Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Ted Cruz Wrecks Brian Williams Over ‘Kremlin Cruz’ Charges

 

“He really won’t like being called ‘Kremlin Cruz’ after his latest and remarkably stupid lapse in judgment.” Williams even suggested that Cruz wanted to be president, but of another country. He also brought up that the senator went to Princeton and Harvard instead of serving in the military, as if that had relevance. 

Williams closed his segment with reminding viewers that Cruz is up for re-election in 2024. I’m sure Texans will think long and hard about how a cable news TV show host in New York City thinks they should vote. 

All of this because the senator contrasted a Russian military ad with the recent pattern of ridiculously woke military ads being sent out by GoArmy as part of their series known as “the Calling,” which Leah has covered

As Spencer reported on Friday, the backlash was so intense that the GoArmy YouTube channel turned off comments for this video series, while comments remain open for others.

Here’s how Sen. Cruz responded to Williams:

2/x Now, he’s throwing a hissy fit that I criticized the ridiculously woke video that the Biden admin put out. Williams accidentally told the truth, when he describes it as “a video meant to diminish the U.S. military.”

TRUE. That’s the problem. (The Pentagon put it out.)— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 22, 2021

4/x (2) I was arguing that our military needs to be able to kick the ass of Russian soldiers. It’s Brian & his lefty comrades that are working relentlessly to diminish the effectiveness of the U.S. military—the finest fighting force on the face of the planet.— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 22, 2021

6/x Cover that, Brian.

But that would be actual news, something you don’t do.

Use your condescending wit to call Biden “Kremlin Joe”—he’s the one illegally giving billions to Putin.

But your corporate overlords wouldn’t let you.

Congrats, Brian. You are Pravda.— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 22, 2021

Here’s the ad Sen. Cruz had shared on Thursday.

American Division Is Now a Strategic Weakness: Three Perilous Trends

 

A month or so ago, our country briefly debated military strategy in the wake of the Afghanistan withdrawal announcement. The following week, we anticipated major unrest as a jury reached a certain verdict in a courtroom in Minnesota. Less recognizable, but stubbornly true: the United States pivot this year is not to Asia, but places like Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Washington, DC. At 3,500, we’ve got only about 500 more soldiers in Afghanistan than we had in downtown Minneapolis in expectation of a short-term rebellion there. As we removed ourselves from foreign entanglements, many likely recognized small contingents would remain for a time, like the 900 or so in Syria. But it’s doubtful that that those chanting to bring the troops home envisioned 2,300 or so on active duty not far from Tortilla Coast and We the Pizza on Capitol Hill. Another old protest chant comes to mind too, the melody of which is familiar but whose words require adjusting for our era: The People Divided Can Surely be Defeated.

We continuously struggle to recognize the era that we’re in, failing to connect the physical manifestations of our division to the day-to-day surface debates that consume our time. Those physical markers of division – like the now regular deployment of National Guard troops in response to political unrest – require attention. They represent a schism that is deep and promises additional peril, a division with its own ill effects. Three perilous trends accelerate in the United States as we speak. They weaken us, and that weakness is now sensed and tested by foreign powers, threatening to plunge the United States into a major foreign conflict in the very years that the consensus for our federal union is at a historically low ebb. 

The first perilous trend is that our division is now so prominent it’s a thing our enemies can plan to. When Russia encircled Ukraine in a traditional blockade posture and tested out de facto control of international waters in a notable percentage of the Black Sea, how did we respond? The U.S. responded with only strongly worded statements and actually cancelled two scheduled naval deployments there. For all the realism we celebrated over the past decade, on the horizon now is the end of the era where the bipartisan U.S. strategy of generally looking away as rising powers change borders and create new territory is consequence free. 

So little of American statecraft of the past decade – that of measured responses, and targeted military sales to certain allies, and publicly announced economic penalties – resulted in a change in that annoyingly persistent phrase used by the military: facts on the ground. That’s not a critique of the bipartisan embrace of realpolitik, nor an endorsement of what some call ‘wars of choice,’ just a recognition of where we are now as foreign calculations shift and our actions find their consequences more readily. 

Sounds less like evidence of division than of unity right? A general consensus embraced by both parties and a wide swath of the American people to generally stand by and watch genocide and foreign powers redraw borders. But what happens when we are really tested from the outside? Will we bond together like in conflicts past? 

The early volleys of our coming conflicts may not look like world war or feel like total war but could quickly metastasize into one or the other. We’re more stuck in an End of History mindset than we realize, preventing us from recognizing war as a real possibility; it seems an alien concept. Further, there are no Grenadas in the bunch – whether it be an irreversible Chinese occupation of Taiwan, a fuller Russian invasion of Ukraine recognizable beyond the polite word ‘incursion,’ or an Iranian nuclear weapons breakout – the stakes are high, and they are dangerous. The presumption that a tangible foreign threat will automatically unite the American polity grants a legitimacy to the formal mechanisms and institutions leading our response that is no longer certain in an era of capital siege and urban riot. Can a country unite for a military effort if 50% of its citizens don’t believe the civilian commander of the military was legitimately elected? What force will a Senate war resolution have if half of the country believes the Senate is little but a racist vestige of the Jim Crow era? What happens when Commander in Chief and the Not-My-President era meet?

Which Party Gains if Roe Goes Down?

 OR THE first time since 1973, the Supreme Court will decide whether a broad abortion ban — not just a regulation restricting its availability, funding, or method — is legal. If a majority of the court upholds a Mississippi law banning non-emergency abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a key pillar of US abortion policy for the past half century will fall.

Across the political spectrum, therefore, the case — Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — is being seen as a watershed in the nation’s long conflict over abortion.

“This case is a direct threat to Roe v. Wade,” declared NARAL Pro-Choice America. “It doesn’t get any scarier than this.” Leading Democrats, blasting the court’s decision to hear the case, have warned that “the consequences will be devastating” if the Mississippi law is sustained, that women’s rights “are under attack and threatened,” and that “Congress must step up to enshrine Roe into federal law.”CARTOONS | AF Branco View Cartoon

From the right, meanwhile, have come cheers at the prospect of Roe’s demise. Republican stalwart Henry Olsen wrote in the Washington Post that the court should … do its constitutional duty: Uphold the law and overturn Roe.” Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, deploying the hashtag “#ProLife,” hailed the justices’ decision to hear the Mississippi case as “a huge step forward.” Editorialized National Review, the prominent conservative journal: “A majority of the Court knows that Roe is nonsense. It is past time for the justices to say so.”

So the partisan battle lines couldn’t be clearer. Republicans want an end to Roe and the abortion regime it instituted; Democrats want them upheld.

But is that — in political terms — what they should want?

For many people, of course, the issue of abortion is not about politics but about right and wrong. Millions of Americans regard the protection of life in the womb as a moral imperative; millions of others feel the same way about protecting a woman’s right to end an unwanted pregnancy. As Gallup has documented for years, the public splits down the middle when respondents are asked whether they consider themselves “pro-choice” or “pro-life.”

Still, there is no denying that abortion has become intensely politicized, in a way it never was before Roe was decided nearly 50 years ago. And not only politicized, but polarized. In the Roe era, the GOP became explicitly antiabortion: Its platform proclaims “that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed” and advocates amending the Constitution to ban nearly all abortions. Democrats, meanwhile, became adamant defenders of unrestricted abortion rights, which their platform supports “unequivocally.”

Unlike the two parties, most Americans are not nearly so absolutist. Survey data is remarkably consistent: Broadly speaking, voters want abortion to be legal early in pregnancy or when there is a medical emergency, but are against both banning abortion outright or permitting it without limit. That’s probably what abortion policy in the United States would look like today, if the Supreme Court hadn’t snatched the whole issue out of the political arena and carved a sweeping “right to choose” into constitutional granite. In most developed nations, abortion is permitted along lines roughly comparable to the Mississippi law. And because the policy was shaped through democratic debate and politics, it enjoys broad acceptance, rarely if ever generating the intense fury and turmoil we experience in this country.

Paradoxically, Roe has proved a boon to the Republican Party that so fervently condemns it. As long as the high court has declined to overturn or substantially curtail its 1973 landmark, GOP politicians have been able to talk the talk of anti-abortion extremism, without having to face the repercussions of walking the walk. With Roe in force, Republicans have been able to clamor for laws that would ban most abortions, secure in the knowledge that they won’t be allowed to stand. They have also been able to promote the kind of reasonable regulations most voters do support, such as requiring parental consent for minors or barring abortion for sex-selection, knowing that Democrats will take the unpopular stand of opposing them.

But if Roe is overthrown, Republicans will lose the ability to call, cost-free, for sweeping prohibitions on abortion. If the issue returns to the political arena, GOP leaders will face a painful dilemma: Do they betray their fervent pro-life base, or pay the price of ignoring the far larger, but much less doctrinaire, mainstream?

For Democrats, by contrast, an end to Roe would mean liberation from always having to defend the most inflexible prochoice positions. No longer locked into defending Roe at all costs, Democrats would be free to support the moderate abortion regulations that most Americans are comfortable with. And they could stop excommunicating the pro-life Democrats who were once such a significant component of the party.

Those who wish for an end to Roe and those who wish to see it affirmed may well be deeply sincere. All the same, a post-Roe world is apt to be less congenial to the GOP that craves it, and not nearly as challenging to the Democratic Party that doesn’t.

Monday, May 17, 2021

Brooklyn Center to Implement 'Unarmed Civilian Traffic Enforcement' Following Death of Daunte Wright

City Council members in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota approved several police reforms, including implementing an "unarmed civilian traffic enforcement" branch after the death of Daunte Wright, who was killed by law enforcement after an officer mistook her gun for a Taser and shot him last month.

The "Community Safety and Violence Prevention Resolution" was approved with a vote of 4-1 last weekend, which expressed that the city does not "rely solely on our armed law enforcement officers."

The resolution will require a "Community Response Department," which will feature volunteers, mental health professionals and social workers, who will be responsible for incidents where a person is "primarily experiencing a medical, mental health, disability-related, or other behavioral" issue.

The city also made a "Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention," which is expected to run "all city agencies and city efforts regarding community health and public safety."

A "Community Safety and Violence Prevention Committee" composed of people who have been arrested or detained by police, will be created as well. This committee will "review and make recommendations regarding the policing response to recent protests."

Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott said in a statement:

Brooklyn Center did not look to be in the national spotlight on these issues, but here we are. And given the tragic incidents that occurred here, including those taking the lives of Daunte Wright and Kobe Dimock-Heisler, we must respond with a commitment to do better, and today’s vote is part of that response. Brooklyn Center’s response to the rise in civic activity since the death of Daunte Wright has included efforts to involve de-escalation expertise, enhance communication to City residents about listening sessions and services available to meet the needs of residents impacted by demonstrations and disruptions in City operations.

Wright died during a traffic stop on April 11 when former Brooklyn Center officer Kim Potter pulled her gun and shot him, thinking it was a Taser. Potter was arrested and charged with manslaughter in connection to the killing.

 

The Media Hates You And Is Shocked That You Hate It Back

I guess we’ll be told we’re unseemly if we giggle at the cancellation of useless stooge Don Lemon’s low-rated airport lounge video muzak, or at how the Israelis leveled the Gaza high-rise housing the AP and Al-Jazeera. Well, color us unseemly, because when the media suffers, we celebrate. 

And we’re not going to apologize for it. Half of America, at least, now cares about the media precisely as much as the media cares about us – that is, not at all. In fact, we actively wish it ill. We cheer when some trash website or paper folds. The frequent layoff announcements make us giddy. Sad journalists whining about how people on Twitter dare criticize them cause us to howl in delight.

Our contempt for them is a result of their contempt for us. And as individuals and collectively, we should do whatever we lawfully can to hasten the collapse of the mainstream media as an institution.

Harsh? Nah. 

See, the media hates us and actively sides with our enemies. It’s always amusing how these hacks do not even bother to hide their full-throated collaboration with the people who want us silenced, disenfranchised, and/or dead, yet get all huffy when we refuse to treat them as the neutral truthtellers they aren’t. The most active supporters of censorship in our culture are members of the news media itself, bar none. They cover up Democrat perfidy and invent Republican scandals. They try to police our language. They condescend to us. They dox innocent citizens. They lie all the time. They carry water for liberal leakers. They try to get our own (real) reporters, like Townhall’s Julio Rosas, killed for refusing to follow the narrative.

Yet, we’re supposed to pretend they deserve our respect and deference, that they are courageous heroes battling for truth. Pfffft. They are a joke. The media is garbage, and we must treat it as such.

Take Don Lemon, preferably far away. Apparently, the business model of catering to Blue-Anon shut-ins who wear their masks in the shower isn’t working out so well. He’s off the air as of last week – maybe he’ll come back in some form to torment people running to catch a Delta flight, but perhaps CNN is tired of getting ratings on par with the Macramé Channel and the Enlarged Prostate Network. I have some history with this human punchline – in my last appearance on CNN in December 2015, he cut my mic when I refused his command not to point out his ridiculous hypocrisy regarding Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit. He will not be missed except by his fans, both of them. 

Also, Don’s fellow licensed and registered regime advocate Brian Stelter is a potato. The tube’s #1 tuber is still on the air, for now, flacking for his masters and dodging hungry Dubliners.

Over the weekend, America cheered as the Israelis flattened the building housing the Associated Press in Gaza. This led to widespread laughter and high-fives among American patriots. And we were even happier when we later found out that the same high-rise had also housed some Hamas military HQs.

American journalists informed us this was terrible, but they never quite explained why. After all, the Gaza branch of the media is not a bunch of Middle Eastern Woodwards and Bernsteins digging up the truth and not caring whose toes they step on. They are dedicated Palestinian propaganda transcriptionists who play a central role in facilitating the terrorists’ information operations against the only free country in the region. They chose a side, and it was the other one. So, don’t ask us to care when they get treated like it.

Now, some might argue that a free society needs a crusading media to function. That’s a nice cliché, but it assumes both that we still have a free society and a crusading media. If you think we have a free society, think again. There is a war on dissent and the media is leading the charge in coordination with its tech buddies. Try posting some COVID stuff that doesn’t slavishly follow the (ever-changing) narrative. You could in a free society. Understand that the media supports the suppression of unapproved speech – they want everyone else gagged and dissenting information suppressed. They call stuff that rejects their narrative “disinformation,” as if the clowns taking dictation from Raggedy Ann McCircleback are the arbiters of objective reality.

And a crusading media? These are the same people who had a presidential nominee’s son cold taking megabucks from foreigners – including the Chi Coms – and who was blasting rails off the behinds of strippers, and they actively suppressed the story because it would hurt their preferred candidate. If it was Don Jr. instead of President Asterisk’s Snortunate Son, it would have been wall-to-wall coverage. The best part was that the same people who bought the bogus Russian pee-pee tape story whole-hog were suddenly squeamish about “Russian disinformation” that everyone knew was nothing of the sort. The media made a conscious decision to suppress perhaps the juiciest scandal in American history to help the Democrats, so please – ask us to care when bad things happen to it. Please. Ask us.

Now, you can’t personally fire Don Lemon or drop a missile from your F-15 on some building where the media is actively collaborating with America’s murderous enemies, but what can you do to hasten the destruction of the garbage media?

Number one, don’t patronize it. Don’t subscribe to enemy media outlets. Don’t watch them. Give them nothing.

Number two, never help them. When mainstream media outlets call you to get some info, refuse to help. And tell them why – because they suck. And GOP hacks, you need to rethink going on the media that hates us – I get the idea of speaking to the other side to expose them to the truth, but it won’t work. If you are effective, you’ll get diverted, distracted, or your mic will be cut off like Lemon did with me.

Number three, support GOP candidates who will cut off the special privileges the garbage media enjoys. The media now wants additional antitrust exemptions and intellectual property protections from Congress to save it from collapse. How about…no?

Number four, mock the media. There is no institution with a more inflated sense of itself than the press – that smug self-satisfaction is one of the things that helps make up for the crummy pay (though most young journalists today are rich kids whose birthing parent and daddy subsidize them). Your refusal to pretend that these oafs deserve respect causes them no end of fussy fury. So, refuse.

The media hates you. You owe it nothing. Give it nothing, except your contempt.

 

America Declines. The Media Obsess Over GOP Squabbles

 

The front page of the May 13 Washington Times was sobering. “President Biden’s second 100 days are off to a woeful start, including a gas shortage for much of the East Coast, a surge of inflation, a slowdown in hiring despite a record number of job openings, renewed fighting in the Middle East and an unresolved border crisis,” it read.

But the rest of the news media? They’re obsessing over how terrible (and terribly split) the Republicans are. One party is engaged in a “civil war,” and the other is forever portrayed as a placid pool of calm.

This is how you know the “news” today is whatever narrative the Biden-coddling “mainstream” media decide to adopt. They’re never going to sound like Ted Cruz, who says, “Biden policies are failing across the board: economically, domestically and abroad.” They’re going to sound like humanoid robots programmed by White House press secretary Jen Psaki.

It’s not even entertaining to imagine how the media would cover these developments if Donald Trump were president. He would be blamed for all this. But it’s also safe to assume they would be doing a large chunk of what they’re doing now: obsessing over the dangerous Republican Party, championing the protests of Rep. Liz Cheney, wallowing in “new” footage of the dreadful Jan. 6 riot.

The media pretend that they exist to moderate our democracy and hold public servants accountable and explain complicated policy matters. Instead, they focus on food fights and clickbait and exacerbating the nastiness of social media.

Curtis Houck of the Media Research Center studied CNN coverage for 12 hours on May 12 and found that the network spent 151 minutes obsessing over Cheney’s ouster and only 55 minutes and change on multiple mounting economic problems in the country. That’s almost a 3-to-1 disparity.

The government reported that 178,622 immigrants were apprehended at the southwest border region in April, an increase from the then-record-breaking 173,348 in March. But even as the surge went up 3%, Media Research Center’s Rich Noyes found that the ABC, CBS and NBC evening-news program coverage of this issue dropped dramatically from March to April, by 61%.

But it’s worse than just numbers. “President Biden and his policies were completely shielded from blame in a majority (48) of the 88 stories aired during these two months, as less than one-third (26) included any reference by the reporter that the surge had anything to do with Biden,” Noyes wrote.

In preparation for the president’s 100th day in office, CBS News polled just over 2,500 adults. Among major issues in the survey, the public’s worst reviews (57% disapproval) were given to Biden’s border bungling. CBS helpfully excluded that negative number from its broadcast reporting. The networks have this persistent habit of reporting the poll numbers they like and burying those they don’t.

During Biden’s only press conference of his presidency, instead of tough questioning, reporters such as Yamiche Alcindor of PBS buttered him up, saying, “the perception of you that got you elected — as a moral, decent man — is the reason why a lot of immigrants are coming to this country.” Biden told his PBS publicity helper he “should be flattered” by the six-figure immigrant surge.

The media repeat after Psaki that this is not a “border crisis”; it is merely a “challenge.” She sounds like Psaki Poppins, urging the press to take a spoonful of sugar to help the liberal medicine go down. The nanny makes us feel vaguely sickened. The wheels are coming off this country, and the journalists are in denial.

Mad Max-ine Waters Abused Air Marshal Protection on Visit to Minnesota Protests: Complaint

 

Congresswoman Maxine Waters made headlines and raised eyebrows when the California Democrat showed up in the middle of a volatile crowd in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota in April. She called for agitators who’d already turned violent “to stay in the streets” and “get more active, more confrontational” ahead of a verdict in the trial of now-convicted former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. “We are looking for a guilty verdict,” Waters told media on the scene.  

At the time, Katie reported on the hypocritical request Waters made for security on her jaunt to the North Star State: 

New documents obtained by Townhall show Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters requested an armed police escort to Minneapolis over the weekend, where she called for violent activists to “stay in the streets” during a protest against law enforcement. 

Waters flew from Dulles International Airport to Minnesota-St. Paul International Airport on Saturday, April 17, just days ahead of a verdict in the George Floyd, Officer Derek Chauvin trial. 

That night, Waters went to meet with protestors and demanded a guilty verdict for Chauvin “or else.”

What we didn’t know at the time was where the security personnel assigned to Waters came from and what her request meant for their usual duties. But now we do.

Waters received protection from federal air marshals who were pulled from original assignments aboard commercial flights deemed “high risk,” a move that “angered some sky marshals, as protecting the public is their primary mission,” according to complaints and interviews reported by Fox News:

“Congresswoman Maxine Waters utilized numerous government resources inappropriately,” the complaint reads. “Federal Air Marshals were removed from a “High Risk” flight to cover Ms. Waters flight to Minnesota. The High Risk flight took off with no armed law enforcement on board leaving a gap in National Security.”

The Federal Air Marshal Service falls under the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security and was expanded significantly by President George W. Bush to protect commercial flights following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Waters—who was reportedly already assigned a detail of two United States Capitol Police officers and two United States Secret Service officers—requested two marshals for her flight from Dulles International Airport to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport along with two more marshals to provide protection at the airport in Minnesota, a complaint to the House Ethics Committee alleges.

Rep. Waters is apparently not the only member to take advantage of air marshals following the events at the Capitol on January 6, and some “who requested the service skipped their scheduled flights, according to records reviewed by Fox News, which was also told that lawmakers from both parties used the service – sometimes on official business, other times for personal travel.”

The president of the Air Marshal National Council David Londo slammed Waters and other members of congress who use air marshals for travel protection in a complaint to the DHS Inspector General:

“Placing FAMs on aircraft simply because a member of Congress requests it is an egregious misuse of government resources. The FAMs are now taking agents off of regularly scheduled ‘high risk’ flights to put them on flights with members of Congress, that in most cases have their own armed federal security details onboard already.  It has become akin to a type of extremely expensive concierge service for Congressional members.”

Sunday, May 02, 2021

Insane: College Student Government Leader Urges Peers to Make Life Hell for Cops

 

Yeah, this is par for the course regarding college antics, but it’s a good reminder to all of us that these institutions are running amok, along with their student bodies. During the Vietnam War, it was fundraisers for the Viet Cong, now it’s about making cops’ lives “hell” because…justice or something. 

At the University of Minnesota, that’s what one member of the student body proposed in the wake of recent officer-involved shootings that have sparked another wave of Black Lives Matter/defund the police lunacy. Apparently, the University of Minnesota police chief has not done a good job protecting students of color (via NY Post): 

A University of Minnesota student government leader urged her peers to make life “hell” for campus cops by calling in fake incidents, according to a report Wednesday.

Lauren Meyers, a member of the Minnesota Student Association Executive Board, allegedly directed students to “use up” campus cops’ resources in an effort to pressure the department’s police chief to resign, according to Alpha News.

“Make their lives hell. Annoy the s— out of them,” Meyers said in footage of a video conference. “Like, use up their resources, make their officers show up to something.”

Meyers had been addressing a letter sent this week from students to school president Joan Gabel, calling on University of Minnesota Police Department Chief Matt Clark to resign for allegedly failing to properly protect students of color.

The letter claims that Clark has refused to increase “campus safety and wellness” for students of color and allowed the “utilization of UMPD as a physical arm of the oppressive state to subjugate and silence community members.”

It went on to threaten “direct actions” if “our demands are not met.”

And yes, calling in fake emergencies is a felony. So, please do so, woke students at the University of Minnesota. Your criminal records hopefully will bar you from any employment, thus stopping more lefty toxins from killing this country. You’re all kids. You don’t get to dictate when law enforcement should resign. Get a grip.

Idaho Becomes First State to Ban Discriminatory Critical Race Theory

 

When Idaho Governor Brad Little (R) signed HB 377 into law this week, he made Idaho the first state in the country to ban its public educators from forcing the damaging ideology that underlies critical race theory on students. 

The law's objective is simple and should be noncontroversial, but the current state of education in America that begs action to prevent discrimination and protect intellectual freedom means Idaho's anti-indoctrination measure is somewhat of a novel idea. 

As the law explains, the principles of critical race theory "exacerbate and inflame divisions on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or other criteria in ways contrary to the unity of the nation and the well-being of the state of Idaho and its citizens." 

Simply put, those who advance critical race theory are attempting to institutionalize racism by teaching the next generation that certain individuals and their ideas are more valuable than others simply because of the color of their skin or the things they believe. 

To prevent this in Idaho's public schools, Republican leaders have enacted a prohibition against students being forced to adopt the key tenets critical race theory's proponents use to inflict their damaging goals. 

"No public institution of higher education, school district, or public school, including a public charter school, shall direct or otherwise compel students to personally affirm, adopt, or adhere to any of the following tenets: That any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin is inherently superior or inferior; That individuals should be adversely treated on the basis of their sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin; or That individuals, by virtue of sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin, are inherently responsible for actions committed in the past by other members of the same sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin."

Critical race theory's nefarious aims undermine the foundation of American freedom and our long-running work to create a more perfect union. To follow the Left's direction and teach students their appearance—rather than their individual actions—determines their rights and value is to return to the very bigotry the Left claims to oppose. 

Idaho's bill protects the critical American principle that all life is inherently valuable and created with the same inalienable rights as everyone else. It's a principle that we, as a country run by fallible people, have not always lived up to, but it's one we've always strived for. Certainly, schools should not follow the Left's attempts to institutionalize critical race theory. To do so would be to run in the opposite direction and undo the progress our country has made.

Biden, Democrats Prefer Growing Government Over Growing Economy

 

During his address to Congress Wednesday, President Joe Biden made a statement that was immediately acknowledged by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as alarmingly radical.

"We the People is the government," the leader of the Republic told the legislative branch of government and the American people, signaling an intent to embrace the notion that the federal government should become a much more dominant cultural and economic force in American’s lives because it is what they are -- the people.

Cruz took to Twitter and responded:

“No Joe, you seriously misunderstand the Constitution,” the Senator wrote. “’We the People’ is not the government. ‘We the People’ is the people who are in charge of the government, whose liberty Biden is stripping away.”

Putting aside the intellectual and historical problems with Biden’s statement, his conflation of the act of governance with individual choice also revealed something else about the current progressive wing of the Democrat party, led by Joe Biden: they value expanding centralized government control over nurturing a healthy economy that advantages the very people they claim to identify with.

Just ask small business owners, who had benefited greatly under the Trump era tax cuts and who are facing uncertain futures as Biden prepares to increase taxes and profligately spend.

Members of The Job Creators Network (JCN), a small business coalition that had celebrated the Trump tax cuts, are now lamenting what they see as plans to implement a general war on small businesses in the Biden agenda.

Steve Moore, a renowned conservative economist and co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, characterizes the attempt to prolong business closures related to the pandemic, the threats to raise the minimum wage, and the introduction of new and higher taxes as evidence of a direct attack on American small businesses.

“The challenge of the minimum wage increase will very much hurt small businesses…especially in low cost of living states in the south and some of the mountain regions,” Moore recently said on a call with the press. “I do believe there is a war on small business in the Biden agenda. I can’t think of a single initiative that Biden has either proposed or put into law that will help small businesses.”

John Motta, Chairman of the Coalition of Franchisee Associations and proprietor of 32 Dunkin’ Donut shops in the Northeast, says he has difficulty respecting policy makers that have little real-world understanding of how small businesses work and what they provide to the economy.

And, he says, while one pandemic ends, another is just beginning; one brought on by pandemic rescue plans that have essentially promised to pay workers more to stay home than they would make in entry-level positions.

“I call it the pandemic of 2021,” Motta says. “It’s a lack of people [seeking work]. There is just no one out there…it’s a huge crisis.”

Republican legislators are similarly concerned, sharply criticizing the Biden tax-and-spend plan as little more than a socialist-adjacent, wealth redistribution scheme.

“President Biden abandoned his promise to govern with bipartisanship on day one and has committed to implementing a far-left, socialist agenda,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)  said in the statementThursday. “This bait-and-switch hasn’t gone unnoticed by the American public, with 60 percent recently reporting that they want Biden to stick to his promise of working with Republicans to get things done.”

According toThe Epoch Times, McCarthy was referring to this recent ABC-Washington Post poll “that found 60 percent of Americans said Biden should try to get Republican buy-in on his proposals by making major changes to them.”

That buy-in doesn’t seem likely to come, at least not from small business owners like Nicole Wolter, President & CEO of HM Manufacturing in Illinois. Wolter says she had been able to offer community members good paying jobs, paid internships, and resources like donations to local schools because the Trump era tax cuts had freed her up to so. Now, she says, the prospect of Biden’s new taxes has her preparing to tuck in, save money, and reduce employment.

“It’s going to cut down on me being able to employ people because I have to stay competitive,” Wolter says. “In terms of manufacturing, it’s going to make [the United States] uncompetitive on a global scale…and you’re going to see the offshoring all over again.”

The True Face Of Racism

 

How liberals live with themselves is something I will never understand. I’m kind of happy about that, actually. While it might be helpful to comprehend your opponent’s way of thinking, the depravity necessary to get a handle on how a collectivist sociopathic psyche functions could only lead to a dark, confusing place from which reemerging would make a David Lynch movie seem coherent. But there is one thing easily discovered, by even a casual observance, about the people who strictly and gleefully adhere to left-wing dogma: racism is the loadbearing wall of their entire house of cards.

Before we even touch on the racism toward South Carolina Senator Tim Scott from the likes of Jimmy Kimmel and Joy Behar for daring to think for himself, I want to step back and highlight how big the division racket leftists have constructed and, quite frankly, need in order to win political battles.

Did you know that “news” has a race? I bet you didn’t. It didn’t always, it used to just be news – which is simply the recounting of what happened. But now it has a skin color. 

A few years ago, NBC News created “NBC Black,” which bills itself as “Elevating America's conversation about black identity, politics, & culture. Telling stories by, for, and about the black community.” They also have “NBC Latino,” which they surprisingly haven’t yet renamed LatinX (likely because they want people to know what the hell they’re talking about, since only mostly white, ultra-leftists use that made up term), which purports to exist to “Elevating the conversation around Latinos in the United States.” And, of course, there is NBC LGBTQ, “NBC Out is the LGBTQ section of @NBCNews . We write and produce content about and of interest to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community,” and NBC Asian American – “News, features, videos about #AAPI communities.”(There doesn’t appear to be an NBC Native American, which means they hate Native Americans, right?)

Other networks have gotten into the act, Fox has even gotten into the act with “Fox News Latino,” and other race-based “news” websites have come into existence in the last decade or so. Maybe it’s good business, but it’s not good for the country. And it’s what Democrats have always advocated – in 1963, Democrat George Wallace proudly proclaimed the positions of Democrats when he said “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” The only thing to change in the ensuing 58 years is their tactic to achieve that, not their goal.

The Grio, The Root, etc., are hotbeds of bigotry masquerading as news, as if the color of one’s skin dictates their world or what they care about. It’s the digital version of the liberal reaction to Senator Scott’s speech – a daily dose of “if your skin looks like this, this is how you’re allowed to think.” 

That’s how leftists reacted to a conservative black man rightly telling the country the one thing Democrats are more desperate to hide than anything else – the United States is not a racist country. They lost their minds, that’s not an approved message. 

Every stop was pulled out to protect the left’s “precious.” If people don’t see this country as horrible they will not support its destruction and replacement with the false-God Utopia the left is selling. At least not voluntarily. 

The usual suspects pounced. Everyone on MSNBC attacked Scott, only stopping short of dropping N-bombs on the air, even though they clearly wanted to.

The story of Scott’s family rising from poverty to Congress isn’t supposed to happen in the America Democrats are selling. There are millions of stories like his, but they don’t get told. Barack Obama’s own story undercuts the liberal narrative, which is why he didn’t use his journey from a child of parents who wanted little (his mother) or nothing (his father) to do with him to the White House was so rarely told, and even more rarely told honestly. 

On Scott’s speech, a professor (naturally) from Fordham told an MSNBC audience, “So, that’s where the lack of respect comes from. When he talks about growing up in a one-bedroom house, ask yourself, why did you grow up in a one-bedroom house? Because your party doesn't believe in equality. Ask yourself why your grandfather didn't know how to read? It's because your party actually defunds education. Ask yourself why it is that you went to failing schools? It’s because your party doesn't value education, especially for black youths, especially for people in the south.”


What was left unsaid is after Democrats ended reconstruction after the Civil War, they had control of South Carolina for 100 years. All the issues that professor talked about were created, cultivated, and enforced by the very party she and her fellow panelists has sworn allegiance to. 

Everyone in that segment knows this, of course, they were just counting on their audience not. It was a safe bet. No one is taught accurate history anymore, and those on the left who know are as desperate as the liars to keep it hidden for their own advantage; to keep people divided and to keep dividing people further. Divide to conquer. That’s the true face of systemic racism.

The damage to lives be damned, same with the country. Individuals have always been disposable to the left, the last century proved that. Agenda über alles. People, black people in particular, have been misled and manipulated by Democrats as they switch tactics but not their objective since the Civil War. They’re more diverse now, but just as nefarious.

Biden's Bishop Might Not Be Speaking Up So Clearly About Abortion and Communion, but Pelosi's Is

 

That both the President of the United States and the Speaker of the House carry themselves to be devout Catholics while also not shying away from extreme pro-abortion stances has caused something of a stir. When it comes to whether or not President Joe Biden or Speaker Nancy Pelosi should receive communion, a matter Catholics bishops plan to discuss next month, bishops are split. Bishop W. Francis Malooly of Wilmington, Delaware--where Biden called home--and Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington, D.C. have said they'd allow President Biden to receive communion. San Francisco's Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, who presides over Speaker Pelosi's district, is singing a different tune.

The archbishop released a letter on Saturday, "A Pastoral Letter on the Human Dignity of the Unborn, Holy Communion, and Catholics in Public Life." 

The letter does not mention Pelosi by name; such a direct calling out would surely only happen in private. Nevertheless, the multi-faceted letter, which discusses abortion, cooperating in the "moral evil" abortion is, receiving communion, and Catholics, has a clear message for Catholics like the speaker. 

The section of "Catholics in Public Life" helpfully defines a scandal as "an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil." Following the definition is the note that "Prominent figures in society help to shape the mores of that society, and in our culture their advocacy of abortion definitely leads others to do evil. This must be stated with clarity: anyone who actively works to promote abortion shares some of the guilt for the abortions performed because of their actions."

The executive summary on this point reads "Catholics prominent in public life have a special responsibility to bear witness to the fullness of Church teaching. In addition to their own spiritual good there is also the danger of scandal: that is, by their false witness, other Catholics may come to doubt the Church’s teaching on abortion, the Holy Eucharist, or both. This is becoming increasingly challenging in our time."

Perhaps one of the most direct points of the entire letter reads " If you find that you are unwilling or unable to abandon your advocacy for abortion, you should not come forward to receive Holy Communion. To publicly affirm the Catholic faith while at the same time publicly rejecting one of its most fundamental teachings is simply dishonest. Heeding this perennial call to conversion is the only way to live the Catholic faith with integrity."

Another point worth underscoring is the attention the letter pays to the mother who finds herself facing a pregnancy where she seeks an abortion, namely in how it emphasizes abortion "is never solely the mother’s act" and recognizes that a mother may not have truly wanted the abortion. "This lament exposes the lie of the “pro-choice” slogan," the archbishop writes. 

In stressing that such cooperation cannot be morally justified, the letter includes when it comes to that cooperation, with original emphasis:

To summarize: it is never morally permissible to cooperate in a formal way in an evil act. It is never morally permissible to cooperate in an immediate material way in the act itself. There can be circumstances where it is permitted to cooperate in a mediately material way in an evil act, and this is determined by the seriousness of the evil and one’s proximity to or distance from it. However, given the reality that abortion violates the most fundamental moral principle, the right to life itself, the teaching of our faith is clear: those who kill or assist in killing the child (even if personally opposed to abortion), those who pressure or encourage the mother to have an abortion, who pay for it, who provide financial assistance to organizations to provide abortions, or who support candidates or legislation for the purpose of making abortion a more readily available “choice” are all cooperating with a very serious evil.? Formal cooperation and immediate material cooperation in evil is never morally justified.

Throughout the letter there are calls for repentance and conversion and the invitation to seek forgiveness, which is absolutely there.


The letter is a fitting example of Catholicism on display. Before many on the left, including in the mainstream media, opine so strongly, they could consider reading such a letter.