Opinion
Olympics approves two men to box against women
From LifeSiteNews
The Olympic Committee approved two male boxers to fight as ‘women’ after previously failing gender tests and being disqualified for having male chromosomes: Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan and Imane Khelif of Algeria.
“This is France!” Emmanuel Macron crowed on X as the Olympic Opening Ceremony in Paris unfolded. That, unfortunately, was what everyone was afraid of.
The ceremony featured a blasphemous representation of the Last Supper, featuring drag queens as the disciples and Barbara Butch, an overweight lesbian DJ, as the Lord Jesus Christ. The International Olympics Committee has already issued a pseudo-apology and deleted the video from its YouTube channel, but Butch was quite clear that this was a deliberate inversion.
There was more, but suffice it to say that after that ceremony, it is no surprise that the Olympic Committee has approved two male athletes to compete as “women” who were previously disqualified from the Women’s World Boxing Championships in March 2023 in New Delhi, India, for having “XY chromosomes”: Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan and Imane Khelif of Algeria. At the time, president of the International Boxing Association (IBA) Umar Kremley announced that a number of boxers were being disqualified after “a series of DNA-tests” conducted “uncovered athletes who were trying to fool their colleagues and pretend to be women.”
IBA released a public statement announcing that “a boxer from Algeria, Imane Khelif, was excluded from the IBA World Boxing Championships due to the failure to meet the IBA eligibility criteria.” The Algerian Olympic Committee called the IBA’s decision a “conspiracy” to deny Algeria a gold medal and noted at the time that they hoped Khelif could fight in the Paris Olympics.
After the disqualification, Mexican boxer Brianda Tamara posted about her experience boxing Khelif at the championship on X. “When I fought with [him] I felt very out of my depth,” Tamara said. “[His] blows hurt me a lot, I don’t think I had ever felt like that in my 13 years as a boxer, nor in my sparring with men. Thank God that day I got out of the ring safely, and it’s good that they finally realized.” There are now serious concerns that female boxers could be injured by Khelif and Yu-Ting. Here is Khelif fighting in an earlier match—clearly far stronger than the opponent:
🚨Beating women is now a spectator sport
We have never been more aware as a society of male violence against women
Why are the #Olympics allowing this male to enter the boxing ring with a woman? #Paris2024 @fairplaywomen pic.twitter.com/I4gKzvigJt
— Katherine Deves Morgan 🇦🇺🚺 (@deves_katherine) July 30, 2024
Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting, who previously won five gold medals in women’s boxing tournaments, was also disqualified and stripped of a bronze medal. Now, at the Paris Olympics, Khelif is scheduled to fight Angela Carini of Italy on August 1, with Yu-Ting to be paired off with a female fighter the following day.
Marshi Smith of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS) spoke with Reduxx about the issue:
The IOC’s decision to end sex-verification screening in 2000 has caused distrust and confusion in women’s sports ever since. Its 2021 decision to offload the responsibility for international eligibility criteria to individual sporting bodies has resulted in varied standards and widespread chaos among athletes, coaches, officials, and the public. In boxing, the recent contentious split between the IBA and the IOC has now placed Olympic eligibility power into the hands of national boxing federations, allowing countries like Algeria and Taiwan to set their own standards and continue placing male boxers in the ring with female athletes in combat for women’s Olympic medals.
This, said Smith, has led to a truly ugly scenario. “The physical abuse of women on an Olympic stage eliminates the integrity of all Olympic events and risks lifelong injury or even death for female athletes. This deceit cannot be allowed to continue.” A 2020 study by the University of Utah concluded that a man’s punch is, on average, about 160-170% more powerful than a woman’s punch.
John Stossel
The Crisis Industry: How Activists Profit from Panic
From StosselTV
Pollution, homophobia, racism, hate; activists claim everything is getting worse. The opposite is true. But if they admit that how would they raise money?
“For activists, success is a threat,” journalist John Tierney explains. “It is going to put you out of business unless you find a new cause.”
Tierney has covered activists for years and watched them move from one cause to another. “But it’s not a business,” I push back. “They’re not making money doing this.” “Oh, yes, they are,” replies Tierney. Lots!
Our new video looks at how these activist groups raise billions of dollars, the consequences of their activism, and why we fall for their scares.
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After 40+ years of reporting, I now understand the importance of limited government and personal freedom.
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Libertarian journalist John Stossel created Stossel TV to explain liberty and free markets to young people. Prior to Stossel TV he hosted a show on Fox Business and co-anchored ABC’s primetime newsmagazine show, 20/20.
Stossel’s economic programs have been adapted into teaching kits by a non-profit organization, “Stossel in the Classroom.” High school teachers in American public schools now use the videos to help educate their students on economics and economic freedom. They are seen by more than 12 million students every year.
Stossel has received 19 Emmy Awards and has been honored five times for excellence in consumer reporting by the National Press Club.
Other honors include the George Polk Award for Outstanding Local Reporting and the George Foster Peabody Award.
Addictions
New documentary exposes safer supply as gateway to teen drug use
By: Alexandra Keeler
In a new documentary, Port Coquitlam teens describe how safer supply drugs are diverted to the streets, contributing to youth drug use
Madison was just 15 when she first encountered “dillies” — hydromorphone pills meant for safer supply, but readily available on the streets.
“Multiple people walking up the street, down the street, saying ‘dillies, dillies,’ and that’s how you get them,” Madison said, referring to dealers in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Madison says she could get pills for $1.25 each, when purchased directly from someone receiving the drugs through safer supply — a provincial program that provides drug users with prescribed opioids. Madison would typically buy a whole bottle to last a week.
But as her tolerance grew, so did her addiction, leading her to try fentanyl.
“The dillies weren’t hitting me anymore … I tried [fentanyl] and instantly I just melted,” she said.
Kamilah Sword, Madison’s best friend, was just 14 when she died of an overdose on Aug. 20, 2022 after taking a hydromorphone pill dispensed through safer supply.
Madison, along with Kamilah’s father, Gregory Sword, are among the Port Coquitlam, B.C., residents featured in a documentary by journalist Adam Zivo. The film uncovers how safer supply drugs — intended as a harm reduction measure — contribute to harm among youth by being highly accessible, addictive and dangerous.
Through emotional interviews with teens and their families, the film links these drugs to overdose deaths and explores how they can act as a gateway to stronger substances like fentanyl.
Some last names are omitted to respect the victims’ desire for privacy.
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‘Not a myth’
Safer supply aims to reduce overdose deaths by providing individuals with substance use disorders access to pharmaceutical-grade alternatives, such as hydromorphone.
But some policy experts, health officials and journalists are concerned these drugs are being diverted onto the streets — particularly hydromorphone, which is often sold under the brand name Dilaudid and nicknamed “dillies.”
Zivo, the film’s director, points out the disinformation surrounding safer supply diversion, highlighting that some drug legalization activists downplay the issue of diversion.
In 2023, B.C.’s then-chief coroner Lisa Lapointe dismissed claims that individuals were collecting their safer supply medications and selling them to youth, thereby creating new opioid dependencies and contributing to overdose deaths. She labeled such claims an “urban myth.”
In the film, Madison describes how teen substance users would occasionally accompany people enrolled in the safer supply program to the pharmacy, where they would fill their prescriptions and then sell the drugs to the teens.
“It’s not a myth, because my best friend died from it,” she says in the film.
Fiona Wilson, deputy chief of the Vancouver Police Department, testified on April 15 to the House of Commons health committee studying Canada’s opioid crisis that about 50 per cent of hydromorphone seizures by police are linked to safer supply.
Deputy Chief of the Vancouver Police Department, Fiona Wilson, testified on April 15 during the House of Commons ‘Opioid Epidemic and Toxic Drug Crisis in Canada’ health committee meeting.
Additionally, Ottawa Police Sergeant Paul Stam previously confirmed to Canadian Affairs that similar reports of diverted safer supply drugs have been observed in Ottawa.
“Hopefully, by giving these victims a platform and bringing their stories to life, the film can impress upon Canadians the urgent need for reform,” Zivo told Canadian Affairs.
‘Creating addicts’
The teens featured in the film share their experiences with the addictive nature of dillies.
“After doing them for like a month, it felt like I needed them everyday,” says Amelie North, one teen featured in the documentary. “I felt like I couldn’t stand being alive without being on dillies.”
Madison explains how tolerance builds quickly. “You just keep doing them until it’s not enough at all.”
Madison started using fentanyl at the age of 12, leading to a near-fatal overdose after just one hit at a SkyTrain station. “It took five Narcan kits to save my life,” she says in the film.
Many of her friends use dillies or have tried fentanyl, she says. She estimates half the students at her school do.
“Government-supplied hydromorphone is a dangerous domino in the cascade of an addict’s downward spiral to ever more risky behaviour,” said Madison’s mother, Beth, to Canadian Affairs.
“The safe drug supply is creating addicts, not helping addicts,” Denise Fenske, North’s mother, told Canadian Affairs.
“I’m not sure when politicians talk about all the beds they have opened up for youth with drug or alcohol problems, where they actually are and how do we access them?”
Sword, Kamilah’s father, expressed his concern in an email to Canadian Affairs. “I want the people [watching the film] to understand how easy this drug is to get for the kids and how many kids it is affecting, the pain it causes the loved ones, [with] no answers or help for them.”
Screenshot: Dr. Matthew Orde reviewing Kamilah Sword’s toxicology report during his interview for the filming of ‘Government Heroin 2: The Invisible Girls’ in March 2024.
Autopsy
Kamilah’s death raises further concerns.
According to Dr. Matthew Orde, a forensic pathologist featured in the film, Kamilah’s toxicology report revealed a mix of depressants and stimulants, including flualprazolam (a benzo), benzoylecgonine (a cocaine byproduct), MDMA and hydromorphone.
Orde criticizes the BC Coroners Service for not following best practices by focusing solely on cardiac arrhythmia caused by cocaine and MDMA, while overlooking the potential role of benzos and hydromorphone.
Orde notes that in complex poly-drug deaths, an autopsy is typically performed to determine the cause more accurately. He says he was shocked that Kamilah’s case did not receive this level of investigation.
B.C. has one of the lowest autopsy rates in Canada.
Zivo told Canadian Affairs he thinks a public inquiry into Kamilah’s case and other youth deaths involving hydromorphone since 2020 is needed to assess if the province is accurately reporting the harms of safer supply.
“That just angers me that our coroners did not do what most of Canada would have done,” Sword told Canadian Affairs.
“It also makes me question why they didn’t do an autopsy, what is our so-called government hiding?”
Government Heroin 2: The Invisible Girls is available for free on YouTube.
This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.
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