having said that," she said.

Vice President Joe Biden and his team have seized on Tuesday evening's now-infamous 'hot mic' moment featuring Justin Trudeau, Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron and Dutch PM Mark Rutte and transformed it into a campaign advertisement claiming that the rest of the world is laughing at President Trump.

The world is laughing at President Trump. They see him for what he really is: dangerously incompetent and incapable of world leadership.

We cannot give him four more years as commander in chief.

France is bracing for major transportation disruptions throughout the country starting Thursday, as trade unions launch a strike in response to changes President Emmanuel Macron wants to make to the country’s retirement system, while port blockades have resulted in widespread fuel shortages across the country. Much of the Paris Metro will be shut down, as will many national and international train lines, including certain Eurostar services. Flights will also be canceled, as air traffic controllers say they will join the protests through Saturday.

Hundreds of filling stations around western France have run out of gasoline and diesel as blockades of oil refineries enter their second week according to industry group UFIP. According to The Local, construction workers have been blockading refineries in Brittany since last week and a blockade at La Rochelle has resumed.

Hunter Biden will have to turn over five years of financial records in his paternity battle against his baby mama Lunden Roberts, DailyMail.com can disclose.

The son of former VP Joe Biden will have to tell an Arkansas judge exactly how much he made by controversially sitting on the board of a Ukrainian oil company.

Roberts will also have to disclose her financial records, including how much she made in tips as a stripper at the Mpire Club in D.C. where the two met
Originally Judge Don McSpadden presiding over the court in Batesville, Arkansas, had only asked for three years' records.

On Tuesday, McSpadden sent out a blunt letter to attorneys in the case — including the one that Biden fired minutes before a hearing on Monday
He gave both Biden, 49, and Roberts, 28, just 10 days to come up with their financial details.

Roberts is demanding Biden pay child support for their 16-month-old child and at least $11k in her attorney fees.

A House Republican is pressing Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to subpoena the call records of top Democrats and a whistleblower lawyer, signaling a new GOP line of defense amid the impeachment inquiry examining President Trump’s ties to Ukraine.

Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), one of Trump’s House allies, asked Graham in a letter Wednesday to subpoena AT&T for the call records of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, as well as the attorney for Ukraine whistleblower, Mark Zaid.

“Chairman, I urge you to utilize your subpoena power as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and obtain call records for the following individuals: Rep. Adam Schiff, The whistleblower’s lawyer Mark Zaid, Former Vice President Joe Biden, and Hunter Biden,” Banks wrote to Graham.

Providing additional information on the fresh tussle between the United States (US) and Iran, after the US navy spotted missile parts linked to Iran, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) came out with the story that says the Trump administration is looking to deploy around 14,000 more troops in the Middle East. The news relies on anonymous US officials.

Key quotes
The Trump administration is considering a significant expansion of the U.S. military footprint in the Middle East, including dozens of more ships, other military hardware and as many as 14,000 additional troops to counter Iran.

Realizing that all of their previous efforts to “win” the war on drugs had failed, the feds came up with what they considered was a brilliant idea, but one that actually has turned out to be one great big crooked and corrupt racket that forcibly takes money out of the pockets of law-abiding citizens and puts it in the coffers of state cops and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, in direct contravention of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Here is how the system works.

An international organization published two false reports and got caught in the act. But as the false reports are in the U.S. interests a U.S. sponsored propaganda organization is send out to muddle the issue. As that effort comes under fire the New York Times jumps in to give the cover-up effort some extra help.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) manufactured a pretext for war by suppressing its own scientists’ research:

OPCW emails and documents were leaked and whistleblowers came forward to speak with journalists and international lawyers. Veteran journalist Jonathan Steele, who has spoken with the whistleblowers, wrote an excellent piece on the issues. In the Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens picked up the issue and moved it forward.